# Covid-19 deaths

• Supreme court has asked the central government, whether it has decided to pay ex-gratia to families who lost their loved ones to covid-19 or not.

• Central government informed the supreme court that government rather want to spend money on health infrastructure and providing relief to poors and not to give ex-gratia to covid-19 victims.

• The petitioner said that central government with their statutory obligation under section 12 of the Disaster management act to provide ex-gratia to covid-19 victims.

# Vaccination drive

• More than 82 lakh covid-19 vaccine doses were administered on monday, the highest ever in a day since the inoculation drive began in India.

• A total of 85,70,212 doses were administered across the country including the first and second doses.

• As per the revised guidelines, the centre will buy 75% of the doses from vaccine makers and give it to the state government for free to inoculate all adults.

# Indian officials met Taliban

• Indian officials made a “quiet visit” to Doha to speak to the Taliban’s political leadership based in Qatar.

• It is the first official confirmation of recent reports that New Delhi has engaged the Taliban recently.

# Theatre commands

• Extensive studies have been undertaken and discussed over the last two years before arriving at a broad plan to create four integrated tri service commands, an official said on Monday.

• Air defence and maritime theatre commands, integrated eastern theatre and integrated western theatre commands are being planned.

# Iran’s new president

• Iran’s president elect Ebrahim Raisi said on monday, he will not allow nuclear negotiations for the sake of negotiations.

• Mr. Raisi also ruled out meeting US president Joe Biden but said there were “no obstacles” to resuming diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.