Covaxin Vaccine cleared for Emergency Use today

Govt. to buy Both --Covidshield or Covaxin 

Covidshield & Covaxin

Regulators to clear both vaccins soon

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

New Delhi, Jan 2

With the Emergency approval granted to Covaxin, jointly produced by Bharat Biotech-Indian Council of Medical Research late in the evening today, India has got another shot in its arm.

Covaxin is the country's 100% indigenous vaccine while Covidshield of Seerum Institute, Pune-Astrozeneca, UK was approved yesterday by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) yesterday. The SEC cleared the Covaxin today. 

However, the formal approval of both the vaccines by the drug regulator Central Drug Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is yet to be granted.

While Seerum Institute has said that it already has stock-piled 40-50 million doses which it can supply to the Government of India by March this year itself, the authorities have not reacted to the proposal so far. In fact, the government has not signed any contract with the Seerum for the supply of Covidshield so far.

Neither Dr V K Paul who is head of the Prime Minister's Task Force on Vaccine management nor the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said anything so far as to which vaccine will be injected/inoculated to the 3 crore frontline health workers and other related categories. 

Whether the government will buy the Covidshield or Covaxin or a combination of both the vaccines for the Emergency usage, is still being worked out. 

For three crore frontline workers, India will need 60 million doses as every person has to be given two doses. As per the estimates, these three crore priority workers can be covered during the next four-five months. There is a strong possibility that the government may now involve the private sector in the entire vaccination drive. 

If the other population is also to be vaccinated at the earliest, the government will take a decision at the highest level. 

Secondly, the CDSCO and DCGI have yet to approve Covidshield and Covaxin. Once these medical bodies clear these vaccines for usage, various government institutions including the ministries of Health and others will take up follow-up action and allocate funds accordingly.

Sources say that the government will start the process around Makar Sankranti day on January 14 or so.

Rahul Mantra: Win More Contest Less

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Bullet points

Rahul Mantra: Win More Contest Less

Congress to contest 396 LS seats

Alliances clinched across India

Sacrificing seats to defeat Modi

Brings More aggression and Prompt reaction

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, April 6

The congress had contested 464 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 and secured 44, its lowest tally ever.

It had no ally in the entire country except Maharashtra, Bihar, Kerala and adjustments in Jharkhand.

However, this time, the party will be contesting around 396 seats and has alliances in most of the states which matter for the party. If it is able to stitch alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi and neighbouring state of Haryana, the tally may come down but winnaibility of seats will be enhanced to some extent. and has strong allies in some of the states including. Interestingly, it may not have a direct alliance in Andhra Pradesh and contesting all the 25 seats. But it will help CM N Chandrababu Naidu in cutting into anti-TDP votes. In fact, TDP may gain as anti-TDP votes will be divided among the Congress, YSR Congress and the BJP. Another consolation point for the Congress is that TRS did not enter into any alliance with the BJP leaving options open for it in a post-poll scenario.

The Congress has strong allies in Maharashtra and left 23 seats for NCP and Swabhiman Pakshe and BAV. Similarly, it is positioning itself to focus on more on Karnataka and Kerala to enhance its seat and vote where. In Both these states the Congress had secured 9 and 8 Lok Sabha seats respectively. Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a decision to enter into an alliance with Janata Dal (S) and sacrificed the post of the Chief Minister to ensure that BJP's tally is brought down from 18 seats. The Congress-JD (S) together are targeting to take the tally to at least 16-18 seats. Similarly, Rahul Gandhi's decision to contest from Wayanad is aimed at enhancing Congress tally and relatively be free for campaigning across the country and spend too much time in Amethi. In Bihar, the Congress contested 12 seats in 2014 and secured 2. But it came down to contesting 9 in 2019 so that it could get 4-5 seats and contain BJP-JD (U)-LJP juggernaut to win 32 seats again. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress contested all the 39 seats on its own in 2014 and drew a blank. Now it hopes to reap the harvest in alliance with the DMK by contesting only 8 seats. In UP, the Congress may not be in alliance with SP-BSP and got only two seats. But it is contesting only 51 seats and pitted candidates on some seats who will indirectly help the SP candidates. The Congress hopes to gain in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Uttrakhand, Jammu & Kashmir and North East including Assam.

Rahul Gandhi has brought new blood and aggression in the party and faces like K.C. Venugopal, Randeep Surjewala, Dipak Babaria, Shaktisinh Gohil, Avinash 

Pandey, Jitendra Singh, Rajeev Satav, Sushmita Dev, R.P.N. Singh, Gaurav Gogoi etc to name a few.

"Unlike Soniaji, he is hands-on “CP” a term used for Congress president. Under Rahul's leadership, the party is very prompt in rebutting BJP charges, setting the agenda and use of social media.

Ends 

BJP Norwester

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

What area elections? In fact what is representation politics all about? What important is the outcome of an election to the destiny of parties concerned? 

