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Vaccination along with public behavior to decide third wave: AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria

Leave a Comment / By / Health & Wellness Community

Visakhapatnam: The magnitude of the Covid-19 third wave will depend on adherence to appropriate behaviour, the extent of vaccination and aggressive surveillance, said Dr Randeep Guleria, noted pulmonologist and AIIMS Delhi director. Dr Guleria was bestowed Gitam Deemed-to-be University’s 41st Foundation Award in Visakhapatnam on Saturday. In an interview done by TOI, Dr Guleria said the only unpredictable factor that may affect the trajectory of the third wave could be constant mutations of the virus. “However, I believe the impact of the third wave may not be as bad as the second wave. But people should understand we are yet to overcome the second wave as India is still reporting about 40,000 cases a day,” said Dr Guleria. When asked if any vaccine tweaking is needed for the mutations, the AIIMS director said existing Covid-19 vaccines are effective against all variants. Even if vaccine recipients contract the virus, the disease will be milder and prevent deaths, he said. In reply to a question on the need for booster shots, Dr Guleria said booster shots can be considered only after vaccinating all people in the country. Answering a query on the anticipated impact of the third wave on children, Dr Guleria said there is no scientific evidence to prove that it may disproportionately affect kids. “It is only a general assumption. As per the recent sero-survey, about 50% of kids have developed antibodies against the virus, which points to the fact that they may have contracted the virus from other infected family members, but might have remained asymptomatic or escaped with mild symptoms,” said Dr Guleria. Source: TOI

Engineering Students Can Opt For Other Engineering Course Through Lateral Entry: AICTE

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New Delhi: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) said that, BTech students can take admission to other branches of Engineering, in addition to their main course, through lateral entry. The council said it was receiving requests from students regarding admission to an additional BTech course through lateral entry. “The proposal was placed before the AICTE Executive Committee…and EC opined that technical universities can facilitate such students to take admission to BTech /BE by allowing them to get admission at appropriate level of BTech programme in another discipline/branch of Engineering,” the AICTE said. The council mentioned that the students do not need to study the courses they have already studied in their first discipline when they take admission to the additional programme. “The Executive Committee approved the exemption from pursuing courses already done in the first discipline of BTech programme and such students be appropriately guided to complete other requirements of the second discipline. As there is a practical component involved, students will be required to take admission in an institution/college as a regular student and the concerned university will ensure this and make necessary provision in their statutes accordingly.” The AICTE has also said the additional degree course will be completed in two to three years, “without compromising on the credit requirements in core discipline and attainment of learning outcomes of the new programme.” They have also asked institutions to make necessary changes to their statute and to take appropriate steps to provide additional courses to BTech students. Source: Careers360

Gender Diversity and Inclusivity In The Indian Workplace

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“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of it s women and deprives itself of the contribution of half its citizens.”- Michelle Obama In India, women are now found working in almost all sectors. There was a time when iconic women revolutionaries like Ahilyabai Holkar had to fight for the right to education. Luckily, we are in the 21st century where most women are encouraged to learn and educate themselves to work and become independent.  The gender disparity in India still exists, and the number of women holding high-level positions in various fields like finance, operations, engineering, IT, research, law, etc. is still less when compared to men.  Women are essential in the workplace to propel the growth of an organization. If given equal opportunities, women have the potential to excel in all aspects of work.  A good company or an organization will always ensure that the organization has equality in all respects. However, when we talk about gender diversity and inclusivity, we forget to include the LGTBQ+ in the parameters. The main topic of discussion here is that despite their identities, all humans, especially women and the LGBTQ+ community should be given equal importance and opportunities at the workplace.  While hiring, the sole focus should be on the talent, and aspects like race, colour, caste, creed or gender shouldn’t influence your decisions.  In India, talking about the LGBTQ+ community is still somewhat of a taboo. In the modern age, the present-day workplace should be inclusive of all genders and should focus on building new policies and prioritizing inclusiveness to make their brand stand out. This will also help in establishing your organization as a benchmark and soon, others will follow in your footsteps, making India an inclusive place for people all over the world.  Promoting gender diversity increases productivity and teamwork. Therefore, it’s time to pledge for gender equality, diversity and inclusiveness to redefine the Indian workplace.

