India records highest number of vaccinations in one day

Union Minister for Development of Northeastern Region (DoNER), G Kishan Reddy on Tuesday held a virtual meeting in New Delhi with the Chief Ministers, Agriculture Ministers, Chief Secretaries and other senior officials of all eight Northeastern States which was mainly focused on the growth of agriculture in the North East. The aim of the meeting was to review the specific schemes under the Ministry of Agriculture such as the recently introduced National Mission on Edible Oils, the Bamboo Development plan, the holistic horticulture development plan for the Northeastern region, and the development of organic farming plans.The meeting also focused on reviewing allocations by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s welfare under the 10 per cent  Gross Budgetary support. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare  Narendra Singh Tomar. In his address, Tomar said that  he looks forward to jointly conducting the business summit on agriculture in the Northeastern region between the Agriculture and DoNER ministries.

-India hosted the 8th Meeting of Agriculture Experts of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Countries virtually o Tuesday. Dr Trilochan Mohapatra, Director General of  Indian Council of Agricultural Research chaired the daylong meeting. Ministry of Agriculture in  a statement said that experts of Agricultural Ministries from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand participated in the meeting. During the meeting, Dr Mohapatra highlighted the UN Food System Summit 2021 and the transformations that are happening in the agriculture and food systems globally. He exhorted to enhance the engagement and deepen the cooperation in agriculture and allied sectors amongst the BIMSTEC Member States.He also emphasized addressing biosafety and biosecurity concerns and promoting digital agriculture along with the trade of technologies for developing resilient agriculture, food systems and value chains.The BIMSTEC Member States appreciated the greater engagement of India offering six slots of scholarships each for Master and PhD programmes in agriculture and its other initiatives for capacity development and training including the development of seed sectors. The cooperation in the areas of high impact transboundary diseases of livestock and poultry; aquatic animal diseases and bio-security in aquaculture and digitalization to promote precision farming was also discussed in the meeting.

-Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday conducted an aerial survey of flood-affected areas of the State to assess the damage caused by prevailing floods. Kumar made an aerial survey of flood-affected Darbhanga  and Madhubani  districts to take stock of the situation arising out of floods.The Chief Minister also visited flood affected Kuseshwarsthan area in Darbhanga district on boat. Nitish Kumar visited relief camps and community kitchen centres to oversee ongoing relief works. After visiting flood affected areas, Kumar said rupees six thousand is being given to each of the flood affected family. Kumar directed the civil administration and health officials to take special care of pregnant women, elderly and children affected by floods. 

-India and Russia have robust and growing bilateral energy cooperation, which is a key pillar of Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries. Russia is the largest investment destination for the Indian oil and gas companies. Indian public sector companies have made investments in Russia of about 16 billion dollars including in the Far East and East Siberia in oil and gas assets such as Sakhalin-1, Vankor and Taas-Yuryakh. Russia is also the largest investor in India’s oil and gas sector and India is encouraging further investments by Russian companies in India’s oil and gas sector, especially in gas infrastructure and the Exploration and Production sector.

-India administered another one-crore COVID19 vaccine Tuesday . For the second time, India has crossed one crore vaccination in a single day. Health Minister Mansukha Mandaviya said, the highest one-day record of 1.09 crore vaccine doses was achieved till 6 pm today and still counting.He said, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is fighting strongly against corona. Mr. Mandaviya congratulated people for the achievement.India has administered over 64 crore five lakh doses of COVID vaccine, so far, under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive. The Health Ministry said, more than 59 lakh 62 thousand vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours.