India opener Mayank Agarwal was on Saturday nominated for the ICC Player of the Month award for December following his stellar performance in the Test series against New Zealand and South Africa.
Besides Agarwal, New Zealand spinner Ajaz Patel and Australian pacer Mitchell Starc were also short-listed for the award.
Lauding the feat of over two crore youngsters in the 15-18 age group getting vaccinated against COVID-19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday called for continuing the momentum.
He tweeted, “Excellent! Well done my young friends. Let us continue this momentum. Urging everyone to follow all COVID-19 related protocols and get vaccinated, if you haven’t already.” He was reacting to Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya’s tweet regarding the feat.
“Globally, all other test kits for Omicron are either made for gene dropout or mutation specific detection. Omisure is the first test kit combining both.”
In a major and global breakthrough towards cutting down procedural delays in genome sequencing to ascertain the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2, Dr V Ravi, former head of the Department of Neurovirology at National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences and Head, Research & Development, Tata Medical & Diagnostic Centre, Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, and his team have developed the world’s first test kit, Omisure, that can detect the Omicron variant by combining S-gene target failure (SGTF) and S-gene mutation amplification (SGMA).
As India and China attempt to work out dates for the 14th round of Corps Commander level talks, the Army’s Leh-based 14 Corps saw a change of guard on Wednesday as Lt. Gen. Anindya Sengupta took over as the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Fire and Fury Corps, replacing Lt. Gen. P.G.K. Menon, who led the last few rounds of talks from the Indian side.
Lt. Gen. Sengupta was part of the Indian delegation during the 13th round of talks which ended in a stalemate, with both sides exchanging sharp statements on the outcome.
Reliance Industries Ltd, the nation’s most valuable company, on Thursday said it has raised USD 4 billion (around ₹30,000 crore) in debt through the largest ever foreign currency bond issuance by an Indian entity.
The oil-to-telecom conglomerate plans to use the proceeds of the three tranche issues to retire existing borrowings.
Pharma major Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories on Tuesday said it would launch molnupiravir capsules 200 mg, the anti-viral drug that India recently granted emergency use authorisation for COVID-19 treatment, at ₹35 each under the brand name Molflu.
Each strip would have 10 capsules. With the recommended dose 800 mg twice a day for five days, the total course of 40 capsules would cost ₹1,400, making it among the most affordable treatment options available to patients, Dr. Reddy’s said.
Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has given its nod for a new deal announced by the Energy Minister last week , to jointly develop the Trincomalee oil tank farm with India.
According to a press statement issued by the Department on Government Information, on decisions taken at the first cabinet meeting of the year held on Monday, India and Sri Lanka “have reached an agreement to implement a joint development project” through diplomatic talks.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved a testing kit for detecting the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The kit is manufactured by Tata Medical and Diagnostics and is named OmiSure.
The RT-PCR kit, Omisure, was earlier sent to the ICMR for approval after continued testing. The kit will be used to confirm the Omicron in patients with its S-Gene Target Failure (SGTF) strategy.
The Union Health Ministry on Monday confirmed the first death linked to the highly transmissible variant of the coronavirus, Omicron, in the country.
Joint secretary of the Ministry Lav Aggarwal said the death of an elderly person with comorbidities, including diabetes, had been reported from Rajasthan and that this was “technically” a Omicron-related death.
The Centre, in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, backed its committee’s recommendation to retain the ₹8-lakh annual income criterion to identify the economically weaker sections (EWS) of society as the “best way forward” and urged the court to let NEET counselling continue.