Google Cloud Gears Up To Hire Employees With Autism

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Rob Enslin, president- cloud sales, Google has announced the beginning of the Autism Career Programme which aims to develop a system that provides a fair selection process for candidates with autism who wish to apply for a job position.  To ease the process they will work with experts from the Stanford Neurodiversity Project which is a part of Stanford School of Medicine to make this project worthy. People with autism applying for jobs often have to go through certain difficulties in the selection process for example having face to face interviews and needing more time during them but Google Cloud has provided them with an option to extend the duration of face to face interviews or to give them via Google docs to make the process easier. 500 Managers working in Google cloud who will conduct these processes will be helped by Stanford in handling people with autism and will help in facilitating people’s interaction with their employees and new managers. Autism is still sometimes considered a myth and autistic people often become victims of bullying and many meaningless stereotypes. This is a very healthy and equitable process to provide equal and fair treatment and represented these communities.

Times Network Moves A Step Closer Towards Achieving Worldwide Recognition By Launching 4 Channels In The US, UK And Europe On DistroTV

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Times Network expanded its global trademark by launching TIMES NOW, Zoom, Times Now, Navbharat in The UK, USA and Europe in collaboration with an emerging California based media technology company, DistroScale.  DistroTv is a free, ad-supported and independent platform available on an international scale that delivers world-class video content from their clients wide-ranging from different regions.  Times Network is a part of The Times Group which is, currently one of India’s most influential and leading media conglomerates. Established in 1838 in Mumbai, it was previously an English language-based channel that was the origin of many channels including Romedy NOW, MN+, MNX HD and news channels including Times NOW.  Recently they launched their first Hindi language based channel called Navbharat with an impactful motto Aab Badlega Bharat, Banega Navbharat. The response received was astounding.  Navbharat is one of the most propelling Hindi news channels. At the beginning of this channel, MK Anand specified that they are not in the race for gaining TRP instead they want to focus on giving unbiased and knowledgeable content for their audience.  This is a clear message for evolution and change in India. The expansion of Times Network in different countries will provide ‘desi news’ content from home to Indian and foreign viewers living overseas.

Covid-19: Pfizer and Moderna noticed making billions of dollars through the vaccine booster market

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As per the analysts and healthcare investors, it is being predicted that drug-makers Pfizer Inc, Moderna Inc, BioNTech will reap billions of dollars from the Covid-19 booster shots, in the annual sales of flu vaccine markets that could rival $6 billion in a year. For many months these drug-maker companies have been saying, that people who are vaccinated will need an extra dose of vaccine to keep the protection from new variants of the Corona Virus. A list of countries like Chile, Germany, and Israel has already decided to give a booster dose to their older citizens and people with a weak immune system especially, when a fast spread of delta variant has become a sign of concern. The United Kingdom and the United States are also preparing to follow the same pattern.  Keeping this in mind Pfizer with its German partner BioNTech, and Moderna have already locked up over $60 billion in sales of vaccine shots for the years 2021 and 2022. This agreement consist supply of the first two doses of vaccine and well as billions of dollars in potential boosters for the wealthy nations. Source: healthworld.com

SAP India and Microsoft to train over 62,000 women in AI, cloud under its new skill training program

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Edunet foundation is all set to implement a pan India initiative, to develop skills in young women graduating in engineering, sciences, computer applications, and vocational studies, to make them future-ready. A joint skill program ‘TechSaksham’ is launched by SAP India and Microsoft. This program is focused on empowering women students in the area of artificial intelligence, web design, cloud computing, and digital marketing. This program will run under the collaboration of AICTE training and Learning Academy- ATAL and the state government education department for professional development of faculties at the participating institutes and departments.  Under this program, students will also get a chance to present their work to experts and business leaders from local industries. Which will help to establish an early ecosystem. More than 60,000 women will be trained with over 1000 trained and certified women faculties. This can help in upgrading and updating students’ skills as per the market requirements and will generate employability as well.  The targeted students and teachers will be selected for this program after one year of implementation of the program. Source: theInidanexpress.com

