India along with 30 countries deliberates on issues of Climate Changeinfirst ever virtual Petersberg Climate Dialogue Posted On: 28 APR 2020 7:57PM by PIB Delhi

The eleventh session of Petersberg Climate Dialogue witnessed India along with 30 other countries deliberating over ways and means to tackle the challenge of reinvigorating economies and societies after COVID-19, while enhancing collective resilience and catalysing climate action while also supporting in particular those most vulnerable.

Representing India in the first virtual Petersberg Climate Dialogue,Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Shri Prakash Javadekar said that, Today, as the World is unitedly engaged in findinga vaccine for novel Coronavirus, likewise we should have Climate Technology as open source which must be available at affordable cost.

Stressing on the issue of Climate finance, Shri Javadekar said the World now needs more. “We must plan for 1 trillion USD in grants to developing world immediately”, advocated the Union Minister.

Expressing solidarity with the world as it combats the COVID 19 pandemic the Union Minister highlighted how COVID – 19 has taught us that we can survive on less. The world must think of adopting more sustainable consumption patterns in line with requirement of sustainable lifestyles, as was first mooted by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi during Paris COP,reiterated the environment Minister.

He mentioned that India’s Nationally Determined Contributions spanning a ten-year time frame are ambitious and are also compliant with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. The minister also spoke about the opportunity world has today to accelerate renewable energy deployment and creating new green jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sector.

The first virtual Climate Dialogue, was the eleventh session of Petersberg Climate Dialogue which has been hosted by Germany since 2010 to provide a forum for informal high-level political discussions, focusing both on international climate negotiations and the advancement of climate action. The virtual XI Petersberg Climate Dialogue was co-chaired by Germany and United Kingdom, the incoming Presidency of 26th Conference of Parties (COP 26) to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The dialogue saw participation from Ministers and representatives of about 30 countries.

The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) today signed a $1.5 billion loan that will support the government’s response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, focusing on immediate priorities such as disease containment and prevention, as well as social protection for the poor and economically vulnerable sections of the society, especially women and disadvantaged groups.

The signatories to the loan agreement for the ADB’s COVID-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Programme (CARES Programme) were ShriSameer Kumar Khare, Additional Secretary (Fund Bank and ADB), in the Department of Economic Affairs in Ministry of Finance, and Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director, ADB, in India.

Earlier, the ADB’s Board of Directorsapproved the loan to provide budget support to the government to counter and mitigate the adverse health and socio-economic impact of the pandemic.

“We thank ADB’s timely assistance for the government’s immediate response measures to the coronavirus pandemic to implement (i) COVID-19 containment plan to rapidly ramp up test-track-treatment capacity, and (ii) social protection for the poor, vulnerable, women, and disadvantaged groups to protect more than 800 million people over the next three months,” said ShriKhare. “ADB’s financial and technical support will contribute to the sound implementation of the government’s far reaching emergency response programs launched in March 2020.”

“ADB is glad to support India’s bold measures to contain the COVID- 19 pandemic outbreak while protecting the most vulnerable people affected by movement restrictions, by fast-tracking and delivering the largest ever loan to India. We will continue to engage with the government to strengthen the implementation framework and capacities including monitoring and evaluation systems of its health services and social protection programmes so that the benefits reach to the poor, women, and other disadvantaged people,” said Mr Yokoyama.

Earlier, during the telephone call with Smt. NirmalaSitharaman, Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs and ADB Governor on 9thApril 2020, ADB President MrMasatsuguAsakawa conveyed ADB’s commitment to support India’s emergency needs for the health sector while alleviating the economic impact of the pandemic, as well as short- to medium-term measures to restore the dynamic economic growth of the country by exploring all available financing options. The CARES Programme is provided as the first support to meet the immediate requirements of the government.

Building on the CARES Programme, ADB is also in dialogue with the government for further possible support for stimulating the economy, support strong growth recovery, and to build resilience to future shocks.

This includes the support for the affected industries and entrepreneurs particularly micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) by facilitating their access to finance through credit guarantee schemes, MSME integration into global and national value chains through enterprise development centers, and a credit enhancement facility for infrastructure projects.

Strengthening of public service delivery will be another important agenda, including the extension of comprehensive primary health services in urban areas, and of secondary and tertiary health care systems through PPP modalities.

India has taken several decisive measures to contain the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, including a $2 billion health sector spending programme to expand hospital facilities, ramp up test-track-treatment capacity and launched a $23 billion pro-poor package to provide direct cash transfer, provide basic consumption goods and free cooking gas cylinders to the poor, particularly to women, old and socially disadvantaged groups.

It has also extended insurance coverage to frontline health workers engaged in COVID 19 response. The Central bank, Reserve Bank of India, has slashed policy rates, eased asset quality norms, provided loan moratoriums, taken measures to support exporters and allowed states to borrow more to meet their financing requirements.

It has also pumped in massive liquidity to support banks, non-banking financial companies, mutual funds as well as taken measures to push the flow of funds to the MSMEs and the corporate sector.

‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan’—is all set to combat the present health crisis and give a boost to the rural economy through its various components. This year owing to the COVID-19 emergency, and availability of large labour force in rural areas, the Abhiyan has started gearing up for the impending monsoon.

