'Anna clearly directed us to start forming political party'

August 12, 2012

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New Delhi, August 12: Top Team Anna members today rejected criticism that Anna Hazare was forced to adopt the path of political alternative and claimed that he was fully involved in the decision to go political.

As a first step, Team Anna may test the waters in the Delhi Assembly elections next year while skipping the polls in BJP-ruled Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh later this year.

The members said a propaganda machinery was working overtime to drive a wedge between Hazare and the other team members which, they feel, would fail.

Activist Arvind Kejriwal even offered to immediately withdraw from going ahead with the political alternative if Hazare says he is against the formation of a party.

Kiran Bedi, however, added a line saying Hazare also gave the option to remain in the anti-corruption movement for those who were not willing to follow the political path.

The views of Kejriwal, Bedi and others came in the context of speculation that Hazare was against the team pitching into politics for changing the system.

"Anna heeded to public demand and is convinced that there was no road left other than providing political alternative. Anna clearly directed us to start forming political party,"

Kejriwal wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.

"Let Anna say once that he is against pol(itical) party formation, we will immediately withdraw," he said, adding that Hazare was extremely sharp politically and fiercely independent.

Anna cannot be influenced by anyone, he added.

Bedi told reporters, "Anna had said that those people who think are ready for political party, then they should take that option, but those who think that the movement is also necessary, Anna has kept both options open."

In reply to a question, she wrote on Twitter, "I have repeatedly made known that I am not aligned towards electoral politics. Its against my nature. Public service is."

Bedi said Hazare told them that the movement will continue and she was saying it from day one that there should be no misunderstanding as both the options are kept open -- politics as well as the original movement.

"Everyone has his or her orientation, so according to that some go for politics and some will go for movement and both are necessary at this point of time," she said.

On August three while calling off his fast, Hazare had announced the formation of a political alternative though he had said he would not be a member of the party.

Justice Santosh Hegde, who was also associated with the movement, said he is convinced that Hazare was right in not going political. "I don't think Team Anna would be able to successfully float a party and find candidates for all constituencies," he said.

Sunita Godara, another Team Anna member, claimed that the activist did not pressurise anyone but said that they were free to choose their own path. However, she said, "he (Hazare) told us that we are not yet ready to enter the political fraternity."

Members of the erstwhile Team Anna met here this morning to chalk out their strategy to form a party which was attended by Kejriwal, Bedi, Manish Sisodia and Prashant Bhushan among others.

The day also saw Bedi arrive at the fast venue though Hazare and other members of the team have kept away.

Sources said Team Anna before taking the plunge in 2014 general elections, they are likely to test political waters first in the Delhi Assembly polls.

Sources in India Against Corruption (IAC) said a large number of volunteers in a meeting yesterday pitched in for fighting the Delhi Assembly elections first.

This could mean the activists, who decided to turn their anti-graft movement into a political one, will give a miss to assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

The sources said the volunteers raised the demand at a meeting yesterday attended by Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai among others.

Kejriwal told volunteers that their first focus will be on Congress-ruled Delhi. He also asked volunteers to start working in all the 70 constituencies in Delhi, they said.

The decision early this month to take a political plunge had created a rift in the Team Anna with a section of members like Santosh Hegde opposing it.

There were also claims from a section of the team that Hazare was not keen to take a political plunge but was forced by some of his colleagues, an allegation denied by Kejriwal.

Though it had made clear its intention to have a shot at power in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections on an anti-corruption plank, Team Anna had not talked about contesting the Assembly elections slated this year-end.

Anna Hazare and his team have been targeting the UPA government on Lokpal issue for the past 16 months but were earlier undecided whether they would target the BJP governments in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh this year-end and Karnataka next year by contesting elections there.

Team Anna had talked about a political alternative which they had claimed will be people-centric.

Defending its decision to go political, Team Anna had said their numerous protests and fasts did not yield any result as the government stonewalled their demands and showed little interest in bringing those guilty of big scams to book.

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PM Modi, Jordan king discuss challenges posed by COVID-19

News Network

April 17,2020

New Delhi, Apr 17: Prime minister Narendra Modi on Thursday held talks with Jordan King Abdullah II and discussed the challenges posed to the world by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The two leaders discussed the challenges posed to the world by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the steps being taken in their respective countries to limit its impact," an official statement said.

Prime Minister conveyed his greetings to Abdullah II and the people of Jordan for the upcoming Holy month of Ramadan which commences late next week.

The leaders agreed that their teams would remain in touch on issues related to COVID-19, as well as on other regional and global issues.

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Fit for only discuss and diya and to lit candles.Rest of world leaders are struggling to save their citizen and Nation from this pandemic. Till when -----?.

For India only the organisation's and social welfare group and well wishers are in the field and helping.

Definitely with the blessings of patriot Indians they will succeed and they all will continue with their noble cause.