India to host first-ever ‘Internet Governance Forum’ in October 2021

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Starting in October 20, 2021, India will host it’s first-ever ‘Internet Governance Forum’, an Internet Governance policy discussion platform, which aims to bring together representatives from various platforms to discuss internet policy issues. Announcing the launch of the forum in a press conference, Anil Kumar Jain, the CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and the Chairman of Coordination Committee, India Internet Governance Forum 2021 (IIGF) said the forum will be planned for three days in October this year. The coordination committee of India Internet Governance 2021 features Anil Kumar Jain as Chairman, TV Ramchandran as Vice-Chairman, Jaijeet Bhattacharya as Vice Chairman, Dr Rajat Moona as Vice-Chairman and approximately 12 members representing Government, Civil Society, Industries, Trust, Associations etc. Scheduled between, October 20 – 22 this year, the theme of the forum is ‘Inclusive Internet for Digital India’. With more than 10,000 expected participants, the 3-day event will conduct over 25 workshops in domains such as Digital Economy, Digital Governance, Trust, Security, Stability, Sustainability, among others. With this announcement, the Indian chapter of the United Nations-based forum namely the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has begun. The Indian Internet Governance Forum will work towards bringing various stakeholders together from different groups, considering all at par to discuss public policy issues related to the Internet. The prime objective of the forum is to generate discussions about policy formation related to the Internet. Further, the forum will also become a starting point for identifying something that retards or halts the free movement and progress of Internet policies and trying to resolve this one by one.  “India is the second-largest broadband subscription country in the world and also has the highest data consumption per user per month. Therefore, the aspirations of the Indians should be reflected in International policy formation and stakeholder discussion,” the Chairman of Coordination Committee Anil Kumar Jain informed during the announcement of the forum. As per the IIGF website, as a region with enormous internet economy potential (800 million Internet users and over 1.2 billion mobile users), India comes with the most diverse internet-related stakeholders and issues (e.g. cybersecurity, net neutrality, online rights, youth, and digital innovation). In a global setting, following such a need to include, consider, and invite these stakeholders’ perspectives, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) initiated the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2006 and has since been holding the Forum annually. Further, starting August 2021, multiple Pre-IIGF engagement events will be conducted at several colleges and universities, as a precursor to the IIGF 2021. The idea behind this is to engage the youth and students for their participation in the October event and prepare the next generation to be part of policy formation. Source: PBNS

As per the report: India’s video OTT market will touch $12.5 billion by 2030

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India’s video over the top (OTT) market is expected to touch USD 12.5 Billion by 2035, from USD 1.5 billion in 2021 based on access to better networks, digital connectivity, and smartphones, according to areport by RBSA Advisory. The report highlighted that the next wave of growth in the OTT market will be contributed to front tier II, III, and IV cities and the Indian language speaking population. OTT industry is ambitious towards aggressive growth, with the help of a better network, digital connectivity, and smartphones. OTT platforms are noted to have a daily basis increase in the number of subscribers. Apart from the top players like Disney+Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video, several local OTT platforms players can beseen gaining enough attraction from the customers. Various local players like SonyLiv, Voot, Zee5, ErosNow,Hoichoi, and Addatimes are gaining equal importance and delivering quality and viewer’s centric content. With the increase in day-to-day usage of these various OTT platforms there is no doubt in saying that the OTT platforms are becoming the new main source of entertainment with something on the menu for every demography. Thus, as per the report, the Indian video OTT market is predicted to grow from USD 1.5 billion in 2021 to USD 4 billion in 2025 and later to USD 12.5 billion by 2030. Along with that the audio OTT market with platforms like Jio Saavn, Spotify, Wynk Music is also expected to grow from USD 0.6 billion in 2021 to USD 1.1 billion in 2025 and further to USD 2.5 billion by 2030. Source: economictime.com

COVID-19 Update: Students Scared As Dozens Test Positive For The Virus After Reopening Of Schools

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The hasty decision of reopening schools results in the spread of the infection again increasing the risk of a third wave. The states had the liberty of taking the decision to reopen schools based on the condition of the infections in their respective states. However, as the infections started subsiding, the hasty decision to reopen schools in several states is now proving to be a disaster for the country.  Students who went to schools in several states have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus thereby increasing the risk of infections amongst the citizens yet again.  While Haryana had opened schools for senior classes (Classes 9 to 12) from July 16 onwards, Punjab on August 2 went ahead and allowed all classes from pre-nursery to Class 12. The Himachal Pradesh government also opened schools for 9th to 12th standard students from August 2. With ten more school children found positive in Anni subdivision of Kullu district in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday, so far, a total of 62 children have contracted the virus in the state, after the government decided to reopen the schools. Himachal Pradesh government has closed all the schools till the 22nd of August as a precautionary measure. The worst-hit places are the Kullu, Kangra and Shimla districts where crowds of tourists were witnessed recently. In neighboring Punjab, 27 school children have been found Covid-19 positive. Out of a total of 27, 21 students alone were found in two Ludhiana schools which have been closed as a precautionary measure. Haryana was first to open schools for the senior classes between Standard 9 to 12 from July 16. Six students who were studying in two Fatehabad schools were found to be Covid-19 positive last week. Earlier in March this year, 54 school children had tested positive in the Karnal district. Himachal Pradesh and Punjab currently top the Covid-19 transmission rate in the country with the highest virus reproductive value of 1.3 each, which indicates rising infection trends and disease resurgence. While the Himachal Pradesh government has already closed all educational institutions including schools till the 22nd of August, Haryana and Punjab are yet to take a call. Source: The headline and the body have been published with a few edits by ArdorComm News Network while the rest of the news is from India Today.