Aarogya Setu App to have backend code

Ministry of Electronics and  Information Technology has released the  backend code of Aarogya Setu App in open domain. The source code of the Android and iOS versions were released earlier and the backend source code is also being released as per the policy of Government of India to share all code repositories with developer community.Ministry of Electronics and IT in  a statement said that Aarogya Setu has proved to be very useful in India’s fight against COVID19 and rRelease of the source code of the Aarogya Setu App is a step in the direction of reaffirming the commitment of the Government to complete transparency.The Ministry said, the App has been downloaded by more than 16.43 crore users and has greatly augmented the efforts of front line health workers in the fight against COVID19. It has helped identify Bluetooth contacts of COVID positive users and issued s for helping people to stay safe.

-The National Highways Authority of India(NHAI) has received overwhelming response from many reputed Institutes for its initiative of collaborating with Premier Institutes to leverage local expertise .According to NHAI, as many as 18 IITs , 26 NITs and 190 other reputed Engineering colleges have agreed to collaborate  with NHAI.  Out of which, about 200 Institutes have already signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).NHAI  has said that it had introduced a unique initiative to associate with reputed Technical Institutes and Engineering colleges to adopt nearby stretches of National Highways, on voluntary basis under Institution Social Responsibility. It said, over 300 Institutes are expected to collaborate to adopt NH stretches.NHAI envisions to provide a world class National Highway  network to meet the Nation’s requirements by building a large number of mega highway projects in a cost-effective manner.

-The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine candidate shows a strong immune response in adults in their 60s and 70s, according to researchers, raising hopes that it can protect age groups most at risk from the virus.Researchers say the Lancet phase two findings, based on 560 healthy adult volunteers, are encouraging.Three vaccines - Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik and Moderna - have already reported good preliminary data from phase three trials, with one suggesting 94% of people over 65 could be protected from Covid-19. Older people's weaker immune systems generally mean vaccines do not tend to function as well as they do in younger people. But, these trial results from the University of Oxford, peer-reviewed in the Lancet, suggest that may not be a problem. They show that older adults aged 56-69 and over 70 had a similar immune response to younger adults aged 18-55.

-Hong Kong has banned Air India flights from Delhi till December 3 after a few passengers on its flight tested positive for the novel coronavirus post-arrival earlier this week, an official said on Friday. This is the fifth time Air India's flights from India have been banned by the Hong Kong government for bringing passengers who tested positive for the pathogen after arrival. Passengers from India can arrive in Hong Kong only if they have a coronavirus-negative certificate from a test done within 72 hours prior to the journey. All international passengers are required to undergo a post-flight COVID-19 test at the airport, according to rules issued by the city state's government in July. The previous bans on the airline's Delhi-Hong Kong flights were from August 18-31, September 20-October 3 and October 17-30, and on its Mumbai-Hong Kong flights during October 28-November 10. Besides India, a pre-flight COVID-negative certificate is mandatory for all passengers from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, France, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, the UK and the US, according to the Hong Kong government's rules.

-The Supreme Court Friday said it would hear on November 23 the plea filed by Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam seeking direction to the RBI for framing regulation to ensure that data collected on UPI platforms is not exploited or used in any manner other than for processing payments.The matter came up for hearing before a bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian which listed it for hearing next week. On October 15, the apex court had sought responses from the Centre, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and others including Google Inc, Facebook Inc, WhatsApp and Amazon Inc on the plea.Viswam, the Communist Party of India (CPI) leader, has sought a direction to the RBI and the NPCI to ensure that data collected on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platforms is not shared with their parent company or any other third party under any circumstances.