On the directives of Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, the Punjab government today issued an order for taking back COVID Vaccines from private hospitals with immediate effect.

The Health Minister Mr. Balbir Singh Sidhu said that instruction of providing one-time limited vaccine doses to private hospitals has been withdrawn by the State and all these vaccines will be administered free of cost to the age group of 18 to 44 years at Government vaccination centres.

Mr. Sidhu stated that as per information provided by State Incharge for Covid Vaccination Mr. Vikas Garg, about 42,000 doses have been allotted to the private hospitals from which only 600 doses have been administered to people. He said that instruction has been issued to all Civil Surgeons that no fresh allotment to be made to any private hospitals and the private hospitals should return forthwith all the vaccine doses available with them.

Mr. Sidhu assured that as Punjab Government is committed to providing all treatment services to COVID patients without any discrimination at the Govt. hospitals, vaccination will also be administered free of cost to all beneficiaries. Captain Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government had already declared in Budget 2021-22 that vaccination to be provided free of cost to every eligible beneficiary and the State would bear all expenses for the welfare of the general public.

The Minister said that Private hospitals will now get direct supplies of vaccination from the manufacturers. He said that the amount deposited by the private hospitals in the Vaccine Fund shall be refunded shortly.

The Health Minister further said that as a major step towards combating the novel virus, the Punjab Government already announced free treatment to COVID-19 patients falling under Sarbat Sehat Beema Yojna in empanelled Private hospitals which provide financial risk protection to around 39.57 lakh poorest, most vulnerable families in the State.

Pointing out the overcharging being made by the private hospitals, Mr. Sidhu said that strict instructions have been issued in this regard to take immediate action against Private Covid Care Centres under the Epidemic Diseases Act & Disaster Management Act, who have violated the order of the State Government.

There has been a speculation that the Public Accounts Committee of the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal would be in the hands of the ruling party (TMC). But that speculation is coming to an end. The Trinamool Congress is going to give the responsibility of the Public Accounts Committee to the opposition BJP (Bengal BJP). The Public Accounts Committee is in charge of the general opposition. According to sources, the ruling party informed the BJP about the same on Wednesday. Sources said Mukul Roy may be made the chairman. However, it is not final. Political analysts question whether this is the initiative of Padma Shibir to reduce the distance with Mukul? Discussion is going on.

According to sources, BJP will be in charge of 10 committees in the assembly. Trinamool Congress MLA Asima Patra will be in the Home Standing Committee. In the 2016 elections, the Congress and the Left Alliance won 6 seats. They had 18 committees. But this time BJP alone got 6 seats but 10 committees are going to go to them.

This Public Accounts Committee is very important in the case of the Legislative Assembly. The chairman of this committee plays an important role in auditing all kinds of development work in the state. As is customary, this committee is handed over to the opposition every year. However, this year there was speculation that the grassroots could keep it in their own hands. Shankar Singh, a Trinamool MLA from the Congress last year, was made the chairman of the committee.

It was rumored that Mukul had left the Trinamool due to a quarrel with Abhishek. Although neither side acknowledged it. But there was no news that the relationship between Mukul and Abhishek has improved. However, since Shuvendu Adhikari’s conflict with Abhishek started, Mukul has fallen behind as an ‘opponent’. Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee expressed ‘sympathy’ for Mukul during the election campaign.

“It simply came to our notice then. He is not as bad as Shuvendu. But OK also gave a distant seat (Krishnanagar North). He could have given a seat near the house!”

After that, the acquaintances can see the touch of‘ mature politics ’in visiting Abhishek’s sudden Mukul’s wife. That too at a time when Mukul himself is in a very ‘sensitive’ state.

Mukul won from Krishnanagar North seat and became the MLA. But in the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s margin of victory in that seat has narrowed to at least 16,000. After the vote, Mukul has wrapped up a lot like a politician. He was not seen in such a political activity except for coming come to the assembly to take the oath as a legislator. His body is not going well lately. He has also become very inactive in his political and practical life due to his wife’s illness. It would be an exaggeration to say that his distance from the team has been created. But the people close to Mukul also know that a tune is playing somewhere. In that context, Abhishek went to see his wife. Incidentally, when Abhishek went to the hospital on Wednesday evening, Mukul was not there. Abhishek met Roy’s son Subhrangshu at the hospital and prayed for the speedy recovery of his mother.

In view of the post-poll violence in West Bengal, BJP is on its way to drum up public opinion against the TMC and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the national level. The BJP state leadership has been instructed to hold regular meetings with its leaders in other states of the country to report allegations of attacks on BJP workers in Bengal.

In the next Lok Sabha elections, the anti-Narendra Modi ‘face’ has recently started campaigning on the net for Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The BJP aims to counter Mamata’s voice in that atmosphere. According to sources, the BJP has pressed into service leaders such as state president Dilip Ghosh, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari, Kailash Vijayvargiya, and Bhupendra Yadav.

The BJP has alleged that its workers in the districts have been affected since the results were announced. In many places, workers are being evicted and allowed to return home in exchange for fines. According to the Gerua camp, BJP’s all-India president J.P Nadda first came to Bengal to stand by the state workers. The BJP also staged some protests after that.

