Month: May 2021

Mucormycosis, previously known as zygomycosis and sometimes termed as black fungus, is a serious fungal infection, found generally in people with less ability to fight infection. As the cases of black fungus infection continue to rise in India, doctors and scientists are worried if there is more to it than just the use of steroids.

Symptoms of this infection depend on the part of the body which is infected. It most commonly infects the sinuses and brain resulting in a runny nose, one-sided facial swelling and pain, headache, fever, and tissue death.
Other forms of the disease may infect the lungs, stomach and intestines, and skin. It is generally spread by breathing in, eating food contaminated by, or getting spores of molds of the Mucorales type in an open wound.

These fungi are frequently present in decomposing organic matter such as rotting fruit and vegetables, leaves, and animal manure, but do not usually have an effect as it is not transmitted between people.

Risk factors for the infection include diabetes, lymphoma, organ transplant, iron overload, HIV/AIDS, and long-term steroids or immunosuppressants use. Diagnosis for black fungus is done by biopsy and culture, with medical imaging to help determine the extent of the disease.

Treatment for it is generally done with amphotericin B and surgical debridement and preventive measures include wearing a face mask in dusty areas, avoiding contact with water-damaged buildings, and protecting the skin from exposure to the soil such as when gardening or certain outdoor work.

Black Fungus tends to progress rapidly and is fatal in about half of sinus cases and almost all cases of the widespread type. To talk about the disease and to spread awareness for it, experts from Ujala Cygnus Hospital, Columbia Asia Hospital, and Paras Hospital shared their inputs.

Dr Amitabh Malik, Chief- ENT, Paras Hospital, Gurugram spoke about the misconceptions among people regarding the disease and said, “The rising incidences and mortality related to black fungus have actually paved the way for lots of misconception and misunderstanding about the fungal infection. People have started alienating the families, whose members are diagnosed with black fungus, thinking it’s a highly contagious infection.”

Speaking further on the subject, he continued, “Black fungus disease is not contagious, which means that it cannot spread from contact between humans or animals. But it does spread from fungal spores that are present in the air or in the environment, which are almost impossible to avoid. Some people also feel that it can happen due to eating fruit. Uncontrolled diabetes along with a Covid infection are the leading causes for a patient to develop black fungus.”

Ever since the first few cases of black fungus had been reported, there has been extensive media coverage about it. This has led to fear and confusion among the public about its causes and effects. Mucormycosis, colloquially known as the black fungus, has aggravated the devastating effects of the second wave of the COVID pandemic.

What needs to be understood is that our bodies are constantly attacked by different bacteria and fungi but they are kept under control by our immune system. It is when this immune system is compromised due to unreasonable use of steroids, diabetes, or cancer treatment; it gives a breeding ground to these fungi and bacteria to grow rapidly.

Most diabetic patients suffering from COVID-19, who are being given steroids, have a high chance of being affected by the black fungus. To prevent it, people should stop the misuse of steroids.

Mucormycosis can affect the face, infecting the nose, the orbit of the eye, or the brain, which can cause even vision loss.

Dr Shuchin Bajaj, Founder and Director, Ujala Cygnus Group of Hospitals said that “it can also spread to the lungs. Doctors treating COVID-19 patients, diabetics and those with compromised immune systems should watch for early symptoms including sinus pain or nasal blockage on one side of the face, one-sided headache, swelling or numbness, toothache and loosening of teeth to guard against black fungus infections.”

There is also the idea among people that excessive use of steroids is causing the infection. The expression ‘excessive use of steroids’ can be misleading.

Dr Shashank Vashist, Consultant- ENT, Columbia Asia Hospital, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon said, “Steroids are effective in COVID patients who have moderate to severe disease, there is no other way to treat them. However, if steroids are used too early in the disease, it can be counterproductive. Identifying the right time to administer steroids is important and blaming steroids for black fungus can affect treatment of this category of patients.”

Another myth that has been doing rounds is that a person can get infected by black fungus by eating raw food. But there is no data available so far to support this claim.

Earlier this infection was spotted in patients with uncontrolled diabetes and in immune-compromised patients only. But during this pandemic, patients in the third week of illness, when they are recovering, are found to be affected with black fungus.

Hence, it becomes extremely important to circulate the right information about the infection so that all the necessary precautions can be taken with the right kind of treatment at the right time. (ANI)

The Union Health Ministry on Thursday informed that the 24 states have reported a decline in active coronavirus cases since last week and asserted that the national recovery rate touching 90 per cent is a positive indication.

