Junior Digest

New Delhi , December 27,2021: Underlining the importance that the Indian government is placing on the need to eradicate drugs from the country with the objective of a “Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan”, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday asked all states to form and notify a dedicated Anti Narcotics Task Force (ANTF).
Shah’s remarks came while presiding over the 3rd Apex Level Narco Coordination Centre (NCORD) meeting organized by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) here in the national capital in hybrid mode. The meeting lasted for over two hours and it was attended by Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, Director IB Arvind Kumar, Narcotics Control Bureau Chief SN Pradhan, Director Generals of Border Security Force and Sashastra Seema Bal, Chief Secretaries and DGPs of states and their representatives and administrators in the Union Territories (UTs) along with various concerned departments.
Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan and Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana also joined the meeting, organised in a hybrid model.
This high-level committee meeting was also attended by senior officers from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Department of Revenue (Ministry of Finance) and Indian Coast Guard.
The Minister reviewed the prevailing drug trafficking and abuse scenario in the country and expressed his concerns over its emergence as a national threat.
Shah stressed the need for close coordination between the states and central government agencies to tackle this problem that transcends boundaries. He then underscored the importance of organizing NCORD meetings regularly at all the levels with participation of senior officers to tackle this problem.
For strengthening the coordination mechanism, the Home Minister asked: “all states to form and notify a dedicated Anti Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) which can also function as NCORD Secretariat at the state level”.
To strengthen the existing mechanism and to spread more awareness among the people, the Minister directed to take some important measures such as the creation of a national NCORD Portal, the constitution of inter-ministerial standing committees (IMCs) to devise effective policies with regard to dual-use prescription drugs and precursors, raising of a national narco canine pool, and establishment of drug de-addiction centres in all prisons of 272 most affected districts.
The Union Home Minister also stressed upon the capacity building of drug law enforcement agencies and directed NCB to design special training programmes for police, paramilitary forces, public prosecutors and employees of concerned civil departments at the national level on various areas of narcotics control.
Shah expressed his concern over increasing drug trafficking through maritime route which has become an emerging challenge on the coastal front of the country and emphasized on the involvement of all stakeholders in the state NCORD meetings especially of coastal states and suggested extending the mandate of the existing Joint Co-ordination Committee (JCC) also under NCB.
To make the “Nasha-Mukt Bharat Abhiyan” successful, Union Home Minister said that the involvement of people from all spheres of the society is sought for and for this government of India is going to establish 24 x7 toll-free National Narcotics Call Centre to have an interface with the public for sharing of inputs and information on drug matters.
As per the survey reports, the NCB said the number of drug abusers has increased approximately seven folds in the last two decades, which is alarming.
To protect, especially the children and youth, the Home Minister later emphasized that there is a need to create awareness against drugs and its ill effects from a young age by incorporating them in the academic curriculum.
He also appreciated the initiative of MHA and NCB in creating a government e-Portal (Say Yes to Life, No to Drugs) for taking a pledge against drug abuse and thus creating awareness among the people and directing it to be even more widespread.
As a commitment towards a ‘Nasha Mukt Bharat’, the Minister exhorted everyone to be part of this ‘Jan Andolan’ to make our society and country free from drugs and directed all Govt Agencies to work in synergy and coordination to overcome this menace.
Considering the widespread threat of drug abuse and trafficking in the country, the Centre had launched ‘Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan’ under the aegis of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and constituted a four-tier narcotics coordination mechanism (NCORD), which extends upto district level.
The objective of NCORD is to bring all the central and state agencies involved in drug demand, supply and harm reduction on one platform to contain the drug menace in the country.
The NCORD is a mechanism under Director General NCB. It is constituted in order to have effective coordination among all the drug law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders, and also to provide a common platform for discussions on drug-trafficking related issues.
Revamped by MHA to create a 4-tier structure to improve coordination in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) matters, similar two NCORD meetings have been arranged in previous years and discussed issues related to NDPS policy and operational matters of the drug law enforcement agencies.

Islamabad, Dec 31,2021: Afghanistan’s former President Ashraf Ghani has said he had no choice but to abruptly leave Kabul as the Taliban closed in and denied an agreement was in the works for a peaceful takeover.

Ghani told BBC on Thursday that an adviser gave him just minutes to decide to abandon Kabul. He also denied accusations that he left Afghanistan with millions in stolen money.

Ghani’s sudden and secret departure on August 15 left the city rudderless as US and NATO forces were in the final stages of their chaotic withdrawal from the country after 20 years.

