# Covid-19 in Delhi

• The surge in covid-19 cases in Delhi continued on saturday with 813 fresh cases in 24 hours.

• The positivity rate has surged to over 1%.

• Also, a total of 46,769 beneficiaries took the covid-19 vaccine on saturday in Delhi.

# Mining in aravalis

• The Haryana assembly had passed the Punjab land preservation (Haryana amendment) bill, 2019 two years ago.

• Now, the Haryana government had sought the intervention of Supreme court to lift ban on mining in aravalis.

• The environmentalists and local citizens has opposed this move citing environmental concerns in aravalis.

# ART

• Given the Indian family structure, social milieu and norms, it will not be very easy to accept a child whose parents are together but not legally married.

• This has been opined by a parliamentary standing committee on health and family welfare on the assisted reproductive technology (ART) bill, 2020.

• The ART bill endorsed the recommendations of the select committee on surrogacy (regulation) bill, 2019.

• In the surrogacy bill the definition of  “couple” has been retained and same sex couples and live in couples are excluded from availing surrogacy services.

# Great nicobar islands

• Indian government is planning to develop the great nicobar islands into a commercial hub.

• It will be similar to Singapore and Hongkong.

• The total land area of great nicobar island is 910 square kilometre out of which 244 square kilometre will be used for economic zone.

# European union

• European union chief Ursula von der leyen threatened on saturday to halt exports of Astrazeneca’s covid-19 vaccine if the EU did receive its promised delivery first.

• Astrazeneca has only delivered 30% of the 90 million doses, it promised to deliver in first quarter of 2021.

• The UK will be most affected if EU bans vaccine export.