Indian Navy receives 3 Mk III Advanced Helicopters from HAL

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said that 22 countries have requested India for the supply of COVID-19 vaccines.  He informed Lok Sabha that India has already supplied Corona vaccines to 15 countries. Dr Harsh Vardhan said, the vaccines have been supplied both as grant assistance and contract doses. He said, as of February 2, a total of 56 lakh doses has been given as grant assistance and 105 lakh as contracts doses.Meanwhile, India has become the fastest country to complete 50 lakhs COVID-19 vaccinations in 21 days. While the US took 24 days and the UK 43 days, Israel took 45 days to complete 50 lakh vaccination. Briefing media in New Delhi, Additional Secretary in Health Ministry Dr Manohar Agnani said that a total of 52 lakh 90 thousand 4 hundred 74 beneficiaries have been vaccinated till 6 PM yesterday. He said, a total of 1 lakh 4 thousand 7 hundred 81 sessions have been held till now. Dr Agnani said 3 lakh 31 thousand 29 beneficiaries were vaccinated all over the country.

-Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways has issued the guidelines for floating structures with a vision to set up world-class floating infrastructure all along the coastline in the upcoming projects as per the provisions contained in the guidelines.The guidelines sets out various technical aspects for implementation of Floating Jetties or Platforms for Marinas, Minor Harbors, Fishing Harbours or Fish landing centers, Waterdromes and such other similar facilities in coastal areas, estuaries, waterways, rivers and reservoirs. These guidelines may also be suitably utilized for floating pontoons or platforms in various waterborne systems and floating wave attenuators or breakwaters for Minor Harbors or Fish Landing facilities.Floating structure because of its inherent advantages is an attractive solution and it is being promoted by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. The benefits of floating jetties or structures over the conventional quay and fixed concrete structures include its cost-effectiveness, faster implementation, easily expandable and re-locatable and having minimal environmental impacts.

-The Centre is working on setting up a Single Window System for clearances and approvals of industry in the country. Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash told this in a written reply in Rajya Sabha on Friday.Presently investors have to visit multiple IT platforms and offices of various stakeholders to gather information and obtain clearances. To address this, a centralized Investment Clearance Cell was proposed. The cell is being planned as a One-stop digital platform to obtain all requisite central and state clearances and approvals required to start business operations in India.The Investment Clearance Cell will be a National portal that integrates the existing clearance systems without disruption to the existing IT portals and will have a single, unified application form. This will provide time-bound approvals and real time status to investors.

-The Centre told the Supreme Court that it is agreeable to grant one more chance to those civil services aspirants who took the exam last year during the Corona pandemic and exhausted their number of attempts.The government, however, said it will not grant another chance to those hit by the age bar. The Centre's response was filed in view of a bunch of petitions filed by students seeking one more chance to appear for examination on the ground that they could not prepare for the test due to the pandemic and were forced to appear as the government turned down their plea to defer the exam.There were 3,863 candidates who had exhausted their number of attempts, while taking the test last year. Of these, 555 qualified the preliminary test and the government's decision will benefit 3,308 candidates.There were 2,236 students who are affected by the age bar and they need relaxation of one year. But the government told a bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar that it is not in favour of giving relaxation to students hit by the age bar.

-The Indian Navy received three "made in India" Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) from the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) today. The helicopters are customised for coastal security.The Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Karambir Singh informed media persons on the side-lines of Aero India show in Bengaluru that out of the 16 Mk-III helicopters ordered, three were delivered on Friday.The naval version of ALH is fitted with an array of advanced sensors that can detect Mumbai terror attacks like intrusions on Indian waters. These helicopters have latest generation avionics, indigenous low frequency dunking sonar, full glass cockpit with integrated architecture display system and the powerful Shakti engines.It also has a nose mounted surveillance radar with 270 degree coverage that can detect and track multiple marine targets. Its synthetic aperture radar and inverse synthetic aperture radar can detect targets on sea.