Pakistan to send special plane to China to receive first tranche of anti-COVID-19 vaccine
Islamabad, Jan 30: Pakistan will send a special plane to China on Sunday to bring back the first batch of the 500,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine that Beijing has promised to provide to its close ally.
The National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), during a meeting here on the strategy of vaccine administration, said on Saturday that the country is geared up for the vaccination programme.
The forum was apprised that a special plane will fly to China tomorrow (Sunday) for transportation of the first tranche of vaccine, according to a statement from the NCOC.
The move comes after Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on January 21, following a call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, had announced that China will provide 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Pakistan by January 31.
He said that Beijing had asked Islamabad to send an airplane to get the vaccines.
Pakistan has approved two foreign anti-COVID vaccines as of now, including the Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, for emergency use in the country.
All necessary measures have been put in place for vaccine storage at Islamabad and distribute the vaccine to various federating units particularly to Sindh and Balochistan provinces, the statement said.
The vaccine nerve centre has been established at the NCOC with provincial and district level vaccine administration across the country for vaccination in a systematic manner, it said.
Pakistan plans to provide vaccines to frontline health workers and elderly people in the first phase.
Meanwhile, a senior Pakistan minister said that the country would get up to 17 million doses of anti-coronavirus vaccine in the first half of this year.
Asad Umar , who is the minister for planning, in a tweet said that the vaccine would be provided by Covax, which is an alliance set up in April last year by Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organisation.
Good news on COVID vaccine front received letter from Covax of indicative supply of up to 17 million doses of AstraZeneca in 1st half 2021, said Umar.
He also said that about 6 million will be received by March with delivery starting in February, he added.
The number of COVID-19 cases in the country has reached 543,214 after 2,179 new infections were reported in the last 24 hours, according to the ministry of National Health Services.
Another 65 patients died in this period, taking the number of COVID-19 deaths to 11,623 while some 2,111 patients were in a critical condition.
Also, 498,152 people have recovered so far, which means that the number of active patients was 33,439. The authorities performed 41,435 tests in the last one day. It showed that the positivity rate was 5.25 percent.
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SC issues criminal contempt notice to DDA VC over tree felling in southern ridge
New Delhi, May 16: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a criminal contempt notice against Delhi Development Authority vice-chairman Subhasish Panda for allowing large-scale felling of trees in the southern Ridge's Satbari area to construct a road from Chhattarpur to Saarc University.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan expressed displeasure over the misleading affidavit filed by the vice chairman and presenting wrong facts in the court. It also directed planting of 100 new trees for each tree felled by the DDA.
Voicing strong disapproval of the affidavit filed by the DDA vice-chairman which stated that 642 trees were cut without his knowledge, the top court said it "cannot trust the DDA now".
"I have been a judge in Constitutional courts for over 20 years now and I have never seen a body misrepresenting facts and filing wrong affidavits. There has to be some limit, never before seen," Justice Oka remarked orally.
The top court noted that the felling of trees continued for 10 days and this fact was suppressed by the DDA despite knowing not a single tree could be touched in the ridge area (according to a 19995 order) without the court's permission.
It also noted the Delhi LG was also misled by the DDA officials by not informing about the correct facts about the felling of trees.
"Such conduct (of DDA VC) and suppression amounts to interference with the due course of court proceedings and administration of justice. We have already issued show cause notice for civil contempt. We therefore issue notice of criminal contempt," the bench said.
The apex court also directed the DDA to stop all further activities for construction of the road.
"We are of the view that 100 new trees for one tree felled have to be planted by the DDA. We, therefore, direct Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, to visit the road stretches to find out how many trees possibly may have been cut and assess damages.
"Entire record of contractor has to be shared. We request FSI team to submit a preliminary report to this court by June 20," the bench said.
The top court had earlier issued contempt notice to the vice-chairman of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for the felling of over 1,000 trees for the construction of an approach road.
The apex court on March 4 had refused permission to DDA to fell 1,051 trees saying that their application is very vague.
The top court had said DDA being an instrumentality of the State, it is the duty of the DDA to first make an attempt to protect the environment by requesting for felling of only those trees which are absolutely mandatory.
"They must apply their mind whether alternatives can be examined to save the trees. Moreover, they want to construct the road through a forest. There is no permission obtained under the Forest Act.
"We direct the DDA to re-examine the proposal by employing the experts in the field. The exercise to be undertaken by the DDA is necessary for ensuring that while public work is carried out, minimum number of trees are required to be felled," the apex court had said.
