EVM hackathon from June 3
Election Commission invites parties to send experts to prove tampering charge
•The Election Commission on Saturday invited recognised political parties to an “Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) Challenge” beginning June 3 to demonstrate that the machine can be, or were, during the five recent Assembly elections, tampered with. Only Indian experts are allowed to participate in the event.
•The challenge will be open for four to five days, for the political parties that participated in the Assembly elections in Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. An independent team of experts will supervise the proceedings, which will be video-recorded.
•Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the political parties, each of which can nominate three experts, had to confirm their participation by 5 p.m. on May 26. Each party will be assigned four EVMs of their choice, picked up from EC warehouses in any Assembly constituency.
Can open machine
•They can also accompany the EVMs from warehouses to the venue at the EC headquarters, at their own cost.
•Although the parties’ experts will be allowed to open and inspect the machine, they will not be allowed to tweak its components, as the EC said changing the internal circuit was like changing the whole device itself.
Indian researchers use a novel route to kill TB bacteria
A compound isolated from shala trees modulates the immune system to kill the bacteria
•A team of Indian researchers has been able to achieve 100-fold reduction in TB bacterial load in lungs of mice after 60 days of treatment using bergenin — a phytochemical isolated from tender leaves of sakhua or shala tree (Shorea robusta). Unlike the regularly used antibiotic drugs that target the TB bacteria, the bergenin compound modulates the immune system to kill the bacteria found inside the macrophages (a type of white blood cells). The results were published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology.
•“Our studies show that the bergenin compound can be used to clear the bacteria, and when used in combination with other TB drugs can produce good results,” says Gobardhan Das from the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a corresponding author of the paper. “Since the compound does not target the bacteria directly but modulates the immune system to kill the bacteria, it can be used in patients with drug-resistant TB too.”
•The researchers undertook several studies to understand the mode of action of the compound. The compound was unable to directly kill TB bacteria when treated with the compound. However, in the case of in vitro studies, the compound was able to kill the bacteria found inside infected cells. In mice infected with TB and treated with the compound, there was significant reduction in the bacterial load in the lungs. Unlike in the case of in vitro studies, in mice the compound was found to activate not only the macrophages but also other cell types (T cells) that led to effective killing of the bacteria. A significant reduction in the number of granulomatic lesions was seen in animals treated with the compound. Also, the bacterial load was 100-fold lower in mice treated with the compound compared with controls (animals that were not treated with bergenin). “These findings strongly suggest that the immune response enhanced by the compound is able to increase the capacity to clear the TB bacteria,” Prof. Das says.
•The levels of nitric oxide and a cytokine (TNF-alpha) were found to be enhanced. “We found the bergenin compound was selectively enhancing the frequency of interferon-gamma and interleukin-17-producing T cells in the TB infected animals,” says Dhiraj K. Singh from ICGEB and a co-author of the paper. Interferon-gamma promotes bacteria-killing nitric oxide inside macrophages thus promoting the generation of protective immune responses against TB bacteria.
•Previous studies have shown that T helper 1 (Th1) cells play a key role in protecting the host against TB bacteria, while Th2 cells oppose the protection offered by Th1 cells. “There is a dynamic balance between the Th1 and Th2,” says Ved P. Dwivedi from ICGEB and the first author of the paper. “While TB bacteria prevents Th1 response and facilitates Th2 response, the bergenin compound promotes the expression of Th1 and Th17 responses.”
Beats conventional drugs
•The compound has been shown to heal wounds faster than conventional drugs. Dr. Debprasad Chattopadhyay, Director of the ICMR-National Institute of Traditional Medicine (ICMR-NITM) in Belgaum, Karanataka, and the other corresponding author of the paper, had isolated the compound. He had seen tribals using the leaves of shala tree for wound-healing.
•“Our study, in a limited way, tries to correct the misinformation regarding Ayurveda. The stage is now set to test many more Ayurvedic and plant-derived natural products for their potency against pathogenic diseases,” says Dr. Anand Ranganathan from the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine at JNU and one of the authors of the paper.