In a first of its case a Joint Advisory has been issued from the Department of Rural Development, Dept. of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Dept. of Land Resources & Dept of Drinking Water & Sanitation to all the Chief Secretaries of all States/ UTs, in context with the impending monsoon this year and the preparations to be done for water conservation and recharge which is of utmost importance for our country.

Last year Jal Shakti Abhiyan was launched and it covered 256 water stressed districts across the country. This ‘Abhiyan’ is a mass movement to bring all the stakeholders under one ambit of water conservation drive, and last year it had a nationwide impact. Under this Abhiyan more than six and a half crore people became part comprising of State Govts, Central Govt, Civil Society Organisations, Panchayati Raj Institutions and Communities. More than seventy- five lakh traditional and other water bodies and tanks were renovated and around a crore water conservation & rainwater harvesting structures were created.

Encouraged by the response, a wider and more intensive strategy was planned for this year. But owing to the current health emergency, Central Govt officials will not be deployed in Abhiyan this summer. In view of it, it will be ensured that all available resources be optimally deployed to catch the rain during the monsoon this year and preparatory activities are also well placed.

Ministry of Home Affairs have allowed to take up MNGREGS works/ drinking water & sanitation works during lockdown with priority to be given to irrigation and water conservation works. Central and State sector schemes in irrigation and water conservation sectors have also been allowed to be implemented with suitable dovetailing with MNREGS works. It will be further ensured that all works are undertaken with strict implementation of social distancing, use of face covers/ masks and other necessary precautions.

Rejuvenation of traditional water bodies, removal of encroachments in the water bodies, desilting of lakes & ponds, construction/ strengthening of inlets/outlets, catchment area treatment can be taken up on priority. Similarly, rejuvenation of small rivers through community driven River Basin Management practices may also be initiated.

Such activities would ensure water source sustainability in rural areas and would strengthen the ongoing Jal Jeevan Mission being implemented by Ministry of Jal Shakti. In addition to it the Village Action Plan (VAP) prepared by local community for Jal Jeevan Mission will provide a solid framework to the rural activities.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan exhorts scientists to speedily develop COVID-19 mitigation solutions

“At least half a dozen candidate vaccines are being supported of which four are in an advance stage.” - Dr. Harsh Vardhan Posted On: 28 APR 2020 6:36PM by PIB Delhi

Union Minister of Science & Technology, Health & Family Welfare and Earth Sciences, Dr Harsh Vardhan, here today reviewed, through videoconferencing, the various initiatives undertaken by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and its Autonomous Institutes (AIs) and its Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) – BIRAC and BIBCOL, to tackle the current COVID-19 crisis especially with respect to progress made in indigenous development of vaccine, Rapid Test and RT-PCR diagnostic Kits.

Secretary, DBT, Dr. Renu Swarup informed that DBT has evolved a multi-pronged research strategy and action plan for immediate response as well as for long-term preparedness to tackle COVID-19. These multifaceted efforts include research towards development of candidate vaccines, therapeutics, and suitable animal models for COVID-19 as well as development of indigenous diagnostics and genomic studies on the host and pathogen. The DBT and its PSU,

Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) has announced a COVID-19 Research Consortium Call to support Diagnostics, Vaccines, Novel Therapeutics, Repurposing of Drugs or any other intervention for control of COVID-19.

During interaction with DBT scientists, Union Minister was informed about various computational methods being developed by DBT labs/AIs to predict potential antiviral drug molecules. In another strategy, surrogates of the virus are being developed representing one or more critical steps in virus lifecycle and inhibitors are being tested. Work is in progress to isolate neutralizing antibodies either from the patients recovered from COVID-19 or from human antibody libraries. Also various AIs of DBT are working on development of candidate vaccines

which are at various stages of pre-clinical studies with an overall aim to demonstrate the proof of concept and immunogenicity and safety evaluation prior to clinical testing. At the moment, at least 9 of these studies are in early stages and one delivery and adjuvant system for improving the immunogenicity of candidate vaccine is at the advanced stage of development.

While discussing genetic sequencing, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, “These genetic sequencing efforts remind me of Polio eradication movement 26 years back. Towards the fag end of the Polio movement, active surveillance of the country was done to find out the cases of acute flaccid paralysis. That time also, genetic sequencing was used to establish the travel history of polio virus which eventually helped in the eradication of polio.”

After the presentation, Dr. Harsh Vardhan appreciated the work being done by scientists and their innovative ways of finding solutions to mitigate COVID-19. “The sincere efforts of DBT scientists will enable the country to be self-reliant in production of RT-PCR and Antibody test kits by the end of next month. This will make it possible to meet the target of conducting one lakh tests per day by the end of next month”, he said.

The minister also exhorted scientists working on developing new vaccines, new drugs and medical equipment, to speed up their work. “Out of at least half a dozen candidates supported for vaccines, four are in an advanced stage and regulatory platform at one place has been constituted for speedy clearances”, he said.

Dr. Harsh Vardhan also appreciated the BIRAC efforts in supporting over 150 start up solutions of which over 20 are ready for deployment. He also released a Hand-Sanitizer developed by another PSU of DBT, Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Ltd. (BIBCOL) which is engaged in manufacturing of various biological, pharmaceutical and food products.

It currently is manufacturing formulations of Vitamin C and Zinc tablets to contribute towards the solutions for COVID-19. “A contribution of Rupee One towards commercial sale of each single bottle of this Sanitizer will go to PMCARES Fund”, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said.