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J&K LG meets family of goldsmith killed by terrorists in Srinagar

Manoj Sinha
File Photo: LG J&K Manoj Sinha

Srinagar (NVI): Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha today visited the family of deceased goldsmith, Satpal Nischal, who was killed by terrorists at his shop in Saraibala area of Srinagar a few days ago, and expressed condolences to his family members.

While condemning the killing, the LG said that a high-level investigation has already been initiated and assured the family members that culprits involved in this heinous act will be brought to justice very soon.

LG Sinha paid condolences to the family members of the deceased and said that such a cowardly act will not go unpunished.

The LG was briefed by the family members of the deceased goldsmith that they are residing in Kashmir for the last 50 years and during this period they have been living with local people with cordial relations.

During the LG’s visit, J&K Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Pandurang K Pole, IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar and Srinagar Deputy Commissioner Dr. Shahid Iqbal Choudhary were also present.

-ARK

Low intensity earthquake hits Noida

quake
Representational image

New Delhi (NVI): An earthquake of magnitude 2.9 on the Richter scale jolted parts of Noida in Uttar Pradesh today, according to the National Centre for Seismology (NCS).

The quake occurred at 37 km north-northeast of Noida at around 07:03 pm.

“Earthquake of Magnitude:2.9, Occurred on 13-01-2021, 19:03:31 IST, Lat: 28.86 & Long: 77.49, Depth: 5 Km, Location: 37km NNE of Noida, Uttar Pradesh,” the NCS tweeted.

However, no loss of life or damage of property has been reported so far.

Earlier, a similar medium-intensity earthquake had occurred in Rajasthan’s Alwar district few weeks ago, the tremors for which felt in Delhi-NCR as well.

-RJV

 

Kashmir receives 79,000 doses of Covishield vaccine

vaccine
Representational/file image

Neyaz Elahi

Srinagar (NVI): The Kashmir Valley today received 79,000 doses of ‘Covishield’, the COVID-19 vaccine which is manufactured by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).

Divulging information on this, Director Health Services Kashmir, Dr Samir Mattoo said that 79,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Valley today which will be administered to people in Phase wise.

He said that it is a continuous process and more such vaccines will arrive in Valley in the coming days.

“In the first phase, these vaccines will be administered to 60,000 health workers. The drive for administering the vaccine will start at Srinagar on January 16, Mattoo said.

In response to a question, Samir Mattoo further said that COVID affected patients will get this vaccine in Phase 4.

“There will be no shortage of these vaccines in Kashmir Valley. These will be administered to people even in far flung areas like Gurez, Machil, Keran, Tangdhar, Tulail,” he added.

He also informed that Department of Health has already done ground work and mock drills in this regard. These vaccines have been kept at central storage site.

-RJV

India working on development partnerships with nations: MEA Secretary

MEA
Rahul Chhabra, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs (File photo)

New Delhi (NVI): India has been working on development partnerships with various countries and has started several initiatives, besides continuing its human-centric globalisation and welfare program with partnering countries, Rahul Chhabra, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs, said today.

Speaking at the curtain raiser of Diplomacy Unplugged, a dialogue series between India and partnering nations initiated by FICCI, Chhabra said, “We have been trying to finalise migration and mobility agreements with partnering countries. This pandemic threw up the issue of global shortage of trained manpower in various sectors that the MEA has taken note of.”

“We have also started getting the states involved in our outreach in terms of promoting exports and incoming foreign business delegation. Not just in terms of cooperative federalism, we are also looking at competitive federalism,” he added.

MEA has enhanced the trade promotion budget along with promoting study in India in various countries. “MEA has been providing funding for trade fairs and exhibitions and for number of targeted initiatives to Indian missions across regions,” said Chhabra.

The MEA Secretary said that after the India-Africa summit, the External Affairs Ministry had committed lines of credit of USD 6.5 billion, USD 700 million of grants and over 50,000 scholarships to African students that have already been given out.

