India continues to scale several peaks in its fight against the COVID19 pandemic. As the country readies for the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been pro-actively involved in the preparations for this roll-out over the past couple of months to ensure that the preparations for roll-out of COVID-19 vaccine are on track, in close collaboration with the States, UTs and other stakeholders.

In a massive nation-wide exercise yesterday, an end-to-end mock drill on the vaccine administration was conducted in all States and UTs at 286 session sites spread across 125 districts. Each District conducted the dry run at three sites or more which included a public health facility District Hospital or Medical College, Private Health Facility and rural or urban outreach sites.

All the State and District officials were trained on the Operational Guidelines and  for conducting the dry-run. This dry run was aimed at testing the laid out mechanisms for COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in the health system and to assess operational feasibility of using Co-WIN application in the field environment for planning, implementation and reporting at the block, district and state level.

The dry run was also conducted to familiarize the State, District, Block and Hospital level officers on all aspects of COVID-19 roll out.

The States and UTs conducted the dry run from 9 am across the country, in a seamless manner. The activities starting from beneficiary data upload, session site allocation and micro planning, vaccine allocation, session site management with test beneficiaries, reporting mechanism etc were covered in this one day dry run to execute the nearest possible simulation of the actual day.

The preparation to handle any Adverse Events Following Immunization at all session sites and functionality of the Call Centers was also tested.

The dry run was supervised by the District collectors. This dry run ended with debriefing meetings at district and the state level to discuss the issues and challenges encountered during the day. The Health Ministry was in constant touch with the States throughout the day to seek feedback on their experience.

The States and UTs have expressed complete satisfaction on the successful conduct of the dry run which included the operational process and its linkages with the Co-WIN Software.

The Co-WIN software has been developed by Health Ministry for real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries for COVID-19 vaccine.

This software will assist the programme managers across all levels through automated session allocation for pre-registered beneficiaries, their verification and a digital certificate will be generated upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule.  More than 75 lakh beneficiaries have been registered on Co-WIN software till date.

The cold chain infrastructure is sufficient to ensure last mile delivery of COVID-19 vaccine in a temperature controlled environment across the country. Sufficient supplies of syringes and other logistics have also been ensured to begin COVID-19 vaccination drive.

Around 1 lakh 14 thousand one hundred vaccinators have been trained on the process to be followed at the vaccination sites which includes beneficiary verification, vaccination, cold chain and logistics management, Bio-Medical Waste management, Adverse Events Following Immunization  management and uploading the information on Co-WIN software.

The entire operational planning and IT platform has been field tested in four states which include Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Punjab and Gujarat on 28th and 29th December 2020 and on the basis of feedback received, minor enhancements have been made in the IT system.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called upon students to discover new and innovative solutions to make local products global. Addressing the students and faculty of IIM Sambalpur, Odisha, he said, IIMs can work as a bridge between local products and international collaboration for Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Mr Modi said, the vast talent pool of the IIMs both within and outside the country can help realise the goals of globalising brand India. Mr Modi said, today’s startups are the multinational companies of tomorrow.

Prime Minister yesterday laid the foundation stone of the permanent campus of IIM Sambalpur, via video conferencing.

Prime Minister said that the real task of the management is not just to manage the institutions but also to improve the lives of the people. Mr Modi said, those who are left behind in the race of development must also be included in the journey towards growth. 

We all thought this was a temporary thing. But here we are. People are already calling this the “COVID era” as if they are reading about it in a history book. But we’re still going through it. For most of my friends and family, the social distancing and handwashing aren’t that bad. We got used to that stuff quickly. The tough part about this era is that life has changed permanently for many folks. 

Rifts are created between people with different beliefs on wearing a mask. Complete industries are swept away and will probably never be the same. The world has truly changed. In this article, I’m sharing certain lessons I’ve learned from observing all these changes. Hopefully, these short reminders will make life during this era easier for all of us.

