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Centre takes steps to accelerate domestic vaccine production

By
The Commune
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India J&J vaccine Quad COVID-19 patent waiver

With the aim of vaccinating the entire eligible population at the earliest, domestic vaccine production is being steadily ramped up in the country with help from the Centre.

As part of this initiative, three public enterprises are being supported by  the Department of Biotechnology under Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0  Mission Covid Suraksha.  These enterprises are Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd, Mumbai, Indian Immunologicals Ltd, Hyderabad and Bharat Immunologicals & Biologicals Ltd, Bulandshahar, UP.

Haffkine Biopharma, a Maharashtra state PSU is getting ready to manufacture Covaxin vaccine under technology transfer arrangement with Bharat Biotech Ltd, Hyderabad.  The production will take place at the Parel complex of the company.

Dr. Sandeep Rathod, Managing Director of Haffkine BioPharma said the company proposes to produce 22.8 crore doses of Covaxin in a year.  “For undertaking production of Covaxin, Haffkine Biopharma has been provided with Rs 65 crore grant by the Centre and Rs 94 crore from the Government of Maharashtra” he added.

“We have been given a timeline of eight months and the work is being executed on a war footing. The vaccine production process involves two stages – drug substance and final drug product.  For production of drug substance we need to build a Bio Safety Level 3 (BSL 3) facility, while Haffkine already has the Fill Finish facility” said Rathod, the doctor turned IAS officer.  BSL 3 is a safety standard applicable to such facilities where work involves microbes which can cause serious disease via inhalation route.

‘Enhancing vaccine production capacity using Public sectors assets will go a long way in building production capacity of vaccines in our country to support the massive vaccination drive” said, Dr Renu Swarup,  Secretary Department of Biotechnology and Chairperson BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council )

Haffkine BioPharmaceutical Corporation Ltd is an offshoot of the 122 year old Haffkine Institute, which is one of the oldest biomedical research institutes in the country, named after the Russian  bacteriologist Dr. Waldemar Haffkine, who invented the plague vaccine.

(Published from PIB)

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Jharkhand, Odisha and Gujarat are top 3 contributors to Oxygen Express deliveries

By
The Commune
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Oxygen Express Karnataka

Overcoming all hurdles and finding new solutions, Indian Railways is continuing its journey of bringing relief by delivering Liquid Medical Oxygen(LMO) to various states across the country. So far, Indian Railways has delivered more than 23741 MT of LMO in more than 1405 tankers to various states across the country.

It may be noted that 344 Oxygen Expresses have completed their journey so far and brought relief to various States.

As on date, Oxygen Expresses loaded 8025 MT LMO from Jharkhand, 7102 MT from Odisha, 6384 MT from Gujarat, 1360 from West Bengal, 488 MT from Maharashtra, 218 MT from Chhattisgarh and 164 MT from Andhra Pradesh for delivery across the country.

Criss crossing the country, Indian Railways is picking up oxygen from places like Hapa , Baroda, Mundra in the West and Rourkela, Durgapur, Tatanagar, Angul in the East and then delivering it to States of Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh & Assam in complex operational route planning scenarios.

Till the time of this release, 6 loaded Oxygen Expresses on run with more than 420 MT of LMO in 22 tankers.

Southern States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana received more than 2000 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen(LMO) each from Oxygen Expresses.

It is worth mentioning that Oxygen Expresses started their deliveries 39 days back on 24th April in Maharashtra with a load of 126 MT.

It is Indian Railways endeavour to deliver as much LMO as possible in the shortest time possible to the requesting states.

Oxygen relief by Oxygen Expresses reached out to 15 states namely Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Telangana, Punjab, Kerala, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Assam.

Till the time of this release, 614 MT of Oxygen has been offloaded in Maharashtra, nearly 3797 MT in Uttar Pradesh, 656 MT in Madhya Pradesh, 5692 MT in Delhi, 2135 MT in Haryana, 98 MT in Rajasthan, 2674 MT in Karnataka, 320 MT in Uttarakhand, 2348 MT in Tamil Nadu, 2279 MT in Andhra Pradesh, 225 MT in Punjab, 513 MT in Kerala, 2026 MT in Telangana, 38 MT in Jharkhand and 320 MT in Assam.

