Vadodara, Nov 27: A US consulate official today said here that there was an increase of 43 per cent in the number of student visas granted by his country in India last year.
US vice-consul, Mumbai, Jesse Walter gave a presentation on visa procedures, particularly B1 and B2 visas and F1 visas which are of interest to the students and the industry, at a meeting organised by a private firm here.
A total of 6,00,000 visas were granted by the US embassy last year in the country, he said.
Mumbai, Mar 5: Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal and few others have been booked by the ED in a money laundering case even as the agency is conducting searches at his premises, officials said on Thursday.
They said a criminal case against the former chairman of the airlines has been filed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after taking cognisance of a recent Mumbai Police FIR filed against him.
The Enforcement Directorate carried out raids at Goyal's premises in Mumbai on Wednesday and also questioned him after filing the case, they said.
The action is continuing, they added.
The Mumbai Police FIR pertains to charges of alleged fraud by Goyal and others against a Mumbai-based travel company.
Goyal has earlier been grilled by the central probe agency in a case filed under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in September last year.
The agency had carried out similar raids, under the FEMA, in August last year against Goyal, his family and others.
ED has alleged in the past that the businessman's empire had 19 privately-held companies, five of which were registered abroad.
The agency is probing charges that these firms allegedly carried out “doubtful” transactions under the guise of selling, distribution and operating expenses.
The ED suspects that expenses at these companies were allegedly booked at fake and high costs and as a result, they “projected” huge losses.
Alleged shady aircraft lease transactions with non-existent offshore entities are also under the ED scanner and it is suspected that Jet Airways made payments for lease rental to “ghost firms”, which purportedly routed the ill-gotten money in Goyal's companies.
A full-service carrier, Jet Airways shut its operations in April last year after running out of cash.
A month earlier, Goyal had stepped down as the chairman of Jet Airways.
Apr 11: India has sent back 20,473 foreigners who wanted to return to their countries following the Covid-19 global pandemic, it was revealed on Friday (April 10).
"So far, we have successfully evacuated 20,473 foreign nationals as of yesterday. This is an ongoing process," said Dammu Ravi, Coordinator on Covid-19 issues at the Ministry of External Affairs, MEA.
"This involves several countries," Ravi said during the daily government briefing on Covid-19, although he could not list the countries offhand. "We are receiving excellent cooperation from governments all over the world for this process."
Many foreigners, especially tourists, were stranded in India when domestic and international flights were abruptly cancelled last month in a bid to curb transmission of the coronavirus.
The Ministry of Tourism has asked stranded foreigners to get in touch with the government through a special portal started for the purpose, through their embassies in India and other sources to facilitate their evacuation if they wished to head home.
As of Friday evening, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had confirmed 6,761 Covid-19 cases in India, of whom 515 patients have been cured.
There were 206 deaths reported from across the country.
Two states, Punjab and Orissa, have extended the ongoing lockdown until April 30.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will consult state chief ministers on Saturday to decide whether to extend the country-wide lockdown, which is due to end at midnight on April 14.
New Delhi, Jul 6: The Indian Academy of Sciences, a Bengaluru-based body of scientists, has said the Indian Council for Medical Research's (ICMR) target to launch a coronavirus vaccine by August 15 is "unfeasible" and "unrealistic".
The IASc said while there is an unquestioned urgent need, vaccine development for use in humans requires scientifically executed clinical trials in a phased manner.
While administrative approvals can be expedited, the "scientific processes of experimentation and data collection have a natural time span that cannot be hastened without compromising standards of scientific rigour", the IASc said in a statement.
In its statement, the IASc referred to the ICMR's letter which states that "it is envisaged to launch the vaccine for public health use latest by 15th August 2020 after completion of all clinical trials".
The ICMR and Bharat Biotech India Limited, a private pharmaceutical company, are jointly developing the vaccine against the novel coronavirus -- SARS-CoV-2.
The IASc welcomes the exciting development of a candidate vaccine and wishes that the vaccine is quickly made available for public use, the statement said.
"However, as a body of scientists including many who are engaged in vaccine development IASc strongly believes that the announced timeline is unfeasible. This timeline has raised unrealistic hope and expectations in the minds of our citizens," it said.
Aiming to launch an indigenous COVID-19 vaccine by August 15, the ICMR had written to select medical institutions and hospitals to fast-track clinical trial approvals for the vaccine candidate, COVAXIN.
Experts have also cautioned against rushing the process for developing a COVID-19 vaccine and stressed that it is not in accordance with the globally accepted norms to fast-track vaccine development for diseases of pandemic potential.
The IASc said trials for a vaccine involve evaluation of safety (Phase 1 trial), efficacy and side effects at different dose levels (Phase 2 trial), and confirmation of safety and efficacy in thousands of healthy people (Phase 3 trial) before its release for public use.
Clinical trials for a candidate vaccine require participation of healthy human volunteers. Therefore, many ethical and regulatory approvals need to be obtained prior to the initiation of the trials, it added.
The IASc said the immune responses usually take several weeks to develop and relevant data should not be collected earlier.
"Moreover, data collected in one phase must be adequately analysed before the next phase can be initiated. If the data of any phase are unacceptable then the clinical trial is required to be immediately aborted," it said.
For example, if the data collected from Phase 1 of the clinical trial show that the vaccine is not adequately safe, then Phase 2 cannot be initiated and the candidate vaccine must be discarded.
For these reasons, the Indian Academy of Sciences believes that the announced timeline is "unreasonable and without precedent", the statement said.
"The Academy strongly believes that any hasty solution that may compromise rigorous scientific processes and standards will likely have long-term adverse impacts of unforeseen magnitude on citizens of India," it said.
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