•Prof. Das with the help of ICMR-NITM plans to carry out further tests in larger animals. If used in combination with other TB drugs the compound can shorten the duration of treatment and prevent the emergence of drug-resistance, the authors write.
Mango tree extract could prevent heart injury
The study was carried out on diabetic rats
•A group of doctors from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, has shown the protective effects of mangiferin (a compound present in the bark of all mango trees) on reperfusion injury in diabetic rats. Reperfusion injury happens in heart tissues when blood supply returns after a heart attack. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
•Mangiferin, found in the bark, leaves and fruit of mango trees, is known to possess several beneficial properties — antioxidant, antitumour, anticancer, antidiabetic and antibacterial properties.
•For the study, the researchers used three groups of rats in which diabetes was induced. While no heart injury was induced in the control group, the second group of rats had a heart injury induced after 28 days but not treated with mangiferin. The third group was given mangiferin for 28 days and then heart injury was induced. All the rats were sacrificed and the heart was surgically removed and studied for various parameters.
•All the diabetic rats treated with mangiferin showed improved blood-pumping ability, restored antioxidants, reduced swelling and death of cells. The architecture of the myocardium was maintained despite the injury and the heart muscle fibre remained intact.
•Glucose present in the blood of patients with diabetes leads to the formation of certain proteins (advanced glycation end products or AGE), which causes various complications of diabetes. Mangiferin favourably reduced this protein, thus preventing stress, swelling and cell death after the heart injury. The study on the heart tissue revealed how mangiferin reduced cell death — it increased the expression of proteins which act against cell death and decreased the proteins causing cell death. Mangiferin also decreased the level of inflammatory and stress proteins.
•“This is our third module of study. We have already studied effects of mangiferin on isoproterenol and ischemia-reperfusion induced myocardial injury in rats. Now we have found that mangiferin can prevent myocardial injury in diabetic rats,” says Dr. Salma Malik, who is a research associate at the Department of Pharmacology, AIIMS and a co-author of the paper. However, the conclusion of this study needs to be further validated to establish its clinical usefulness in patients of myocardial ischemia with coexisting diabetes.
The mechanics of programmed cell death unravelled
In a first, the study reveals that imperfect alignment of cells in tissues can trigger individual cell death
•A recent study has found a new triggering mechanism for programmed cell death (apoptosis). Unlike earlier known trigger mechanisms that involve chemicals being released by the cell destined for death, this is a physical mechanism. The study has found that a particular type of imperfection in the alignment of the cells appears to be correlated with the position of the cell destined to die. The results of the collaborative study was published in Nature.
•The group has studied this correlation experimentally using five different kinds of epithelial tissue. Epithelial cells are those that line the outside and inside of our organs. These cells play a protective role and cells often undergo some kind of damage and need to be removed. This happens through a process of programmed cell death known as apoptosis. The cell destined for apoptosis is pushed out of the layer it inhabits in the epithelial tissue and then dies.
•Cells in the epithelial layer usually are arranged neatly and regularly, like bricks on a wall, where the axes of the bricks are all aligned parallel to each other. But at times there is a defective alignment of the axes of the cells. Among the different types of defect, there is one where the tilt of the axes varies gradually — radiating out from a point, like a comet. The cell destined to die lies close to the head of the comet-shaped defect and is eventually pushed out of the layer of cells and apoptosis takes place.
Physics reasons
•“The study tells you that it is not just biochemistry but physics, or precisely, mechanics, that can affect cell extrusions [the pushing out of cells from the layer they inhabit]. That means you may be able to think about situations where applying forces might make cells behave in a particular way,” says Sumesh Thampi from the Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Madras, an author of the paper.
Collaborative study
•While the theory and simulations were developed by members from Oxford, the experiments were carried out by groups from Singapore and the measurement of the force on the cells was done using techniques developed by a group from Paris. “It is hard to pinpoint the beginning of the work, it arose through discussions…and then we designed new simulations and experiments to test our ideas,” Julia Yeomans of The Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, Oxford, and a Principal Investigator of the project told The Hindu in an email.
•Traction force microscopy was used to measure and compute the pressure on individual cells in the monolayer.