Till now Oxygen Expresses offloaded LMO in around 39 cities/towns in 15 states across the country namely Lucknow, Varanasi, Kanpur, Bareilly, Gorakhpur & Agra in Uttar Pradesh, Sagar, Jabalpur, Katni & Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Mumbai & Solapur in Maharashtra, Hyderabad in Telangana, Faridabad & Gurugram in Haryana, Tuglakabad, Delhi Cantt & Okhla in Delhi, Kota & Kanakpara in Rajasthan, Bengaluru in Karnataka, Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Nellore, Guntur, Tadipatri & Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Ernakulam in Kerala, Tiruvallur, Chennai, Tuticorin, Coimbatore & Madurai in Tamil Nadu, Bhatinda & Phillaur in Punjab, Kamrup in Assam and Ranchi in Jharkhand.

Indian Railways has mapped different routes with Oxygen supply locations and keeps itself ready with any emerging need of the States. States provide tankers to the Indian Railways for bringing LMO.

In order to ensure that Oxygen relief reaches in the fastest time possible, Railways is creating new standards and unprecedented benchmarks in running of Oxygen Express Freight Trains. The average speed of these critical Freight trains is way above 55 in most cases over long distances. Running on high priority Green Corridor, with a highest sense of urgency, operational teams of various zones are working round the clock in most challenging circumstances to ensure that Oxygen reaches in fastest possible time frame. Technical stoppages have been reduced to 1 minute for crew changes over different sections.

Tracks are kept open and high alertness is maintained to ensure that Oxygen Express keeps zipping through.

All this is done in a manner that speed of other Freight Operation doesn’t get reduced as well.

Running of new Oxygen is a very dynamic exercise and figures keep getting updated all the time. More loaded Oxygen Expresses are expected to start their journeys later in the night.

(Published from PIB)

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Dharumai Adheenam donates oxygen concentrator to Thiruvaiyaru Government Hospital

By
The Commune
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The Dharmapuram Adheenam, one of the 18 Saivite Mutts in Tamil Nadu has donated two oxygen concentrator to the Government Hospital at Thiruvaiyaru in Thanjavur district.

The two oxygen concentrators worth ₹2 lakhs has been donated to the Thiruvaiyaru Government Hospital where those affected by the Wuhan virus have been getting treatment.

The oxygen concentrators were presented by the 27th mutt head of Dharumapuram Adheenam, Srila Sri Masilamani Desika Gnanasambandha Paramacharya Swamigal to the Chief Doctor of Thiruvaiyaru Hospital Mr. Naganathan

The Dharumai Adheenam had earlier set up a 100 bed COVID care centre at one of its college in Mayiladuthurai. The chief pontiff also donated ₹11 lakhs on behalf of the Adheenam towards the Chief Minister Relief Fund.

Apart from this, the Adheenam has also been providing Kabasura Kudineer (a herbal concoction) to more than 2000 people living in the villages of the region.

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Siva Lingam in Palani found damaged

By
The Commune
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The Siva Lingam at the Pappan Kulakkarai Temple in Kothaimangalam near Palani was found damaged by unidentified miscreants.

The Periyarvudaiyaar Temple is located in the Kothaimangalam area near Palani. On the way towards this temple, there exists a small temple on the banks of a pond with Siva Lingam, Nandi, Kannimaar and Karuppasaami idols.

The Siva Lingam was found damaged in the morning by the locals of the area. The broken lingam part could not be found in the vicinity.

A case has been registered with the police and investigation is on going.

“This incident of breaking the Siva Lingam by anti-social elements is highly condemnable. Police should find the culprits soon and give them strict punishment.” District Secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad Senthilkumar was quoted saying in a report.