During the virtual meet, Vincenzo de Luca, Ambassador of Italy to India said that both the countries are entering a new phase of relations between after the successful virtual bilateral summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Giuseppe Conte on November 5 last year.

“We were able to finalise a number of agreements not only on G2G, but also with the private sector. This only goes on to show how the two countries want to transform their partnership to ideally benefit from their economic, innovations and technological complementarity,” the Italian envoy said.

He said that the two countries signed many important agreements during the pandemic.

“This was also the first time that a new five-year plan of action had been decided to deepen cooperation in the domain of culture, innovation and technology with the Indian government. The comprehensive partnership between India and Italy helps the companies to be more confident about investment in the two countries,” he added.

President, FICCI, Uday Shankar said, “The whole world is trying to emerge economically, socially, and psychologically from the over-arching impact of pandemic, it is important that we engage formally and informally. The role of economic diplomacy assumes ever increasing importance in the current scenario.”

Shankar also noted that Italy has taken over the presidency of the G-20 this year and India is poised for the same in 2023. “This is a huge opportunity for both India and Italy, not only at diplomatic but also at B2B levels to enhance and take our relationship to greater heights.”

Furthermore, elaborating on the series, Devin Narang, senior FICCI executive committee member, said that Diplomacy Unplugged was a member-driven dialogue series, where we would virtually meet the Diplomats and High Commissioners of India’s key economic partners so that the Indian industry could explain the issues they face both in investments overseas and to also address problems that companies from foreign countries might face in India.

“This is a common platform that is aimed at increasing investments in India and its partnering countries,” he added.

-RJV/ARK

Brazil results show China’s Sinovac vaccine 50.4% effective

Covishield
Representational image

New Delhi (NVI): Coronavirus vaccine ‘CoronaVac’ developed by China’s Sinovac has been found to be 50.4 per cent effective in Brazilian clinical trials.

It shows the vaccine is significantly less effective than previous data suggested – barely over the 50 per cent needed for regulatory approval.

Notably, the Chinese vaccine is one of two that the Brazilian government has lined up.

Sinovac, a Beijing-based biopharmaceutical company, has developed CoronaVac, an inactivated vaccine.

It works by using killed viral particles to expose the body’s immune system to the virus without risking a serious disease response.

Several countries, including Indonesia, Turkey and Singapore, have placed orders for the vaccine.

Last week researchers at the Butantan Institute, which has been conducting the trials in Brazil, announced that the vaccine had a 78 per cent efficacy against “mild-to-severe” Covid-19 cases.

But on Tuesday they revealed that calculations for this figure did not include data from a group of “very mild infections” among those who received the vaccine that did not require clinical assistance.

With the inclusion of this data, the efficacy rate is now 50.4 per cent, said researchers.

However, the trial, which was used on 12,500 volunteers, did not produce any adverse effects or significant allergic reactions.

-CHK

Govt clears Rs 48,000 cr deal for purchase of 83 Tejas jets for IAF

Tejas

New Delhi (NVI): The Union Cabinet today approved the largest indigenous defence procurement deal worth about Rs 48,000 crore to purchase 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ from HAL that will strengthen the growing fleet of Indian Air Force (IAF), especially amid “potent threat” from China and Pakistan.

The Cabinet, under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the procurement of 73 LCA Tejas Mk-1A fighter aircraft and 10 LCA Tejas Mk-1 Trainer aircrafts at the cost of Rs. 45,696 Crore along with Design and Development of Infrastructure sanctions worth Rs.1,202 Crore, as per an official statement.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that the deal will be a game-changer for self-reliance in the Indian defence manufacturing.

“The CCS chaired by PM Sh. @narendramodi today approved the largest indigenous defence procurement deal worth about 48,000 Crores to strengthen IAF’s fleet of homegrown fighter jet ‘LCA-Tejas’. This deal will be a game changer for self reliance in the Indian defence manufacturing,” Rajnath said in a tweet.

