Archives for October 2021

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will take oath as an MLA on October 7 and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has written to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar inviting him to administer the oath of office to the party supremo at the State Assembly instead, informed Partha Chatterjee, General Secretary of Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday.

Speaking to ANI, Chatterjee said, “We suggested and requested the Governor to come down to Assembly and administer the oath of office on October 7.”

“Raj Bhawan response on the administration of Oath/Affirmation to the Members elected to the WBLA in bye-election from 159-Bhabanipur A/C, and the adjourned poll in 56-Samserganj and 58-Jangipur A/Cs held on 30 September 2021. Once Gazetted Governor would take call,” tweeted the official Twitter handle of the West Bengal Governor.

Earlier on October 3, following TMC’s poll victory in Bhabanipur, Jangipur and Shamsherganj, a request was made to the Governor by the state that the Bengal assembly speaker be given the responsibility to administer the oath to the newly-elected MLAs on October 4.

Responding to a question on the Governor’s decision to conduct the oath-taking ceremony in the Governor house, Chatterjee said, “It is our desire and request to the governor that the oath-taking be conducted in the Assembly.”

Answering a query on TMC and other opposition leaders not being allowed in the Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh following violence that broke out after a car hit protesting farmers, Chatterjee said, “This is their (BJP) culture. They are scared of TMC and Mamata Banerjee.”

Bhabanipur gave its verdict for Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee as she won the assembly constituency by-polls with a margin of over 58,000 votes.

According to the Election Commission of India, Mamata Banerjee secured 85,263 votes which are around 71.90 per cent of the total votes connected in the by-elections.

NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Monday said that 70 per cent of India’s adult population has been administered the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

“Strong Nation, Rapid Vaccination: India has administered the first dose of #COVID19 vaccine on 70% of the population. Under PM, India is achieving new landmarks in the fight against the pandemic. Keep it up India, let us fight Corona,” the minister said in a tweet.

This has been achieved through 88,05,668 sessions held across the country, the ministry said.

According to officials, 25 per cent of the population has been administered both the doses.

More than 5.67 crore (5,67,37,905) balance and unutilised vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs to be administered.

According to government data, the average daily doses administered in a month has increased from 19.69 lakh in May to 39.89 lakh in June, then further to 43.41 lakh in July and to 59.19 lakh in August.

The average daily vaccination in September has been 79.08 lakh per day.

New Delhi: The cent per cent cut-offs of Delhi University colleges have left many aspirants who have scored above 90 per cent dejected and are now scouting for alternatives as they feel that their dream of getting admissions into DU might not become reality.

DU on Friday announced its first cut-off list for undergraduate admissions with prominent colleges like Shri Ram College of Commerce and Hindu College pegging the cut-offs at 100 per cent for various courses.

Bhavika, a Chandigarh-based aspirant, has 95.5 per cent in her best of four and wants to pursue BA (Honours) Economics from either Lady Shri Ram College or Shri Ram College of Commerce.

“Seeing the cut-offs, DU looks like a distant dream at the moment. I have applied under the ECA quota, for which the admissions will happen after seats under the various cut-offs are filled. There is a lot of time to go for that. As a backup plan, I have taken admission in Symbiosis Law School, Pune but DU is my first preference,” she said.

Her friend Ishita Mehra, who has scored 93.6 per cent in best of four, has taken admission in SD College, Chandigarh as a backup option.

“They should have held the central universities common entrance test for aspirants. I didn’t get enough marks and had there been exams, I am sure I would have scored 96 per cent or 97 per cent. I want to get into BCom(Honours) in a good North Campus college. I will wait for the remaining cut-offs but I won’t settle for a lesser college in DU,” she said.

Roshni Zahoor, a resident of Rataul in Uttar Pradesh, has 94.75 per cent in her best of four subjects and wishes to pursue BA(Honours) History at a prominent North Campus college.

“The cut-offs are quite high and I won’t be able to make it in the first list in the campus colleges. However, I am meeting the cut-offs in Deshbandhu College and Aryabhatta College. I will take admission in Deshbandhu College and then migrate to the college I want if I manage to meet the scores in any of the subsequent lists,” Zahoor said.

Riya Sharma, who has scored 94.8 per cent in her Best of Four, wants to pursue BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science, which is offered in three colleges — Acharya Narendra Dev, Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences and Shaheed Rajguru College of Applied Sciences.

“At Bhaskaracharya, the cut-off for the course is 99 per cent while at Acharya Narendra Dev it is 97 per cent. I am meeting the eligibility at Shaheed Rajguru where the cut-off is 94 per cent. I will take admission to that college and wait for the cut-off at Acharya Narendra Dev to come down,” she said.

Another DU aspirant Prishya Jain, who has scored 98.25 per cent in best of four subjects, wants to pursue BCom Honours in Shri Ram College of Commerce and Lady Shri Ram College but the high cut-offs have put a spanner.

“I will wait for the subsequent cut-offs for these colleges. I have taken admission in a college in my hometown as a backup option,” Jain said.

The Delhi University Teachers’ Association treasurer Abha Dev Habib said students should not lose heart and wait for subsequent cut-offs.

Dr Babli Moitra Saraf, the principal of Indraprastha College For Women, said students should not be in despair even if they are not able to meet the cut-offs in the first list.

“The first and the second cut-offs are higher because colleges do not want to run the risk of excessive admissions. The rule is that everyone within the cut-off has to be accommodated irrespective of the number of seats,” she said.