The BJP has been telling workers across the country about the ‘attacks’ party cadres are suffering in West Bengal. National BJP general secretary Bhupender Yadav addressed Assam party workers on Tuesday through video conference.

Last week, BJP national general secretary and West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya conducted a meeting with workers from Uttarakhand. The workers from the hill state will now visit West Bengal.

“Many workers were left to fend for themselves. This has only created anger among a group of workers and the central leadership felt it had to be addressed immediately,” said a party functionary.

Virtual meetings have already been held with leaders of 13 states and one union territory. State President Dilip has met BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Andaman, and Nicobar. Opposition leader Shuvendu has joined hands with Gujarat and Meghalaya. BJP will make a poster. The main statement of the party in the poster has been written in the form of the question ‘Bangla is burning, is violence the solution?’

Most meetings with party leaders in the states so far have been held by the BJP. Apart from this, there are states like Chhattisgarh, Punjab, and Rajasthan where the BJP is in the role of the opposition party. However, the BJP has organisational strength in all the states. Gerua Shibir wants publicity in all these states for Bengal. And from this publicity, the claim that misgovernance is going on in Bengal gets national-level limelight in the coming days.

During April and May 2021, no vaccinated patients died after becoming re-infected with Covid-19, according to a study undertaken by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.

This was the first genomic sequence study conducted on “breakthrough infections” in India during the second wave. Breakthrough infections are Covid-19 re-infections in vaccinated persons.

The AIIMS study confirmed that even in re-infected Covid-19 patients with a very high viral load, no death was reported among those who had received even one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

AIIMS studied 63 breakthrough infection cases, out of which 36 patients had received both doses of Covid-19 vaccine, and 27 had got the first dose. Most of these patients had got the Covaxin jab (53), and 10 re-infected patients had taken Covishield shots.

As per the study, SARS-CoV-2 lineages were assigned to 57.1 percent of the samples, i.e., 36 of them. Out of these, 52.8 percent (19) were in patients who were fully vaccinated and 47.2 percent (17) in patients who had got just the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

The AIIMS researchers divided the B.1.617 variant or Delta strain—which was first detected in India — into three lineages: B.1.617.1, B.1.617.2, and B.1.617.3. They found the B.1.617.2 variant to be predominant in 23 samples or 63.9 percent of the samples. Out of these, 12 were in fully vaccinated persons and 11 in partially vaccinated persons. Meanwhile, the B.1.617.1 and B.1.1.7 lineages were found in four persons or 11.1 percent of the samples and one person, i.e., 2.8 percent of the samples, respectively.

Notably, none of the samples studied had comorbidities that could pose as predisposing factors in such cases.

The AIIMS study read: “Viral load at the time of diagnosis was high in all the patients irrespective of vaccination status or type of vaccine received and the initial course of disease with high-grade non-remitting fever lasted for five to seven days in the vaccinated group, similar to the clinical presentation in unvaccinated patients.”

The patients ranged in age from 21 to 92 years old, with 41 men and 22 women. There were no comorbidities in any of the participants that could have acted as a risk factor for infection.

MUMBAI : Sushant Singh Rajput’s friend Siddharth Pithani has been sent to 14-day judicial custody on Friday in connection with the drug case linked to the actor’s death.

“Siddharth Pithani, late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s friend, has been sent to 14-day judicial custody, in connection with drug case,” informed Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Mumbai. On 26 May, the NCB arrested Pithani from Hyderabad and brought him to Mumbai on a transit warrant obtained from a local court there. Pithani was booked under multiple sections of the NDPS Act, 1985.

Following his arrest, a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) court in Mumbai on Friday remanded Pithani to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) custody till 1 June.

Earlier on Thursday, the NCB summoned Sushant’s bodyguard for the second day in a row, in the drug case linked to the late actor’s death. Apart from that NCB also arrested a drug peddler named Harish Khan in the drugs case.

Slamming Rahul Gandhi for the political turmoil in Punjab, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said the Congress leader should first look after states ruled by his party before giving lectures to others.

Briefing mediapersons, Javadekar said, “Rahul Gandhi should first look after his (Congress-ruled) states rather than giving lectures to others. Punjab Government has been provided more than 1.40 lakh doses of Covaxin at Rs 400 and they have given it to 20 private hospitals at Rs 1,000.”

The Union minister said the Government of India has given 22 crore Covid vaccine doses to all states for free. He added that it is the state governments that had demanded decentralisation of Covid vaccines. Now when it has been done, the States are demanding centralising the vaccine supply.

Javadekar accused the Punjab government of ignoring the people for petty politics. “Punjab is affected by corona. The vaccination drive is not being managed properly. Their internal fight has been going on for the last six months. The entire Punjab government and Congress Party has been in Delhi for the last 3-4 days. Who will look after Punjab? Even for COVID vaccination, the state government wants to earn a profit. What kind of public administration is this?” he added.

The BJP leader’s remarks come against the backdrop of the factionalism in Punjab Congress and deliberations in Delhi regarding the matter.

Notably, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh is in the national capital to meet the Congress’ three-member panel. The agenda of the meeting is to resolve the widening differences between its leaders, Captain Amarinder Singh and Navjot Singh Sidhu, said Congress sources.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged that the Central government is hiding actual Covid-19 deaths.