News Analysis India

Tag: PM

  • PM Modi to visit 3 Covid-19 vaccine facilities today to review preparedness

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday embark on a three-city tour across the country to review the progress of the coronavirus vaccines that are being developed at three noted pharmaceutical facilities in India.

    Making the announcement on Twitter, the Prime Minister’s Office said that Modi will visit Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune to check out the vaccine development work at the facilities there.

    “Tomorrow, PM Narendra Modi will embark on a 3 city visit to personally review the vaccine development & manufacturing process. He will visit the Zydus Biotech Park in Ahmedabad, Bharat Biotech in Hyderabad & Serum Institute of India in Pune. As India enters a decisive phase of the fight against COVID-19, PM @narendramodis visit to these facilities & discussions with the scientists will help him get a first-hand perspective of the preparations, challenges & roadmap in Indias endeavour to vaccinate its citizens,” the PMO tweeted.

    This will be the Prime Minister’s first visit to pharma major Zydus Cadila’s plant near Ahmedabad, Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said earlier in the day. 

    The PM will arrive at the plant in the Changodar industrial area, over 20 kms from Ahmedabad, around 9:30 am.  

    Zydus had earlier announced that the Phase-I clinical trial of their vaccine candidate ‘ZyCoV-D’ was complete and the Phase-II trials had commenced in August. 

    From there, he will fly to Hyderabad to visit the Bharat Biotech facility around 1:30 pm. The PM will land at Hakimpet Air Force station and proceed to the facility in Genome Valley, roughly 50 kms from Hyderabad. Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is currently undergoing Phase-3 trials.

  • PM Modi to visit Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad tomorrow to review the Corona vaccine

    With preparations for vaccine development and distribution reaching an advanced stage in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday will embark on a three-city tour to take stock of the Covid-19 vaccine development work.

    According to reports, the visit will start from Zydus Biotech Park on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. Modi is expected to arrive at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport around 9am. From there, he will head towards Changodar in a helicopter. Zydus Cadila’s Vaccine Technology Centre is located at Changodar Park where the pharma company is developing its Covid-19 vaccine candidate ZyCoV-D.

    From Ahmedabad, Modi is expected to fly to Pune where he will review the status of the vaccine, including its launch, production and distribution mechanisms. “We have received confirmation about PM Modi’s visit to the Serum Institute of India on Saturday, but his minute-to-minute program is yet to be received,” Pune Divisional Commissioner Saurabh Rao told PTI.

    From there, PM Modi will travel to Hyderabad to visit Bharat Biotech’s facility where the indigenous vaccine Covaxin is being developed.

  • PM Modi calls for ‘One Nation, One Election’, says this is the need of India

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressedd the concluding session of the 80th All India Presiding Officers Conference today via video conferencing. The two-day conference began yesterday at Kevadia in Gujarat.

    President Ram Nath Kovind inaugurates the conference which is being attended by Vice President and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Gujarat Governor Acharya Devvrat, the state’s Chief Minister Vijay Rupani among others. Speaker Om Birla is also the chairperson of the conference.

    The All India Presiding Officers Conference began in 1921, and the Gujarat event marks its centenary year. The theme for this year’s conference is Harmonious Coordination between Legislature, Executive and Judiciary – Key to a Vibrant Democracy.

  • Rae Bareli rail coach factory was underutilised before 2014: PM Modi

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said earlier governments did not make the most of India’s potential and cited the rail coach factory in Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency as an example.

    Asserting that “positive mindset and approach are needed to change things,” he laid stress on realising “our full potential to ensure development of the nation”.The Prime Minister was speaking at the centennial foundation day of Lucknow University via video link on Wednesday.

    “For long, it has been a problem that we have not utilised our potential to the full. In the past, it was also true for the governance of our country. We have tried to change this after coming to power,” he said.

    “The rail coach factory in Rae Bareli is an example of how we can change things by changing our outlook. The factory was set up many years ago and had all the machinery to make train coaches, yet only denting-painting (maintenance) was done there. Tall promises were made for the factory, but nothing changed. When we came to power in 2014, we looked into the affairs and, within six months, the factory started making rail coaches. It is now one of the biggest coach manufacturers in the country,” he said.The PM also cited urea production in the country to underline his point.

    “I was surprised to know that despite having sufficient urea plants, the country was importing urea only because our plants were not working to their full potential. The previous governments had not done much to change this. When we came to power, we made changes, and now the country has become self-reliant in urea,” he said.

