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Chittoor encounter 'survivor' surfaces, cops come under fire

April 8, 2015

Chittoor, Apr 8: A rights group said on Wednesday it has traced a “survivor” from a group of loggers shot dead by Andhra Pradesh police in an incident dubbed as a “massacre” of wood-cutters from neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

Chittoor encounter

On Tuesday, Andhra Pradesh police had claimed to have shot dead 20 illegal red sandalwood smugglers in a forest close to the temple town of Tirupati, sparking violent protests in the neighbouring state which continued on Wednesday.

Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee member Kranthi Chaitanya, in the forefront of a demand for a judicial enquiry into the encounter, said the organisation has “managed to establish contact with the survivor through relatives of the deceased who have come here (Chittoor) from Tamil Nadu.

“He is being kept at a safe place. We will produce him before the National Human Rights Commission,” he added.

The NHRC has already taken suo moto cognizance of the incident and asked for reports from the Andhra Pradesh chief secretary and police chief.

Family-members of a few of the slain “smugglers” arrived at the government mortuary in Chittoor also said the “survivor” was among of 8 wood-cutters hired by red sanders smugglers in Andhra.

The identity of the “survivor”, said to be from Arjuna Puram village in Thiruvanamalai district of Tamil Nadu, was not given.

They quoted him as saying that seven of his group were pulled out of a bus on Monday by police during a search at Nagari on the inter-state border.

“They were traveling in a bus from Thiruvanamalai to Chitoor on Monday afternoon. The bus was stopped by police and seven of the eight men were arrested. He was sitting separately and managed to slip away quietly,” said Raja Babu (38), a relative of one of those killed in the encounter.

The survivor is said to have returned to village on Tuesday morning, around the time news of the encounter broke on TV.

Media reports said that right group Amnesty International has also called for a fair probe into the incident.

Meanwhile, protests continued in Tamil Nadu with incidents of stone-pelting on buses originating in Andhra.

Police said four persons have been arrested over the attacks on buses. Several outfits organised protests in some parts of Tamil Nadu condemning the incident.

Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam had written to the Andhra government, demanding a probe into what he called a massacre of innocent Tamils.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh also called up Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu over the incident.

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Agencies
July 29,2020

New Delhi, Jul 29: The new National Education Policy (NEP) approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is set to usher in a slew of changes with the vision of creating an education system that contributes directly to transforming the country, providing high-quality education to all, and making India a global knowledge superpower.

The draft of the NEP by a panel headed by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief Kasturirangan and submitted to the Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal when he took charge last year. The new NEP replaces the one formulated in 1986.

Some of the key highlights of the New Education Policy are:-

The policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialized areas of interest at a deep level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others.

It identified the major problems facing the higher education system in the country and suggested changes such as moving towards multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with more institutions across India that offer medium of instruction in local/Indian languages, a more multidisciplinary undergraduate education, among others. 

The governance of such institutions by independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy has also been suggested.

Under the suggestions for institutional restructuring and consolidation, it has suggested that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students, and by 2030 each or near every district in the country there will be at least one HEI.

The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs including vocational education from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.

Single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters.

It also pushes for more holistic and multidisciplinary education to be provided to the students.

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News Network
February 9,2020

New Delhi, Feb 9: As the outbreak of novel coronavirus has lead to the death of more than 800 Chinese nationals, aviation regulator DGCA on Saturday said that foreigners who went to China on or after January 15 will not be allowed to enter India.

The DGCA, in its circular to airlines on Saturday, reiterated that all visas issued to Chinese nationals before February 5 have been suspended.

However, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) clarified, "These visa restrictions will not apply to aircrew, who may be Chinese nationals or other foreign nationalities coming from China."

"Foreigners who have been to China on or after January 15, 2020, are not allowed to enter India from any air, land or seaport, including Indo-Nepal, Indo-Bhutan, Indo-Bangladesh or Indo-Myanmar land borders," the DGCA said.

Among Indian airlines, IndiGo and Air India have suspended all of their flights between the two countries. SpiceJet continues to fly on Delhi-Hong Kong route.

On February 1 and 2, Air India conducted two special flights to Chinese city of Wuhan, epicentre of the outbreak, evacuating 647 Indians and seven Maldivians.

Till date, three Indians have tested positive for novel coronavirus.

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News Network
June 25,2020

New Delhi, Jun 25: After the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) given its approval to manufacture and market the generic version of COVID-19 drug Remdesivir, COVIFOR, Hyderabad-based drugmaker Hetero Limited has delivered the first set of 20,000 vials in two equal lots of 10,000 each across 5 states.

The first batch, which is being marketed under the brand name of COVIFOR, was delivered to Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad. Hetero has set a target to produce one lakh vials of the drug in two-three weeks.

The other lot would be supplied to Kolkata, Indore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Ranchi, Vijayawada, Cochin, Trivandrum and Goa within a week to meet the emergency requirements.

Managing director of Hetero Healthcare M Srinivasa Reddy said “the launch of Covifor in the country is a milestone in addressing public health emergencies. Through Covifor, we hope to reduce the treatment time of a patient in a hospital thereby reducing the increasing pressure on the medical infrastructure overburdened ue to accelerating COVID-19 infection rates," he said as reported by news agency.

"We are closely working with the government and the medical community to make Covifor quickly accessible to both public and private healthcare settings across the country”, Reddy said.

Covifor is a generic brand of Remdesivir which is used for the treatment of COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalised with strong symptoms of the disease. The Health Ministry had, on June 13, recommended the use of anti-viral drug Remdesivir in moderate stage of COVID-19.

Dr Reddys Laboratories and Hetero are among others which have separately entered into non-exclusive licensing agreements with the original drug-maker Gilead Sciences Inc to register, make and sell the investigational drug Remdesivir in India and other countries.

Remdesivir would be made in the company's formulation facility in Hyderabad, which has been approved by global regulatory authorities such as US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) and EU, among others, Hetero had earlier said.

The treatment first showed improvement in trials on coronavirus patients and was approved for emergency use in severely ill patients in the United States and South Korea.

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