# Covid situation

• Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has informed UP and Chattisgarh that their demand for 10 litre and 45 litre jumbo oxygen cylinders and additional ventillators will be met very soon.

•  Serum institute of India CEO Adar poonawala has tweeted an appeal to US president Joe Biden, seeking lifting of the embargo on US export of raw materials for vaccine.

• Maharashtra government has seeked advice from national centre for disease control (NCDC) regarding tackling of double mutant virus in Maharashtra.

# Nirav Modi extraditions

• The UK’s home department has approved the extradition of diamond merchant Nirav Modi to India in connection with the 13,758 crore PNB fraud.

• The secretary of state for the UK’s home department, Priti patel has cleared Mr. Nirav Modi’s extradition.

• The accused now has the legal recourse of approaching the Uk high court within 14 days to seek permission for moving an appeal against the secretary of state’s decision.

# Bharat Biotech

• The production of indigenously developed covaxin vaccine will be doubled by may-june and then increased to nearly 6-7 fold by july-august 2021.

• Currently, Bharat biotech makes one crore vaccine doses a month.

• The DBT has funded three other state run facilities- the Haffkine biopharmaceutical corporation ltd.,Mumbai, Indian immunologicals limited, Hyderabad and one other company to produce covaxin.

# Monsoon predictions

• Indian meterological department(IMD) has forecasted that India is likely to receive “normal” monsoon rainfall this year.

• Except for parts of eastern and north eastern India, many parts of the country are excepted to get above normal rainfall.

• IMD has predicted that Indian ocean dipole (IOD) defined as a swing in temperatures in the western and eastern sectors of Indian ocean to be normal.

# US’s currency watch list

• India is one of the 11 countries on the US treasury’s “monitoring list” with regard to their currency practices.

• The other 10 countries on the list with India are China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Mexico.

• Three criteria are used to review partners- a significant (atleast $10 billion) bilateral trade surplus, a material current account surplus.