Speaking at a press briefing, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary at Union Health Ministry, said: “24 states have reported a decline in active cases since last week. There are 15 states in which 1,000-5,000 cases have been reported every day. And in 13 states less than 1,000 cases have been reported while 24 states have reported a continued decline in active cases since last week.”
“Overall recoveries are now exceeding the number of cases being reported on a daily basis. The recovery rate has increased from 85.6 per cent to 90 per cent now, it’s a positive indication,” he said.

Agarwal said a steady decline in coronavirus cases has been reported in the country for the last few weeks.

“For the last 20 days, it has continued to register a decline in different states. Where on May 7, around 4,14,000 cases were reported, it decreased to 3,48,00 and after that, it fell below 3 lakh and stood at 2,81,000,” he added.

“Today around 2,11,000 cases have been reported in the country. From May 17, less than 3 lakh cases have been reported in the country. It is a positive development, we need to monitor it,” he added further.

Addressing the briefing, Chair of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) and Member (Health) in NiTi Aayog, Dr Vinod K Paul said, It’s reassuring that we are on the downswing of the second wave, and it will be sustained if restrictions open up systematically as the time comes.” (ANI)

The Hong Kong Legislative Council has approved the controversial bill to reform the city’s electoral system, which is set to increase the number of pro-Beijing lawmakers in the city and reduces the public’s ability to choose elected representatives.

The reforms passed on Thursday, allow the city’s national security department to carry out background checks to ensure candidates for public office are “patriotic”. Besides this, the Legislative Council will also be expanded to 90 seats from 70 through this law.
This comes after China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) in March had passed the resolution by a near-unanimous vote, paving the way for the biggest shake-up to the city’s electoral system since its return to China in 1997.

Under the new electoral system, NPC members and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body, will be part of the Election Committee in the selection process of the city’s leader next year, reported Xinhua.

Less than a year after imposing the draconian National Security Law, China launched this legislative process for drastic electoral system reform in Hong Kong, which critics say will benefit the pro-establishment camp and further quash the political opposition in the city.

They have also warned that it would limit the space for the opposition in the city and roll back years of effort to liberalise the system, reported South China Morning Post.

In March, the G7 (Group of Seven) countries had expressed “grave concerns” about China’s national legislature approving a resolution to drastically overhaul Hong Kong’s electoral system to ensure only ‘patriots’ can rule the city, a move which would further clamp down on opposition voices in the city. (ANI)

By Vishu Adhana

Eighteen months since China reported the first patient with Covid-19 like symptoms, the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread like wildfire over the world claiming the lives of over 35 lakh people and infecting over 16.8 crore in more than 180 countries.

Moreover, multiple waves of the pandemic overwhelmed health care systems worldwide and led to the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Amid all this, the mystery around the origin of the virus has remained far from resolved. The virus was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan and since then China has been chided for its lack of transparency.

In the absence of any evidence, several theories for the origin of the virus were put forward. Among them, a few possibilities, such as the theory which said that the virus originated in nature, have received more traction than others.

Meanwhile, other theories raised questions on China’s intentions and handling of the dangerous virus. These include possibilities of an accidental leak of the Covid-19 virus from a Wuhan lab and Beijing deliberately manufacturing the virus as a bioweapon.

On December 31, 2019, China disclosed to the World Health Organization (WHO), the existence of an outbreak of pneumonia cases in Wuhan.

For an entire year, China did not heed calls for an independent investigation into the origin of coronavirus, raising further suspicion.

Moreover, when a team of WHO experts early this year visited the Huanan Seafood Market, the site of an early cluster of cases in late 2019, doubts were raised on the investigation’s credibility and the validity of the eventual findings.

Now, calls for a fresh investigation into the origin of the virus have brought the matter to the fore. In recent months, the idea that the virus emerging from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has gained new credence.

Speaking to ANI, Nicholas Wade, a former science writer and editor for the New York Times said that, in his view, the escape scenario provides a better explanation for the available facts than does the natural emergence scenario.

Developments in recent weeks have turned the media’s focus around the lab in Wuhan namely Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The developments, which include a report by an Australian daily on China’s plan for a bio-weapon and revelations in a US intelligence report, comes at a time when a 74th World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO, is underway.

Wade suggested that member countries of the WHO should politely ask “China to unseal the records of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and other virology labs in Wuhan.”