“On the morning of that day, I had no inkling that by late afternoon I would be leaving,” Ghani told BBC radio.

Former President Hamid Karzai said in an interview this month that Ghani’s departure scuttled the opportunity for government negotiators, including himself and peace council chairman Abdullah Abdullah, to reach an 11th-hour agreement with the Taliban, who had committed to staying outside the capital.

Ghani said he fled to prevent the destruction of Kabul. The erstwhile insurgents quickly took control of the palace.

Washington, Dec 23,2021: The TikTok social network has become the world’s most visited website in 2021, beating both Google and Facebook, media reported.

Google comes second, while Facebook third, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing the data provided by the Cloudflare company.

TikTok topped the list of the most visited portals for the first time in February, and significantly grew in popularity in August.

TikTok is an app for creating and watching short videos, developed by the Chinese company of ByteDance.

Dec 28,2021:The Delhi government has decided to enforce the ‘yellow’ alert of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) in the city as Covid cases and Omicron infections are on the rise in the national capital. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal held a meeting on the Covid situation in Delhi and announced a slew of restrictions to curtail the spread of the virus.
A night curfew is in effect from 10 pm to 5 am in the national capital.
UNDER THE NEW RULES, HERE’S WHAT WILL BE ALLOWED

Under the odd-even rule, shops and malls with non-essential services or goods will remain open from 10 am to 8 pm.
Construction work will continue, and the industry will remain open.
Restaurants will open with 50 per cent capacity but from 8 am to 10 pm, while bars will also open with 50 per cent capacity but from 12 noon to 10 pm.
Hotels will remain open but the banquet and conference halls inside the hotel will remain closed.
Delhi Metro will run with 50 per cent seating capacity.
Buses going from one state to another will run with 50 per cent seating capacity.
Only two passengers are allowed to travel in an auto, e-rickshaw, taxi and cycle rickshaw.
Salons and beauty parlors will remain open.
Only 20 people will be allowed to attend wedding ceremonies and funerals.
Religious places will remain open but entry of devotees will be restricted.
Private offices can open with 50 per cent capacity from 9 am to 5 pm.

WHAT’S NOT ALLOWED

Cinema halls and multiplexes will be closed.
Banquet halls and auditoriums will be closed.
Spas, gyms, yoga institutes and entertainment parks will remain closed.
Schools, colleges, educational institutions, and coaching institutes will be closed.

New Delhi, Dec 30,2021: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would hold a pre-Budget meeting with Finance Ministers of all States and Union Territories (with legislature) in New Delhi on Thursday.

While meeting with State Finance Ministers generally take place ahead of the Budget, demands and suggestions put forth by poll-bound states would be keenly noted in the interaction tomorrow.

Given the rising trend in Corona cases in various parts of the country, states are expected to demand more funds to deal with the challenge.

Higher spending on infrastructure could be another key area of discussion.

Meanwhile, Sitharaman today concluded pre-Budget meetings for forthcoming Union Budget 2022-23 which saw participation by as many as 120 invitees representing 7 stakeholder groups.

The stakeholder groups made several suggestions on various issues that included increased R&D spending, infrastructure status for digital services, incentives to hydrogen storage and fuel cell development, rationalisation of income tax slabs, investments in online safety measures etc., among others.

New York [US], December 31,2021: The United Nations welcomes the dialogue between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US leader Joe Biden on security and strategic issues, UN associate spokesperson Florencia Soto Nino told Sputnik.
On Thursday, the two presidents held a telephone call to discuss escalating tensions over Ukraine and the upcoming talks on the issue.
“We always welcome dialogue between the Member States,” Soto Nino said when asked about the phone call.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have increased in the past several weeks amid an alleged Russian troop buildup at the Ukrainian border and claims of preparations for an invasion. Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations, saying that Russia has the right to relocate the troops within its territory at its own discretion, while NATO’s military activity near Russian borders poses a threat to its security.
On December 17, Russia released proposals on security guarantees to NATO and the United States that seek to prevent the alliance’s further expansion eastward and ban the deployment of US and Russian intermediate and short-range missiles within reach of each other’s territory, among other items.
Negotiations on security guarantees between Moscow and Washington are scheduled for January 10, followed by a Russia-NATO Council meeting to discuss the issue on January 12, and the summit of Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe the following day.

Washington, Dec 30,2021: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed over the telephone with his French, German and UK counterparts coordination on Russia regarding the tensions with Ukraine as well as US concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press release.

