# Covid-19 vaccine

• People above 60 years of age and those above 45 with co-morbidities would be given covid vaccines from march 1.

• Information and broadcasting minister prakash javdekar has announced this.

• Vaccine shots would be given for free at 10,000 government run facilities and for a charge at 20,000 private hospitals.

• Charges for vaccination at private hospitals would be confirmed in a few days.

# UPSC aspirant

• The supreme court on wednesday dismissed a plea by upsc aspirants, whose last attempt to crack the civil services exam was marred by covid-19, for another chance in 2021.

• The court said every candidate who took the exam last year suffered “one way or other”.

• Judges also feared that if upsc aspirants are allowed for another chance, then aspirants of other competitive exam will demand the same and it will disrupt the system.

# Winter pollution

• The levels of PM 2.5, the most threatening of particulate matter, worsened in 43 of 99 cities.

• The data compared the PM 2.5 levels in 2019 and 2020.

• This data was released by a non-governmental research organisations namely centre for science and environment.

# COVAX vaccines

• Ghana received the world’s first delivery of coronavirus vaccine from the united nations – backed COVAX initiative on wednesday.

• COVAX is an initiative by WHO in coordination with its member countries to provide vaccines to the poorest nations.

• The arrival of 600000 doses of the astrazeneca vaccine in the west african country marks the beginning of the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history, according to WHO.

# PLI plan

• The union cabinet on wednesday approved the PLI  scheme for the pharmaceutical and IT hardware sectors.

• The scheme has an outlay of 15000 crore and 7350 crore respectively.

• The PLI scheme for pharmaceuticals, for nine years till 2028-29 will benefit domestic manufacturers.