Light Combat Aircraft Mk-1A variant is an indigenously designed, developed and manufactured state-of-the-art modern 4+ generation fighter aircraft. This aircraft is equipped with critical operational capabilities of Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Missile, Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite and Air to Air Refuelling (AAR) would be a potent platform to meet the operational requirements of Indian Air Force, IAF.

It is the first “Buy (Indian-Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured)” category procurement of combat aircraft with an indigenous content of 50% which will progressively reach 60% by the end of the programme.

In addition to this, the Cabinet has also approved infrastructure development by IAF under the project to enable them handle repairs or servicing at their base depot so that the turnaround time would get reduced for mission critical systems and would lead to increased availability of aircraft for operational exploitation. This would enable IAF to sustain the fleet more efficiently and effectively due to availability of repair infrastructure at respective bases.

Under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan, India is continuously growing in its power to indigenously design, develop and manufacture advanced cutting edge technologies and systems in the Defence Sector, the Government said in a statement.

The manufacturing of Light Combat Aircraft by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, HAL will give a further push to Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and boost indigenisation of defence production and the defence industry in the country, it said.

About 500 Indian companies including MSMEs in the design and manufacturing sectors will be working with HAL in this procurement. The programme would act as a catalyst for transforming the Indian aerospace manufacturing ecosystem into a vibrant Atmanirbhar-self-sustaining ecosystem, it said.

-ARK

Cabinet approves MoU between India, UAE on scientific, technical cooperation

Cabinet
Representative image

New Delhi (NVI): The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today approved a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on scientific and technical cooperation between the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and the National Centre of Meteorology (NMC) of the UAE.

The MoU provides for sharing of knowledge, data and operational products for meteorological, seismological and oceanic services, such as Radar, Satellite, Tide gauges, seismic and Meteorological stations, according to a statement.

Furthermore, the agreement will make the way for deployment of meteorological observation networks on mutual agreement over ocean waters, the statement read.

“Cooperation in the development of special capacities of Tsunami models researches for faster and more reliable forecasts of Tsunamis propagating through the Oman Sea and Arabian Sea which affect the coastal areas of India and North East of UAE,” it added.

The MoU will also enable cooperation to support the Tsunami Early Warning Centre (TEWC) in the form of forecast modelling software, specifically designed to support tsunami forecasting operations.

In addition to this, it specifies sharing the real-time seismic data of some of the seismic stations situated in south and west of India and north of the UAE for monitoring the seismic activities which may generate tsunami in the Arabian Sea and the Sea of Oman.

Cooperation in early warnings of sand and dust storms through the exchange of knowledge is also envisaged under the MoU, the statement further added.

The MoU will also enable exchange of visits in term of scientists, research scholars and specialists for the purpose of research, training, consultation, focused on climatic information services, satellite data utilization for now casting and tropical cyclones forecasting.

Collaborative participation within MoES (India) and NCM-UAE in terms of activities related to multi-hazard early warning system and climate resilience can significantly contribute to economic growth in the region.

The scientific activities being carried out by the respective Institutes in India and NCM-UAE were discussed during the UAE delegation visit at MoES on November 8, 2019 and found many common areas of research.

India and UAE showed interest in the scientific and technical collaborations faster and more reliable forecasts of Tsunamis propagating through the Oman Sea and Arabian Sea which affect the coastal areas of India and North East of UAE.

-CHK

Bird Flu: NDMC bans sale, storage of poultry or processed chicken

Bird Flu
Representative/file image

New Delhi (NVI): The North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has banned the sale, storage of poultry or processed chicken due to the bird flu outbreak in areas under its jurisdiction.

Earlier on Monday, Delhi government had imposed a ban on the sale of processed and packaged chicken brought from outside the national capital after Avian Influenza (AI) was confirmed in samples of dead crows and ducks.

The Ghazipur poultry market was also closed by authorities.