Addressing the World Health Organization’s main annual meeting of member states, the United States and other countries called on Tuesday for a more in-depth investigation of the pandemic origins after an international mission to China earlier this year proved inconclusive.

Australia, Japan and Portugal were among other countries to call for more progress on the investigation, while the British representative urged for any probe to be “timely, expert-driven and grounded in robust science”.

How did the lab-leak theory start?

The lab-leak theory is not new. It came into existence last year just after China reported the first Covid-case.

Nearly a month before the World Health Organisation declared coronavirus a pandemic in March 2020, Botao Xiao, a molecular biomechanics researcher at South China University of Technology published a paper citing that “the killer coronavirus as originated from the laboratory in Wuhan”. The paper was published on Feburary 6, 2020.

However, he withdrew his paper a few weeks later after Chinese authorities insisted that no accident had taken place.

In the following weeks, many in the scientific community dismissed the lab-leak theory.

On March 27, 2020, however, the US Defense Intelligence Agency updated its assessment of the origin of the novel coronavirus to reflect that it may have been accidentally released from an infectious diseases lab.

A month later on April 27, 2020, President Donald Trump told reporters: “You had the theory from the lab. … There’s a lot of theories. But, yeah, we have people looking at it very, very strongly.”

On the same day, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement saying that the Intelligence Community will continue to “rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”

As coronavirus wreaked havoc across the US, the Trump administration became more vocal about the possibility of the leak from the Wuhan lab.

However, for a long time, Trump’s remarks on the issue were considered merely a way to avoid criticism by blaming China for the deteriorating COVID-19 situation in America.

Then-US secretary of State Mike Pompeo on May 3 said in an interview to ABC that there is “enormous evidence” regarding the origin of the virus.

He added that: “China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running substandard laboratories”

As the coronavirus continues to spread, countries closed their borders and imposed lockdowns to prevent the surge in infections. Meanwhile, more evidence emerged indicating the non-natural origin of the virus.

A report was published in the Times of London in July that a virus 96 per cent identical to the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was found in an abandoned copper mine in China in 2012.

The bat-infested copper mine in southwestern China was home to a coronavirus that left six men sick with pneumonia, with three eventually dying, after they had been tasked with shovelling bat guano out of the mine.

After months of negotiations with China, a WHO team, which includes experts from 10 countries, visited in January the Huanan Seafood Market, the site of an early cluster of cases in late 2019.

This came following the tremendous international pressure as China continued to resist calls for a strictly independent investigation.

The inquiry did not conclusively establish how or when the virus began spreading and did little to address Western concerns that the Chinese Communist Party bent the investigation to its advantage.

Beijing was accused of delaying access to international investigators for months after the initial outbreak, virtually guaranteeing that the lab had been deep-cleaned before any forensic analysis could be done.

On February 11, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus refused to rule out the lab-leak scenario. “Some questions have been raised as to whether some hypotheses have been discarded,” he said. “I want to clarify that all hypotheses remain open and require further study.”

What’s new?

A few days ago, an article was published in the Wall Street Journal which revealed that three researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized. The report was based on previously undisclosed US intelligence.

The researchers were admitted into the hospital a month before China reported the first case of COVID-19.

The revelation has sparked debate and raised questions about whether China knew of the deadly virus way before it apprised the world.

Author and former NYT science journalist Nicholas Wade said that if the reports are true it shows that the pandemic started several weeks earlier than the given by the Chinese authorities.

“The importance of the report, if true, is that it shows the pandemic started several weeks earlier than the date given by the Chinese authorities, and therefore that the Chinese had longer to prepare for it. Had they shared this information with the rest of the world, many lives could perhaps have been saved,” he said in an email interview.

Recently, Wade published an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists where he argues that evidence is stronger than the virus leaked from a lab than that it occurred naturally.

In an elaborate report, Wade said that much of the work of Chinese virologists on gain-of-function in coronaviruses was performed at the BSL2 safety level lab, which requires taking fairly minimal safety precautions. The pandemic broke out in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.”For the lab escape scenario, a Wuhan origin for the virus is a no-brainer.

Wuhan is home to China’s leading centre of coronavirus research where researchers were genetically engineering bat coronaviruses to attack human cells. They were doing so under the minimal safety conditions of a BSL2 lab.

“If a virus with the unexpected infectiousness of SARS2 had been generated there, its escape would be no surprise,” he said.

