Budget 2018-19

  Mandavia gets Health portfolio; Scindia gets aviation; Puri gets additional charge of petroleum In the most comprehensive reshuffle of his council of ministers in his seven-year tenure, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday sacked many senior colleagues, elevated some, and infused the government with new, young faces. A new ministry of cooperation was also created. In all, 43 ministers were sworn in, taking the strength of the council of ministers to 77. The reshuffle had politics at its heart, but the inclusion of several technocrats and former bureaucrats suggested that governance and efficiency were the immediate priorities after the devastation left behind by the  Covid-19 pandemic . The government seemed to have accepted responsibility for lapses, but signalled the intention to move ahead aggressively. Battling the optics of Covid-19 mismanagement – the crisis faced by migrants that drew the ire of the judiciary; the oxygen and hospital bed shortages; and the extend...

  Accounts for over 20% of samples sent for genome sequencing Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday that the B.1.617 variant of coronavirus, first detected in India, has become the most common mutation detected so far, and was found in more than 20 per cent of samples sent for genome sequencing. Vardhan was speaking at the 27th high-level meeting of the Group of Ministers on Covid-19. He said 25,739 samples have been sequenced and variant B.1.617 has been found in 5,261 samples. “States have been requested to send samples regularly for better analysis,” he added. B.1.617, which has been termed a variant of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been found to be moderately resistant to antibodies and is highly transmissible, but has low severity among those who are vaccinated, according to a molecular study. The strain was detected in Maharashtra towards the end of 2020 and spread throughout India and to at least 40 countries. Sharing details of  mucor...

  “At a personal level, I think that the worst is over concerning the Covid-19 situation.” But we need to strictly follow Covid appropriate behaviour, he said New Delhi [India], December 21 (ANI): Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Sunday said that the worst is over concerning coronavirus in the country but people still need to follow Covid appropriate behaviour to stay safe. “At a personal level, I think that the worst is over concerning the Covid-19 situation. I have been following this situation right from the time when we had our first case on January 30, 2020. Since then, I have watched everything from the closest of quarters with meticulous precision. If we look at the things in the last three-four months then things are in a declining phase,” Dr Vardhan told ANI in an exclusive interview. “But we need to strictly follow Covid appropriate behaviour and cannot afford to relax on that front,” he added. Substantiating his point, the Union Health Minister said that right n...