Global trade and tariff uncertainties​ can become catalyst for reforms in India: HSBC Research

New Delhi, (IANS): Global trade and tariff uncertainties could become a catalyst for reforms in India over the medium term and for growth results, the reforms must run deep, an HSBC Research report said on Tuesday.Potential US tariffs may have already become a catalyst for reforms like lowering import tariffs, opening up to regional FDI, fast-tracking trade deals, and making the Indian rupee more flexible."And India does not have to look too far for models to emulate. Its success in services exports has demonstrated the power of moving up the value chain, from basic (call centre services) to high-tech (professional services)," said the report.India's goods trade deficit narrowed sharply in February to $14.1 billion, from $23 billion in January.“The trade deficit tends to narrow in February but this time, it narrowed rather sharply to the lowest in more than three years,” the report mentioned.India's goods trade deficit narrowed to $14 billion and the services trade surplus rose to $18.5 billion, putting the overall trade balance in a rare surplus zone in February.A normalisation in...

Read More........ → March 25, 2025

New study reveals the world’s most searched-for jobs

In 2019, Brother UK, the office electronics supplier, analysed a year’s worth of Google search data. The study revealed the most popular jobs worldwide, and they discussed whether culture and economy impacted careers globally.In 2023, Brother UK conducted a new study investigating how the global job market has changed in the last three years. Brother UK wanted to determine whether a pandemic, economic uncertainties, remote/hybrid working, and AI technologies have transformed how the world searches for jobs.The most searched-for jobs in the UKTeaching assistant jobs are still the most searched-for in the UK. However, there are signs that interest may be waning. In 2019, over 288,000 people searched Google for teaching assistant roles. But since 2020, the average yearly searches have shrunk by 5% to 275,000.UK search data shows that the most significant search increase in the education sector was from qualified teaching positions. While teachers still wish to continue teaching, they may consider switching schools for better career prospects.A recent poll from the National Education Union...

Read More........ → April 10, 2024

Australia and India partner on COVID-19 research

Australian and Indian researchers will work together to advance COVID-19 screening and study the future health effects of the virus after a nearly $4 million investment by the Morrison government. The Australia-India Strategic Research Fund (AISRF) has funded six new projects, including one to develop COVID-19 diagnostic technologies and another study of the longer-term effects on the hearts and lungs of patients who have recovered. Other projects will develop risk management systems to protect farmers from disasters associated with climate change and demonstrate how food-drying technology using renewable energy can reduce pollution in the food-processing sector.Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews said she was pleased that work in these important areas would be able to continue after the COVID-19 pandemic had caused significant delays this year.“This latest funding will enable Australian and Indian researchers to contribute to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including in crucial screening and diagnostic testing,” Minister Andrews said.“As...

Read More........ → December 13, 2020

Covaxin likely to be available for public use in India by February

Covaxin, the COVID vaccine candidate by Hyderabad-based vaccine manufacturer Bharat Biotech Limited, being developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is likely to be available for use of the general public by the end of February 2021, Dr Sanjay Roy, principal investigator (PI) heading its clinical trial at AIIMS, told IANS."We can hope the general population will get their hands on the vaccine doses by February," he stated.Roy also said that two indigenous vaccine candidates which are frontrunners, expected to hit the market shelves before the end of the first quarter of 2021. "The Covishield by Serum Institute of India (SII) is also a frontrunner and also in the third phase of clinical trials. I expect it to be available for public use around the time of Covaxin," he added.Covaxin has entered phase III of clinical trials at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhio. Roy said that more than 100 volunteers have already received the first dose of the vaccine candidate.He also informed that a target of 26,000 volunteers is set...

Read More........ → December 09, 2020

Coronavirus: Lung damage ‘identified’ in study

Coronavirus (COVID-19) could be causing lung abnormalities still detectable more than three months after patients are infected, researchers suggest. A study of 10 patients at Oxford University used a novel scanning technique to identify damage not picked up by conventional scans. It uses a gas called Xenon during MRI scans to create images of lung damage. Lung experts said a test that could spot long-term damage would make a huge difference to Covid patients.The Xenon technique sees patients inhale the gas during a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan.Prof Fergus Gleeson, who is leading the work, tried out his scanning technique on 10 patients aged between 19 and 69. Eight of them had persistent shortness of breath and tiredness three months after being ill with coronavirus, even though none of them had been admitted to intensive care or required ventilation, and conventional scans had found no problems in their lungs. The scans showed signs of lung damage - by highlighting areas where air is not flowing easily into the blood - in the eight who reported breathlessness. The...

