Those not proud of Trump calling Modi father of the nation don’t consider themselves Indians: Jitendra Singh

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.

New Delhi, Feb 1: Activist Sharjeel Imam's mobile phone and laptop along with some anti-CAA posters have been seized from his house in Bihar's Jehanabad and rented flat in Vasant Kunj, police said on Friday.

Imam was arrested by the Delhi Police's Crime Branch from Jehanabad in a sedition case and he is being questioned by police for his alleged inflammatory speeches in Aligarh and at the Jamia Millia Islamia University here.

During investigation, a laptop and a desktop belonging to Imam were recovered from his rented flat at Vasant Kunj, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rajesh Deo said.

His mobile phone was recovered from his house at his native place in Jehanabad's Kako area on the instance of his brother, he said.

Imam had prepared anti-CAA and anti-NRC pamphlets with "misleading and intimidating facts" and then distributed them in various mosques, the copy of which have been recovered, police said.

The shop from where he made photocopies of the pamphlets has also been identified, they added.

Imam was arrested on Tuesday. He was brought to Delhi on Wednesday and produced at the residence of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Purushottam Pathak in the evening amid tight security after which police were granted his five-day custody.

The PhD scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for Historical Studies has been booked for sedition and other charges in several states after videos of his alleged inflammatory speeches, made during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), were circulated on the social media.

An FIR was registered against Imam by the Delhi Police on January 25 under IPC sections 124A (sedition) and 153A (promoting or attempting to promote disharmony or feelings of enmity on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground whatsoever) among others.

Srinagar, Jan 9: Envoys from 15 countries including the United States were shown around Srinagar on Thursday, the first visit by New Delhi-based diplomats since the government stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status and began a harsh crackdown five months ago.

The diplomats were driven by Indian authorities in a motorcade amid tight security from the airport to the military headquarters in Srinagar, where they were briefed on the security situation, an army officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

They also held discussions with civil society members and some Kashmiri politicians, said Raveesh Kumar, spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

The objective of the visit, organized by the Union government, was for the envoys to see first-hand “how things have progressed and how normalcy has been restored to a large extent'' in Kashmir since August, Kumar told reporters in New Delhi.

In October, a group of European Parliament members had visited the region, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan.

The delegation that visited Kashmir on Thursday included US ambassador to India Kenneth Juster and diplomats from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Norway, the Maldives, South Korea, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Argentina, the Philippines, Fiji, Uzbekistan, Peru and Togo.

Offices, shops and businesses were open in Srinagar on the cold winter day, but the diplomats did not stop to talk to people as they moved to different venues of their meetings.

They were to fly to Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, later Thursday and return to New Delhi on Friday.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh pointed out the oddity of taking foreign diplomats to the troubled state but not allowing allowing Indian political leaders to freely visit it.

The National Conference said it was "disappointed" with the way the government brought envoys from various countries to "endorse" its "claims of normalcy" in the union territory. The party alleged that it was no more than a "guided tour" with access limited to "handpicked individuals who toe the government line".

“The NC wishes to ask these envoys that if the situation in Jammu & Kashmir is "normal", then why are scores of people, including three former chief ministers, under detention for almost 160 days and why have the people been denied access to the internet for over 5 months?" a statement issued by the party said.

Kumar dismissed as unfounded criticism of the visit, and said more such visits to Kashmir by New Delhi-based diplomats are likely in the near future.