1. It’s hard on everybody
   I know your life is hard. But so is the life of your neighbor. That puts us all in the same boat. So go easy on yourself and others.
2. Nothing is forever
   It seems like this will last forever. But everything dies. And so will pandemics.
3. Accept it as if you chose this
   This is the only form of useful lying in the world. Trick yourself into believing you wanted a more tranquil and solitary life.Simply accept everything that’s outside of your control as something you wanted. Life will be a lot rosier.
4. Make the best of your time
   Accepting circumstances doesn’t mean we give up. Make the best of it. To be clear: Worrying and thinking about stuff that’s outside of your control is NOT a good use of your time.
5. Take a breather
   Literally. Take a moment for yourself and breeeeath…. Aaaah. Yes, that’s the feeling.
6. Exercise every day
   Stay in shape. If you’re not injured or ill, it’s your duty to take care of your body. Never take this lightly. 
7. Get off social media
   It’s a waste of your time. “Always?” Pretty much.
8. Read books
   This is a better use of your time. We all have reading lists with hundreds of books on them. And we’re not going to live 200 years. That means you need to make some tough choices. Which books will you read before you die?
9. Learn new skills
   Technology is improving and changing so fast that we’re not aware what’s going on. We just learn it after the fact. But that’s too late. So stay on top of your field and keep learning new skills you need to do good work.
10. Keep a daily journal
    This will probably be one of the weirdest times of our lives. Don’t you want to document this? Even if you never read it again, it’s still worth writing because it makes you a better thinker. 
11. Inspiration comes from within
    “I need to go to Paris for inspiration.” Replace Paris with any city or place in the world. Why do we think inspiration comes from the outside? Look inside!
12. Good food improves your mood
    One of the few pleasures that you never get used to. Research new recipes, be creative, and cook food that makes you go, “Hmmmmnn.”
13. Objects will not make you happy -I had to tell myself that after a few too many useless purchases.
14. More money is not the answer
    Look, I’m not going to lie. Having a little bit of money will lighten the load. So start that online business or side-gig you’ve been thinking about. But don’t expect that money will make you happy. It just solves your money problems. Nothing else.
15. Do work you enjoy
    Just because you need to survive, don’t say yes to the first available job you encounter. And also don’t start some kind of soulless online business so you can make a few bucks. Find something you enjoy and pays the bills. 
16. Appreciate what you have
    The grass is always greener. We tend to forget. So here’s a reminder: If you’re reading this on your smartphone in the comfort of your house, your life isn’t so bad. 
17. Give back
    Do something altruistic. Talk to your elderly neighbors, hold the door for someone, share your hard-earned lessons with others. Small things that have a positive impact on people.
18. Change is good
    This is a difficult period if your industry got swept away. But remember, change is a part of life. And in the long-term, it’s good. We just don’t see the sunshine when we’re going through a storm. 
19. Stop consuming—Start creating -The world never changed for the better by doing nothing. Right now, our biggest challenge is paralysis by consumption. We’re over-consuming everything: News, food, clothes, entertainment, you name it.

To get through this era, we need more action. So stop sitting there and go create something. Without creation, there’s no progress.

Government has decided to resume flights between India and the UK from the 8th of this month. These services were suspended last month to prevent the spread of a new variant of Covid-19 discovered recently in the UK.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK till January 23. Indian and UK carriers will each be operating 15 flights per week during this period to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad only.

Over 60 passenger flights per week were flying between India and the UK in December. But the Civil Aviation Ministry suspended all passenger flights connecting the two countries from December 23. Several countries had also suspended flight services to the UK in the wake of the new Covid-19 strain.

Centre has decided to extend Disability Compensation to all serving employees, if they get disabled in the line of duty while performing their service and are retained in service in spite of such disablement.

This was announced by Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Jitendra Singh yesterday. He said, the move will particularly provide a huge relief to young Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel like CRPF, BSF and CISF since disability in performance of duties is generally reported in their case due to constraints of job requirement as well as hostile or difficult work-environment.

Dr Singh said, Narendra Modi Government is making all efforts to simplify the rules and to do away with discriminatory clauses. The ultimate objective of all these new initiatives is to provide ease of living for the government servants even after they have superannuated and become pensioners or family pensioners or elder citizens.

In another employee-friendly decision, the Ministry of Personnel recently did away with minimum qualifying service of 10 years for pension, if a government servant is incapacitated due to bodily or medical infirmity and retired from government service.

Accordingly, the rule was amended to provide Invalid Pension at 50 per cent of the last pay, even if the employee had not completed minimum qualifying service of 10 years.

In addition to these, in yet another reform in the Pension Rules, a decision was also taken to amend the rule and provide pension at enhanced rate to the family of an employee who died during service before completing the requisite service of minimum seven years.

As a result, now the family pension of 50 per cent of the last pay is also admissible to the family of employees who die even before completing seven years of service.

India crossed yet another significant milestone in its fight against COVID, as the active caseload in the country today has further decreased to stand at 2.43 per cent. With continuous decline in the number of active corona cases, the active cases in the country witnessed a decline of nearly 4 thousand cases in the past 24 hours to stand at around 2 lakh 50 thousand.