Read More........ → December 01, 2020

Most lungs recover well after COVID-19, says study

NOV 26, 2020 LONDON: Lung tissue of patients who suffer severely from COVID-19 shows good recovery in most cases, according to a study. The researchers at the Radbound University in the Netherlands found that the group which was referred by a GP did not recover as well as patients who were admitted to the hospital''s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The study, published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, included 124 patients who had recovered from acute COVID-19 infections. The patients were examined by CT scan and a lung functional test. After three months, the researchers took stock, which revealed that the patients'' lung tissue is recovering well. Residual damage in the lung tissue was generally limited, and was most often seen in patients who were treated in the ICU, they said. According to the study, the most common complaints after three months are fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pains. "The patterns we see in these patients show similarities with recovery after acute pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), in which fluid accumulates in the lungs,"...

Read More........ → November 26, 2020

Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine ‘encouraging’ for older age groups

NOV 19, 2020 LONDON: The coronavirus vaccine developed by teams at the University of Oxford has been shown to trigger a robust immune response in healthy adults aged 56-69 and those over 70 years of age. The findings published in ‘Lancet' on Thursday based on 560 healthy adult volunteers shows that the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine is "safe and well tolerated" with a lower reactogenicity profile in older adults than in younger adults, meaning the older age groups could build immunity to the disease. "These findings are encouraging because older individuals are at disproportionate risk of severe COVID-19 and so any vaccine adopted for use against SARS-CoV-2 [COVID-19] must be effective in older adults," the researchers note. The team is also testing whether the vaccine stops people developing COVID-19 in larger Phase 3 trials and early results from this crucial stage are expected in the coming weeks. "We were pleased to see that our vaccine was not only well tolerated in older adults, but also stimulated similar immune responses to those seen in younger volunteers," said Dr Maheshi Ramasamy,...

Read More........ → November 21, 2020

New probe that mimics coronavirus may speed up drug discovery: Scientists

SEP 22, 2020 WASHINGTON: Scientists have developed a new tool that mimics how the novel coronavirus which causes COVID-19 enters and infects cells, an advance that could potentially speed up the search for treatments against the deadly disease. The novel tool, described in the journal ACS Nano, is a fluorescent nanoparticle probe with the spike protein that is present on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which it uses to bind to human cells and enter them. According to the researchers, including those from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) in the US, the probe could be used in tests to rapidly gauge the ability of therapeutics to block the actual virus from infecting human cells. "Our goal is to create a screening system to find compounds that block SARS-CoV-2 from binding to cells and infecting them," explained Kirill Gorshkov, a co-author of the study from the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in the US. Since using the actual virus in such screening studies would be difficult and require special facilities, the scientists said they used nanoparticles...

Read More........ → September 29, 2020

Children with no COVID-19 symptoms may shed virus for weeks: Study

AUG 29, 2020 WASHINGTON: Children can shed the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, even if they are asymptomatic, or for long after their symptoms have cleared, according to a new study which sheds more light on the significance of the pediatric population in the pandemic's spread. The study, published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, followed 91 children at 22 hospitals throughout South Korea, infected with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, and found that they carried the viral genetic material RNA for a longer period than expected. "Symptom screening fails to identify most COVID-19 cases in children, and SARS-CoV-2 RNA in children is detected for an unexpectedly long time," the researchers, including those from Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea, noted in the study. In a commentary, published on the study, scientists, including Roberta L. DeBiasi from the The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in the US, said children may play an important role in the COVID-19 transmission. "To our knowledge, no prior studies have systematically...