•“We developed an original way to compute the stresses inside cell colonies using statistical methods (Bayesian inference). The computation of such stresses has been done by only a few labs for cells migrating on substrates...” says Benoit Ladoux of CNRS and University Paris Diderot (France) and Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore, a Principal Investigator of the project.
•Now that the link between mechanics and cell extrusion has been established, it is for future experiments to determine how external pressure can be used to control, for instance, the development of tumours and prevent them from spreading uncontrollably.
Moon orbiting solar system’s third largest dwarf planet found
The team uncovered the moon in archival images of 2007 OR10 taken by the Hubble Telescope
•Scientists have discovered a new moon orbiting the third largest dwarf planet, that resides in the frigid outskirts in our solar system. With this discovery, it appears that most of the known dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt larger than 965 kilometres across have companions. These bodies can provide some insight into how moons formed in the young solar system.
•The combined power of three space observatories, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, has helped uncover the moon orbiting the dwarf planet 2007 OR10 in the Kuiper Belt, a realm of icy debris left over from our solar system’s formation, which is believed to have happened about 4.6 billion years ago.
Collisions and moons
•“The discovery of satellites around all of the known large dwarf planets, except for Sedna, means that at the time these bodies formed, billions of years ago, collisions must have been more frequent, and that’s a constraint on the formation models,” said Csaba Kiss of the Konkoly Observatory in Hungary.“If there were frequent collisions, then it was quite easy to form these satellites,” said Dr. Kiss, lead author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.The objects most likely slammed into each other more often because they inhabited a crowded region.
•The team uncovered the moon in archival images of 2007 OR10 taken by the Hubble Telescope.
•Observations taken of the dwarf planet by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope first tipped off the astronomers of the possibility of a moon circling it. Kepler revealed that 2007 OR10 has a slow rotation period of 45 hours. “Typical rotation periods for Kuiper Belt Objects are under 24 hours,” Dr. Kiss said.
•“We looked in the Hubble archive because the slower rotation period could have been caused by the gravitational tug of a moon. The initial investigator missed the moon in the Hubble images because it is very faint,” he said. The astronomers spotted the moon in two separate Hubble observations spaced a year apart. The images show that the moon is gravitationally bound to 2007 OR10 because it moves with the dwarf planet, as seen against a background of stars. The astronomers calculated the diameters of both objects based on observations in far-infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory, which measured the thermal emission of the distant worlds.
Exclusive club
•The dwarf planet is about 1,528 kilometres across, and the moon is estimated to be 240 kilometres to 400 kilometres in diameter. 2007 OR10, like Pluto, follows an eccentric orbit, but it is currently three times further than Pluto is from the sun. 2007 OR10 is a member of an exclusive club of nine dwarf planets. Of those bodies, only Pluto and Eris are larger than 2007 OR10. It was discovered in 2007 by astronomers Meg Schwamb, Mike Brown, and David Rabinowitz as part of a survey to search for distant solar system bodies using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in the US.
Pharma effluents promoting drug resistance?
European study finds drug residues in high concentrations around specific pharmaceutical units in Hyderabad, but industry rebuts the claim
•The pharma industry in Hyderabad is polluting the environment with antimicrobials which in turn may contribute to a rise in drug-resistant infections, a new study published in the journal Infection alleges. Claiming that Indian authorities have not done enough to ensure efficient treatment of waste water discharged by the pharma industry, the study also calls upon European regulators to ensure enforcement of regulations during the manufacturing process.
Water samples tested
•Hyderabad is a global market for bulk drug purchasing with 50% of India’s drug exports, pegged at over $3 billion, coming from the city. Researchers from Leipzig University Hospital, Germany, tested 28 water samples from difference places in the city, including sewage from around pharma manufacturing units in Patancheru-Bollaram Industrial Development Area on the outskirts. They found “unprecedented antimicrobial drug contamination” in the samples collected from around the pharma units.
•“Bacteria develop resistance when they are over-treated with antibiotics but effluents with drug residue from hospitals and pharma units can also contribute. Excessive use of antibiotics either with or without prescription should be avoided even as it is essential to have efficient effluent treating systems with stringent legal norms,” said Pratyoosh Shukla, general secretary, Association of Microbiologists of India.