The number of new daily cases remained below 20 thousand with nearly 19 thousand fresh cases being reported in the last 24 hours.

The national cumulative recovery rate has also further improved to 96.12 per cent with the recovery of over 99 lakh people so far. With recovery of over 22 thousand 900 people in the last 24 hours, the number of daily recoveries continue to outnumber the new daily cases. The total recovered cases in the country today stands at nearly 40 times the number of active cases.

The Health Ministry has informed that enhanced countrywide medical infrastructure, implementation of the Centre’s Standard Treatment Protocol by the States and Union Territories and total dedication and commitment of doctors, paramedics and frontline workers have led to a persistent increase in the number of total recoveries in the country.

The Health Ministry has said that this has also led to a commensurate dip in the fatality rate which stands at 1.45 per cent. It informed that 224 case fatalities were reported in the past 24 hours. 

A nationwide dry run for Covid-19 vaccination will be conducted today. Dry run is essentially a practice session where a sample number of beneficiaries will go through a mock immunisation process. The exercise is aimed at testing the preparedness for the vaccine rollout. Today’s dry run will be conducted across all States and Union Territories. Each State and Union Territory has been asked to conduct the dry run at minimum three session sites.

Apart from the staff of the designated vaccination centres, the dry run will see the participation of a select group of health care workers as test vaccine beneficiaries. Each centre will identify 25 test beneficiaries for the dry run.

The mock drill will ensure that phase 1 of Covid-19 vaccination goes without any glitch. The dry run will test linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges. The dry run will also test Co-WIN application, developed specifically for Covid-19 vaccination drive, in a field environment.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan chaired a high-level meeting yesterday to review preparedness for the dry run. Head of the COVID Task Force and NITI Aayog Member Dr VK Paul said that the dry run of vaccination is important to ascertain the preparedness and operational functioning of COWIN under actual circumstances.

States are also augmenting the state helpline 104 which will be used in addition to 1075 for any vaccine related query. Call centre executives have been given an orientation and capacity building training.

A two-day trial run was earlier conducted on December 28 and 29 in four states – Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat. The planned operations and the laid-out mechanisms for the drive was successful then.

Health and Family Welfare Ministry said all states expressed satisfaction in terms of the operational approach and use of IT platform to ensure transparency and effective monitoring of vaccination processes expected to cover a large number of people across the country.

Today’s startups are the multinational companies of tomorrow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today adding that the scope of startups is increasing from farming to the space sector.

Prime Minister Modi laid the foundation stone for the permanent campus of IIMSambalpur, Odisha, via video conferencing today. Most startups are coming up in tier II and III cities of the country. From the farming sector to space sector, the scope for startups is increasing,” said PM Modi on the occasion.

The permanent campus of IIM Sambalpur will represent the great heritage of Odisha, the Prime Minister stated.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, India has witnessed more number of unicorns in 2020. The youth have a huge responsibility towards Brand India, he added.

Till 2014, there were 13 IIMs in India. Today, there are 20 IIMs. Such a large talent pool can help strengthen the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ campaign, PM Modi emphasized.

Present on the occasion, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, set up in 2015, IIM Sambalpur has already proved its mettle. I am delighted that the Prime Minister is laying the foundation stone for infrastructural development of IIM Sambalpur.

In just about five years it (IIM Sambalpur) has been able to cast its positive impact upon the hierarchy of educational institutions in Odisha,” said Mr. Patnaik. Odisha has a tradition of excellence in education since ancient times, he added.  

IIM Sambalpur is the first IIM to implement the idea of the flipped classroom where the basic concepts are learnt in digital mode and experiential learning takes place in the class, through live projects from the industry.

The Institute also outscored all other IIMs in terms of the highest gender diversity with 49  per cent girl students in MBA (2019-21) batch and 43 per cent in MBA (2020-22) batch, the statement said.

Odisha Governor Professor Ganeshi Lal, Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Chandra Sarangi were present on the occasion.

The ceremony was virtually attended by over 5,000 invitees including officials, industry leaders, academicians and students, alumni and faculty of IIM Sambalpur.

Few countries around the world welcomed 2021 with fireworks, but crowds were only allowed at some displays.  New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to welcome the New Year and fireworks lit up Hagley Park in Christchurch during New Year celebrations.