Read More........ → August 31, 2020

Israel shares ground-breaking technology with AIIMS to tackle Covid

As a part of Israel-India cooperation to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli Ambassador Ron Malka handed over state-of-the-art equipment and technology solutions to the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to tackle the viral disease. "Both India, as well as Israel, are extending support to the international community by sharing their expertise, data, knowledge, medicines and collaborating in the areas of developing vaccine and research, thus leading by example and showing the true spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' (the whole world is one family)."  AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria said  He also informed that apart from patient care, AIIMS is actively involved in developing centres of excellence in many states and is regularly organising webinars, clinical grand rounds, e-ICU video consultations for dissemination of knowledge and expertise across the nation and abroad. AIIMS is at the forefront in fighting the pandemic and also providing best quality patient care for both Covid and non-Covid patients. AIIMS has treated around 5,500 Covid patients...

Read More........ → August 12, 2020

Physical distancing linked with significant reduction in COVID-19 transmission: Study

JUL 31, 2020 WASHINGTON: Implementation of physical distancing policies nationally is associated with significant reductions in transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19, and reduced community mobility, according to researchers, including one of Indian origin. The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE on Thursday, found that physical distancing policies enacted nationally in 46 countries prevented an estimated 1.57 million cases of COVID-19 over a two-week period, representing a 65 per cent reduction in new cases. The researchers emphasise the significant benefits that can be achieved by individuals practising social distancing measures. "From our data-driven analysis, it became clear that practising social distancing can have a huge impact on transmission rates," said Raghu Kalluri, a professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in the US. Analysing the effects of social distancing policies globally, the researchers were able to obtain sufficient data for 46 countries with national social distancing policies, 74 nations without such policies...

Read More........ → August 05, 2020

World gets effective COVID-19 vaccine finally

Symbolic Photo The Oxford-made COVID-19 vaccine has been shown to be effective in preventing the deadly coronavirus. After a long three-month clinical trial, it was found to be effective in the human body.  The trial of the Oxford vaccine began last April. The vaccine was first injected into the two human bodies. One of them was Dr. Elisa Granato, a microbiologist at the University of Oxford. Later in the first stage, a few numbers of human bodies were tested. In the second phase, the vaccine was injected among more than a thousand volunteers. According to the British media, the reports of these two stages of the trial were positive. Oxford conducted the third phase trial based on the reports of the first and second phase trials. The effects of the vaccine have also been claimed to be satisfactory in trials at this stage. Although the dose of the vaccine or the report of the clinical trial has not been released yet. Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com...

Read More........ → July 19, 2020

Coronavirus vaccine update: Oxford vaccine's 'double defence' offers hope

Researchers at the University of Oxford believe they may have a breakthrough in their search for a Covid-19 vaccine after the team discovered that the jab could provide “double protection” against the deadly coronavirus following early stage human trials, according to media reports in the UK. The total number of coronavirus cases across the world has crossed the 13.9-million mark and the death toll has gone past 590,000. Given the scale this pandemic is assuming at fast pace, pharmaceutical companies and scientists are working overtime under pressure to come up with a vaccine as soon as possible. There currently are over 100 vaccines at various stages of development worldwide, including in India, Britain, China, the US, Russia and Israel. There are at least 21 vaccines currently under key trials, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). China's Sinovac Biotech, China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and AstraZeneca's experimental Covid-19 vaccine are in late-stage Phase III trials. Moderna, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Novavax, Sinovac, CanSino Biologics and Inovio...

Read More........ → July 17, 2020

When ready, a coronavirus vaccine must reach all

When a safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 is licenced for use, there will be simultaneous demand around the world. More than 115 vaccines are under development to bring the novel coronavirus pandemic to a halt. It is time to spruce up a global supply mechanism to ensure everyone gets the vaccine, say Arun Kumar* and Tung Thanh Le*. Mankind has its hope pinned on the fast development and mass production of a new vaccine as the most important research and development effort in containing the rapid global spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The severity of the public health crisis, set off by the virus SARS-CoV-2 (Severe acute respiratory syndrome-Coronavirus-2) first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has triggered more than 115 vaccine projects around the world. After a similar epidemic – the Ebola outbreak of 2014 in West Africa – international research bodies and governments felt the need to join forces in the search for new vaccines. This formed the basis of The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) set up by the Governments of...

Read More........ → July 14, 2020