•The crisis of drug resistance is exemplified by the spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis in India and growing concerns of the World Health Organization (WHO) that the disease could affect the international community, as tourists from India may return with deadly superbugs. Another stark manifestation of drug resistance in India is the sheer number of neonatal deaths attributed to it, an estimated 58,000 every year, followed by hospital-acquired infections that fail to respond to last-resort treatment.
•The Infection study found that 23 samples contained multidrug-resistant bacteria. Resistance was seen to a broad range of antibiotics including a family of powerful drugs known as carbapenems, broad-spectrum antibiotics that target several species of bacteria and were originally synthesised to specifically treat drug-resistant infections. Bacteria-producing enzymes to break down carbapenems were found in all 23 environmental samples.
•More significantly, the study claims that all samples contained antimicrobials in concentrations far exceeding maximum permissible environmental concentrations of these drugs. Though no universally accepted standards exist on just how much of a specific drug in the environment is too much, the study relies on limits which in turn are based on minimum concentrations required to kill bacteria. For long now low-level exposure to antimicrobial drugs in the environment has been feared for inducing resistance.
•In one sample, the antibiotic moxifloxacin, used for many conditions including respiratory and skin infections, was found in maximum concentration of 694.1 microgram per litre, over 5,000 times the environmental limit of 0.125 microgram per litre. These environmental limits were proposed in a past study.
•An even bigger concentration of the anti-fungal drug fluconazole (2,36,950 microgram per litre) was found in one of the samples, way above the proposed environmental limit of 0.25 microgram per litre. Residues exceeding limits were also found in the Musi river, which carries treated sewage away from the city. Treated wastes from pharma companies, along with rest of the sewage from the city, are eventually let into the river.
Industry reaction
•Reacting to the study, drug manufacturers in Hyderabad maintain that it does not sufficiently link antibiotic resistance to pharma effluents and that they comply with Pollution Control Board norms. “Drug resistance is a problem and we have said that we will not allow any company to pollute the environment. We have norms and have also said that we are ready to cooperate on any issue. These studies are done without transparency by not involving Indian regulators,” said R. Uday Bhaskar, Director General of Pharmexcil [Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council], the government’s agency for promotion of pharma exports.
•To counter claims made by European researchers, University of Hyderabad (UoH) scientists have carried out a study commissioned by the Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (India) that shows multidrug-resistant bacteria can also be found in areas where no pharma units exist. As it looked only for bacteria, the UoH study, however, could not respond to specific allegations made by the Infection study — the findings of drug residues in high concentrations around specific pharma units. Industry representatives say they will commission another study before responding to this accusation.
•For Patancheru locals and environmental activists, the Infection claim only buttresses the perception that the government is not doing enough to curb untreated discharge. “Our groundwater continues to be contaminated and agriculture stands affected. While industrial units can claim there is no chemical discharge, the waterbodies continue to receive inflows clearly loaded with chemicals,” said K. Chidamberum, who has legally fought the pharma industry and the government under the aegis of Citizens for Better Patancheru Constituency.
•Prof. Shukla expressed the need for having environmental standards for antimicrobial drugs specific to the country and emphasised vigil as well as awareness about release of drug-laden effluents.
In NTD fight, the end in sight
Around the world, nearly 1.6 billion people are affected by a group of diseases so ignored that the term used to refer to them is called neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). These are a cluster of 17 diseases affecting the poorest people living in the least developed pockets of the world.
•While some of these diseases may be unfamiliar, leprosy, kala-azar and filariasis are better known in India and being targeted for elimination in the near future. A disease is considered ‘eliminated’ when the prevalence rate is less than 1 case per 10,000 population size.
•The Indian government has set itself the target of eliminating kala-azar and filariasis by 2017, and leprosy by 2018. With such ambitious targets, sustained research must remain an integral component of disease elimination programmes.
