Amitabh Sinha

India's coronavirus cases, numbers: The consistent decline in numbers since October had slowly resulted in a drop in testing numbers, a trend which will now have to be reversed, at least in states that are showing a resurgence.

In a letter to Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and others, Partha Majumder, president of the Indian Academy of Sciences, had said that the order was “too constraining” for the advancement of science in the country.

The academic and scientific community had objected to the order, with two of the largest and oldest science academies writing letters to the government, saying it would lead to “complete halt on all topical scientific discussions”.

The heat from the laptop, for example, can be used to charge a mobile phone. Or, that from the phone can be used to charge a small watch.

A recent order, issued on January 15 asks all government entities, including publicly funded educational institutions and universities, to “seek approval” of the respective “administrative Secretary” for organizing any “online/virtual international conferences/seminars/training etc”.

India's coronavirus cases numbers: Kerala has detected close to 30,000 infections for every million people. Only Delhi, Goa and Ladakh have higher numbers.

A relatively low-hanging fruit, but a very effective one, is to set up early warning systems that alert the downstream populations about an impending disaster. This has to be coupled with plans to quickly evacuate local communities to safer regions.

ISRO has partnered with MapmyIndia to develop mapping portals, apps and geospatial software.

A National Centre for Himalayan Glaciology was proposed to be created as part of the Sustainable Himalayan Ecosystem mission, one of the eight missions that had been launched in 2008 to lead India's response to climate change.

“Given the low case count anyway, few want to be tested and our staff come back empty-handed,” said a Jamui official involved with testing in the district. “But there is a pressure to meet the target.”

A five-member team from the Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology made aerial surveys of the location on Tuesday and Wednesday, and had has collected samples of water, snow and debris from the area to make further investigations.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Centre, a unit of ISRO, released photographs of the area taken by India’s ResourceSat and Cartosat-3 satellites before and after the incident

The flash floods in Uttarakhand underline the risk. One of India’s leading glaciologists discusses ways to assess and minimise this. Excerpts from an interview with D P Dobhal, a glaciologist, formerly associated with the Dehradun-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology.

A 2005 inventory of glaciers and glacial lakes in the Himalayan region, documented by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) had identified 127 glacial lakes in Uttarakhand using satellite images.

Uttarakhand flash floods: Satellite images circulated among scientists tracking the incident show that a large chunk of fresh snow from a mountain near Raini village in Chamoli district had dropped off Sunday, possibly becoming the reason for the flash flood.

The breach can be caused by several reasons — in this particular case, for instance, an avalanche was reported in the region two days ago.

A year later, as the epidemic continues to rage in several American and European countries, India seems to be on an irreversible path towards exit.

Covid-19 in India: The decline in numbers looks terminal, but the end may be still some distance away, and it is not yet clear how long immunity will last. Tracing India’s journey to the peaks in case counts and deaths, followed by the decline.

But while Kerala is the worst hotspot of the epidemic in the country now, what is remarkable is that the rise in cases has not resulted in a similar increase in the number of deaths. In fact, Kerala has one of the lowest death counts among the major states.

In an interview to the Indian Express, Bharat Biotech founder and CMD Dr Krishna Ella says, "we will continue our pursuit of identifying public health problems and work towards developing safe and affordable solutions."

When the Indian government looked for a partner to produce an indigenous coronavirus vaccine, Bharat Biotech was the natural contender. From Rotavirus to Hepatitis B vaccines and now Covaxin, The Indian Express on how a small Hyderabad firm, dreaming big and risking large, has emerged as one of India’s biggest biotech success stories

Scientists say that in many of the urban centres, like Delhi, Mumbai or Pune, the disease prevalence, or the proportion of population infected by the virus, has already reached a level from where there will be a significant slowdown in further spread

COVID-19 vaccine: Some independent scientists said that while data from the vaccine’s Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials is very encouraging, they questioned the process of approval when efficacy data from the vaccine’s Phase 3 trials, which began in November, hadn’t come in.

Once hailed for keeping the spread in check, Kerala now has the highest number of active cases in the country, more than even Maharashtra. As on Saturday, Kerala had 65,452 active cases, more than a fourth of the entire country.