Tag: tieup

Despite Nitish’s meeting with Mamata, Oppn tie-up unlikely in Bengal

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Kolkata: The crucial meeting between West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her counterpart in Bihar, Nitish Kumar on April 24 to pave way for a grand anti-BJP alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll has prompted certain questions to float around in the political circles of the state.
The first question is whether Nitish Kumar was deliberately deputed to crack an understanding with the Trinamool Congress supremo considering that Mamata Banerjee’s party leadership has already made it clear that for the time they will be maintaining an equal distance with the BJP and Congress and instead try to develop an understanding between all the regional parties in the country.
The second question is how far even Nitish Kumar will be finally able to bring the Congress and Trinamool leadership on the same platform. The reply to this question remained unanswered at the joint press conference on April 24 which was attended by Banerjee, Kumar and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, who is the deputy chief minister of Bihar.

During the media interaction on that day while a couple of media persons questioned about the position of Congress in the opposition alliance model, Mamata Banerjee virtually stopped those scribes and said that the media does not need to get bothered by that.
“You do not need to think about all these things. We will be together. The people of the country will fight against the BJP. All parties will walk together,” Mamata Banerjee said on that day. During the press conference the chief ministers of both the states stressed that all the opposition parties will have to shed their egos to work unitedly in their joint move against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
In fact, since the beginning, the lines of thinking of Banerjee and Kumar on this grand opposition alliance have been different. While Nitish Kumar, on one hand, has been maintaining a close coordination with the top Congress leaders, including the national Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on this count, Trinamool Congress has been maintaining a distance from the oldest national party of the country.
There the question becomes more pertinent on whether Kumar would be able to finally bring the two forces together, political observers say. They point that both the Congress and Trinamool Congress have some points of debate in the matter which does not really paint a rosy picture of the two forces coming on the same platform at least in the pre-poll scenario.
According to veteran political observer and analyst Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay, since a pre-poll alliance always come with the rider of a seat-sharing agreement, in case of West Bengal it is virtually impossible for Trinamool Congress to sacrifice a single of 42 Lok Sabha seat for the Congress or for any other party.

“Mamata Banerjee’s aim is to gain the maximum numerical presence in the Lower House of Parliament and she is quite aware that West Bengal is the only state that will provide food for her on this count. Precisely that is why since the time she started her dialogues with other regional parties, she had been insisting on the choice of opposition leader only after the polls. So, from the point of view of Trinamool Congress this is the principal barrier for an amicable understanding with Congress,” Bandopadhyay explained.
From the Congress’s point of view, especially from the party’s West Bengal unit, Bandopadhyay explained, the choice of an amicable understanding with Trinamool Congress will not be an easy task since in that case Congress’s existing understanding with CPI(M)- lead Left Front in West Bengal will receive a setback.
“The recently concluded bypoll to the minority-dominated Sagardighi Assembly constituency in Murshidabad district, where Left Front- supported Congress candidate won with a handsome majority, had made both the parties more enthusiastic of carrying forward the understanding till the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. At the same time, the Congress will be at a bargaining position on seat sharing agreement with the Left Front rather than with Trinamool Congress. So, from the Congress’s point of argument, accepting Trinamool Congress as a partner will not be that easy,” Bandopadhyay explained.
However, political analysts and columnist Amal does not agree that the Sagardighi bypoll results cannot be an ultimate indicator of the Congress-Left Front equations all the time.
“CPI(M) or Left Front being a regimented force can always mobilize their traditional voters behind a Congress candidate as part of an alliance formula. But can the Congress leadership achieve the same mobilization of their dedicated voters in support of a Left Front candidate? So, it cannot be said for certain that the success of the Sagardighi model will be the sole factor that will ensure Congress- Left Front understanding till 2024,” he said.
According to him, the results for forthcoming polls for the three-tier panchayat system in West Bengal scheduled this year, which in all probability a three-corner contest between the Trinamool Congress, BJP and Left Front-Congress alliance, will be a crucial indicator on this count.
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#Nitishs #meeting #Mamata #Oppn #tieup #Bengal
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 30, 2023
Oxford University, SII tie-up delivers ‘high efficacy’ malaria vaccine

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London: A University of Oxford developed and Serum Institute of India (SII) manufactured and scaled up “high efficacy” malaria vaccine has been licensed for use in Ghana by Africa’s Food and Drugs Authority, the university announced here on Thursday.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, leveraging Novavax’s adjuvant technology, has been approved for use in children aged 5 to 36 months the age group at the highest risk of death from malaria. It marks the first regulatory clearance for the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine for use in any country.
“This marks a culmination of 30 years of malaria vaccine research at Oxford with the design and provision of a high efficacy vaccine that can be supplied at adequate scale to the countries who need it most,” said Professor Adrian Hill, Chief investigator of the programme and Director of the Oxford University’s Jenner Institute at the Nuffield Department of Medicine.