Wade, who has worked on the staff of Nature, Science, and, for many years, the New York Times, talked about lack of access to evidence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or related labs in Wuhan.

Bernard Roizman, a University of Chicago virologist told WSJ: “I’m convinced that what happened is that the virus was brought to a lab, they started to work with it…and some sloppy individual brought it out,” said ..”They can’t admit they did something so stupid.”

Another head-turning development that shocked experts and scientists was the report in an Australian daily which revealed that Chinese scientists were thinking about bioweapons, visualising a World War-III scenario.

The Weekend Australian newspaper cited a Chinese government document that discussed the weaponisation of SARS coronavirus.

Titled the Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, the 2015 paper was authored by Chinese scientists, Chinese public health officials and members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Moreover, Anthony Fauci a top adviser to US President Joe Biden on the coronavirus pandemic and long time sceptic of the lab-leaked theory, said he’s “not convinced” the deadly virus developed naturally and has called for further investigations into where it emerged.

Fauci was asked during a Poynter event, “United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking,” earlier this month about whether he was confident that Covid-19 developed naturally, Fox News reported.

So far, there is no hard proof to support either the theory that the virus had natural origins or the theory that it leaked from a lab. Wade also said: “There is no direct evidence for either scenario and therefore no proof for either of them.”

Recently, a group of leading UK and US scientists called for more investigation to determine the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the theory of an accidental release from a lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

In a letter published in the journal ‘Science’ early this month, the experts from world-leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford and MIT said knowing how COVID-19 emerged is critical for informing global strategies to mitigate the risk of future outbreaks.

In March, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus also called for further studies after the release of an inconclusive report on an international team’s field visit to Wuhan, China to research the origins of COVID-19, citing difficulties accessing raw data. (ANI)

The government on Wednesday said it is committed to ensure right of privacy to all citizens while also having the means and the information necessary to ensure public order and maintain national security. It also said that new Intermediary Guidelines provide for sufficient safeguards.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) issued a statement hours after messaging app WhatsApp moved the Delhi High Court against the Centre’s new rules, and said such requirements are only in case when the message is required for prevention, investigation or punishment of very serious offences related to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or of incitement to an offence also relating to rape, sexually explicit or child sexual abuse material.

The new rules require the messaging services to “trace” the origin of particular messages sent on the platforms.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said none of the new measures will impact normal functionting of WhatsApp.

“The Government of India is committed to ensuring the right of privacy to all its citizens but at the same time it is also the responsibility of the government to maintain law and order and ensure national security. None of the measures proposed by India will impact the normal functioning of WhatsApp in any manner whatsoever and for the common users, there will be no impact,” he said, according to the statement.

The union minister said as per all established judicial dictum, no fundamental right, including the right to privacy, is absolute and it is subject to reasonable restrictions.

“The requirements in the intermediary guidelines pertaining to the first originator of information are an example of such a reasonable restriction,” the statement said.

The ministry said Rule 4(2) of the Intermediary Guidelines is not a measure in isolation. The rules have been framed after consultation with various stakeholders and social media intermediaries, including but not limited to WhatsApp.

“After October 2018, no specific objection has been made by WhatsApp to the Government of India in writing relating to the requirement to trace the first originator in relation to serious offences. They have generally sought time to extend the time for enforcement of guidelines but did not make any formal reference that traceability is not possible.

“WhatsApp’s challenge, at the very last moment, and despite having sufficient time and opportunity available during the consultation process and after the rules were enacted, to the Intermediary Guidelines, is an unfortunate attempt to prevent the same from coming into effect,” Meity said

It further emphasised any operations being run in India are subject to the law of the land.

“WhatsApp’s refusal to comply with the guidelines is a clear act of defiance of a measure whose intent can certainly not be doubted. At one end, WhatsApp seeks to mandate a privacy policy wherein it will share the data of all its user with its parent company, Facebook, for marketing and advertising purposes.

On the other hand, WhatsApp makes every effort to refuse the enactment of the Intermediary Guidelines which are necessary to uphold law and order and curb the menace of fake news. WhatsApp defends its refusal to enact the Intermediary Guidelines by carving out an exception that messages on the platform are end to end encrypted,” the ministry said.

It said the rule to trace the first originator of the information is mandatory for each and every significant social media intermediary, irrespective of their method of operation.