“Secretary of State Antony J Blinken spoke today with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and UK Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss,” the release said on Wednesday. “They discussed the importance of continued coordination to deter any further Russian aggression against Ukraine… They reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.”

The United States and Russia will hold talks on arms control and Ukraine on January 10. Negotiations on security guarantees with NATO are expected to take place on January 12 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Dec 26,2021:NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, built to give the world its first glimpse of the universe as it existed when the earliest galaxies formed, was launched by rocket early Saturday from the northeastern coast of South America, heralding a new era of astronomy.

The revolutionary $9 billion infrared telescope, described by NASA as the “premiere space-science observatory of the next decade”, was carried aloft inside the cargo bay of an Ariane 5 rocket that blasted off at about 7:20 a.m. EST from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) launch base in French Guiana.

The flawless Christmas Day launch, with a countdown conducted in French, was carried live on a joint NASA-ESA webcast. The liftoff capped a project decades in the making, coming to fruition after years of repeated delays and cost overruns.

“From a tropical rain forest to the edge of time itself, James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe,” a NASA commentator said as the two-stage launch vehicle, fitted with double solid-rocket boosters, roared off its launch pad into cloudy skies.

After a 27-minute, hypersonic ride into space, the 14,000-pound instrument was released from the upper stage of the French-built rocket about 865 miles above the Earth, and should gradually unfurl to nearly the size of a tennis court over the next 13 days as it sails onward on its own.

Live video captured by a camera mounted on the rocket’s upper stage showed the Webb gliding gently away after it was jettisoned, drawing cheers and applause from jubilant flight engineers in the mission control centre.

Flight controllers confirmed moments later, as Webb’s solar-energy array was deployed, that its power supply was working.

Coasting through space for two more weeks, the Webb telescope will reach its destination in solar orbit 1 million miles from Earth – about four times farther away than the moon. And Webb’s special orbital path will keep it in constant alignment with the Earth as the planet and telescope circle the sun in tandem.

By comparison, Webb’s 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 340 miles away, passing in and out of the planet’s shadow every 90 minutes.

Named after the man who oversaw NASA through most of its formative decade of the 1960s, Webb is about 100 times more sensitive than Hubble and is expected to transform scientists’ understanding of the universe and our place in it.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, striking a spiritual tone as he addressed the launch webcast by video link, quoted the Bible and hailed the new telescope as a “time machine” that will “capture the light from the very beginning of the creation.”

Webb mainly will view the cosmos in the infrared spectrum, allowing it to peer through clouds of gas and dust where stars are being born, while Hubble has operated primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

The new telescope’s primary mirror – consisting of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal – also has a much bigger light-collecting area, enabling it to observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back into time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

That, astronomers say, will bring into view a glimpse of the cosmos never previously seen – dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set in motion the expansion of the observable universe an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

Hubble’s view reached back to roughly 400 million years following the Big Bang, a period just after the very first galaxies – sprawling clusters of stars, gases and other interstellar matter – are believed to have taken shape.

While Hubble caught glimmers of “toddler” galaxies, Webb will reveal those objects in greater detail while also capturing even fainter, earlier “infant” galaxies, astrophysicist Eric Smith, NASA’s Webb program scientist, told Reuters hours before the launch.

Aside from examining the formation of the earliest stars and galaxies, astronomers are eager to study super-massive black holes believed to occupy the centers of distant galaxies.

Webb’s instruments also make it ideal to search for evidence of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented exoplanets – celestial bodies orbiting distant stars – and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn’s icy moon Titan.

The telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp was the primary contractor. The Arianespace launch vehicle is part of the European contribution.

“The world gave us this telescope, and we handed it back to the world today,” Gregory Robinson, Webb program director for NASA told reporters at a post-launch briefing.

Webb was developed at a cost of $8.8 billion, with operational expenses projected to bring its total price tag to about $9.66 billion, far higher than planned when NASA was previously aiming for a 2011 launch. read more

Astronomical operation of the telescope, to be managed from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, is expected to begin in the summer of 2022, following about six months of alignment and calibration of Webb’s mirrors and instruments.

It is then that NASA expects to release the initial batch of images captured by Webb. Webb is designed to last up to 10 years.

