Modi govt to sell Air India, Bharat Petroleum by March 2020

Tightening control over companies misleading advertisements of medicines and products, the Indian government could soon slap a fine of up to Rs10 lakh and up to two years' imprisonment. While repeat offender could be fined up to Rs50 and imprisonment up to five years.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's new draft of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) (Amendment) Bill, 2020, provides extremely stringent penalties compared to the current law.

Under the new Act, companies advertising medicines and products falsely claiming to make a person fairer, improve height and memory or cure issues like hair loss or greying and premature ageing, among several others, may attract more stringent fines and jail time.

The current Act, 1954, leaves scope for companies to create deceptive advertisements as first time offender can be jailed for six months while repeat offender can be up to one year in prison, reported The Indian Express.

Under the Bill, deceptive advertisements will cover digital advertising, notice, circular, label, wrapper, invoice, banner and poster, among others. The government also plans to expand the scope of the law under the proposed amendments to cover 24 more deceptive claims not included in the current law, like medicines that can cure AIDS, change the sex of a foetus, among others, reported Livemint.

Mangaluru, Jan 9: Customs officials seized 1.575 kg gold, worth about, Rs 63 lakh from three passengers who arrived from Dubai here at Mangalore International Airport on Thursday.

Official sources said that in the first incident, three days back gold weighing 336.7 grams was found in possession of an inbound air passenger. The passenger who arrived by Air India flight from Dubai had concealed the gold in his socks. The value of the seized gold is estimated to be Rs 13.43 lakh.

In the other two instances that took place on January 7, gold weighing 1239 gram and worth about Rs 50.3 lakh was confiscated from two passengers who arrived from Dubai by Air India flight. One of the passengers had attempted to smuggle 523 gram gold in paste form.

Mysuru, Mar 13: A state-of-the-art viral research laboratory in the city has been identified as one of the testing laboratories for the detection of COVID-19, official sources said here on Friday.

The samples of suspected cases could be sent to the lab for analysis and it would take about three hours to get the results.

The Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL), which was set up from Central grants and functions at the Microbiology Department of K.R. Hospital, has been authorised to carry out the tests. This lab in Mysuru is among the 52-plus laboratories in the country.

Though the VRDL is equipped to carry out the tests, the sole authority of confirming the virus lies with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune. VRDL is also the sole agency for collection and transportation of suspected samples of COVID-19 to NIV.

VRDL, which is part of the Mysore Medical College and Research Institute, functions on the advice of NIV.

According to the guidelines issued by ICMR, the results of the tests done here have to be shared with NIV the same day and the labs are not supposed to disclose the results since the NIV is the only authority to declare positive cases. Also, confirmation from the NIV should be awaited in case the samples test negative for COVID-19. The ICMR, in the guidelines made available on its website, has advised clinicians at labs to isolate the patient tested positive for COVID-19 in the identified facility and follow bio-safety precautions.

VRDL is a part of a network of labs established by the Department of Health Research, Government of India. The rise in the number of viral outbreaks and the resultant mortality had been cited as key reasons for the launch of network of such hi-tech labs in the country.

The NIV and the National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi, are the top laboratories for the network, while the National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, is the supervising authority for the data generated by the network of labs, sources added.