Biden names Vidur Sharma as Policy Advisor for Testing in COVID-19 Response Team
Washington: Joe Biden has named Indian-American health policy expert Vidur Sharma as testing advisor in his COVID-19 Response Team, as the US President-elect laid out his ambitious goal to intensify vaccinations across the country to tackle the spread of the deadly pandemic.
The announcement of Sharma's appointment as Policy Advisor for Testing was made by Biden on Friday along with additional members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
During the Obama administration, Sharma served as a health policy advisor on the Domestic Policy Council.
Sharma supported the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, aligned Federal Department and Agencies, and collaborated with community stakeholders to further the administration's health policy agenda.
He also served as Deputy Research Director with Protect Our Care, a coalition of advocacy organisations dedicated to preventing the repeal of the ACA. Since then, Sharma has advised health sector organisations on value-based care arrangements at PwC Strategy.
Born in Wisconsin and raised in Minnesota, and the son of Indian immigrants, Sharma is a graduate of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Saint Louis University.
Among other appointments announced Friday were Amy Chang, Policy Advisor; Abbe Gluck, Special Counsel; David Kessler, Chief Science Officer of COVID Response; Rosa Po, COVID Response Team Deputy Chief of Staff; Andy Slavitt, Senior Advisor to the COVID Response Coordinator; Ben Wakana, Deputy Director of Strategic Communications & Engagement; and B. Cameron Webb, Senior Policy Advisor for COVID-19 Equity.
The Transition said that the appointees will play integral roles in implementing and executing Biden's strategy to effectively and equitably vaccinate as many people as possible, while also increasing testing and taking other important steps that will be key to changing the course of the pandemic.
We are in a race against time, and we need a comprehensive strategy to quickly contain this virus. The individuals announced today will bolster the White House's COVID-19 Response Team and play important roles in carrying out our rescue plan and vaccination programme. At a time when American families are facing numerous challenges, I know these public servants will do all that is needed to build our nation back better, said Biden.
Biden on Friday announced an ambitious goal of inoculating 100 million Americans with COVID-19 vaccines in the first 100 days of his administration.
During his election campaign, Biden, who will take over as the 46th President of the US, made tackling COVID-19 and the economic hardships it had put on Americans a core pitch to voters.
The US is the worst-affected country in the world with more than 23,523,000 COVID-19 infections and 391,955 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus tracker.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said, containing the coronavirus pandemic is one of the defining challenges of our time. This outstanding team will help us defeat this challenge by helping get this virus under control, responsibly reopen our economy, and safely reopen our schools. I look forward to working closely with these dedicated public servants not only to address this urgent crisis, but also to build better preparedness for future pandemics and other public health threats.
There is hard work ahead to contain COVID-19. These appointees are immensely qualified to join our White House efforts to contain the coronavirus and build our nation back better. The president and vice president-elect have put together a bold rescue package and national vaccination plan and these individuals will work tirelessly by marshalling every part of our government, working directly with communities, and trusting science to make it a reality, said incoming White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain.
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Delhi court sentences Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia, associate to life imprisonment
New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court has sentenced Haryana gangster Vikas Gulia and his associate to life imprisonment under MCOCA provisions, but refused the death penalty saying the offences did not fall under the category of 'rarest of the rare cases'.
Additional Sessions Judge Vandana Jain sentenced Gulia and Dhirpal alias Kana to rigorous imprisonment for life under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
In an order dated December 13, the judge said, "Death sentence can only be awarded in 'rarest of the rare cases' wherein the murder is committed in an extremely inhumane, barbarous, grotesque or dastardly manner as to arouse umbrage of the community at large."
The judge said that on weighing the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, it could be concluded that the present case did not fall under the category, and so, the death penalty could not be imposed upon the convicts.
"Thus, both the convicts are sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Rs 3 lakh each, for committing the offence under Section 3 of MCOCA," she said.
The public prosecutor, seeking the death penalty for both the accused, submitted that they were involved in several unlawful activities while they were on bail in other cases.
He argued that the accused had shown no respect for the law and acted without any fear of legal consequences, and therefore did not deserve any leniency from the court.
The court noted that both convicts were involved in offences of murder, attempt to murder, extortion, robbery, house trespass, and criminal intimidation. Besides, they had misused the liberty of interim bail granted to them by absconding.
It said, "The terror of the convicts was such that it created fear psychosis in the mind of the general public, and they lost complete faith in the law enforcement agencies and chose to accede to the illegal demands of convicts. Despite suffering losses, they could not gather the courage to depose against them."
The court noted that Gulia was involved in at least 18 criminal cases, while Dhirpal had links to 10 serious offences.
It underlined that MCOCA had been enacted "keeping in view the fact that organised crime had come up as a serious threat to society, as it knew no territorial boundaries and is fuelled by illegal wealth generated by committing the offence of extortion, contract killings, kidnapping for ransom, collection of protection money, murder, etc."
Both accused persons had been convicted on December 10 in a case registered at Najafgarh police station. The police filed a chargesheet under Section 3 (punishment for organised crime) and 4 (punishment for possessing unaccountable wealth on behalf of member of organised crime syndicate) of MCOCA.
