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Centre rushing more rescue choppers to Uttarakhand

June 20, 2013
stranded
New Delhi, Jun 20: Government has decided to deploy more helicopters in Uttarakhand to rescue over 60,000 people still trapped in the rain-ravaged hill state and expedite relief operations.

Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said so far 22 helicopters have been used to evacuate stranded people to safer locations and through hundreds of sorties they rescued 22,392 people.

“But 22 helicopters are not enough. So, we have requested the Defence Ministry to deploy more helicopters to expedite the rescue operations in Uttarakhand. The Defence Ministry agreed to our request and hopefully the additional choppers will be deployed soon,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

According to the Home Ministry, as many as 62,122 people are still stranded in different inaccessible locations in the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand.

Asked whether the death toll in Uttarakhand could go up, the Home Minister said he has spoken to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna who conveyed that it was difficult to tell the exact number of people who died since all debris have not been cleared yet.

“It may go up. But we cannot say now,” he said.

Mr. Shinde said due to bad weather on Thursday morning, rescue operation has been hit in Uttarakhand.

He said he has convened a high-level meeting on Friday to take stock of the relief and rescue operations.

Representatives of Ministries of Home, Defence, Food, the National Disaster Management Authority and other stake holders will attend the meeting.

According to the latest situational report sent to the Home Ministry summarising progress of rescue and relief operations, 13 teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) consisting of 422 personnel and 3,000 personnel of ITBP, besides hundreds of Army personnel are engaged in rescue works in Uttarakhand.

Daily meetings under the chairmanship of Home Secretary R.K. Singh are being held on to review the situation and the relief and rescue measures being undertaken in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, an official statement said.

Senior officers of the Ministry of Home Affairs are in constant touch with senior officers concerned of Uttarakhand for extending the required support and assistance.

As per Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), cumulative rainfall of Uttarakhand is reported 385.1 mm actual against normal rainfall of 71.3 mm, which is 440 per cent excess during the southwest monsoon period of June 1 to June 18.

One team of NDRF and one team of ITBP have been placed at Kedarnath and Gaurigaon to assist in the evacuation both from Kedarnath and Gaurigaon. Evacuation operations were carried out yesterday using helicopters till the weather deteriorated.

One team of ITBP operated between Govindghat and Joshimath and evacuated pilgrims stuck there, the statement said.

It was also decided that ITBP would launch teams from Pithoragarh to all the valleys in the district to see if the villagers or stranded persons require any assistance.

As per the reports received from Himachal Pradesh government, due to continuous rainfall in the region during June, severe damage to life and property was caused in several locations in different parts of the state.

The search, rescue and relief operations are being carried out with the help of helicopters from Army, Air Force, NDRF, ITBP and State government and there was no shortage of food material.

Supreme Court directs Centre, Uttarakhand to rescue people

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Centre and Uttarakhand governments to make all out efforts to rescue thousands of people stranded in the State due to flash floods and provide them food and drinking water.

A bench of justices A.K. Patnaik and Ranjan Gogoi directed the governemnts to deploy sufficient number of helicopters to rescue flood-affected people in the area.

“We direct as an interim measure that all stranded people be provided immediate relief by the state and district authorities by giving them food, medicines and other essential things including fuel,” the bench said.

It asked the Centre and National Disaster Management Authority to provide all required resources to the State governemnt.

The court passed the order on a PIL filed by a lawyer Ajay Bansal seeking its direction to Centre and State governemnt to rescue people stranded in the State.

The bench also said that authorities should not discriminate among the affected people in relief and rehabilitation operations after the petitioner alleged that government agencies are neglecting people stranded in Gangotri.

It also asked the Centre to file a report on the relief and rehabilitation work in the State on June 25 when the case will be taken up for further hearing.

“We also direct, depending on the availability of helicopters, sufficient number of helicopters be deployed for picking up the stranded persons,” the apex court said in its order.

Although the official toll is over 150, it is feared that thousands of pilgrims staying in 90 rest houses may have been washed away.

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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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News Network
January 1,2020

New Delhi, Jan 1: Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai has allowed banks that lent money to embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya to utilize seized assets, news agency reported today quoting sources from the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The court also said all parties affected by the order can appeal at the Bombay High Court till January 18.

Last month, a consortium of Indian banks petitioned a London court for ex-billionaire Vijay Mallya to be declared bankrupt over ₹9,000 crore in unpaid debts. It comes as Mallya, who founded the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, faces extradition to his home country of India.

Mallya had fled India in March 2016 and has been living in the United Kingdom since then. The 64-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines is fighting extradition to India in relation of fraud and money laundering allegations arising out of the debt acquired from the banks.

Mallya remains on bail pending the UK High Court appeal hearing in the extradition proceedings brought by India in relation to fraud and money laundering charges amounting to ₹9,000 crores. He had been arrested on an extradition warrant back in April 2017 and has been fighting his extradition in the UK courts since then.

He was granted permission to appeal against his extradition order, which is scheduled in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for February.

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News Network
March 27,2020

Mumbai, Mar 27: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday lowered the key repo rate by 75 basis points to 4.4 per cent in a bid to arrest the economic slowdown amid coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.
The reverse repo rate now stands at 4 per cent, down by 90 basis points, said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das adding this has been done to make it unattractive for banks to passively deposit funds with the central bank and instead lend it to the productive sectors.
The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) met on March 24, 25 and 27 and voted 4:2 in favour of the repo rate reduction. The MPC also decided to continue with the accommodative stance as long as it is necessary to revive growth and mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the economy while ensuring that inflation remains within the target.
"The need of the hour is to shield the economy from the pandemic," said Das. "We need to mitigate the impact of coronavirus, revive economic growth and provide financial stability."
Repo rate is the rate at which a country's central bank lends money to commercial banks, and the reverse repo rate is the rate at which it borrows from them.
The RBI Governor further said that the economic growth and inflation projection will be highly contingent depending on the duration, spread and intensity of the pandemic.
"Global economic activity has come to a near standstill as COVID-19 related lockdowns and social distancing are imposed across a widening swathe of affected countries. Expectations of a shallow recovery in 2020 from 2019's decade low in global growth have been dashed," said Das.
"The outlook is now heavily contingent upon the intensity, spread and duration of the pandemic. There is a rising probability that large parts of the global economy will slip into recession," he said.
However, the RBI has injected liquidity of Rs 2.8 lakh crore via various instruments equal to 1.4 per cent of GDP. "Along with today's measures, liquidity measures equal to 3.2 per cent of GDP. The RBI will take continuous measures to ensure liquidity in the system."
The RBI governor has said that all banking institutions can offer a three-month moratorium on all loans for a period of three months. The RBI has also allowed banks to restructure the working capital cycle for companies without worrying that these will have to be classified as a non-performing asset (NPA).
The three-month moratorium will permit banks to avoid a large onset of NPAs during the 21-day lockdown and keep their books healthy.
Das said banks and other financial institutions should do all they can to keep credit flowing to economic agents facing financial stress on account of the isolation that the virus has imposed.
"Market participants should work with regulators like the RBI and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to ensure the orderly functioning of markets in their role of price discovery and financial intermediation," he said.

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