Latest news with #Anish
NDTV
15-07-2025
- NDTV
Pune Porsche Crash Left 2 Dead. Drunk Driver, 17, Won't Be Tried As Adult
New Delhi: The main accused in the Pune Porsche crash case - in which an allegedly drunk teenager rammed his father's Rs 2.5 crore electric supercar into a two-wheeler and killed two software professionals - cannot be tried as an adult now, despite having crossed that threshold, the Juvenile Justice Board has said. The main accused - out 'celebrating' exam results by heavy underage drinking, and running up a bill of Rs 48,000 in just 90 minutes - was 17 years old at the time of the tragic incident; he was four months short of the legal age for driving and eight years shy of Maharashtra's legal drinking age, which is 25. The crash, and the death of Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta, both from Madhya Pradesh and both just 24, led to outrage, particularly since the accused is the son of a prominent Pune businessman and the local police were accused of deliberately mishandling critical evidence to ensure his release. This included feeding him burgers immediately after the crash to hide or dilute the alcohol in his bloodstream. Local police reportedly also did not alert their superiors, as required to by law. There were also questions asked of the medical professionals involved, including doctors tasked with extracting and securing samples from the accused to test for blood alcohol levels. CCTV footage of the Pune Porsche car crash case accused at a city bar. It soon transpired the blood samples had been replaced with those of his mother - who was arrested and then released in April - in a crude attempt to conceal the fact he was driving while drunk. And finally the Juvenile Justice Board itself faced scrutiny after allowing the boy bail 15 hours after the crash. The conditions imposed - one was to write a 300-word essay - were slammed as 'ridiculous'. READ | With 7 Conditions, Teen Porsche Driver Got Bail On Grandad's Say Faced with backlash over these conditions, the JJB then directed the boy be placed in the custody of state authorities. However, this order was countered by the Bombay High Court. Last year Pune Police had sought permission to try the main accused - the others included members of his family for trying to destroy evidence - as an adult, citing his "heinous" act. In May, exactly a year after the crash, and with no sign of justice for his son Anish, Om Awadhiya said, "Our son is no longer with us; nothing can compensate for that loss, but justice would send a strong message against drunk driving and those who believe money and power put them above the law." "This entire year has been painful for me, my wife, and our whole family. Not a single day goes by without us remembering him and cherishing his beautiful memories. After Anish's tragic death, our world has come crashing down," Mr Awadhiya, who lives in Madhya Pradesh, said. At present the boy's father, doctors Ajay Taware and Shrihari Halnor, hospital employee Atul Ghatkamble, and two middlemen are in jail in connection with this case. The boy remains with his family.
The Hindu
05-07-2025
- Health
- The Hindu
Kerala to launch antibody surveillance studies on Nipah virus
Nipah virus (NiV) has surfaced in Kerala yet again, making this the eighth appearance in as many years. Whether virus spillovers (single index case, with no secondary cases in the community), or outbreaks (spillover with subsequent cases), Kerala has primed its response to the virus, seamlessly managing early detection, limiting the transmission and successfully saving lives. However, in all these encounters with NiV, researchers have identified several missing links or knowledge gaps. These pertain to the exact virus spillover mechanism from bats ( the fruit bats of the Pteropus species are the proven natural reservoir hosts of NiV) to humans; the recurrence of the spillover events/outbreaks in a specific geographic belt in northern Kerala and how exactly human behaviour, land use and bat ecology interactions are facilitating the virus spillovers. 'We have toyed with several hypotheses regarding the spillover mechanism. Are direct spillovers possible in areas near bat colonies , such as through droplet transmission from bat secretions or poop? Can individuals be indulging in high-risk behaviours, such as consuming bat meat (evidence of NiV in internal organs of bats has been reported)?,' said T.S. Anish, a public health expert who heads the Kerala One Health Centre for Nipah Research and Resilience, Kozhikode. The possibility that NiV transmission to humans could be through fruits bitten by bats has remained conjecture at best because NiV has never been isolated in any fruit samples collected and tested during outbreak investigations in Kerala. NiV RNA has been detected in date palm sap in Bangladesh but live virus has never been isolated from any field samples. But the link between consumption of raw date palm sap in Bangladesh and human NiV infections is strongly supported by epidemiological and experimental evidence. Also, as NiV is an enveloped virus, its ability to remain infectious on a fruit in an outdoor environment is extremely fragile, said Dr. Anish Intermediate hosts? 