(With inputs from Dinamalar)

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#HBDFatherOfCorruption trends on the occasion of late DMK leader Karunanidhi’s birthday

By
The Commune
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Ahead of the birth anniversary of late DMK patriarch Karunanidhi, the hashtag “#HBDFatherOfCorruption” started trending from the evening of June 2 with more than 60K tweet.

From the DMK’s side the hashtag “#KalaignarForever” was being used to commemorate the late leader’s birth anniversary.

This has turned out to be an yearly Twitter war between the supporters and rivals of the DMK.

Last year, an ‘official’ logo was also released to commemorate the occasion. This year too a logo has been released and netizens have been showcasing their creativity with rib-tickling memes, cartoons and one-liners about Karunanidhi.

The DMK under Karunanidhi is guilty of several other corruption charges and failures. The party was part of the biggest ever corruption case in the history of India – 2G spectrum case. Karunanidhi in order to save his seat, went soft on the UPA government headed by its alliance partner Congress, by organizing lip service protests while thousands of Tamils in Sri Lanka were killed in the civil war in Sri Lanka. He is said to have undertaken the ‘fastest fast’ by starting the fast after breakfast and ending it before lunch.

As of 08:00 AM, #HBDFatherOfCorruption crossed more than 1 lakh tweets. Here is a look at some of them:

https://twitter.com/Ramyahariharan4/status/1400277928156430339

https://twitter.com/Rajeswa02344328/status/1400274192654733312

https://twitter.com/30Darkenergy/status/1400277335497076736

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Herd of wild elephants on a cross-country trip in China breaks the internet

By
The Commune
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A herd of 15 wild elephants that were found taking a cross-country trip in China, which are believed to have escaped from the Xishuangbanna national nature reserve in Yunnan province are currently making headlines. These elephants had travelled over 500 km in a period of two weeks. Elephants are considered to be a protected species in the country and it is unknown as to how they strayed away.

It is to be noted that initially there were 16 elephants that escaped, of which two return back to the reserve. One of the baby elephants in the herd was recently born while on their cross country journey.

The government has employed more than 360 people, 76 police cars and dirt trucks and nine drones for tracking them down and reducing destruction. In order to minimise damage in areas that are highly populated, the government issued an order to immediately vacate those areas. It appears that these elephants are headed towards Myanmar.

Several attempts have been made to redirect these elephants back to the reserve using various mechanisms but none seem to have come in handy. In their two week journey, it appears that they had destroyed around 56 hectares of crops, and caused a lot of destruction, albeit with no casualties. Experts say that this could be a result of forest destruction, as they are slowly being turned into plantations. Due to lack of proper food resources, these herds seem to have strayed in an attempt to scavenge for food.

https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1399281605206708224

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“Strict action to be taken to curb increasing child marriage cases”: Minister Geetha Jeevan

By
The Commune
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Speaking about the number of child marriage cases that were reported over the last few years, Geetha Jeevan, the Minister for Social Welfare and Women Empowerment said that strict action will be taken against perpetrators. She has told this in a press meet when she had been inspecting the facilities available in the government children’s hospital in Thoothukudi.

She said to the press, “the state granted incentive given to kids who lost both parents to COVID has been well received by the general public. The state has granted 5 lakh trust fund for or these kids and a monthly incentive of ₹3000 to aid their education.”

Commenting about the increase in child marriage cases, Geetha said that child marriages have been on the rise in Tamil Nadu for the past 10 years and steps have been taken to set up panchayat level committees to curb such marriages. She also said that steps were being taken to strengthen the separate unit in the police to take action against those who conduct child marriages.

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Members of the LGBT community celebrate PRIDE month with frontline workers

By
The Commune
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The LGBTQIA community celebrated their annual PRIDE rally along with frontline workers on Tuesday. They have been celebrating the PRIDE rally every year since 2009 to create awareness about their community and celebrate those belonging to the community. This is the 13th PRIDE rally that is being organised in Chennai by the LGBTQIA community. In lieu of the same, they hoisted the rainbow PRIDE flag at the office of the Brotherhood NGO.

