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Tag: Raghavan

  • No proof that vaccines is not going to work in opposition to new COVID-19 variants, says Govt

     COVID-19 vaccines will work in opposition to new variants of the virus detected within the UK and South Africa and there’s no proof that present vaccines will fail to guard in opposition to these coronavirus variants, Prof Okay Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the Government of India, has mentioned.

    The authorities mentioned that the UK variant of the virus is extra “transmissible”. “Vaccines will work against the variants detected in the UK and South Africa. There is no evidence that current vaccines will fail to protect against these COVID-19 variants. The UK variant of the virus is more “transmissible”,” Raghavan mentioned in a press convention.

    Stating that there are issues as most vaccines goal the Spike protein, during which there are modifications within the variants, he mentioned: “Vaccines stimulate our immune system to produce a wide range of protective antibodies. The changes in the variants are not sufficient to make the vaccines ineffective.”

    The official asserted that additional precautionary measures are should to stop these sorts of variants to dominate our inhabitants.

    There are six COVID-19 vaccines in numerous scientific trial levels in India. Besides, three vaccine candidates are in pre-clinical trial levels. Pfizer, Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech have sought emergency use authorisation of their COVID-19 vaccines.

    The United Kingdom turned the primary nation on the earth to manage the brand new coronavirus vaccine developed collectively by Pfizer and BioNTech. Canada, Mexico, the US are among the many nations that later accredited the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for his or her residents.

    The PSA additional mentioned that the federal government was conducting testing and sequencing of samples from worldwide travellers in addition to samples of these being admitted to hospitals.

  • PM Modi didn’t accept tea during 9-hour questioning by Gujarat riots

    Without parrying a single question out of the 100-odd ones put to him by the 2002 Gujarat riots SIT, Narendra Modi as the then Gujarat chief minister “kept his cool” throughout the marathon 9-hour questioning and did not accept even a cup of tea from investigators, the probe team’s chief at that time R K Raghavan has said in a new book.

    Modi had also readily agreed to come to the SIT office in Gandhinagar for the questioning and brought his own bottle of water, Raghavan has written in his autobiography, ‘A Road Well Travelled’.

    Before being asked to head the Supreme Court-appointed SIT that probed the 2002 Gujarat riots, Raghavan had also served as head of premier probe agency CBI. He was also involved in several other high-profile investigations over years, including those relating to the Bofors scam, the 2000 South Africa cricket-match fixing case and the fodder scam.

    Talking about the time the SIT had called Modi for questioning as the then Gujarat chief minister, Raghavan writes in the book, “We had it conveyed to his staff that he had to come in person to the SIT office for this purpose and that meeting him elsewhere would be misconstrued as a favour.” “He (Modi) understood the spirit of our stand and readily agreed to come to the SIT office within the government complex in Gandhinagar,” Raghvan said.

    The former police officer further said he took the “unusual step” of asking Ashok Malhotra, an SIT member, to do the questioning, mainly to avoid any “mischievous allegation” later that Modi and he had struck a deal.

    “This stand was endorsed months later by no less a person than amicus curiae Harish Salve. He told me that my presence would have vitiated Modi’s statement and would have robbed it of its credibility,” Raghavan said, adding that he had never consulted Salve prior to the event.

    It was my personal decision flowing from sheer intuition, said the retired IPS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, who was also appointed as High Commissioner to Cyprus in 2017.

    “Modi’s questioning lasted nine hours in my own chamber at the SIT office. Malhotra told me later that Modi kept his cool right through the marathon session which ended late at night,” Raghavan said.

    “He (Modi) never parried questions. Nor did he give the impression of padding up his responses. When Malhotra asked him whether he would like to break for lunch, he initially turned down the offer. He brought his own bottle of water and did not accept even a cup of tea from the SIT during the marathon questioning comprising a hundred- odd questions,” he said.

    Raghavan said it required “tremendous persuasion” to make Modi agree to a short recess. “This was possibly Modi’s concession to the need for a respite for Malhotra rather than for himself. Such was the energy of the man.” In February 2012, the SIT filed a closure report, giving a clean chit to Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them.