Karnataka to vaccinate 1.5 lakh people daily from March 8
Bengaluru, Mar 7: Karnataka will intensify the inoculation drive from March 8, by providing vaccines at 3,000 centres including the primary health centres and district hospitals, with a target to vaccinate 1.5 lakh people everyday, state Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar said on Sunday.
At a meeting held on Saturday to review the COVID-19 situation and progress of vaccination drive, the Minister instructed the officials to make the vaccines available at 3,000 centres from Monday, the minister's office said in a statement.
Sudhakar also appealed to the people to come forward in large numbers to take the vaccine.
According to the health department, at present the 20,000 to 28,000 people are getting vaccinated and majority of them are people above the age of 60 years.
Sudhakar expressed concern over the sudden spike in cases in the Bengaluru urban district from 200 to 250 cases a day for the past few weeks to 400 on Friday.
"As many as 12 clusters have been identified in BBMP limits and testing will be increased to 40,000 from the current 30,000," the statement read.
The minister underlined the need to make the contact tracing robust with tracking and tracing a minimum of 20 primary and secondary contacts for each positive case.
All these 20 contacts will be subjected to Covid-19 test, he added.
The Minister hinted that the city has witnessed a spurt in cases due to Kerala and Maharashtra.
"The challenge is due to the neighbouring states of Kerala and Maharashtra which have high case load.
Along with strict measures at borders, restrictions on large gatherings will also be tightened," he said in the statement.
Emphasising the importance of avoiding large gatherings and agitations in the next one month, Sudhakar said he would speak to the police officials to enforce the guidelines.
Testing in Mangaluru would be ramped up in view of more inter-state travellers there.
This apart, instructions have been issued to Bengaluru Urban, Dakshina Kannada, Mysuru, Chamaajanagara, Udupi, Kodagu, Belagavi and Tumkuru to be more vigilant, the minister said.
He added that Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa would hold a video conference with district administration wherever there are chances of high prevalence of cases.
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Trump sues BBC for USD 10 billion, alleges defamation over edited Jan 6 speech
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking USD 10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.
The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 US presidential election.
It accused the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump's speech on January 6, 2021” in order to ”intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”
The lawsuit, filed in a Florida court, seeks USD 5 billion in damages for defamation and USD 5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The BBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The broadcaster apologised last month to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejected claims it had defamed him, after Trump threatened legal action.
BBC chairman Samir Shah had called it an “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC's top executive and its head of news.
The speech took place before some of Trump's supporters stormed the US Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the hourlong documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 US presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Trump said earlier Monday that he was suing the BBC “for putting words in my mouth.”
“They actually put terrible words in my mouth having to do with Jan. 6 that I didn't say, and they're beautiful words that I said, right?" the president said unprompted during an appearance in the Oval Office. "They're beautiful words, talking about patriotism and all of the good things that I said. They didn't say that, but they used terrible words.”
The president's lawsuit was filed in Florida. Deadlines to bring the case in British courts expired more than a year ago.
Legal experts have brought up potential challenges to a case in the US, given that the documentary was not shown in the country.
The lawsuit alleges that people in the US can watch the BBC's original content, including the “Panorama” series, which includes the documentary, by using the subscription streaming platform BritBox or a virtual private network service.
The 103-year-old BBC is a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds (USD 230) paid by every household that watches live TV or BBC content. Bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial, it typically faces especially intense scrutiny and criticism from both conservatives and liberals.