For those of us who grew up in the profession in the ‘Mandal’ era of politics, with so many caste and community groups, elections were always a hair-trigger experience as no one would know which group would have a change of mind at the last moment. So it was a bit like betting big-time in the so-called Z-category shares, though recent SBI reforms have somewhat reduced their deadly volatility.

BJP and its unrelenting efforts to stabilise India’s electoral outcomes have produced stupendous results. If there is an election in the mainline Hindi-speaking states (39% of population) there is no percentage in guessing who has the ace. Off-mainland, the non-BJP states are still nestling with their traditional protectors, like Bengal with the Trinamool Congress, Odisha under the wings of the Biju Janata Dal of Naveen Patnaik Tamil Nadu under the twin Dravidian parties by rotation or Andhra Pradesh under regional satrap Chandrababu Naidu and a couple of more smaller states.  The Congress is struggling to retain its last bastion in Karnataka. Elsewhere things are running riots.

In Uttarakhand, twice from Congress, former judge Vijay Bahuguna made it to the success pole in his state, yet fell short chief ministership in Dehra dun, a post that gracefully went to Trivendra Singh Rawat, an RSS old-timer. If at all, it proved that the parry’s ‘kremlin’, the troika of Amit Shah-Narendra Modi-RSS, would not deviate from their ideological fealty if possible. However, for Bahuguna, it was not unrelieved gloom as his sister, Rita Bahugna, once a determined spokesperson of the Congress is now minister in Yogi Adityanath ministry.  

Despite this strict choice of class and caste, BJP kept its window remarkably open way back the days of Nitin Gadkari’s presidentship. Courtesy Gadkari and later Rajnath Singh with the blessings of the RSS, nearly 100 of the 282 Lok Sabha MPs (in 2014) did not belong to the BJP, or for that matter, had little o do with the party and its ‘lotus’ culture. Birendra Singh and Rao Inderjit  Singh, both powerful ministers are iron men transported from Congress; one before the Lok Sabha polls and the other on the eve of Haryana Assembly elections. The BJP was always like a second fiddle to Devi Lal & Chautala and could hardly grew in the state. Therefore, the troika took a conscious decision to import talent lock, stock & barrel and give them ministerial berths too. Entry of Suresh Prabhu from Shiv Sena, a party that had little respect for his talent after his founder’s demise, and being inducted straightaway into the Railway Ministry. S.S. Ahluwalia, a ‘man for all seasons’, represent an elite induction hardly seen ever. The computer wiz kid of Rajiv Gandhi fell out with the Gandhis after he joined P V Narasimha Rao. He was the first major catch of the BJP as he knew inside out of the Congress and helped Atal-Advani team to nail the then ruling Congress. To a very large extent, it gave a party of Jai Shree Ram-chanting a degree of administrative gravitas it had toward the very end Vajpyee’s regime. 

And the elite flow is unchecked. In Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma was a prize catch that not only brought the party to win in Assam, a first for a saffron flag to unfurl on the Brahmaputra bank. The Biswa Sarma effect has paralysed the Congress in the entire north eastern region. It was the Congress which won most seats in Manipur yet it failed to get the support of just three MLAs to form government. The BJP proved its skill once again in garnering support from six Congress MLAs who have joined the party. The resigning MLAs must resign from the assembly and say they are happy to seek reselection under the BJP. But their confidence is not an issue.  Biswa Sarma is like a Simon Bolivar. He has announced that he’d soon grab the two states of Tripura and Meghalaya, one a surviving citadel of the CPI(M) and the other an old liege of the Congress when Purno Sangma was the liege lord. No one can tell what will happen in Tripura, but, those who have visited the state say northwester winds are blowing. It is very difficult to imagine the state’s ‘comrades’ not to wake up the roaring call of Amit Shah’s change. 

Goa’s is a classic example where Congress lost power because the leadership was unable to decide within the first 12 hours of results as to who should be its chief ministerial candidate. Digvijay Singh is being flogged for all the wrong reasons.

The country is in a state of political stupor, with old ideas and action calls becoming thoroughly ineffective and the people have shown little interest in more of the old stuff. The old fear about the BJP, that its a party of too much polarization, is somehow getting sublimated in a new fusion of acceptance. Something that Gadkari said is the ‘genius’ of his party that turned Ratnakar, the dacoit into the poet of poets. He said in Pune when confronted how could his party go on admitting all & sundry including criminals of the Congress, SP, BSP into the BJP, “If criminals enter the party, we lessen their faults and increase their merits…In our party, criminals change for good, in the same way in which Valya, a robber, turned into Valmiki…” The hunt for talent has not ended. The new troika of Modi-Shah-RSS is on hunt of hidden talent across the country. The BJP have taken 180 degree turn.

But there is definitely a point about hardcore public life changing people’s behaviour, something that is hard to find in a like Congress with total control clamped on independent thinking.