“The entire debate on whether encryption would be maintained or not is misplaced. Whether right to privacy is ensured through using encryption technology or some other technology is entirely the purview of the social media intermediary. The Government of India is committed to ensuring the right of privacy to all its citizens as well as have the means and the information necessary to ensure public order and maintain national security. It is WhatsApp’s responsibility to find a technical solution, whether through encryption or otherwise, that both happen.”

The statement said that in July 2019, the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada issued a communique, concluding that tech companies should include mechanisms in the design of their encrypted products and services whereby governments, acting with appropriate legal authority, can gain access to data in a readable and usable format.

The ministry further said Brazilian law enforcement is looking for WhatsApp to provide suspects’ IP addresses, customer information, geo-location data and physical messages.

“What India is asking for is significantly much less than what some of the other countries have demanded. Therefore, WhatsApp’s attempt to portray the Intermediary Guidelines of India as contrary to the right to privacy is misguided,” it said.

WhatsApp had earlier said in a statement that requiring messaging apps to ‘trace’ chats “is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on WhatsApp, which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy.” (ANI)

By Shalini Bhardwaj

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is likely to supply 50 million COVID-19 vaccines to India in 2021, albeit with a few conditions, sources told ANI on Wednesday.

However, the drugmaker has asked for relaxations in some clauses, including indemnification for its shots, sources informed.

Meanwhile, Moderna, another pharmaceutical giant in the US, sources said is expecting to start manufacturing its COVID-19 vaccines in India following an analysis with Cipla, a pharmaceutical company based in Mumbai, among other Indian firms.

Earlier, both drugmakers had allegedly refused to send vaccines directly to the state governments of Delhi and Punjab, claiming that they will only deal with the Central government.

“We have spoken to Pfizer and Moderna for vaccines, and both the companies have refused to sell vaccines directly to us. They have said that they will deal with the Government of India alone,” Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had said on Monday.

India is moving towards vaccine sufficiency as inoculations with the Russian vaccine Sputnik V began in the country earlier this month.

Sources told ANI that India and Russia are planning to manufacture around 35-40 million doses every month that will start from August or September.

Before the transfer of technology in August for local production, Russia will send close to 18 million Sputnik V doses to India – 3 million in May, 5 million in June and 10 million in July, said sources.

On May 24, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Panacea Biotec, one of the leading pharmaceutical producers in India, had launched the production of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine.

Other sites of production of the Sputnik V vaccines are – Hetero Biologics, Virchow Biotech, Gland Pharma, Stelis Biopharma and Shilpa Medicare.

India has also been using two vaccines – Covishield by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Covaxin by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. According to the sources, India is expected to produce approximately 20-25 crore vaccines per month.

Sources informed that two next-generation vaccines will also be made in India. One is the DNA vaccine by Cadila Zydus and the other is an mRNA vaccine by Gennova Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. Both vaccines have shown promise and are expected to reduce international dependence for the supply of doses. (ANI)

As farmers in Ghaziabad on began ‘Black Day’ protests on Wednesday to mark completion of six months of their agitation against Centre’s agricultural laws, the Bharatiya Kisan Union spokesperson Rakesh Tikait assured that the protests will be carried out peacefully in adherence to Covid-19 protocols.

“Protests will be done peacefully. We are following the Covid-19 protocols. Not many are expected to come here. People are putting up black flags wherever possible to mark the protests,” Tikait told ANI.
The farmer union leader said that they were protesting because the Centre was not listening to them. “It has been 6 months now, but the Centre is not listening to us. So, farmers are putting up black flags”, he said.

“We will continue the farmer protests till the time Centre repeals the farm laws. We had planned to protest by putting tri-colour flags. However, the authorities had objections to it and hence, we decided to mark this protest by hoisting black flags”, said Tikait.

With security intensified at Singhu border, Tikait said people were expressing their support to the farmers by hoisting black flags at their homes, on their tractors or other vehicles.

People were seen gathered in the morning at the border area for the protest against the three farm laws that were enacted in September 2020.

Also, keeping in view of the current Covid-19 situation, the farmer leader stressed that protestors will follow all Covid-19 protocols. “Not many people are here. We all are wearing masks and will follow social distancing. We will try not to overcrowd,” he said.

Tikait also alleged that the Centre was deliberately changing the rates of Di Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertilizers as per the Centre’s convenience.

“Earlier the rate of DAP fertilizer was Rs 1900. When our agitation intensified, its rate dropped down to Rs 1200. However, this rate drop was in place only for a period of three to four months and now again, the rates have gone up.”

