Author: Starvision News Desk

New Delhi, Aug 18 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a PIL seeking disciplinary actions against doctors who fail to prescribe generic medicines. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra sought response from the Centre, all state governments, Ethics and Medical Registration Board (erstwhile Medical Council of India) and others in the matter.Advocate K.C. Jain, the petitioner, apprised the bench that regulations emphasizing the importance of prescribing generic medicines, which were notified back in 2002, remain largely unimplemented in practice.He said that the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette, and…

London, Aug 18 (IANS) Spectacles that are marketed to filter out blue light probably make no difference to eye strain caused by computer use or to sleep quality, according to researchers, including one of Indian-origin.Blue-light filtering lenses, also known as blue-light blocking spectacles, have been increasingly prescribed or recommended, often by optometrists, since the early 2000s.Researchers from the UK and Australia reviewed data from 17 randomised controlled trials from six different countries and found no evidence that blue-light filtering lenses protect against damage to the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.”The amount of blue light our…

Honolulu, Aug 18 (IANS) As the death toll from the Hawaii wildfires is still on the rise, the debate has got heated around whether sirens could have made a difference against the deadliest fires in modern US history.The fires that started on August 8 in Maui Island killed 111 people as of Thursday, with the death toll expected to rise as searches continue, reports Xinhua news agency.When the wildfires broke out, residents said they were not evacuated and none of the island’s 80 warning sirens sounded for evacuation.The Maui County Emergency Management Agency, which is responsible for sounding the sirens,…

Singapore, Aug 18 (IANS) Indian-origin former minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and two others have been issued the certificates of eligibility for Singapore’s presidential election slated to take place on September 1, the Elections Department said in a statement on Friday. At the close of applications for a Certificate of Eligibility on Thursday, the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC) received a total of six applications.Out of these, the PEC qualified 66-year-old Tharman, former GIC investment chief Ng Kok Song, 75, and former National Trades Union Congress Income chief Tan Kin Lian, 75.The committee, headed by Public Service Commission chairman Lee Tzu Yang and…

Toronto, Aug 18 (IANS) Scientists believe they have found a way to identify the earliest warning signs of cardiovascular disease from a simple saliva sample.Periodontitis is a common infection of the gums which has previously been linked to the development of cardiovascular disease: scientists suspect that inflammatory factors may enter the bloodstream through the gums and damage the vascular system.The team from Mount Royal University in Canada, used a simple oral rinse to see if levels of white blood cells — an indicator of gum inflammation — in the saliva of healthy adults could be linked to warning signs for…

Panaji, Aug 18 (IANS) The Goa Education Department has issued a show cause notice to the management of higher secondary school in connection to an incident where pepper spray was used on 11 girl students. On Thursday, the 11 girls from the school in Bicholim, North Goa, were hospitalised after two fellow students, both boys, used pepper spray on them. Director of Education Shailesh Zingade told IANS that the management has been given three days’ time to reply to the notice. “I am expecting a reply from them by today evening. I will go through the report they submit and…

United Nations, Aug 18 (IANS) Ahead of World Humanitarian Day on August 19, the UN has warned that 2023 is set to become another year of high numbers of aid worker casualties.So far this year, 62 humanitarian workers have been killed in crises around the world, 84 were injured and 34 kidnapped, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, citing provisional data from the Aid Worker Security Database research team at Humanitarian Outcomes. Last year’s annual death toll had reached 116.South Sudan has ranked highest in insecurity for several consecutive years. Forty attacks on aid workers…

Washington, Aug 18 (IANS) Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Friday praised Indian-American Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, calling him a “promising candidate”.Sharing a video of Ramaswamy’s interview with political commentator and talk show host Tucker Carlson on X (formerly Twitter), Musk said: “He is a very promising candidate.”Ramaswamy, who is the youngest presidential candidate at 38, entered the now crowded Republican presidential nomination contest as an outsider in February.He is now positioned at number three, just after former president Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.The tech entrepreneur has the support of 9 per cent of leaders within the Republican…

Washington, Aug 18 (IANS) A US court has sentenced a Canadian woman to 22 years in jail for sending letters laced with ricin poison to former President Donald Trump when he was in office.On Thursday, District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced 56-year-old Pascale Ferrier to 262 months in prison, the BBC reported.She will be deported from the US after serving her sentence and faces supervision for life if she ever returns.Judge Friedrich told Ferrier her actions were “potentially deadly” and “harmful to you, harmful to society, harmful to the potential victims”.Ferrier, a dual citizen of France and Canada, told the court…

New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Thursday said it is examining in detail the recommendations of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) performance audit report on Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). The CAG’s audit report on AB-PMJAY which was presented in Parliament recently, higlighted irregularities on implementation of the scheme.”National Health Authority (NHA) and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) are examining in detail the recommendations of CAG performance audit report basis and necessary action is being taken to make the system more robust, efficient, and…