New Delhi, Dec 22,2021: A 950-kilometre-long green corridor was created to transport lungs from an Ahmedabad hospital Gujarat to Max Super Speciality Hospital in Delhi in three hours to save the life of a 54-year-old man suffering from Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), statement from Max healthcare said.
The green corridor was created between the Civil Hospital of Ahmedabad and the city’s airport, and then between the IGI International Airport and Max Saket in Delhi, it added.
“Given the criticality of an early transplant for success, safe passage was facilitated by authorities. Swift action by the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO), Gujarat Police and Delhi Police ensured that the lungs reached the hospital in a timely manner. This ensured the retrieved lungs to be transplanted within the critical eight-hour chest to chest period,” the hospital said.
According to the hospital, the donated lungs were harvested from a 44-year-old man from Ahmedabad who was declared brain dead after brain haemorrhage.
“The harvested lungs were flown down to Delhi in clockwork precision. The patient has a known case of COPD and he urgently required lung transplant. We welcome this decision by the donor family to have stepped forward and agreed to donate several vital organs which will provide a new lease of life to critically ill patients,” Dr Rahul Chandola, Associate Director, Max Saket, said.
The critical surgery involved a team of 15 doctors and the operation was done for over 9 hours to successfully carry out the bilateral lung (both lungs) transplant, Chandola added.
The senior surgeon also expressed gratitude to the donor family and emphasised the need for more organ donations. “We remain indebted to the family of the donor who decided to serve critical patients even in their time of loss. Organ donation can save so many precious lives and I really hope that everyone embraces this cause,” he added.

Pretoria [South Africa], December 26,2021: Desmond Mpilo Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has died at the age of 90.
South African presidency in a statement expressed profound sadness at the passing today, of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu. Archbishop Tutu, the last surviving South African laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, passed away in Cape Town.
Tutu is widely known for his anti-apartheid campaign, which resulted in him receiving a Nobel Prize in 1984. Aside from his anti-apartheid campaign, he has spoken out on many other causes as well.
The archbishop also served as the chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the abolition of apartheid. He is known for coining the term “Rainbow Nation” to describe post-apartheid South Africa as a country where people of all racial and ethnic groups could live together in peace.
The Archbishop has been a “staunch advocate” for universal human rights, including the right to food, as well as the right to clean water, shelter, hygiene, sanitation and health care.

Alongside anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu was one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.
He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle to abolish the apartheid system.
In his 1984 Nobel Lecture, Archbishop Tutu said, “Unless we work assiduously so that all of God’s children, our brothers and sisters, members of our one human family, all will enjoy basic human rights, the right to a fulfilled life, the right of movement, of work, the freedom to be fully human, with a humanity measured by nothing less than the humanity of Jesus Christ Himself, then we are on the road inexorably to self-destruction, we are not far from global suicide; and yet it could be so different.”
After the news of the Archbishop’s demise broke out, Nelson Mandela Foundation issued a statement saying the loss of Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu is immeasurable. He was larger than life, and for so many in South Africa and around the world, his life has been a blessing.
“His contributions to struggles against injustice, locally and globally, are matched only by the depth of his thinking about the making of liberatory futures for human societies. He was an extraordinary human being. A thinker. A leader. A shepherd,” the statement said.
When Nelson Mandela passed away in 2013, Archbishop Emeritus Tutu had said: “This is a man who cared.” As the world mourns today the passing of the beloved Archbishop, the Foundation said “we, in turn, can say precisely the same of him.”

Geneva [Switzerland], December 30,2021: Emphasising that the Omicron variant is infecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated people worldwide, WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan has said that it appears that vaccines are still proving to be effective because even though the numbers are going up exponentially in many countries, severity of the disease has not surged to a new level.
“As expected, T cell immunity holding up better against #Omicron. This will protect us against severe disease. Please get vaccinated if you have not,” said Swaminathan in a tweet on Wednesday. Either vaccines or prior infections with COVID-19 trigger human T cell response.
Explaining factors that account for vaccine’s effectiveness against COVID-19, Swaminathan virtually at the WHO press briefing on Wednesday said that vaccine effectiveness varies a little bit between vaccines though the majority of all of the WHO Emergency Use Listing vaccines actually have very high rates of protection against severe disease and death at least till the delta variant.
She also said that there are biological factors also that decide a vaccine’s effectiveness. “It includes age, underlying illnesses and we know and proved it with all the variants that the older you are the more the underlying illnesses and co-morbidities the more vulnerable you are to get the disease,” she said.
Referring to the third factor which decides the effectiveness of the vaccine, Swaminathan said, “It is the time since vaccination and the waning of the immunity and we know that there is some amount of meaning but again there is more waning for infection against infectious and that is why we are seeing a lot of breakthrough infections now especially with Omicron because Omicron does have the capacity to overcome pre-existing immunity, and needs higher levels anti-bodies and protection.”
Further, she said that now the evidence on Omicron is just emerging and it would still be premature to conclude definitely but all of the lab studies are pointing towards a reduction in neutralisation capacity and also what it is clinically seen that people who have been vaccinated, people who have had prior infections are still getting breakthrough infections with Omicron.
“That is why the numbers that we are seeing around the world today are extremely high because these infections are occurring in both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. However, it appears that vaccines are proving to be still protective because even though the numbers are going up exponentially in many countries severity of the disease has not surged to a new level,” she added.
Stressing that hospitalisations and even within hospitalised people the need for ventilation, the need for critical care that does not seem to be going up proportionately, said Swaminathan, adding that this is a good sign and it is telling us that previous immunity is either due to vaccines or in some cases due to natural infection by the virus is providing some protection against the severe disease.
“And this is what we had expected because immunity, immune responses are much more than just neutralising antibodies,” she added.