The farmer leader said that the farmers will continue their agitation until the Centre repeals its three farm laws and have also written to the Union Agriculture minister on the same issue.

“Our only demand is that all three farm laws should be repealed and farmers should get the required MSP. If the Centre does not agree to our demands, we will continue to protest. There is no definite period for how long the agitation will last,” Tikait said.

On May 20, Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) gave a call to observe May 26 as a ‘Black Day For Democracy’.

“That is the day PM Narendra Modi led Government took oath of office in 2014 and then again on 30th May in 2019. 26th May is the day when the ‘Chalo Dilli’ Kisan Andolan completes six months. It is also the day when the All India Strike called by the Central Trade Unions becomes six months old,” read an official release by the SKM.

Following this call, several leaders from various political parties offered their support to the protests.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police said that it will take action against those flouting the law.

“We urge people to follow COVID appropriate behaviour & not to demonstrate any kind of gathering. Any kind of illegal activity or entry will not be permitted at borders. Action will be taken against those breaking laws”, said Chinmoy Biswal, Delhi Police spokesperson.

Currently Punjab, Haryana and Delhi are observing a Covid-19 imposed lockdown.

Farmers have been protesting since November 26 last year against the farm laws passed by the Centre including Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. (ANI)

The Indian Army on Wednesday said that in coordination with the West Bengal government it has positioned rescue and relief columns across the areas on the Odisha-West Bengal coast expected to be affected by “very severe cyclonic storm”, which made landfall this morning, battering coastal districts of the two states with heavy rain and strong winds.

“To provide immediate support to people in emerging situation due to #CycloneYaas, briefing, joint recce, liaison & coordination with WB govt has been completed. Rescue and Relief columns are pre-positioned across areas expected to be affected for immediate response”, the Indian Army said.
According to the India Meterological Department, the very severe cyclonic storm Yaas centred about 50 kilometer south -southeast of Balasore and landfall process commenced at 9 am.

“Meanwhile, in East Midnapore, one rescue column has been launched to rescue 32 civilians who are stuck due to a surge in water levels”, the Army said.

The West Bengal state government has set up a round-the-clock control room in the secretariat annexe to monitor the situation. (ANI)

Assuring compliance with India’s new IT rules, Google on Wednesday said that that it will continue to build on its existing approaches and keep the policies as transparent as possible.

The company was responding to the Centre’s new IT rules, which will come into effect from today.
Google spokesperson in a statement said, “We realize that our work in keeping our platforms secure is never done and we will continue to refine our existing approaches, and evolve our policies and be as transparent as possible about how we make decisions.”

It further cited its ‘long history’ of managing content according to local laws to assure the Indian government of its continuing efforts to ensure legal compliance.

“We respect India’s legislative process and have a long history of responding to government requests to remove content where the content violates the local law or our product policies. We have consistently invested in significant product changes, resources, and personnel to ensure that we’re combating illegal content in an effective and fair way, and in order to comply with local laws in the jurisdictions that we operate in,” it added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Facebook said it aims to comply with the provisions of India’s new IT rules and will continue to discuss the few issues “which need more engagement” with the government.

On February 25, the Centre framed the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, in the exercise of powers under section 87 (2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and in supersession of the earlier Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011, which will come into effect from May 26.

The new guidelines issued by the government of India mandated a grievance redressal system for over the top (OTT) and digital portals in the country.

Briefing the media about the new rules on February 25, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said that though the government welcomes criticism and the right to dissent, “but it is very important for the users of social media to have a forum to raise their grievance against the misuse of social media.”

Under the new rules, social media platforms will have to have a grievance redressal mechanism, they will also have to name a grievance officer who shall register the grievance within 24 hours and disposal in 15 days.

The government had said that if there are complaints against the dignity of users, particularly women – about exposed private parts of individuals or nudity or sexual act or impersonation, etc – social media platforms will be required to remove that within 24 hours after a complaint is made.

As per the guidelines, first, the social media platforms will have to have a chief compliance officer residing in India responsible for ensuring compliance with the act and the rules.

Second is a nodal contact person who should reside in India for 24X7 coordination with law enforcement agencies. Also, social media platforms have to appoint a resident grievance officer who shall perform the grievance redressal mechanism as indicated. They also will have to publish a monthly report about the number of complaints received and the status of redressal. (ANI)