•Besides basic research — the discovery of new facts about a disease, vaccines and drugs — new strategies are needed to make an impact. In fact, proving the efficacy of new tools and methods is not enough; their effectiveness must be demonstrated in the field. Lastly, continued surveillance and epidemiologic data collection is necessary to ensure that the disease continues to be under control. To eliminate leprosy, India needs to tackle the stigma associated with the disease. It leads to delays in diagnosis and treatment, which in turn result in continued transmission of infection within families and communities. In 2015-16, 118 districts in India were endemic for leprosy with a prevalence rate of more than 1 per 10,000.
Targets set
•Over the years, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has produced new tools, which include two rapid diagnostic tests and a uniform multidrug regimen for all types of leprosy. This has shortened treatment duration to 6 months and is improving adherence. An indigenous vaccine developed by Dr. G.P. Talwar, founder and director of the National Institute of Immunology, is being launched shortly for use under the leprosy control programme. The vaccine, mycobacterium indicus pranii (MIP), will be administered to people living in close contact with patients. The vaccine offers 60% protection to people living with leprosy patients for up to 4-5 years; the renewed strategy aims for leprosy elimination ahead of the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, in 2019.
•In the case of lymphatic filariasis, better known as elephantiasis, the government is targeting a population of 600 million in 256 endemic districts with mass drug administration (MDA). A community-based pilot in Yadgir district of Karnataka is being done to assess the effectiveness of a three-drug combination (DEC + Albendazole + Ivermectin) vis-à-vis the existing two-drug regime (DEC + Albendazole). Mass administration of DEC-fortified salt to accelerate elimination of lymphatic filariasis is being tried in the Andamans. Ensuring that the entire target population accepts MDA continues to be a challenge and needs advocacy and community engagement.
•The other key intervention is for visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala-azar, which is transmitted through the bite of the female sandfly. In India, a majority of cases are reported in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Rapid diagnostic tests followed by single day treatment now makes rapid cure possible. Sandflies breed on mud walls, so vector control by indoor spraying with insecticides and ultimately with improved housing can result in the control of sandflies.
•For these programmes to succeed, it is important to maintain constant vigilance through robust surveillance and reporting mechanisms. Partnerships with diverse stakeholders including the private sector, community-based organisations, and community leaders are specifically useful in creating awareness, improving case detection, treatment completion and, most importantly, managing stigma associated with these diseases. While tackling NTDs, it will be important to remember that along with timely diagnosis and treatment access in unreached areas, focussing on the fundamentals of preventive interventions, nutrition, safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are essential in fast-tracking the ultimate goal of elimination.
Asia-Pacific meet puts Trump’s trade turmoil centre stage
Draft of statement emphasises free trade, warns of dangers of protectionism
•U.S. President Donald Trump’s new trade representative held his first face-to-face meetings with some key partners on Saturday as the United States charts an “America First” policy that has upended the old global order and sparked fears of protectionism.
•Robert Lighthizer met ministers from Canada and Japan on the sidelines of a gathering of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, the biggest trade meeting since Trump took office.
•Its members account for more than 40% of world trade.
U.S.-Japan agreement
•Mr. Lighthizer and Japan’s economy minister, Hiroshige Seko, agreed on strengthening bilateral trade and removing barriers, a statement from the U.S. trade representative said.
•“In particular, both sides agreed to strengthen cooperation to address common concerns with respect to unfair trade practices utilised by third-countries,” it said.
•The word “fair” has increasingly entered the U.S. trade lexicon alongside its old mantra of “free” as Mr. Trump seeks to do more to enforce or renegotiate trade agreements in the name of protecting American jobs — particularly in manufacturing.
•A draft seen by Reuters of the APEC meeting statement to be issued on Sunday emphasised free trade and warned of the dangers of protectionism.
•But the different approaches were evident in Hanoi.
•Mr. Lighthizer was due to meet about a dozen ministers there, a U.S. official said. The veteran lawyer and Reagan-era trade negotiator was only confirmed in his new role earlier this month.
•China, putting itself forward as a global free trade champion in light of the U.S. shift, will be pushing a free trade agreement to encompass the vast majority of Asian economies.