“As with the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, our partnership with the Serum Institute of India has been key to successful very large-scale manufacturing and rapid development,” he said.
The R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine is a low-dose vaccine that can be manufactured at a mass scale and modest cost, enabling as many as hundreds of millions of doses to be supplied to African countries which are suffering a significant malaria burden.
“Malaria is a life-threatening disease that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable populations in our society and remains a leading cause of death in childhood. Developing a vaccine to greatly impact this huge disease burden has been extraordinarily difficult,” said Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India.
“The licensure of the R21/Matrix-M Malaria Vaccine for use in Ghana is a significant milestone in our efforts to combat malaria around the world. We remain steadfast in our commitment to scaling up production of the vaccine to meet the needs of countries with high malaria burden and to support global efforts towards saving lives,” he said.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine was initially designed and developed at the University of Oxford and has undergone clinical trials in the UK, Thailand, and several African countries, including an ongoing Phase III trial in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania that has enrolled 4,800 children. Results from these trials are expected to be reported later this year.

The vaccine contains Novavax’s Matrix-M, a saponin-based adjuvant that enhances the immune system response, making it more potent and more durable. The Matrix-M adjuvant stimulates the entry of antigen-presenting cells at the injection site and enhances antigen presentation in local lymph nodes. This technology has also been used in Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine and is a key component of other development-stage vaccines.
John C Jacobs, President and Chief Executive Officer, Novavax said: “We’re thrilled that Novavax’s Matrix-M adjuvant has contributed to the success of this promising and much-needed malaria vaccine.
“It is our intention to unlock the potential of our adjuvant, both in the near term and over time, to continue to improve public health.”
Meanwhile, SII is said to have already established potential manufacturing capacities of more than 200 million doses annually. The scientists behind the project see this as a critical step towards reducing over half a million malaria-related deaths annually and improving the health outcomes of millions of people in Africa and beyond.
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#Oxford #University #SII #tieup #delivers #high #efficacy #malaria #vaccine
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 13, 2023
AP: Naidu announces TDP tie-up with PDF for upcoming polls

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Hyderabad: The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday made it clear that his party had an alliance with the People’s Democratic Front (PDF) in the ongoing polls for the teachers and the graduate constituencies to avoid division of anti-incumbency votes to prevent Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP).
In view of the upcoming elections to be held on Monday, Naidu wrote an open letter to the voters which read, “Ever since the YSRCP came to power in the State, democracy is continuously being subjected to a virtual onslaught. As part of this attack, the ruling party is resorting to turn the upcoming elections into a farce.”
He said that in 2014, the TDP government strived hard to get investments to the state while facing several challenges and against heavy odds. “We have created 10 lakh jobs both in the public and private sector and also paid Rs 2,000 each as unemployment allowance to over 6 lakh youth,” said the former chief minister.
Naidu alleged that the companies are running away from the state due to “official terrorism by the government as a result of which unemployment is growing heavily, throwing the future of the youth into oblivion.”
“It is a known fact as to how this government has taken the youth for a ride with regard to the job calendar and district selection committee (DSC),” he added.
The TDP leader said that his party always accorded proper recognition to the employees and implemented 43 percent fitment despite facing problems due to bifurcation. “On top of it all, salaries were paid on the first of every month even after the state faced several financial problems,” he added.
“But now leave alone the fitment as demanded by the employees, salaries are not being paid on time,” he alleged.
“The whole State has witnessed how teachers were humiliated by drafting them for security duty to liquor shops,” said Naidu urging teachers and graduates to keep this in mind before exercising their franchise.

He said that there were large-scale irregularities by the YSRCP government during local body polls held two years ago. He alleged that the opposition party candidates were not even allowed to file their nominations.
“It has become a habit for this government to resort to irregularities in elections and in the ongoing polls too, it has raised curtains to the registration of bogus votes and forgeries,” said Naidu accusing the government.
Urging the voters to act sensibly and with awareness, Naidu said that several voters who enrolled themselves with the poll panel admitted that they are not graduates. “In Tirupati city alone seven lakh such voters were enrolled while in North Andhra over five lakh such voters were found,” he added.
He informed that the TDP party and other opposition parties have already complained to the Election Commission regarding bogus votes.
He called upon the voters to elect Vepada Chiranjeevi Rao, TDP candidate from North Andhra Graduates constituency, Kancherla Srikanth, party candidate from East Rayalaseema Graduates segment, Bhumireddy Rajagopal Reddy from West Rayalaseema, and other candidates from the TDP and PDF parties.
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#Naidu #announces #TDP #tieup #PDF #upcoming #polls
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 11, 2023