Malayalam newspapers lead the pack in Qatar

January 3, 2014

Malayalam_newspapersDubai, Jan 3: With the launch of the Doha edition of Malayala Manorama, Malayalam dailies now outnumber the local Arabic and English dailies in Qatar.

Five Malayalam newspapers are being published from Qatar and more are in the offing.

The Doha edition of Malayala Manorama was launched yesterday. The other dailies that already have Doha editions are Madhyamam, Chandrika, Thejas and Varthamanam.

With the launch of Manorama, Malayalam newspapers now outnumber the local Arabic (four) and English dailies (three), The Peninsula reported today.

"We have found that people from Kerala living abroad like to read Malayalam papers to know about their native place and what is happening there. Our Doha edition will meet their expectations," Anand Mathew, Senior General Manager for sales at Malayala Manorama said.

The total circulation of the Doha editions of five malayalam papers may not cross five digits, but the actual readership is much more, the Qatari paper quoted media sources as saying.

A large number of Keralites here are skilled or semi-skilled single workers living in labour camps or shared houses. With their paltry salaries, many of them cannot afford to spend two Qatari Riyals daily for a newspaper.

So, they pool in money to buy newspaper(s) and share it. "The rise in shared accommodations in Qatar has boosted the readership of all Malayalam dailies here, although their circulation has not increased in proportion to the rise in population," said Harris Vallil, marketing manager of Gulf Madhyamam.

All these newspapers have their online editions, but the news-hungry Malayalee would like to read them in print, even if they have access to the Internet, Ashraf Tooneri, Resident Editor of Middle East Chandrika said.

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Agencies
May 31,2020

New Delhi, May 31: India registered its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases on Sunday with 8,380 new infections reported in the last 24 hours, taking the country's tally to 1,82,143, while the death toll rose to 5,164, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood to 89,995, while 86,983 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.

"Thus, around 47.75 per cent patients have recovered so far," a senior health ministry official said.

The total confirmed cases include foreigners.

The death toll has gone up by 193 since Saturday morning, of which 99 were from Maharashtra, 27 from Gujarat, 18 from Delhi, nine each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, seven from West Bengal, six each from Tamil Nadu and Telangana, five in Bihar, three from Uttar Pradesh, two from Punjab, and one each from Haryana and Kerala.

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News Network
April 30,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 30: Shares of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Ltd rose almost 9% on Thursday after the Indian drugmaker got an approval to conduct clinical trials with antiviral drug favipiravir, seen as a potential treatment for COVID-19.

Favipiravir, manufactured under the brand name Avigan by a unit of Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp and approved for use as an anti-flu drug in the Asian island country in 2014, has been effective, with no obvious side-effects, in helping coronavirus patients recover, a Chinese official told reporters at a news conference last month.

"After having successfully developed the API and the formulations ... Glenmark is all geared to immediately begin clinical trials on favipiravir on COVID-19 patients in India," Sushrut Kulkarni, executive vice-president for Global R&D, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement. 

The Drug Controller General of India, the country's drug regulator, did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

On Wednesday, another Indian pharmaceutical company, Strides Pharma Science Ltd, said it had developed and commercialized favipiravir antiviral tablets, and had applied to Indian drug authorities to start trials.

Shares of Mumbai-based Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, which rose as much as 8.9% to 359 rupees ($4.78), was trading up 5.9%, as of 0407 GMT.

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Agencies
May 1,2020

New Delhi, May 1: The Centre has finalsed the criteria for delimitation of various zones after May 3. It has identified at least 130 districts as red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones.

According to a letter written by Health Secretary Preeti Sudan to the Chief Secretaries of all States and UTs, all the states have to delineate the containment areas and buffer zones in the identified red and orange zone districts and notify the same.

The letter said, the national capital has at least 11 red zones, Uttar Pradesh 19 red zones, 36 orange zones and 20 green zones while, the state of Haryana has 2 red zones, 18 orange zones and 2 green zones.

The Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh has been identified as a red zone district while, Ghaziabad has been designated as an orange zone. The national capital has no orange and green zone; there are only red zones according to the letter.

In Maharashtra, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nashik come in the red zone.

In West Bengal, Kolkata, Howrah, 24 Parganas -- both North and South have been identified as red zones while Hooghly, Nadia, Murshidabad etc have been marked as orange zones.

In the southern part of India, Kerala has 2 red zones and 10 orange zones, while Tamil Nadu has 12 red zones and 24 orange zones.

The Health Secretary said that the list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states for further follow-up action in consonance with the directions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 based on field feedback and additional analysis at state level, states may designate additional red or orange zones as appropriate.

However, states may not relax the zonal classification of districts classified as red or orange as communicated by the Ministry. This classification is multi-factorial and takes into consideration incidence of cases, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback to classify the districts.

A district will be considered under green zone, if there are no confirmed cases so far or there is no reported case since the last 21 days in the district.

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