    Will power and good intentions were equally important as capabilities, he said.He also spoke about his experience of popularising khadi with the help of students in Gujarat through a fashion show at Porbandar on Gandhi Jayanti in 2002.This made khadi “fashionable”, he said, adding that the quantity of khadi sold in the last six years was more than that sold in 20 years before 2014.

  • PM Narendra Modi ticks off Maharashtra, Bengal for cold-shouldering pet projects

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday ticked off some of the state governments for not coming on board for his government’s prominent schemes and projects and suggested that the Centre will not drop the plans even if they did not cooperate.


    Prominent among them were the bullet train project, where the Maharashtra government has failed to keep its part of the bargain. During the Pragati meeting with Union and state government officials, Modi asked the railways to complete the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project at least on the Gujarat portion in time, if the issues don’t get resolved for the stretch falling in Maharashtra, sources told TOI.


    In the first interaction after a 10-month gap, the PM also expressed his unhappiness over the slow progress in the pre-construction activities in Maharashtra for the ambitious bullet train project.
    So far, the National High-Speed Rail Corporation Ltd has bid out works for 325km out of the 349km of this corridor, which falls in Gujarat. The land acquisition in Gujarat is close to 85% for this project while less than 25% land has been acquired in Maharashtra.

    On September 6, TOI had first reported “Despite delay, bullet trains could start running in Gujarat before 2024”.
    Sources told TOI that the PM pulled up the West Bengal administration for the dismal progress of PM SVANidhi, a highly subsidised micro-financing scheme for street vendors hit by the nationwide lockdown. “PM told the state chief secretary it was up to the state whether it wanted to take this benefit to the poor. He dismissed the state’s view that they had announced Rs 2,000 ex-gratia for street vendors. He said the question is whether the state’s priority is to revive their livelihood or provide ex-gratia,” said an official. So far, only 60 street vendors in Bengal have availed the subsidised loan of Rs 10,000 each against the target of three lakh. Modi also asked the Assam government to ramp up this scheme.

  • Will follow scientific advice on time and choice of vaccine: PM Modi

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said India would go by scientific advice in deciding which Covid-19 vaccine to use, emphasising that “safety is as important as speed” even as he said it was a national commitment to provide the shots to all citizens.
    Asked during a virtual interaction with chief ministers as to when the vaccine would be available, Modi said this was the task of the scientific community and the regulators and not for him to comment on. He noted that participants in Tuesday’s discussions were political leaders and added some people would do politics and this was not something he could stop.

    The comments were read in the context of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s demand the PM should reveal which vaccine India would use. Official sources, though, said the PM was underlining that such decisions would be taken on the basis of expert advice. His interaction with the CMs was cordial and productive, the souces added.

    Modi assured states the vaccination strategy and the initial rollout would be finalised in consultation with them and said it had not been decided as to which vaccine would be available at what price. “Though two India-based vaccines are at the forefront, we’re working with global firms also,” he said, adding that adverse reactions were seen in drugs available for 20 years and more and so a decision needed to be taken on scientific basis.


    “Safety is as important as speed for us. Whichever vaccine India will give to its citizens will be safe on all scientific criteria,” Modi said while reviewing the Covid-19 situation. He met chief ministers in two batches, with a separate discussion with CMs of eight worst affected states.


    India is looking at the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate which has almost completed Phase 3 trials in India and has Pune-based Serum Institute as a major manufacturing partner. Oxford University said on Monday that the vaccine candidate prevented 70% people from the infection in a large trial and it was set to initiate talks with regulators across the world to start supplies.
    There is also a locally developed vaccine candidate by Bharat Biotech and ICMR which too has shown promise during clinical trials and is currently undergoing phase 3 human trials.

  • Congress veteran Ahmed Patel dies, PM Modi mourns

    Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel died this morning due to corona virus infection. He was undergoing treatment at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram. Ahmed Patel was infected with Corona for the past one month. PM Modi has expressed grief over the demise of Ahmed Patel. Ahmed Patel’s son Fazal tweeted and informed about his father’s demise.

    Ahmed Patel breathed his last at the age of 71. The sudden death of a senior Congress leader has caused a silence in Indian politics. PM Modi has deeply mourned his death. Paying tribute to him, PM Modi said in the tweet that the death of Ahmed Patel ji is going to hurt a lot. He played an important role in strengthening the Congress.

  • Corona bomb exploding from stubble in Delhi Kejriwal explained the reason to PM Modi in the meeting

    Stubble burning is also a reason behind the third wave of Kovid-19 in the capital. After Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain, now Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has repeated the same thing. In a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, he described pollution as one of the reasons for the third wave of corona in Delhi. He said that the Prime Minister intervened to get rid of the pollution caused by stubble burning in the neighboring states. The Chief Minister also demanded to have 1,000 additional ICU beds reserves in the government hospitals of the Center till the third wave.