They also presented rainbow-coloured face masks to the public. Speaking to reporters of Dinamalar, Jaya, who is the General Manager of the Brotherhood NGO, said, “Thanks to the COVID restrictions last year, all activities related to the PRIDE rally and celebratory events were cancelled last year. Since there are similar restrictions this year as well, many groups across Tamil Nadu are conducting small programs online. But, the fraternity decided to celebrate the first day of June in public with the frontline workers as a show of solidarity.”

She continued, “The event was held in the presence of frontline staff and activists who have been actively affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This is our way of showing our appreciation for them.”

Sudha, Founder of the Friends’ Organization, Sreejith Sundaram, Convener of the Kattiyakkari Drama Group, Tamil Nadu LGBT Charan, the co-ordinator of the movement, also took part in this event.

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Amul asks PM Modi to Ban PETA for undermining India’s milk producers

By
The Commune
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After People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had asked domestic dairy giant Amul to move from dairy to vegan, Vice-Chairman Valamji Humbal has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ban PETA.

According to Humbal, PETA as an NGO is conspiring to ruin the livelihoods of 10 crore people by maligning the image of India’s dairy sector.

Humbal made it very clear how Amul dairy has been one of the critical contributors to India’s GDP and now PETA is running a negative campaign that can adversely influence through ‘misinformation spread by opportunistic elements’.

As far as he was concerned such organisations were working on a conspiracy to snatch away the employment of India’s milk producers and livestocks are part of the family as per Indian culture and there can be no question of inflicting any sort of cruelty on them does not arise at all.

The top executive mentioned, “To ensure that such organisations stop their activities in India, milk producers of Gujarat urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to initiate necessary action to impose a ban on organisations which are engaged in condemnable activity of tarnishing the image of dairy industry through misinformation campaign and then harm them by encouraging plants of multination companies producing synthetic milk.”

“We urge around 40 lakh dairy farmers associated with Amul and around 15 lakh others to write to the PM seeking a ban on PETA. We shall do the same at our levels also,” Humbal was quoted in a report by the Indian Express.

Valamji Humbal has implied that international companies who see India as a great market are maneuvering to break the self-sufficient Indian dairy industry that ensures that the country does not have to rely on imports for milk and milk-related products.

Last week, PETA had appealed to Amul to tap on the plant-based milk and food market and thereby shift away from milch animals. It must be noted that Bill Gates owns large tracts of land in the US.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s double talk gets exposed not once but twice within 2 days

By
The Commune
-

Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram Shashi Tharoor was caught countering his own position on the matter of vaccine exports and the Central Vista project.

On 16th May 2021, Shashi Tharoor had put out a tweet as part of Congress’ propaganda on vaccines titled “Why did you send the vaccines of our children to foreign countries?”

He had said that instead of helping struggling Covid patients, Government of India’s was registering FIRs and arresting people for pasting posters of the Congress’ propaganda.

However, the Congress MP tweeted yesterday (June 1) that India’s decision to ban export of vaccines has impacted 91 countries and that the ‘vishwaguru’ should hang its head in shame.

But BJP leaders and netizens were quick enough to point out the hypocritical stance of the Lok Sabha MP. BJP National General Secretary (Organization) B.L. Santhosh said that such double talk was a blot on the public discourse.

The Congress MP was also caught taking contradicting positions on the Central Vista Project. Back in May 2018, when Shashi Tharoor had visited the Malaysian Parliament, he took to social media saying how he felt a pang of envy when he saw each Malaysian MP having their own name plate, plush leather swivel chairs, laptops and mike.

However, the Congress MP has been heavily critical of the Modi-led BJP government for going ahead with Central Vista construction, a project of national importance.

Pointing out at the double talk, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the Government of the day is doing exactly what he wished for back in 2018 and that the Congress MP should instill some sense in his bosses.

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