Cheap Chinese drugs a worry?
While India is worried that about 80 per cent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) used in making drugs are being dumped at cheaper rates from China to India, the API task force constituted by the Centre, set up to look into this issue, cannot seem to find the time to meet.
Minister of State for Pharmaceuticals Mansukh Mandaviya recently said the task force meets once a month, but in reality it was formed in April 2018, and since then it has met not more than twice.
Mandaviya when questioned by a reporter regarding this later acknowledged that the task force had not been meeting once in a month as earlier claimed. Also, the minutes of the meeting of the task force meeting have not been made public. One wonders how the Centre will deal with our rising dependence on China for production of drugs?
PM speech writers get it wrong
Which is the first scientific research institute in the country? Inaugurating the 106th Indian Science Congress at Lovely Professional University in Phagwara on January 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Bose Institute in Kolkata, founded by Jagdish Chandra Bose in 1917, was the first dedicated scientific research institute in India. Oops!
That his speech writers got the facts horribly wrong annoyed a section of the scientific community, particularly some from Bengal.
“Don’t his speech writers know that the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, established by Mahindra Lal Sarkar in 1876 was the first Indian research institute,” asked a Bengali scientist attending the Congress.
He also pointed out the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, then called Tata Institute, also came up in 1909, before the Bose Institute.
Shifting goals
The Centre has been struggling with the target of achieving 100 per cent household electrification. After missing its goal of electrifying all households by December 31, 2018, the Centre is now officially said that the initial goal was March 31, 2019.
Unofficially, the goal is January 26, 2019, but nobody wants to say it out loud.
Aeronautics warfare
As the Lok Sabha witnessed a heated debate on the controversial Rafale deal this past week, the Opposition members indulged in their own style of air warfare. They flew paper aeroplanes towards the treasury benches! This made one ruling party member remark towards Opposition benches, “you can send as many Eurofighter Typhoons you want, but we will only go with Rafale”!
Cracking the whip
Sloganeering and unruly behaviour have their own consequences as several AIADMK and TDP members found to their dismay in the Lok Sabha this last week.
In a short span of two days, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan suspended 45 sitting MPs belonging to AIADMK and TDP for creating a ruckus in the Lower House. First, it was 24 AIADMK members on Wednesday, followed by 21 members of AIADMK, TDP and YSR Congress on the next day. In all, the AIADMK has 37 members and TDP 15 in the Lok Sabha.
Mobile addiction
That technology can be addictive is a known fact. It seems like our Ministers too are its victims.
Recently, when Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri was addressing a press conference a mobile phone from the audience started ringing.
This prompted the Minister to call smart phones a “contagious instrument”.
He also added that as per the feedback he gets from an app every week, he uses the phone for as many as 12 hours and is now trying his best to reduce usage.
Our Delhi Bureau