Dec 26,2021:India will start administering COVID-19 booster shots as a precautionary measure to healthcare and other front-line workers from January 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, as cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant rise across the country.

In a TV address to the nation on Saturday night, Modi also said those above 60 years of age with comorbidities would be offered booster shots after a recommendation from doctors.

He added that those aged 15-18 would start receiving COVID-19 vaccinations from January 3.

“From the point of view of precaution, the government has decided that healthcare and front-line workers should start getting a precaution dose,” Modi said.
Modi said 1.8 million isolation beds, 500,000 oxygen-supported beds and 400,000 oxygen tanks were available in the country, among other hospital-related resources, as fears of another pandemic wave triggered by the Omicron variant grew.

India has reported a swift rise in Omicron cases, with the number reaching 415 overall across 17 Indian states.

Nagpur, Dec 28,2021: Union Minister for Road, Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said use of drones in the farm sector can generate about 50 lakh jobs in rural area, it was reported on Tuesday.

Gadkari was speaking at the concluding ceremony of ‘Agrovision’ exhibition in Nagpur.

He said the use of drone technology in farm sector is the need of the hour and it can generate up to 50 lakh jobs in the rural area in just one year.

Elaborating the idea further, Gadkari said for spraying pesticides and crop nutrients from drones, will require man power for operating them and this will help open up huge job opportunities in the rural area.

The union minister also said that he has discussed with his cabinet colleagues about the need to draft a policy on adopting the drone technology in the farm sector.

Boston,Dec 27,2021: Edward O. Wilson, the pioneering Harvard biologist who argued for a new vision of human nature in “Sociobiology” and warned against the decline of ecosystems, has died. He was 92. Wilson died on Dec. 26 in Burlington, Massachusetts, according to an announcement posted Monday on the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation’s website.
The professor and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author first gained widespread attention for his 1975 book, “Sociobiology: The New Synthesis,” in which he spelled out the evidence suggesting a link between human behavior and genetics. The work created a storm of controversy among activists and fellow academics who equated sociobiology’s groundbreaking theories with sexism, racism, and Nazism.
More recently, Wilson has championed the importance of preserving diverse species and ecosystems. “The diversity of life on Earth is far greater than even most biologists recognize,” he said in 1993. Less than 10% of the Earth’s species have scientific names, he said, making it “a still mostly unexplored planet.”

In 1979, “On Human Nature” — the third volume in a series including “The Insect Societies” and “Sociobiology” — earned Wilson his first Pulitzer Prize. His second Pulitzer came in 1991 with “The Ants,” which Wilson co-wrote with Harvard colleague Bert Holldobler.

Among his other honors was the 1990 Crafoord Prize in biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the highest scientific award in the field. Time magazine named him one of America’s 25 most influential people in 1996.

Wilson’s sociobiology theories transformed the field of biology and reignited the nature vs. nurture debate among scientists. Based on data about many species, Wilson argued that social behaviors from warfare to altruism had a genetic basis, an idea that contradicted the prevailing view that cultural and environmental factors determined human behavior.

Critics argued that such a theory bolstered social injustice, including discrimination against women, by saying that the inequality is written in human genes. Fifteen Boston-area scholars joined in a letter denouncing it, and in one case protesters dumped a pitcher of ice water on Wilson’s head while he was speaking at a scientific meeting in 1978.

He didn’t think genes determine all human behavior, but “in rough terms … maybe 10 percent” of it. He said later that the intensity of the reaction frightened him and for a time he gave up giving public lectures. “I thought my career was going up in flames,” he said.