Fireworks exploded over the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge as New Year celebrations began in Australia. Taiwan hosted its usual fireworks display by its capital city’s iconic tower, Taipei 101.Thailand ushered in the New Year with a fireworks display at the Iconsiam mall in Bangkok. Officials in Hong Kong cancelled the pyrotechnics over Victoria Harbour, as well as the annual iconic Lunar New Year parade in February. This makes 2021 the second year in a row the city has missed out on the usually lavish annual celebrations.

Japan rang in the New Year without its annual event at which Emperor Naruhito and other imperial family members greet members of the public. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual message online.

Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank today announced the schedule of the CBSE Board examinations for class 10th and 12th. He said that the CBSE board examinations will be held from 4th May to 10th June of 2021. He said the results will be declared by 15th July. The practical examination for class 12th will start from 1st March.

Mr. Nishank appreciated the role of teachers and parents saying that they provided constant support and help to the students during the unprecedented and uncertain situation caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

He said, teachers adopted new techniques and methods for teaching. The Minister also highlighted various steps taken by the government to provide a platform and content for learning through digital medium. He said, the government has successfully conducted JEE and NEET exams during the COVID-19 pandemic which is unprecedented.

Government has ordered 83 crore syringes for COVID-19 vaccination drive and Universal Immunization Programme in the country. The Union Health Ministry said the centre has also invited bids for 35 crore more syringes. Government has prioritized 30 crore people for COVID vaccine which includes health workers, frontline workers and sanitation staff.

Earlier, the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of COVID-19 has recommended three prioritised population groups including Healthcare Workers of about one crore, Frontline Workers about 2 crore and Prioritized Age Group about 27 crore. As vaccines are temperature sensitive and need to be stored in specific temperature, the present cold chain system consisting of 85 thousand 634 equipment for storage of vaccines at about 28 thousand 947 cold chain points across the country will be used for the cold chain administration.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of Light House Projects (LHPs) under Global Housing Technology Challenge (GHTC)-India at six sites across six States through video conferencing.

The Prime Minister will also announce winners under Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators (ASHA)- India and give out annual awards for excellence in implementation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) Mission.

During the event, Mr Modi will also release a certificate course on innovative construction technologies named NAVARITIH (New, Affordable, Validated, Research Innovation Technologies for Indian Housing) and a compendium of 54 innovative housing construction technologies identified through GHTC-India.

The Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs along with Chief Ministers of Tripura, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh will be present on the occasion.

The LHPs showcase the best of new-age alternate global technologies, materials and processes in the construction sector for the first time in the country at such a large scale. They are being constructed under GHTC-India, which envisages to provide an ecosystem for adoption of innovative technologies in the housing construction sector in a holistic manner. The LHPs are being constructed at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Rajkot in Gujarat, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Ranchi in Jharkhand, Agartala in Tripura and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. They comprise about one thousand houses at each location along with allied infrastructure facilities. These projects will demonstrate and deliver ready to live houses at an expedited pace within twelve months, as compared to conventional brick and mortar construction, and will be more economical, sustainable, of high quality and durability.

These LHPs demonstrate a variety of technologies, including Prefabricated Sandwich Panel System in LHP at Indore, Monolithic Concrete Construction using Tunnel Formwork in LHP at Rajkot, Precast Concrete Construction System in LHP at Chennai, 3D Volumetric Precast Concrete Construction System in LHP at Ranchi, Structural Steel Frame with Light Gauge Steel Infill Panels in LHP at Agartala and PVC Stay In Place Formwork System in LHP at Lucknow. The LHPs will serve as live laboratories for facilitating transfer of technology to the field and its further replication. This includes planning, design, production of components, construction practices and testing for both faculty and students of IITs, NITs, other Engineering colleges, Planning and Architecture colleges, builders, professionals of private and public sectors and other stakeholders.

ASHA-India aims to promote domestic research and entrepreneurship by providing incubation and acceleration support to potential future technologies. Under ASHA-India initiative, five ASHA-India Centers have been set up for providing incubation and acceleration support. The potential technology winners under acceleration support will be announced by the Prime Minister. The technologies, processes and materials identified through this initiative will provide a major fillip to young creative minds, start-ups, innovators and entrepreneurs.

PMAY-U Mission has been designed to achieve the vision of Housing For All by 2022. In order to recognize the outstanding contribution by States, UTs, Urban Local Bodies and beneficiaries, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has introduced annual awards for excellence in implementation of PMAY-Urban. The winners of PMAY (Urban) Awards-2019 will be felicitated during the event.