86 arrested in US consulate attack in Chennai: Police

New Delhi, Apr 9: Kerala opposition coalition United Democratic Front on Thursday submitted a roadmap to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for staggered lifting of ongoing lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The coalition led by leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala has given a set of recommendations to Modi in this regard, which include those made by an expert committee headed by deputy leader of opposition M K Muneer.

The committee was set up to suggest measures to be taken by the government for smooth transition from lockdown to normalcy.

It listed an eight-point exit strategy for removing lockdown in a staggered approach at a district level, with emphasis on hotspots to avoid further spread of virus and ensure smooth restart of economy.

This approach is tuned to the unique needs of each district and all the districts should also be categorised as per their risk levels, the report said.

The report has also been submitted to chief ministers of all states, former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi among others.

The committee recommended that COVID-19 rapid testing must be enhanced across the country and the testing target be widened to 500 tests per one lakh population.

"A step-by-step approach is necessary for each sector along with conditions that need to be considered for each sector," the report said.

"There is a need for a comprehensive economic stimulus package in addition to the ones already announced after considering all the industries," it added.

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.

Bengaluru, Jun 10: Congress' Rajya Sabha candidate from Karnataka and senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge and his son received threat calls on Sunday, with the latter filing a complaint with the state police chief. Kharge, a former Union Minister, received the call in the wee hours of Sunday on his landline while his son Priyank later got a call from a private number on his mobile phone.

Priyank lodged a complaint with the Director-General of Police Praveen Sood and former MLC Ramesh Babu shared the copy of the complaint on Twitter on Tuesday. In his complaint, Priyank Kharge stated that at about 1.30 am on Sunday, his father received a call on the landline where the caller spoke in Hindi and English and used invective against the Congress veteran.

The caller, according to the complaint, spoke about the Rajya Sabha election and threatened Kharge. Police are looking into the matter. Kharge is the Congress' pick for the June 19 Rajya Sabha election from Karnataka. JD(S) supremo and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda and two BJP candidates have also filed nominations for the election to the upper House.