    Kejriwal told PM Modi that 8,600 cases were reported in Delhi on November 10, which was the third peak of Corona. He said that since then new cases and positivity rates have been steadily decreasing. The Delhi government has repeatedly said that due to pollution, the corona in Delhi has increased. A day earlier, Delhi’s Health Minister has also attributed the increased pollution due to stubble burning to the third wave of Corona. On Monday, the representatives of the Delhi government went to the office of the Air Quality Commission set up by the central government and made their point.

    The central government has created an Air Quality Commission (AQC) on the issue of pollution rising in Delhi due to burning of stubble in Punjab and Haryana. Atishi, chairperson of the Environment Committee of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, said, “The committee has met the commission to demand accountability of the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana for burning stubble and taking action against them by filing a case. The governments of Haryana have also been requested to issue an order to resolve the straw with bio decomposer technology. ” Kejriwal has demanded intervention from the PM on this issue.

  • PM Modi speaks to Tamil Nadu, Puducherry CMs, assures all possible support

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday spoke to Tamil Nadu and Puducherry Chief Ministers Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami and V Narayanasamy respectively regarding the situation in the wake of Cyclone Nivar and assured all possible support from the Centre.

    “Spoke to Tamil Nadu CM @EPSTamilNadu and Puducherry CM @VNarayanasami regarding the situation in the wake of Cyclone Nivar. Assured all possible support from the Centre. I pray for the safety and well-being of those living in the affected areas,” Prime Minister Modi tweeted.

    Nivar cyclone is very likely to cross Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the south-western Bay of Bengal coastal area of the country during the evening of November 25 as India Meteorological Department (IMD) informed on Tuesday that the deep depression has intensified into a cyclonic storm.Wind speeds are likely to be 100-110 km per hour gusting to 120 km per hour.

    “Deep depression has intensified into a cyclonic storm — NIVAR over south-west Bay of Bengal — (Cyclone alert for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts – Yellow Message) “Deep depression has weakened into a depression over Gulf of Aden and adjoining Somalia,” IMD said in a tweet.

    However, rainfall is expected to start from November 24 in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and will remain till November 26. Extremely heavy rainfall is expected at north coastal districts and delta districts on November 24 and 25.

    Regional Meteorological Centre has advised fishermen to avoid the sea. Officials asked people to keep food materials with them and avoid unnecessary travel.

    In the wake of the IMD warning for cyclone Nivar, counseling for admission to MBBS/BDS course 2020-21 scheduled for November 24 has been postponed to November 30, Directorate of Medical Education, Tamil Nadu informed.

  • PM Modi will lay the foundation stone of drinking water scheme in Mirzapur and Sonbhadra today

    Varanasi Parliament and PM Narendra Modi are going to dedicate crores of schemes for pure drinking water in the areas of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra of Vindhya region on Sunday. Chief Minister Yagi Adityanath is also arriving to attend the same event.

    Drinking water projects of Vindhya region will be launched in virtual mode by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Mirzapur. Under the water life mission, the people of the affected villages of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra districts of Vindhya region will give pure drinking water scheme. The ambitious scheme of the government will enable the people of Vindhya region to get pure drinking water by the year 2022. Under the Rural Pipe Drinking Water Scheme, pure water will be reached from the tap to the homes of the people in the Vindhya region by spending about Rs 2343.20 crore. The ambitious scheme of the Central Government will provide relief to the people suffering from Arsenic, Fluoride and Japanese Encephalitis (JE), Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) from the purified water from the piped drinking water project in a phased manner.

    The cost outlay of Sonbhadra’s development block Ghorawal and Patwadh at Rabtrasganj and Patwadh 2 village group pipe drinking water scheme and Kadra, Newari and Harra village group pipe drinking water scheme in Chopan development block of Sonbhadra is Rs 3212.18 crore. A total of 1389 villages including 225, 661 and 67 revenue villages will benefit from these pipe drinking water schemes respectively.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtualize the inauguration of 9 village group Pipe Drinking Water Scheme in Mirzapur district on 22 November. Along with this, they will also have virtual interaction with the heads of these villages. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate drinking water projects in Gothora and Dhauha Jamalpur, Mahadev Pahari, Ahungi Kala Halia, Lehuki Patehra, Talar Rajgarh, Manikpur, Mahouri and Danti districts.