India's COVID-19 vaccination program was kick-started on 16th January. Govt. had set the ambitious target of vaccinating 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers. The govt. also planned to vaccinate at least 13 lakh persons each day. Out of total 3 cr, 2 cr are frontline workers!
For this mission, the government had trained more than 2300 program managers at the central level. Whereas, on the other hand, 61000 program managers, 2 lakh vaccinators, and 3.7 lakh other vaccination team members were trained at the state/district/block level.
So far, the govt has been able to cover 60% of the healthcare workers of the original target and 11% of the frontline workers. To note, vaccination for frontline workers started from 2nd Feb.
As of 15th Feb:
More than 85 lakh (85,16,771) beneficiaries have been vaccinated.
As of 15th Feb:
60.5 lakh healthcare workers (HCWs) have taken the first dose while 98,118 have taken the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination so far.
23.6 lakh frontline workers (FLWs) have taken the first dose of the vaccine.
No case of serious/severe adverse event/death is attributable to vaccination, till date - says govt. data.
At present, India has two approved vaccines. COVAXIN by Bharat Biotech and COVISHIELD by Serum Institute of India. Health Ministry has informed that new vaccines will be available in the next 90 days.
COVAXIN's trial stage III data on efficacy is still awaited.
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In Punjab, the @INCIndia clean swept the civic body elections by winning six out of eight Municipal Corporations and emerging as the largest party in seventh. CM @capt_amarinder credited his govt's developmental policies for the victory ahead of state elections next year.
Overall, the Congress won 1,373 of the 2,218 seats that went to the polls, followed by the SAD (285), AAP (60), BJP (49), and BSP (5). This was also considered as the semi-final before the state goes in the election next year.
The BJP and SAD had to suffer the humiliating loss, due to the anti farm law sentiments and widespread protest. However, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar attributed local politics to this while brushing off any causal link between election and farm laws protest.
The union cabinet has given approval to the new amendment to the Government of NCT of Delhi (GNCTD) Act which makes it mandatory for the Delhi government to send legislative proposals for the LG's opinion 15 days in advance and seven days for administrative proposals.
Approval by the cabinet has once again given rise to the old debate of LG's power and role vs. the Delhi government's mandate. And, it is in this light, the SC judgment of 2018 - by five judge constitution bench - in the matter of Govt. of NCT Delhi v. UoI comes to our mind!
In this matter, the apex court clearly laid down that LG of Delhi had no independent decision-making powers and was bound to follow the "aid and advice" of the Delhi chief-minister-headed council of ministers on all matters except those pertaining to police, public order & land.
Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) recently made amendments to the national Corporate Social Responsibility (#CSR) policy enshrined under the Companies Act 2013. The amendment has subscribed several changes to the provisions relating to CSR.
However, one of the key changes made by the amendment is Impact Assessment. Company having the obligation of spending the avg CSR amount of Rs 10 cr or more in the 3 immediately preceding financial yrs in pursuance of Section 135(5) of the Act, shall undertake impact assessment.
#ImpactAssessment to be done by an independent agency and with respect to #CSR projects having outlays of 1 cr or more and which have been completed not less than one year before undertaking the impact study.
The impact assessment reports shall be placed before the Board.
Any healthy legal system is measured on yardstick of effective adjudicatory mechanism & the Judge-Population ratio. India amongst countries like US , UK & Canada has lowest Judge population ratio of 19 Judges per million population.
It was way back in year 2001 when #SupremeCourt in (All India Judges Association v Union of India) expressed concern and noted that this ration shall be increased to at least 50 per million population within five years but this has not happened even almost two decades later.
As per India Justice Report 2019 at all India level there is just one subordinate court judge for 50,000 people. It includes almost 17-19 large-sized states which assimilate 90% of population. The #vacancy rate is 37% in HC's as only 680 of 1049 sanctioned strength are occupied.
With issue of public consultations on law-making once again making headlines due to the recently passed #FarmLaws2020, India's track record on public consultations (core of democracy & constitutional society) is poor and seems to be deteriorating.
Out of total 186 bills introduced in the Parliament b/w 2014-19, 90% bills never came up for public consultations or witnessed incomplete consultations. Draft Coastal Regulation Zone Notification 2019 and EIA 2020 are recent examples where the consultation process was bypassed.
Moreover, the number of bills being referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees have also dropped down drastically.
68 bills - 15th Lok Sabha
24 bills - 16th Lok Sabha
ZERO - 2020
This is despite India having a formal Pre-Legislative Consultative Policy (PLCP hereafter) 2014