April 21,2021: Iran and world powers have made headway in talks to save the 2015 nuclear accord, although much more work is needed, a senior European Union official said on Tuesday, with meetings to resume next week after consultations in their respective capitals.
“Progress made over the last two weeks,” European External Action Service Deputy Secretary General Enrique Mora said on Twitter. “But much more hard work needed. Third expert group was created to address sequencing issues.”
The talks, aimed at bringing Iran and the United States back into compliance with the nuclear deal will pick up again next week based on progress achieved so far, Russian and Chinese officials said earlier on Tuesday.
Iran and world powers have been meeting in Vienna since early April to hammer out steps that must be taken, touching on U.S. sanctions and Tehran’s breaches of the deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment capacity.
“Today the Joint Commission of #JCPOA took note with satisfaction of the progress made in negotiations to restore the nuclear deal,” said Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. nuclear watchdog (IAEA), referring to the nuclear deal.
“In view of the progress made … so far the Joint Commission of #JCPOA decided to establish the third working group to deal with possible sequencing of practical steps leading to full restoration of the Iranian nuclear deal.”
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, which took office in January seeking to rejoin the accord, has said it is ready to remove “all sanctions that are inconsistent” with the deal, although not spelling out which measures it means.
In Washington, the State Department described the talks in positive terms but said there was a long way to go.
“We probably have more road ahead of us than we do behind us at this stage,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters at a regular briefing.
Iran’s clerical establishment has said it will not return to strict observance of the 2015 agreement unless all sanctions reimposed or added by former President Donald Trump after he abandoned the accord in 2018 are rescinded.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator said the talks were moving forward despite difficulties but warned Tehran would halt the negotiations if faced with “unreasonable demands” or time wasting.
Iranian officials had on Monday cited the possibility of an interim deal to buy time for a lasting settlement.
Washington [US], April 21,2021: Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all charges in the murder trial of African-American George Floyd by a jury in the Hennepin County court.
The 12 jurors found Chauvin guilty of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death in May 2020, CNN reported.
It further reported that the maximum sentence for second-degree unintentional murder is imprisonment of not more than 40 years. The maximum sentence for third-degree murder is imprisonment of not more than 25 years. The maximum sentence for second-degree manslaughter is 10 years and/or USD 20,000.
Chauvin was handcuffed in the courtroom and taken into custody by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office.
Judge Peter Cahill said, “eight weeks from now we will have sentencing.” Cahill thanked the jurors for what he called “heavy duty” service in the case.
The former officer was charged with killing Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes, which was captured on video footage in May 2020 and triggered nationwide demonstrations for racial justice.
Attorney Ben Crump and Floyd’s family released a statement following the conviction of Chauvin, saying, “today’s verdict goes far beyond this city and has significant implications for the country and even the world,” CNN reported.
New Delhi, Apr 21,2021: India on Tuesday reported 2,59,170 new Covid cases and 1,761 deaths in the last 24 hours, Ministry of Health and Family welfare data said.
With this surge, the Covid tally at present in the country is at 1,53,21,089 and the total death toll is at 1,80,530.
As many as1,54,761 discharges were made in the last 24 hours, pushing the total recoveries to 1,31,08,582, as per Union Health Ministry.
The country has 20,31,977 active cases.
Maharashtra, the country’s worst-impacted state, reported 58,924 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the tally to over 38.98 lakh, while 351 new fatalities pushed the death count to 60,824. In terms of the total caseload, Maharashtra is followed by the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
With 32,76,555 people being administered the COVID-19 vaccine in the past 24 hrs, the overall tally has mounted to 12,71,29,113.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the Centre announced a ‘liberalised and accelerated Phase 3 strategy of Covid-19 vaccination from May 1’, stating that the pricing, procurement, eligibility and administration of coronavirus vaccines being will be made flexible in Phase 3 of the world’s largest vaccination drive.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called a meeting with vaccine manufacturers at 1800 hrs on Tuesday. During the meeting, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) will make a presentation and also coordinate with all the participants, sources said.
Those expected to be present include representatives of top drugmakers from India and abroad, including the companies whose vaccines have already been approved by the Government of India.
The overall global Covid-19 caseload has topped 141.8 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 3.02 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Tuesday morning, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 141,813,257 and 3,027,353, respectively. The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 31,737,347 and 567,690, respectively, according to the CSSE. In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 15,061,919 cases.
New Delhi, Apr 20,2021: Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday announced a six-day lockdown in Delhi, starting from 2200 hrs tonight till 0500 hrs of April 26 in the wake of an unstoppable surge in the coronavirus cases.
