NEWS

India remains to be ranked as the fourth most powerful country as per Asia Power Index 2021. According to Asia Power Index 2021, the US, for the first time, has outranked China in the measure of future resources. But the US saw a notable drop of 1.9 points in military capability and 10.7 points decline in economic relationship.

Ranked among super powers in Asia, China lost its first-place ranking in diplomatic influence and future resources. It remains in second place behind the United States for military capability and cultural influence, and in third place for its resilience.

Japan is ranked among middle power countries in Asia with an overall score of 38.7 out of 100. The country has for the first time dropped below the major power threshold of 40 points and is now considered a high performing middle power.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the plea of Aircel founder C Sivasankaran facing money laundering charges for diplomatic immunity.

Dismissing his plea challenging the criminal proceedings, a bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar said the Madras High Court had already decided the question of diplomatic immunity against him in 2019 and he had not challenged the same.

The bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar took note of a communication placed before it by CBI. The said communication issued by the Ministry of External Affairs referred to another communication from the Seychelles government informing that Sivasankaran was ambassador-at-large of that country and had been issued a diplomatic passport, but his presence in India was not on any official duty.

At a time when there are growing concerns about a possible third wave of COVID-19 in the country due to the spread of the Omicron variant and the need for a booster dose to prevent it, the country's biggest vaccine maker Serum Institute of India (SII), is set to cut down its production.

The Pune-based company has said that it may cut the output of Covishield from next week as they have not received any new government orders.

SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said that the company has written to the government to seek clarity on its requirement, if any, for normal two doses for eligible people in the country and also on booster doses.

Omicron resulted in about a 40-fold reduction in levels of neutralising antibodies produced by people who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech SE shot, compared with the strain detected in China almost two years ago.

Researchers in South Africa have found in an early study that Pfizer's vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) actually provides less immunity to the Omicron variant than to other major versions of the virus. In lab experiments conducted at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban, it was observed that Omicron resulted in about a 40-fold reduction in levels of neutralising antibodies produced by people who had received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech SE shot, compared with the strain detected in China almost two years ago.

Alex Sigal, the head of research at the laboratory, said that the loss of immune protection is “robust, but not complete” and that further efficacy studies are needed to appropriately take on board the exact extent of the vaccine's impact in mitigating the disease caused by this new strain.