There is confusion on what the EU Covid certificate will mean for Indians after learning that although the EU does say it is applicable for “any Covid vaccine”, the technical specifications speak something else.
CORONAVIRUS NEWS
🇪🇺✈️ EU Confusion: Technical specifications in the EU Digital COVID Certificate, the vaccine that people must get to travel to EU and within the bloc, must be one that is approved by it. This disqualifies all vaccines approved by India, including Covishield. The approved vaccines are – Comirnaty (Pfizer/BioNTech), Moderna, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca/Oxford). Curiously, Covishield is derived from Vaxzevria. The EU has allowed members to accept whichever vaccine they want.
🌊🌊🌊🌍: The Delta Variant is surging in South Africa and the rest of the continent as the vaccination is faltering over there. It was earlier reported that India’s second wave had affected the vaccine supply to Africa. Meanwhile, Australia, which has largely been protected thanks to its near-isolation from the rest and swift testing and tracing, saw its highest daily spike. Here too, it’s the Delta strain.
“I’ve myself been vaccinated with both doses (of Covaxin). And my mother is close to a hundred years of age…she too has taken both doses! If someone says corona is gone, don’t be under this mistaken notion.”
Narendra Modi, Prime Minister in his Mann ki Baat address
INDIA NEWS
💥 Drone attack?: Jammu airport, also an IAF base, may have been struck by a drone strike, the first such terror attack on an Indian military base. Investigations are still going on on how the “attack” was carried out. Suspected that drones dropped the bomb and flew back.
🖥️ CyberPower: India’s cyber firepower is focussed at Pakistan, finds a report, and not China that is suspected to be behind many attacks. India has made only “modest progress” in the field of cybersecurity, it finds, and relies on partners like the US for insight. India needs better organisation and develop its private sector in digital domain.
🐘 Going Alone: BSP will not be partnering with anyone in the upcoming state elections to Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, says Mayawati.
✋✊ SAD shoots video, Cong shoots self: After a SAD leader puts out a video of an alleged illegal sand mining operation (some call it fly ash removal) in Punjab, the state’s Congress has turned on itself with the party MLA tweeting and reposting it and tagging Punjab CM Amarinder Singh. The episode exposes, once again, the deep fault lines in the party.
👨🏻⚖️ ”Unfair Judge”: Bengal Bar Council chief, also a TMC MLA, has written to the Chief Justice of India against Calcutta High Court acting chief justice Rajesh Bindal calling him “unfair” and “partial”. Justice Bindal’s move to set aside affidavits from Mayawati and her law minister in the Narda bribery case was earlier annulled by the Supreme Court.
*🛕 Ayodhya Land Dispute: A key parcel of land that is now supposedly under the ownership of the Ram Temple Trust is under dispute with the original owner’s descendants planning to go to court over it. The dispute is complicated but in a nutshell – original owners gave it to a Waqf Board, which was then reclaimed by a few descendants (and this is disputed, there is a court stay on the matter) who sold it off to a few people who sold it off to the Trust.
WORLD NEWS
🇺🇸🆚🇮🇷: The US conducted “small” airstrikes on “Iran-backed” militia strongholds in Iraq and Syria from where done strikes were conducted against American troops.
⛪⛪🔥Churches Gutted: Two more churches on Indigenous land were destroyed in Canada. Last week, two churches were destroyed in a fire. The incidents follow discovery of human remains under former Catholic schools built to assimilate Indigenous people.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
📈 Debt soars: India’s debt-GDP% soared to 58%in the last fiscal from 47.9% in FY’19. The economic contraction had forced the govt to borrow more.
SPORT
🇮🇳🏹🥇🥇🥇 Archery: India’s Deepika Kumari bagged three gold medals at the World Cup Stage 3.
IE interview with Michale Holding, former West Indies cricketer
On racism: “If you look at all the Black people and the people of colour that have hit out against racism and made a stand, their careers ended in no time at all.”
On-field abuse: “We in that team never said anything to anyone, we never abused anyone on the cricket field. Perhaps that is the reason why people didn’t really say anything to us.”
On bouncers causing concussion: “You try and protect people as much as you can… But don’t turn it into a softball competition. Cricket also is a test of your strength of character.”
On Indian cricket: “When I played against India, probably two of the players were fit. Now everybody on the field is fit.”
NEWS OF YESTERDAY
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria assassinated on this day in 1914 sparking World War I
News Of Today 