Modi casts vote; 6.7 pc polling in first hour

December 17, 2012

Ahmedabad, December 17: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday exercised his franchise at a school in Ahmedabad during the second phase of the state assembly elections, which saw about 6.7 per cent polling across 95 constituencies in the first hour.

“In the very first hour, nearly 6.7 per cent voting was recorded in the state,” a state Election Commission official said.

Mr. Modi, who is seeking re-election for the third time, exercised his franchise at Nishan High School in Ranip locality amidst much fanfare, flashing a victory sign.

Soon after casting his vote, he told reporters, “It’s a very peaceful election. It is such a election that has been contested by people of Gujarat themselves...an election where youth and women folk have taken up the responsibility on their shoulders..It will be historic one because it has been contested on the issue of good governance and development plank.”

The BJP strongman, who is contesting from Maninagar assembly constituency, is locked in a direct contest with Congress candidate Shweta, wife of suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt.

Serpentine queues were witnessed since morning at 23,318 polling stations, with women coming out in large numbers.

The constituencies where polling started include 17 in Ahmedabad city, 40 constituencies in five districts -- Vadodara, Dahod, Panchmahal, Kheda and Anand -- of Central Gujarat, on 32 seats in five districts -- Patan, Mehsana, Sabarkantha, Gandhinagar and Banaskantha -- of North Gujarat, and on six seats in Kutch District.

Voting is underway on 23,318 polling stations amidst elaborate and robust security arrangements. In Ahmedabad 1,700 polling booths have been marked as critical by the Election Commission.

Around 1.98 crore voters will seal the fate of 820 candidates, contesting in this phase. Out of total 1,98,99,501 voters, there are 1,03,58,265 males, 95,41,157 females and 79 other voters who are likely to exercise their franchise.

Out of a total of 820 in this phase, 49 women candidates in the fray. BJP has fielded candidates on all 95 seats going to poll in this phase, whereas Congress is contesting on 92 and Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) and Bahujan Samaaj Party (BSP) on 84 seats each, besides 284 independents in fray.

Earlier:

Final phase polling in Gujarat begins

Guj_Vote

Ahmedabad, December 17(IANS): Voting for the second and final phase of the assembly elections in Gujarat began on Monday morning, officials said. An estimated 19 million are eligible to vote in 95 of the 182 constituencies.

The officials put the number of polling stations at 23,318.

The first phase of polling Dec 13 saw a 68 percent turnout. Counting will take place December 20.

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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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Domestic flights finally resume in parts of India after two months

News Network

May 25,2020

Domestic flights resumed operations on a truncated schedule on Monday with the first aircraft departing from the Delhi Airport for Pune, more than two months after a nationwide lockdown was announced to combat COVID-19.

The first flight to take off was an IndiGo aircraft to Pune, flying passengers stranded in the national capital since the lockdown was announced on March 24.

Passengers were screened at the airport with electronic thermometers, and revised protocol for air travel that included santisation of luggage through ultra-violent scanners, and maintaining physical distancing.

Only asymptomatic passengers were allowed to enter the airport.

Passengers were also seen wearing face masks and face shields given to them at the embarkation point by the airline to minimise the chances of infection while onboard.

The first flight arrived at Delhi Airport from Ahmedabad – a SpiceJet aircraft – at around 8:00 am.

BJD Lok Sabha member Anubhav Mohanty was among those who took the Air Vistara flight to Bhubaneshwar that departed Delhi airport at 6:50 am.

The first flight to take off from Mumbai was an IndiGo aircraft that departed for Patna at 6:45 am, while passengers from Lucknow were the first to reach the financial capital on an IndiGo aircraft that touched down at 8:20 am.

The food & beverage and retail outlets, which were closed for the past 63 days, opened at Terminal 3 of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.

The flight services resumed after a day of long and hard negotiations between the Centre and the states on Sunday.

All states finally agreed to accept at least some flights but announced different quarantine and self-isolation rules for arriving passengers to address apprehension about infections being brought in from other cities.

The Centre had issued guidelines for all modes of domestic travel that advised all asymptomatic passengers to self-monitor their health parameters for 14 days on completion of the journey and report to health authorities if they displayed any symptoms for COVID-19.

However, the Centre had allowed state governments to prescribe their own health protocols for disembarking passengers which led to differential guidelines across the country.

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Parties should not give tickets to candidates with criminal background: ECI to SC

Agencies

January 24,2020

New Delhi, Jan 24: The Election Commission of India on Friday told the Supreme Court that its 2018 direction asking poll candidates to declare their criminal antecedents in electronic and print media has not helped curb criminalisation of politics. The poll panel suggested that instead of asking candidates to declare criminal antecedents in the media, political parties should be asked not to give tickets to candidates with criminal background.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat asked the ECI to come up with a framework within one week which can help curb criminalisation of politics in nation's interest.

The top court asked the petitioner BJP leader and advocate Ashiwini Upadhyay and the poll panel to sit together and come up with suggestions which would help him in curbing criminalisation of politics.

In September 2018, a five-judge Constitution bench had unanimously held that all candidates will have to declare their criminal antecedents to the Election Commission before contesting polls and had called for a wider publicity, through print and electronic media about antecedents of candidates.

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What about those criminals who were already in parliament and vidahan sabhas? shall the ECI cancel their positions?