Status report on Avian Influenza in Assam and West Bengal as on 14.01.09

Status report on Avian Influenza in Assam and West Bengal as on 14.01.09

New Delhi : January 15, 2009

West Bengal

The containment operations are on in epicenters reported in the Darjeeling District. 290 health workers are conducting active house to house surveillance. So far about 41996 birds have been culled. 121 Animal Health workers are under chemoprophylaxis. The state has sufficient stock of Oseltamivir and PPE.

Assam

[No update has been received from the State of Assam]

Report as on 13.1.2009

Since the first notification of Avian Influenza in Assam on 27.11.2008, 17 other epicenters, spread over eight districts have been notified. The last notification was on 24.12.2008. No new centres have been notified.

Brief of containment operations

· So far a total of 4,83,831 birds have been culled.

· A total of 110 Animal Health workers, who were deployed for the culling activity are on Chemoprophylaxis.

Surveillance

· Central government RRTs is covering the epicenters notified on 24.12.2008. They are working with the state RRT teams.

· Active house-to-house surveillance for 10 days post culling/ mopping is over in earlier notified areas. In these areas passive surveillance is continuing.

· In areas notified on 24th Dec. 2008 active house-to-house surveillance is being followed in 0-3 km zone. In 3-10 km area surveillance is conducted in phases. As per the reports received, a population of 84,594 was covered in 0-3 Km area and 95,920 in 3-10 km area.

· 5 cases of Upper Respiratory Infection [URI] with fever were detected [4 in 0-3 Km and 1 in 3-10 Km]. None of them had history of handling dead or sick birds.

· 10 cases of URI with fever in the outpatient department were detected in the identified health facilities.

· 772 Health Workers are deployed for surveillance.

Logistics

40,000 capsules of Tamiflu, 12,000 surgical masks, 1200 personal protective equipments, 400 N-95 masks, 50 bottles of tamiflu syrup and 8 ventilators have been supplied by MoHFW. Sufficient anti-viral drugs and PPE are in stock with the State Government.
Communication

· Messages to create public awareness are being telecast/ broadcast in local channels and AIR.

· Local campaign such as miking and interpersonal communication is followed in all epicenters.

Monitoring

· The situation is being monitored on a daily basis. No human case of avian influenza has been reported.

DS/GK/flu-438/spandey-dk...............(RelSet1_15Jan09)



Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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Appointment by ACC

New Delhi : January 15, 2009

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri M.N. Prasad, IAS(BH:72), presently Secretary, Ministry of Minority Affairs as Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office, with immediate effect.

RS/SR /spandey.-dk..............(RelSet1_15Jan09)



Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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TRAI Initiates Consultation on Quality of Broadband and Internet Services
Focus is on increasing Access Speed

New Delhi : January 15, 2009

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) released a consultation paper on “Bandwidth required for ISPs for better connectivity and improved quality of service”.

The Authority has suo-motu initiated this consultation process to seek the views of the stakeholders in order to develop a framework which will strengthen the existing regulations on quality of broadband service.

A strong need is being felt to identify easily monitorable and enforceable QoS measures particularly in regard to access speed to ensure that a bare minimum (floor) bandwidth is available with service providers for provisioning of broadband and internet services with reasonable assured quality to its subscribers.

Increasing number of broadband subscribers and development of various applications demanding high-bandwidth such as IPTV and peer-to-peer file sharing have emphasized the need to ensure high quality broadband connections. The concept of virtual office, remote office is gaining popularity. E-Commerce, E- health, Video world, Virtual tours and E-marts are some other emerging popular applications requiring huge bandwidth which are time sensitive also. In such a scenario, Quality of service becomes of prime importance. It may be noted that number of Internet subscribers are 12.24 millions at the end of September 2008 and number of broadband subscribers are 5.28 at that end of November 2008.

Incidences have come to the notice of the Authority where subscribers allege speed of their Broadband connections is much less than subscribed speed. In order to monitor the quality of service of broadband services, TRAI issued the ‘Quality of Service of Broadband Service Regulations, 2006’ , which define various parameters like packet loss, latency in the network, peak bandwidth utilization etc. Monitoring of these parameters indicate the status of the congestion in the network. Service providers are expected to monitor their network and take corrective actions before the quality of service is impacted. It is generally seen that such corrective actions are not taken by service providers in time. This makes it difficult to ensure the consistent good quality of service to subscribers particularly in regard to access speed and considerable time is required to implement the corrective action.

The stakeholders are being requested to send their comments on the above issues by 2nd of February 2009.

Contact details in case of any clarification:

Shri S.K. Gupta, Advisor (CN), TRAI

Mahanagar Doorsanchar Bhawan,

Jawaharlal Nehru Marg, New Delhi-110002.

Tele No. 011-23217914 Fax No. 011-23211998

e-mail: advcn@trai.gov.in or cn@trai.gov.in

Akshay rout/vk /spandey-dk...............(RelSet1_15Jan09)



Press Information Bureau
Government of India
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T R Baalu approves road improvement works in Rajasthan

New Delhi : January 15, 2009

The Union Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways, Thiru T. R. Baalu has approved 9 proposals for road improvement works on various stretches of State Highways in the State of Rajasthan at a total cost of Rs. 43.62 crore under Central Road Fund (CRF) Scheme.

The approval has been given for the following proposals of total length of 117.775 km at various stretches in the districts of Rajasthan:

· Widening and Strengthening of Bhadoli-Bassi road (SH 24) of 17.15 km at a cost of 398.59 lakh.

· Widening and Strengthening of Mandrayal-Pirojpur road (SH-22) of 12.5 km at a cost of Rs. 430.68 lakh.

· Widening and strengthening of Dholpur-Salpau-Bharatpur road (SH-23) of 10 km at a cost of Rs. 422.33 lakh.

· Widening and strengthening of Jhalawer- Mathura road (SH-1A) of 13 km at a cost of Rs. 827.93 lakh.

· Widening and strengthening of Raigarh-Taranagar (SH-06) of 20.5 km at a cost of Rs. 600.79 lakh.

· Widening of Udaipurwati -Sikar road (SH-37B) of 11 km at a cost of Rs. 433.47 lakh.

· Widening and strengthening of Bhadoti-Ganapur-Hindaun-Bayana-Bharatpur road (SH-1A) of 11.125 km at a cost of Rs. 439.81 lakh.

· Widening and strengthening of Sadulahahar-Sriganganar-Karanpur road (SH-07B) of 12.5 km at a cost of Rs. 417.73 lakh.

· Widening and strengthening of Udaipuria Mod to Mundru via Khajroli road (SH-37C) of 10.2 km at a cost of Rs. 381.9 lakh.

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