Delhi has been recording nearly 25,000 cases of Covid-19 for the past three to four days, leading to a drastic increase in active cases, scarcity of beds, medical oxygen, and anti-viral drugs in hospitals and other places.
“It is felt that in order to contain the fast spread of the virus, curfew needs to be imposed in the territory of NCT of Delhi, except for essential services, as an emergency measure, in order to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission,” an order released by the government read.
As per the order, during the six-day-long lockdown period, people working in emergency and essential services will be allowed to move on the production of a valid I-card, pregnant women, patients, and attendants can visit hospitals, vaccination centers will remain open and people will be allowed to board flights, trains and buses.
Moreover, media persons are exempted and so are fruits, vegetables vendors, grocery stores, banks, ATMs, petrol pumps, chemist shops, manufacturing units of essentials, cold storages and restaurants offering takeaways or home delivery.
Only 50 people will be allowed to attend a marriage while 20 in the funeral, read the order. Also, all other gatherings are prohibited while all religious places will remain closed.
Addressing a digital press conference, Mr Kejriwal said, “The number of beds in the Delhi hospitals is falling short…..If strict measures are not taken now, the health system in Delhi can collapse.”
As per the Delhi government website, only 57 ICU Covid beds and 3,347 non-ICU beds were available across hospitals at 1830 hrs.
The Chief Minister said in this period of lockdown, the Delhi government would arrange for a large number of beds and utilise this time to arrange for oxygen and medicines.
Recalling last year’s havoc when hundreds of migrants left the city for hinterland via foot, bicycle or any possible means during the lockdown fearing poverty and hunger, Mr Kejriwal urged the migrants, labourers and others to remain calm as it is only a six-day lockdown and full arrangements are in place for their needs.
New Delhi , April 1,2021: India is expected to have normal monsoon rainfall this year, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday.
“Southwest monsoon seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be normal (96-104%),” the IMD said in its first stage Long Range Forecast (LRF) for monsoons.
Addressing a press conference through video link, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences M Rajeevan released the IMD’s Long Range Forecast for the 2021 Southwest Monsoon Season Rainfall.
Director General of IMD M Mohapatra was also present.
Rajeevan said that quantitatively the monsoon seasonal (June to September) rainfall is likely to be 98 of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of 5 per cent.
He pointed out that neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions are prevailing over the Pacific Ocean and neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions are prevailing over the Indian Ocean.
Some climate model forecasts indicate these conditions are likely to persist during the ensuing monsoon season.
He said that as sea surface temperature (SST) conditions over the Pacific and Indian Oceans are known to have strong influence on Indian monsoon, IMD is carefully monitoring the evolution of sea surface conditions over the Pacific and the Indian oceans.
Rajeevan said that La Nina conditions are likely to prevail only till May. “We will transition to ENSO (El Nino and Southern Oscillation) neutral conditions during monsoon. There is very little chance of El Nino conditions developing during monsoon months. There is a very small probability of Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) negative condition developing during monsoon. So these conditions are likely to lead to a normal monsoon this year,” he said.
Kolkata, Apr 17,2021: Voting for the fifth phase of the eight-phase assembly election in West Bengal began onSaturday morning in 45 of the state’s 294 constituencies amid elaborate security arrangements.
Polling for the fifth phase will be held across six districts and 45 assembly seats. The districts include North Pargana Part I, Darjeeling, Nadia Part I, Kalimpong, East Bardhaman Part I and Jalpaiguri.
In all, 319 candidates including 39 women will be vying for the 45 Assembly seats spread over six districts during the fifth phase. Over 1.12 crore voters including 55.80 lakh women and 234 Third Gender persons will decide the fate of these candidates.
The EC has made elaborate security arrangements with the deployment of central and state forces to ensure a free, fair and peaceful poll.
As the movement of polling personnel began early Friday for their respective voting centers, the deployment of a record 1,071 companies of central armed forces was also in place for the 5th phase polling
The ECI, however, would use 853 companies of central armed forces for the 5th phase and rest would be kept in reserve.
69 companies have been deployed at Barasat, 61 in Barrackpore, 107 for Basirhat, 46 for Bidhannagar, 68 for Darjeeling, 21 for Kalimpong, 122 for Jalpaiguri,11 for Krishnagar, 155 for East Bardhaman, 140 for Ranaghat and 53 for Siliguri.
Altogether 15,789 polling booths have been set up and each booth will be manned by an ASI and four armed constables.