Mridul Das, a 30-year-old doctor, was the first person to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Tripura on Saturday, PTI reported. 1,399 health workers received the Covishield vaccine on the first day. The vaccination programme in the state began at 17 sites across eight districts, officials said to the news agency. Tripura has received 56,500 doses of the vaccine, it said.
As predicted by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), moderate to dense fog has been observed on Sunday in Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura. Taking to Twitter, the national weather forecasting agency tweeted that the as of Sunday morning (5.30 hours) the visibility in Tezpur, Agartala and Dibrugarh was 50 metres each, while, Guwahati experienced visibility at 200 metres. Due to the dense fog, airports, highways and railway routes may be affected, IMD said.
As India began its COVID-19 vaccine rollout on Saturday, atleast 3,528 beneficiaries in Assam were inoculated in 65 session sites in 33 districts on the first day. The number as confirmed by The Assam Tribune also added that the vaccine shots were given to mainly health workers. As per earlier reports, in each of the session sites 100 healthcare workers were to be given the COVID-19 vaccine shots. During the first phase, 1,90,000 healthcare workers will be inoculated.
Assam remembers celebrated cultural icon and freedom fighter Jyoti Prasad Agarwala on his 70th death anniversary today. Every year on Rupkonwar's death anniversary – January 17, Silpi Divas is observed across the state. Assam Sahitya Sabha will be organising several events throughout the day across the state to commemorate the lumineer's contribution to the field of art and culture. The Assam government also has organised an online Jyoti Sangeet competition. Participants can send their performance of a song written and composed by Jyotiprasad Agarwala to mygovassam@gmail.com
The newly formed political party in Assam, Raijor Dal said on Sunday it is trying to ensure its alliance with the newly floated political party Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) for the upcoming Assam Assembly election. Addressing at a press meet on Sunday, Chief Convener of the party Bhasco De Saikia said the party has sent a letter to AJP's president Lurinjyoti Gogoi regarding their political alliance.
Sahitya Akademi award recipient Bidar Singh passes away on Sunday. He was being treated at a private hospital in Dimapur. The cause of his dearth has not been revealed. Singh was the four time president of the Karbi Sahitya Sabha. He was also the president of Karbi Yuva Mahotsav. In addition, he is also a literary pensioner of Government of Assam.
The Journalists' Forum Assam (JFA), while expressing serious concerns, demanded exemplary punishments to the individuals who abused a lady journalist verbally and physically of a city based Assamese daily newspaper at Guwahati Press Club on Saturday.
A 1985-batch officer of the Indian Railways was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Dehradun for accepting a bribe of Rs 1 crore. According to the CBI, The bribe money was recovered and further searches are underway at 20 locations in five states. Two others were arrested in connection to the case in Guwahati's Maligaon. The officer has been identified as one Mahendra Singh Chauhan. He was taken into custody for demanding and accepting Rs 1 crore as bribe in exchange for favouring a private company with respect to contracts issued by the Northeast Frontier Railway.
Chief Election Commissioner of India Sunil Arora will be visiting Assam on January 18 (Monday) to review poll preparedness for the upcoming Assam Legislative Assembly 2021. Arora will be accompanied by Election Commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar, Director General of Election Commission of India (ECI) Dharmendra Sharma, Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar, Additional Director General Sheyphali B. Sharan, and other dignitaries. The commission is slated to hold meetings with Chief Electoral Officer and police nodal officer, political parties, election related regulatory agencies, district election officers, superintendents of police and Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Director General of police and other senior officials at Guwahati's Radisson Blu Hotel. They will depart from Guwahati on January 20.
Assam recorded 22 new coronavirus related cases on Sunday. The new cases were detected out of 7,178 tests conducted with the positivity rate at 0.31 per cent. Meanwhile, 3 patients succumbed to the infection today. The death tally of the state now stood at 0.49% with 1,073 cases. 30 cured patients were discharged, the National Health Mission (NHM) Assam tweeted. The recoveries have touched 2,12,836. The recovery rate of the state stood at 98.15 per cent.
983 more deaths of birds were reported from Maharashtra on Saturday, pushing the tally to 5,151 in the state. According to a report of ANI, the state department stated that the highest number of poultry birds were found dead in Latur (253), followed by Yavatmal (205), Ahmadnagar (151), Wardha (109), Nagpur (45), Gondia (23), among others. "A total of 983 birds have died on January 16. The samples have been sent to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal and DIS, Pune. A total of 5,151 deaths of various birds have been reported till the date since January 8," the department said to the news agency.
The districts and sessions court on Saturday exempted Hindi cinema megastar Salman Khan from making an appearance in a case related to the poaching of two black bucks in Rajasthan's Jodhpur back in 1998. The actor has been asked to appear on February 6. As per reports, this is the seventeenth time Khan has skipped a hearing since 2018. A petition was filed challenging a trial court order that could sentence the actor to a five year imprisonment.
Despite police presence, Tripura Congress chief Pijush Biswas' vehicle was allegedly attacked by supporters of the ruling BJP on Sunday morning. He suffered minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital for treatment. According to NDTV, the attack took place outside Congress' field office in Bishalgarh where Biswas had travelled to attend a party meeting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off eight trains via video conferencing on Sunday which connects from different parts of the country to Gujarat's Kevadia where the Statue of Unity is located. PM Modi stated that these trains will boost terrorism in the tribal region and increase connectivity to the world's tallest statue. These trains will connect Kevadia to Varanasi, Dadar, Ahmedabad, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Rewa, Chennai and Pratapnagar. One of the eight trains, the Ahmedabad-Kevadia Jan Shatabdi Express, has been with the "Vista-dome tourist coach" which offers large viewing areas with rooftop glasses and seats for passengers.
Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, legendary Indian classical musician and Padma Vibhushan awardee, has died on Sunday afternoon in Mumbai. He was 89. The veteran musician breathed his last at 12:37 PM, his daughter-in-law Namrata Gupta told PTI. "Today morning he was fine. We had a 24 hour nurse at home. During his massage he vomited and I ran immediately his eyes were shut and he was breathing slowly. I tried connecting to doctors and when they came he had already died," she said.