His 2006 book, “The Creation,” argued that the fields of science and religion, “the most powerful social forces on Earth,” should work together for the protection of nature. The following year, he joined with more than two dozen other leaders in religion and science in signing a statement calling for urgent changes in values, lifestyles, and public policies to avert disastrous climate change.

The launching point for Wilson’s studies was a creature that had fascinated him since his teens — the ant. Showing an Associated Press reporter a dramatic microscopic view of an ant specimen in 1993, he commented, “I call it looking in the face of creation. You’re looking at something that may be a million years old, and nobody’s seen it before.”
His and Holldobler’s book “The Ants” featured detailed photographs of ants crawling through their daily lives, copulating, regurgitating food, and stinging to death other insects. It meticulously detailed the ants’ every move. He noted that the study of ants offered insights into the state of the environment because the welfare and diversity of ant populations might be useful as an indicator of subtle destructive changes in a seemingly normal area.

Wilson was born in 1929 in Birmingham, Alabama. As an only child whose parents divorced when he was 7, Wilson found comfort in nature, which he called his “companion of choice.” He also had to deal with the loss of sight in one eye in a fishing accident and, in his teens, a partial hearing loss.

The Boy Scouts provided Wilson an opportunity to further his enthusiasm for nature, and by the age of 15, Wilson had risen to the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1949. He received his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard in 1955 and became an assistant professor there in 1956. Wilson’s field research included stops in Australia, New Guinea, and Sri Lanka, in addition to his ongoing work at home.

He sat on the boards of directors of several environmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy. He was honored for his conservation efforts with the Gold Medal of the Worldwide Fund for Nature in 1990 and the Audubon Medal of the National Audubon Society in 1995. Wilson is survived by his daughter, Catherine. He was predeceased by his wife, Irene.

Dec 23,2021:The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir tablets and ritonavir tablets, co-packaged for oral use) for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kilograms or about 88 pounds) with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 testing, and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death. Paxlovid is available by prescription only and should be initiated as soon as possible after diagnosis of COVID-19 and within five days of symptom onset.

Dec22,2021:Nigeria’s presidency says dozens of people have been killed in violence between farmers and herders in the country’s central Nasarawa state.

In a statement late on Tuesday, the office of President Muhammadu Buhari said at least 45 farmers were killed in the violence that erupted on Friday. Dozens more were wounded, it said.
Buhari “expressed grief over the heart-wrenching” killings and said his government would “leave no stone unturned in fishing out the perpetrators of this senseless and barbaric incident, and bring them to justice”.

Local police said the violence broke out when armed Fulani herders attacked villagers from the Tiv ethnic group over the killing of a kinsman that they blamed on Tiv farmers. The unrest continued until Sunday.

New Delhi , December 28,2021: Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday announced the approval of two new indigenously developed vaccines and one anti-viral drug for the treatment of the adult patients of COVID-19 having a “high risk of progression of the disease”.
Taking to Twitter, Mandaviya said in a series of tweets, “Congratulations India Further strengthening the fight against COVID-19, CDSCO, @MoHFW_INDIA has given 3 approvals in a single day for: – CORBEVAX vaccine – COVOVAX vaccine – Anti-viral drug Molnupiravir For restricted use in an emergency situation.”
Further elaborating on CORBEVAX vaccine, the Minister said that it is the first indigenously developed RBD protein sub-unit vaccine against COVID-19.
“CORBEVAX vaccine is India’s 1st indigenously developed RBD protein sub-unit vaccine against #COVID19, Made by Hyderabad-based firm Biological-E. It’s a hat-trick! It’s now 3rd vaccine developed in India!” the Minister tweeted.
“The Nanoparticle Vaccine, COVOVAX, will be manufactured by Pune-based firm Serum Institute of India,” Mandaviya further added in the tweet.
The Minister informed that the antiviral drug, Molnupiravir will be used for emergency situation for the treatment of adult patients with COVID-19 and who have a high risk of progression of the disease.
“Molnupiravir, an antiviral drug, will now be manufactured in the country by 13 companies for restricted use under emergency situation for treatment of adult patients with COVID-19 and who have a high risk of progression of the disease,” he tweeted.
The Minister said that all these approvals will further strengthen the global fight against the pandemic adding that India’s Pharma Industries are asset for the entire world.
“PM @NarendraModi Ji has led the battle against #COVID19 from the front. All these approvals will further strengthen the global fight against the pandemic. Our Pharma Industries are asset for the entire world,” he tweeted.
Earlier, India had developed Covaxin, the first indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine which was developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) National Institute of Virology.