India’s demands for oxygen concentrators from China

India’s demands

• India has asked Chinese authorities to ensure prices for key medical supplies remain stable as costs for oxygen concentrators and other critical goods have surged on the back of rising demand.
• The supply chain should remain open and product prices should remain stable
• Since April, orders for at least 40,000 oxygen concentrators have been placed by Indian companies with Chinese firms, of which 21,000 have so far been delivered, along with more than 5,000 ventilators, 21 million face masks and 3,800 tons of medicines

Inflated costs of oxygen concentrators

• Chinese media are reporting that oxygen concentrators that were listed as selling for 1,000 yuan (around ? 11,000) on Chinese e-commerce websites such as Alibaba’s Taobao are now selling for four or five times that amount and the final cost borne by individual buyers once the goods are sold in India is even higher.

Civil Services Prelims-2021 postponed to on October 10

News:

• The Civil Services (Preliminary) examination, which was scheduled to be held on June 27, has been postponed to October 10.
• Due to the prevailing conditions caused by the novel coronavirus, the Union Public Service Commission has deferred the Civil Services Examination, 2021, which was scheduled to be held on June 27, 2021. Now, this examination will be held on October 10, 2021.
• The decision comes after the UPSC, last month, postponed the interviews to be held as a part of the 2020 examination.

OCI regulations by the Ministry of Home Affairs

New regulations by Home Ministry

• The Home Ministry’s March 4 order that required professional Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs), such as journalists, engineers and researchers, to notify the Ministry about their activities in India has left them in the lurch.
• A portal that was to come up for the purpose is not operational yet.
• The official said the OCIs could intimate the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) through e-mail till the portal is activated.
• OCI cardholders could claim “only NRI (Non-Resident Indian) quota seats” in educational institutions.
  • It specified that OCIs could only pursue the following professions — doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists, advocates, architects and chartered accountants, and the rest would require “special permission”.
• The notification said that OCIs shall be required to obtain a “special permission or a special permit” from the competent authority or the FRRO or the Indian mission “to undertake research, missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities or internship in any foreign diplomatic missions”.

Challenge by AROCIF

• Rajanna Sreedhara, president of the Association of Resident OCI and Families (AROCIF), said they believed the notification was discriminatory adding that they planned to challenge it in the High Court but the plan is currently on the back burner due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Even if an OCI student has secured a high rank in an exam like NEET [National Eligibility Entrance Test], several institutions of repute do not have NRI seats.
• The exorbitantly high fees under the NRI quota cannot be afforded by many OCIs as they live and work in India.
• India-domiciled OCI students are deprived of domicile status both in India [country of residence] as well as the country of their citizenship