19 coronavirus patients in Kerala cured, active cases stand at 178 in State

New Delhi, Jun 11: Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said the religious and constitutional rights of minorities are absolutely safe in India and it does not need any certificate from anyone as communal harmony and tolerance are in the DNA of the country and its majority community.

Comments of Rijiju, a Buddhist, came after a top Trump administration official has said that the US is very concerned about what is happening in India in terms of religious freedom.

"India doesn't need certificate on communal harmony and tolerance which is in the DNA of India and the majority community in India," Rijiju, who holds the charge of the Union minister of state for minority affairs besides being the union sports minister, said in a statement.

Rijiju said the social, religious and constitutional rights of minorities are absolutely safe in the country.

"A few politically intolerant people are trying to create an atmosphere of fear and intolerance. As a member of the minority community, I feel India is the best country in the world for the minorities," he said.

Samuel Brownback, the US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, said on Wednesday that India has been a country area that spawned four major religions itself.

"We do remain very concerned about what's taking place in India. It's historically just been a very tolerant, respectful country of religions, of all religions," he said.

The trendlines have been troubling in India because it is such a religious subcontinent and seeing a lot more communal violence, Brownback said.

His comments came after the release of the '2019 International Religious Freedom Report'.

Mandated by the US Congress, the report documenting major instances of the violation of religious freedom across the world was released by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department.

India has previously rejected the US religious freedom report, saying it sees no locus standi for a foreign government to pronounce on the state of its citizens' constitutionally protected rights.

"India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion", the government had said earlier.

New Delhi, Jun 4: CSIR Director-General Shekhar Mande said on Thursday that the World Health Organisation's (WHO) decision to halt hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) drug trial was taken in haste and the global body should have actually analysed the data before making the decision.

"I firmly believe that WHO decision was taken in haste it was a kind of knee jerk reaction they should have actually analyse the data on their own before temporarily suspend the trials that is my personal opinion," Mande said.

India's nodal government agency ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) overseeing the country's response to the coronavirus pandemic last month wrote to the WHO citing differences in dosage standards between Indian and international trials that could explain the efficacy issues of HCQ in treating COVID-19 patients.

In addition, Dr Sheela Godbole, National Coordinator of the WHO-India Solidarity Trial and Head of the Division of Epidemiology, ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute also wrote a letter via an email to Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at World Health Organisation.

In a letter, Dr Godbole stated: "There was no reason to suspend the trial for safety concern," attributing it to the current RECOVERY data which differs significantly from the non-randomised assessment by Mehra et al, a scientific paper.

Referring to the letter, the CSIR head said, "We don't know what actually happened behind the scenes but the hypothesis is that because of the paper published in Lancet. It is a very well known journal and if Lancet has done due vigilance in publishing the paper. 

Therefore, the WHO thought the paper's findings are right that's why WHO hold based on what is published on Lancet. The WHO shouldn't have accepted it immediately this should have taken their own due vigilance to find out that study is right or not."

DG CSIR said because there is a global outcry it must have put pressure on both Lancet as well as WHO and both of them now retracted from their original position. "WHO has started a trial again and Lancet has put an expression of concern on their website both of these are very welcome development for science," he said.

"So I am pretty sure that Lancet would have published the reports only after seeing somewhere the drug failed to work," Mande said.

Patna, Jan 23: "They should go wherever they want," Bihar Chief Minister and JDU supremo Nitish Kumar said on Thursday when asked of Prashant Kishor and Pavan Verma's repeated questions about the party's stand's on the newly enacted Citizenship Act.

"It is their personal decision. They should go wherever they want. We don't have an objection. Don't look at JDU in the context of statements by some people. JDU works with determination. We have a clear stand and don't have any confusion," the Chief Minister told reporters here.

"If they have something to tell, they should come and discuss it within the party. They should go wherever they want. They have my good wishes," he said.

JDU spokesperson and national general secretary Pavan Verma has questioned his party's alliance with the BJP in Delhi Assembly polls while Kishor has more than once made his differences with the party known on the issue of the amended Citizenship Act, and National Register of Citizens.