Saraf added that there are many colleges and universities in Delhi like the Indraprastha University and Ambedkar University.

Lima: Indian shooters claimed the gold medal in the women’s skeet team event and the bronze in the men’s team finals of the ISSF Junior World Championship here.

The trio of Areeba Khan, Raiza Dhillon and Ganemat Sekhon finished at the top of the podium in the women’s event after shooting an aggregate score of 6.

In the gold medal round on Friday, the Indian women were pitted against the Italian team of Damiana Paolacci, Sara Bongini and Giada Longhi.

In the men’s section, the Indian team of Rajveer Gill, Ayush Rudraraju and Abhay Singh Sekhon won the bronze medal after prevailing over Turkey’s Ali Can Arabaci, Ahmet Baran and Muhammet Seyhun Kaya 6-0, the same’s scoreline as the women’s gold medal contest.

A day earlier, rising Indian woman skeet shooter Sekhon had won the silver medal in the tournament’s individual women’s skeet competition.

The Chandigarh shooter, who picked up her first senior ISSF World Cup stage medals in New Delhi earlier this year, went down in a shoot-off to American Alisha Fayth Layne, after both were tied on 46 hits in the 60-shot final.

In the men’s individual skeet none of the three Indians in the fray — Rajveer Gill, Abhay Singh Sekhon and Ayush Rudraraju — could make it to the six-man finals but they shone in the team event.

India are currently place second in the pecking order with two gold, three silver and two bronze for a total of seven medals in the tournament.

The USA tops the chart with seven medals including three gold.

This is the first multi-discipline shooting event since the Tokyo Olympics, with as many as 32 nations and nearly 370 athletes participating in the championship.

Abdulla Shahid

United Nations: President of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly Abdulla Shahid has said he had received the two doses of the Covishield vaccine manufactured in India, as have a large portion of other countries around the world.

The Covishield vaccine, which has been developed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, is manufactured in India by Pune-based Serum Institute of India.

“On vaccines, that’s a very technical question you have asked me. I got Covishield from India, I’ve got the two doses. I don’t know how many countries would say that Covishield is acceptable or not, but a large portion of the countries have got Covishield, Shahid said at his first press conference here on Friday.

He was responding to a question on whether any COVID vaccine should be recognised and considered or the ones that have been validated by the World Health Organisation or any other group.

And I’ve survived. But let someone else, a medical person make that call, not me, he added with a laugh.

India has exported over 66 million vaccine doses to nearly 100 countries through grants, commercial shipments and the COVAX facility. The Maldives, home country of Shahid, was among the first nations to receive the India-made vaccines in January when 100,000 doses of Covishield were dispatched to Male.

In all, the Maldives has received a total of 3.12 lakh doses of Made-in-India Covid vaccines through grants, commercial shipments and the COVAX facility.

The UK had initially refused to recognise Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. However, following India’s strong criticism of the decision, the UK on September 22 amended its new guidelines and included the vaccine.

However, the move did not provide any relief from quarantine rules for Indian travellers vaccinated with two doses of Covishield. Later, British officials said the UK has issues with India’s vaccine certification process and not with the Covishield vaccine.

Under the new British rules that are coming into effect from Monday, fully vaccinated Indians will have to undergo 10-day quarantine as the UK has issues with India’s Covid-19 vaccine certification.

India has decided to impose reciprocal curbs against all British nationals arriving in the country, official sources in New Delhi said on Friday, as the contentious issue relating to the UK not recognising Indian vaccine certificates could not be resolved despite holding a series of technical-level talks.

Shahid, who plans to convene a high-level meeting of the General Assembly in January to take stock of the global vaccination effort and equity, said the messages that he had received so far on vaccines in listening to world leaders at the General Debate, has been most positive from the United States, from China, from India, from many, many corners of the world, from the vaccine producers themselves 

And I intend to utilise the convening power of the President of the General Assembly to bring all of them together in January, and my desire is to make sure that we all come out of the January meeting with a much more optimistic timeline where hereby we will be able to vaccinate the entire world by end of 2022, he said.

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday named actor Kangana Ranaut as the brand ambassador of its ambitious ‘one district-one product’ programme.

The actor met Chief Minister Adityanath at his official residence here.

The UP government has launched the one district-one product (ODOP) programme with the aim to create product-specific traditional industrial hubs across 75 districts of the state.

In a tweet , Additional Chief Secretary (Information) Navneet Sehgal said, “Famous actress Kangana Ranaut met…Chief Minister of UP, who presented her with an ODOP product. Kangana ji will be our brand ambassador for the ODOP.”

According to a senior official, the actor praised the works being done by the chief minister during the meeting.

The CM requested her to pay a visit to Ram temple in Ayodhya.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday paid tributes to Mahatma Gandhi on his 152nd birth anniversary, saying his life and ideas will inspire every generation to walk the path of their duties.

“I bow to respected Bapu on Gandhi Jayanti. His noble principles are globally relevant and give strength to millions,” he added.

The prime minister visited Raj Ghat and Vijay Ghat, memorials to Gandhi and India’s second prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, respectively, to pay floral tributes to them.

He paid homage to Shastri on his 117th birth anniversary. His life based on values and principles will always be a source of inspiration for all citizens, Modi tweeted.

An interfaith prayer meeting was held at Raj Ghat, where Mahtma Gandhi’s favourite devotional songs were rendered.