# Opposition letter to PM

• In a joint letter to PM Modi, 12 opposition parties have urged the government to immediately begin a free, universal mass vaccination campaign across the country.

• The signatories to the letter include CM Mamta Banarjee, MK stalin, uddhav thackeray and Hemant soren, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, HD Devegowda, Sharad pawar, Akhilesh yadav, Farooq abdullah, Tejashwi yadav, D Raja and Sitaram yechury.

• Congress has asked the centre to waive off the GST on vaccines, Remdesivir and oxygen concentrators.

# Israel-Palestine conflict

• Relentless rocket fire and rioting in mixed Jewish-Arab towns fuelled growing fears on wednesday that deadly violence between Israel and Palestinians could spiral into a full scale war.

• Israel’s Defence minister Benny Gantz vowed attacks on Hamas and other palestinian militant groups in Gaza to bring ” total, long term quiet” before considering a ceasefire.

• Israeli PM Benjamin netanyahu declared a state of emergency in the Jewish arab city of Lod, where wider scale riots erupted among some of the arab residents.

# Indian council of medical research

• The head of the main Indian health agency responding to the coronavirus has said districts reporting a high number of infections should remain locked down for another six to eight weeks to control the spread of the rampaging disease.

• Balram Bhargava, head of the ICMR said all districts where the rate of infections is above 10% of those tested.

• Currently, three-fourths of India’s 718 districts have a test positivity rate above 10% including major cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

# Assam CM

• Newly elected CM of Assam Himanta Biswas Sharma said his government will be approaching the supreme court again for reverification of NCR- upto 20% of entries in areas bordering Bangladesh and 10% in the interior areas of Assam.

• He said, if the NRC checks out, then NRC will be accepted.

# Foreign funding for NGO

• Only 16% registered NGOs have active bank accounts with the SBIs main branch in Delhi.

• Under new rules, It is mandatory to have a SBI account in main branch to receive foreign funds.