Chamoli (Uttarakhand), Jun 4: A suspected Chinese helicopter was sighted flying above Indian territory in Chamoli district, close to Sino-India border.
The helicopter was traced yesterday at around 9.15 a.m.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Chamoli Tripti Bhatt said, "The helicopter violated Indian airspace for over three to five minutes".
The violation, whether intentional or unintentional, has compelled the authorities to launch an investigation.
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.
What about those criminals who were already in parliament and vidahan sabhas? shall the ECI cancel their positions?
New Delhi, Jun 23: With an increase of 14,933 new cases and 312 deaths in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 count reached 4,40,215 on Tuesday.
According to the latest update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), 14,011 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far in the country.
The rise in confirmed cases today is lower than the highest spike of 15 thousand plus cases registered on Sunday.
The count includes 1,78,014 active cases, and 2,48,190 cured/discharged/migrated patients.
Maharashtra with 1,35,796 confirmed cases remains the worst-affected by the infection so far in the country. The state's count includes 61,807 active, 67,706 cured, discharged patients while 6,283 deaths have been reported due to the infection so far.
Meanwhile, the national capital's confirmed coronavirus cases reached 62,655.
2,233 deaths have been reported in Delhi due to the infection so far.
Tamil Nadu has reported 62,087 cases so far with toll increased to 794.
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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