•The Asia trade deal it favours is called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
•Meanwhile, Japan is leading countries that want to persist with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal ditched by Mr. Trump in one of his first acts in office. TPP excludes China and covers a broader scope than the trade agreement favoured by Beijing.
Japan hopeful
•Japan still hopes to bring the United States back to the agreement, but is trying to get the 11 remaining countries to push ahead. Discussions will take place on Saturday and Sunday.
•“The gains from the TPP are definitely worth holding onto if we can. We want to build a consensus for a TPP-11,” Australian trade minister Steven Ciobo told reporters.
•The greatest challenge is keeping on board Vietnam and Malaysia, which joined largely to benefit from better access to the U.S. market. Officials from both countries have said that without the Americans they would want to renegotiate.
•A Japanese official said renegotiation did not make sense if the goal was to eventually bring back the United States.
•Renegotiating the existing North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a bigger immediate priority for Washington.
•Canada’s trade minister said his meeting with Mr. Lighthizer went well and they discussed “a number of multilateral issues”. Mr. Lighthizer was also due to meet Mexico’s trade minister, according to a schedule from organisers.
GST to boost India’s export growth, says Sitharaman
New indirect tax regime has a fast-track process for refund of duties and taxes to exporters
•Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said Goods and Services Tax (GST) will boost the country’s export growth and that the GST regime has a fast-track process for refund of duties and taxes to exporters.
•Significantly, she also said job creation is being prioritised with government policies and proposals before the Union Cabinet being analysed from an employment-generation perspective.
•“The way in which fitment discussions have happened in the GST Council and the way commodities and services have been treated, the GST is only going to help in improving our exports and in making exports more competitive (in the global market),” Ms. Sitharaman told reporters.
•“Also, the refund mechanism has been fast-tracked with the assurance that amounts will be refunded within seven days of the receipt of complete application in most cases, and that all cases of exporters will be addressed within three days. The medium-term review of the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) is being carried out to align FTP with GST.”
Job creation
•On job creation, she said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen that proposals before the Union Cabinet and government policies are analysed from a perspective of generation of direct and indirect employment generation.
•On efforts to boost employment in the North East, the Commerce & Industry Ministry and NITI Aayog are in talks with the north-eastern states to soon bring out a new North East Industrial & Investment Promotion Policy (NEIIPP). The NEIIPP, 2007 had expired in March this year, she said.
•On India’s exports, Ms. Sitharaman said the consecutive positive growth in shipments (witnessed in the past eight months) is a “sustainable trend”, adding that Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), Services Exports from India Scheme and Interest Equalisation Scheme have helped in improving India’s export performance.
•As per the Commerce Ministry, exports that availed MEIS in FY’16 recorded a lesser contraction in growth as against those that did not make use of MEIS, while shipments that availed MEIS registered a positive growth in FY’17 vis-à-vis the negative growth in exports that did not avail MEIS during that fiscal.
•India’s exports of consumption and hi-tech goods have increased, reflecting a shift to greater shipments of value-added goods from the country.
Africa, Latin America
•Ms. Sitharaman said her ministry was making efforts to boost India’s exports to relatively new markets including Latin America and Africa. Appreciating India’s growing project exports to Africa, Japan has expressed interest in collaborating with India in this regard, she added.
•On rupee appreciation impacting exports, the minister said Indian exporters are seized of the currency fluctuation, adding that though the rupee is market-determined, whenever there are extreme fluctuations in the currency, the RBI takes measures to address the situation.
•On other issues, she said there was no plan to shift the Rubber Board from Kerala to the North East, adding that the government was making efforts to boost rubber exports. On Telangana government’s proposal for a new Turmeric Board, the minister said currently there is no move for a separate Turmeric Board as all spices fall under the Spices Board’s purview.She said, however, that there could be spice parks in that state dedicated to turmeric for value-addition and warehousing.
•Ms. Sitharaman said the government was also favourably inclined to extend the Chennai-Vizag industrial corridor to Kolkata via Odisha.
•On Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), she said the government was committed to continue with its policy reforms to ease norms, adding that the cabinet will soon consider the proposal to replace the Foreign Investment Promotion Board with a new mechanism.