“All meat and poultry shops and meat processing units in areas under the NDMC, are prohibited to sell, store poultry or processed or packaged chicken meat with immediate effect, till further orders,” an order issued by the civic body stated.

Furthermore, the order has stated that owners of restaurants and hotels would face action if egg-based or poultry-based or other such products were served to customers.

The order has been issued in the public interest and should be diligently complied with, it said.

Meanwhile, as of today, cases of bird flu have been confirmed in 10 states.

In addition to this, cases of unnatural mortality of birds have been reported in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir and 4 districts of Jharkhand.

States have been advised to efficiently manage the spread of Avian Influenza in their respective states in accordance with the Action Plan 2021. To deal with the situation the states were asked to coordinate with the department of health and forest and sensitize them about the issue.

States were also asked to maintain sufficient supply of protective equipment and maintain bio-security measures in poultry farms. BSL-II labs have to be identified at the state level for speeding up the identification of infection in the state and timely introduction of control mechanism.

-CHK

NIC, CBSE to launch CollabCAD software to provide engineering solutions for students

NIC

New Delhi (NVI): The National Informatics Centre (NIC) along with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will launch CollabCAD software tomorrow, to provide a total engineering solution for students and faculties of Engineering Graphics Curriculum.

According to an official statement, the computer-enabled software system is a solution from 2D drafting and detailing to 3D product design.

“The National Informatics Centre, CBSE, and Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog will also jointly release a comprehensive e-book on CollabCAD 3D modeling,” the Ministry of Electronics & IT (Meity) said in a statement.

This e-book 1.0 is ready for release through the CollabCAD portal and will guide CAD students, beginners, and professionals in understanding and using the software, which was designed and authored by the CollabCAD Group of NIC, New Delhi.

The initiative aims to provide a great platform to students across the country to create and modify 3D digital designs with a free flow of creativity and imagination.

It will also enable students to collaborate over designs across the network and concurrently access the same design data for storage and visualization.

CBSE under the leadership of Chairman, Manoj Ahuja, IAS will introduce CollabCAD Software for Engineering Graphics (Subject Code 046) at the senior school level for Class XI and XII.

The software will be used for practical assignments as part of the subject curriculum for making different types of 3D designs and 2D drawings, the ministry said.

“Students from around 140 plus schools across the country and the schools in the Middle East (affiliated with CBSE) will have access to this software which can be used for practical projects and understanding concepts of Engineering Graphics,” it added.

Furthermore, NIC and CBSE will be signing an MOU for ‘CollabCAD Software Support and Training for Students and Faculty of Engineering Graphics’ in CBSE affiliated schools for a period of 10 years in the august presence of Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, Meity.

This MOU aims to develop human resources and skills around CollabCAD software and popularize the software among the students and faculty.

Earlier in April last year, Neeta Verma, director general, NIC and R Ramanan, mission director – Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Niti Aayog jointly launched CollabCAD concurring with Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) Community Day. It was launched in tune with the requirements of the ‘Tinker from Home’ campaign for students of 5,000 plus schools across the country.

This event will be webcast at around 11:00 am will on the NIC Webcast (https://webcast.gov.in/nic) platform and on NIC social media platforms, the statement added.

-RJV

BSF detects another tunnel along IB in Jammu’s Samba

tunnel

Jammu (NVI): The Border Security Force (BSF) personnel today detected another secret trans-border tunnel in the Samba sector of Kathua district in Jammu and Kashmir, thwarting nefarious designs of Pakistan.

“Alert BSF troops detected a tunnel in the Samba sector of Jammu, thwarting the nefarious designs of Pakistan,” BSF Jammu said in a tweet on its official handle.

To recall, in the same sector in August last year, BSF had detected a 25-feet deep tunnel near International Border (IB) in Samba and recovered Pakistan made sandbags at the opening of the tunnel.

A BSF official said that the tunnel detected today originates from Pakistan that might have been used for smuggling armed militants and drugs. “We are investigating the matter and information will be shared with the media soon,” he said.

-ARK

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