Jai Hind

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India may witness death of lakhs of kids as covid-19 hits health services: UNICEF

Agencies

May 14,2020

New Delhi, May 14: India may witness the death of additional 1.2-6 lakh children over the next one year from preventable causes as a consequence to the disruption in regular health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF has warned.

The warning comes from a new study that brackets India with nine other nations from Asia and Africa that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths as a consequence to the pandemic.

These potential child deaths will be in addition to the 2.5 million children who already die before their fifth birthday every six months in the 118 countries included in the study.

The estimate is based on an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the Lancet.

This means the global mortality rate of children dying before their fifth birthday, one of the key progress indicators in all of the global development, could potentially increase for the first time since 1960 when the data was first collected.

There were 1.04 million under-5 deaths in India in 2017, of which nearly 50% (0.57 million) were neonatal deaths. The highest number of under-5 deaths was in Uttar Pradesh (312,800 which included 165,800 neonatal deaths) and Bihar (141,500 which included 75,300 neonatal deaths).

The researchers looked at three scenarios, factoring in parameters like reduction in workforce, supplies and access to healthcare for services like family planning, antenatal care, childbirth care, postnatal care, vaccination and preventive care for early childhood. The effects are modelled for a period of three months, six months and 12 months.

In scenario-1 marked by 10-18% reduction of coverage of all the services, the number of additional children deaths could be in the range of 30,000 plus over three months, more than 60,000 over six months and above 120,000 over the next 12 months.

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on May 13

The numbers sharply rose to nearly 55,000; 109,000 and 219,000 respectively for scenario-2, which was associated with an 18-28% drop in all the regular services.

But in the worst-case scenario in which 40-50% of the services are not available, the number of additional deaths ballooned to 1.5 lakhs in the three months in the short-range to nearly six lakhs over a year.

The ten countries that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths are Bangladesh, Brazil, Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania.

In countries with already weak health systems, COVID-19 is causing disruptions in medical supply chains and straining financial and human resources.

Visits to health care centres are declining due to lockdowns, curfews and transport disruptions, and due to the fear of infection among the communities. Such disruptions could result in potentially devastating increases in maternal and child deaths, the UN agency warned.

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Serum Institute of India gets nod for phase 2,3 trials of Oxford covid vaccine

Agencies

August 3,2020

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has given nod to the Serum Institute of India (SII) for conducting phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the Oxford University developed Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the country.

Government officials said that the approval for conducting phase 2 and 3 clinical trials by the SII was granted by DCGI Dr V G Somani late Sunday night after a thorough evaluation based on the recommendations of the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on Covid-19.

"The firm has to submit safety data, evaluated by the Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), to the CDSCO before proceeding to phase 3 clinical trials," a senior official said.

"As per the study design, each subject will be administered two doses four weeks apart (first dose on day one and second dose on day 29) following which the safety and immunogenicity will be assessed at predefined intervals," the official said.

As a rapid regulatory response, the expert panel at the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) on Friday, after a detailed deliberation and considering the data generated on the vaccine candidate in phase 1 and 2 of the Oxford University trial, had recommended granting permission for phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the potential vaccine, 'Covishield', on healthy adults in India, the officials said.

Currently, phase 2 and 3 clinical trials of the Oxford vaccine candidate is going on in the United Kingdom, phase 3 clinical trial in Brazil and phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in South Africa.

The officials said that the SII had submitted a revised proposal on Wednesday after the SEC on July 28, following deliberation over its application, had asked it to revise its protocol for the phase 2 and 3 clinical trials besides seeking some additional information.

The panel had also recommended that the clinical trial sites which have been proposed for the study be distributed across India.

According to the revised proposal by the SII, 1,600 people aged above 18 years will participate in the trials across 17 selected sites, including AIIMS-Delhi, B J Medical College in Pune, Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences (RMRIMS) in Patna, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh, AIIMS-Jodhpur, Nehru Hospital in Gorakhpur, Andhra Medical College in Visakhapatnam and JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research in Mysore.

"According to the application, it would conduct an observer-blind, randomised controlled study to determine the safety and immunogenicity of 'Covishield' on healthy Indian adults," the official said.

The SII, which has partnered with AstraZeneca, for manufacturing the Oxford vaccine candidate for Covid-19 had submitted its first application to the DCGI on July 25 seeking permission for conducting the phase 2 and 3 trials of the potential vaccine.

Initial results of the first two-phases of trials of the vaccine conducted in five trial sites in the UK showed that it has an acceptable safety profile and homologous boosting increased antibody response, sources had said.

To introduce the vaccine, SII, the world's largest vaccine maker by number of doses produced and sold, has signed an agreement to manufacture the potential vaccine developed by the Jenner Institute (Oxford University) in collaboration with British-Swedish pharma company AstraZeneca.

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