Articles by News Desk

The big mountain of trash on the Gurgaon - Faridabad road, now higher than the surrounding Aravalli hills witnessed loud cries of ‘Remove this Polluting Landfill from our Aravalli Forest’ and ‘We do not want a Toxic Waste-to-Energy Plant in our Aravallis’ by more than 60 adults and 30 children on Sunday, 24th January 2021. The motley group gathered at the Bandhwari landfill hailed from the cities of Gurgaon, Faridabad and Delhi as well as the surrounding villages of Manger and Bandhwari.  “The theme of our campaign is Green vs Black. The adults have come dressed in green attire to…

PM and CMs might get vaccinated in second round As per some media reports, PM and CMs might get vaccinated in the second round of the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive in the country. The first phase was launched on January 16th, giving priority to health and other frontline workers. Under the second phase, people above the age of 50 and with comorbidities will be part of the vaccination program.  So far, the response by states has been underwhelming. States like Punjab (28%) and Tamil Nadu (35%) recorded a low rate of coverage till 20th January. On the contrary, the states…

Health workers hold protests Even as the city continues its battle against the Coronavirus outbreak, several health workers held a protest at the Directorate of Medical Services seeking permanent employment. The Tamil Nadu government appointed 3,000 health workers at a consolidated salary with promise of permanent employee status a few years after service. The State Health Minister had promised in 2019 that workers who completed five years of service would be made permanent. One year since the announcement was made, there has been no action on the promise, resulting in protests by the workers. Source: The Hindu Waste water reclamation…

Vaccination slower than planned The COVID-19 vaccination drive was halted or slowed down in several city hospitals on Wednesday due to glitches in the Co-WIN app. Reports from the Jayanagar General Hospital indicated that vaccination could not take place on Tuesday and Wednesday as the portal did not permit the entry of names. Meanwhile, it was reported that the Bowring and Lady Curzon Medical College and Research Institute did not get the list of healthcare workers to be vaccinated from the State war room. There has been a heavy load on the server as all hospitals are entering data simultaneously.…

Will Covid-19 vaccination be administered to all at the same time? The Government has identified those who are most vulnerable to the infection and priority will be given to them.  Firstly to the healthcare workers and then to the frontline workers.In the second phase, the vaccine will be administered to those above 50 years and those below 50 years with a history of high blood pressure, heart ailments, diabetes and other comorbid conditions.Later, depending on the need, Covid-19 vaccination will be administered to others in a phased manner. The vaccine has been developed  in a very short time, is it…

GCC sacks temporary workers amid pandemic Around 500 temporary sanitary workers deployed for COVID-19 duty were sacked by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) last week. The termination of jobs comes after the civic body’s decision to outsource waste management in 11 of the 15 zones in Chennai. Due to the outsourcing, all the permanent sanitary workers and National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) workers were transferred to Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Anna Nagar zones, zones managed by the Corporation. Of this, the excess staff have been made redundant. There is an ongoing case on the issue at the Madras…

COVID vaccination underway Six health facilities in the city are primed for the COVID vaccination programme, inaugurated nation-wide by the Prime Minister today (January 16). The Victoria Hospital campus has 11 vaccination sites, St John’s Hospital nine, KC General Hospital three and CV Raman Hospital one. The other two are Jayanagar General Hospital and Mallasandra primary health centre. In all, there are 243 centres across the State where the initial phase of vaccinating healthcare workers will be carried out over a week. The chosen hospitals have also readied a separate ward to observe and treat severe allergic reactions, if any,…

India’s COVID-19 vaccination drive begins India is all set to initialize its much awaited vaccine drive on 16th January 2021 across 3,000 sites. Each site will vaccinate 100 people a day. The government plans to increase the number of vaccination sites to 5,000 in the coming days. As per the government data, around 3 lakh people will be provided vaccination shots during phase I of the drive. Batches of Covishield (Serum Institute of India) and Covaxin (Bharat Biotech)  have been delivered to 12 cities in India.  As of 12th January 2021, 54.72 lakh doses of the two vaccines reached designated…

The much awaited vaccination programme against COVID-19 will begin all across Karnataka on Saturday, January 16. To start with, four lakh healthcare and frontline workers will get vaccinated against COVID-19 when the process begins. Health minister Dr K Sudhakar informed the media that the state is fully prepared for the mammoth task. Corona warriors including police personnel and rural development department staffers will be administered the vaccine in the initial phase. As many as 16 lakh people will be covered in the initial phase of vaccination across the State, said Sudhakar, through an audio recording released by his office. On…

Delhi: Institutional quarantine for people arriving from UK As flight services to United Kingdom (UK) resume, an Air India flight comprising of 246 members landed in Delhi on 8th January 2021. Earlier, the government imposed a ban on flights from India and UK due to a new COVID-19 mutant virus found to be present in the UK. As per the new order, only 30 flights a week will be allowed to operate till 28th January 2021. The Delhi airport has advised passengers to keep a gap of at least 10 hours between their flight from the UK and the connecting…