'Our current thinking about NiV spillovers strongly leans to the fact that there is an indirect transmission route to humans, involving an indirect host. Ephrin B2, the main cell receptor used by NiV for infecting host cells is highly conserved in all mammals, which means that all animals like dogs or cattle or pigs could harbour the virus, as has been demonstrated in Malaysia and Bangladesh,' he pointed out. None of the animal samples sent so far to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal have so far turned out to be NiV positive. However, it is also a fact that NiV research is relatively nascent and that the research institutions in the country, including the National Institute of Virology, are still in the process of developing antibody markers and testing assays specific to NiV. PVNT platform Thus, while Kerala's public health response against NiV infections has been effective, the development of a novel pseudovirus neutralization test (PVNT) platform, based on a Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) system at the State's Institute of Advanced Virology (IAV), Thonnakkal has opened up new research possibilities on Nipah. IAV has developed a novel way of generating non-infectious Nipah virus-like particles (VLPs) as well as pseudovirions in the laboratory, which mimic the wild type NiV. These engineered 'ghost viruses' carry most of the characteristics of the virus, including the NiV structural proteins G, F, and M, except their ability to replicate (because it lacks the viral genome). VLPs and pseudovirions have long been recognised as effective platforms for studying cell binding and entry kinetics of the virus. These VLPs and pseudovirions mimic viral entry but can only undergo a single round of infection and cannot replicate and reproduce infectious viruses, making them safe to handle in standard Biosafety Level 2 (BSL-2) facilities. PVNT-based serological survey 'We are proposing a pseudovirus neutralisation assay-based serological survey among potential intermediate animal hosts and high-risk human populations in areas of previous NiV spillovers, with the collaboration of various stakeholders, including the departments of Health, Animal Husbandry, Forests and wildlife. The proposal is to collect healthy domestic animal blood samples (cattle, pigs, goats, dogs and cats) and human samples from within a few km radius of Nipah hotspots,' E. Sreekumar, the Director of IAV, told The Hindu. Serum samples will be tested using the IAV's VSV-based PVNT assays. The assay measures the ability of IgG antibodies in human/animal serum to neutralise these pseudovirions, thereby preventing infection of target cells. Infectivity and neutralisation, is quantified by measuring the expression of a reporter gene incorporated into the pseudovirus genome Positive PVNT results will indicate the potential of those animal species as intermediary hosts and such samples will be further tested against live Nipah virus in a BSL-4 facility with the help of NIV, Pune. This study is expected to provide robust data on NiV seroprevalence in high-risk human and animal populations in Kerala and open the doors to the mystery of NiV disease spillover and transmission pattern in the State. Futuristically, the successful validation of serological data and its integration with geo-spatial analysis will enhance Kerala's diagnostic and surveillance capabilities for NiV, it is hoped
Hans India
27-06-2025
- Sport
- Hans India
National Shooting: Anish bags double, Narmada wins air rifle
Dehradun (Uttarakhand): Former world champion and Olympian Anish Bhanwala won back-to-back trials in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (Men) event, while Tamil Nadu's Narmada Nithin clinched the top spot in the Women's 10m Air Rifle on Day Four of the National Selection Trials 3&4 for Group 'A' Rifle and Pistol shooters, currently underway at the Trishul Shooting Range, Maharana Pratap Sports College, here in Raipur. Narmada shot a composed 253.7 in the 24-shot final to edge out ISSF World Cup Final silver medalist Sonam Uttam Maskar by 1.7 points. Delhi's Rajshree Anilkumar secured third place with a score of 230 after 22 shots. Earlier in a star-studded women's air rifle field, Narmada finished sixth with a score of 629.5 in qualification. World Championship medalist Mehuli Ghosh topped the qualification round with 632.2, just 0.1 ahead of Sonam, while Rajshree was a close third at 631.9 after six series of 10 shots each. Shreya Agrawal (630.5), 50m 3P T4 winner Vidarsha K Vinod (630.3), Ayonika Paul (629.4), and Dnyaneshwari Jayveer Patil (629.3) completed the T3 final line-up. In the men's 25m RFP T4 final, Anish maintained his top form to register a score of 30 and claim his second consecutive final win of the trials. Navy's Pradeep Singh Shekhawat pushed him all the way but had to settle for silver with 29, while Anish's teammate from Haryana, Adarsh Singh, took third place with 23 shots. Anish had also topped the T4 qualification round with 584-20x, again bagging a double in the qualifications. Adarsh followed with 581-14x, finishing ahead of fellow Haryanvi shooter Mandeep Singh (579-16x). Bhavesh Shekhawat (577-10x), Udhayveer Sidhu (576-15x), and Pradeep Singh Shekhawat (574-22x), all contributing to a tightly contested field. The trials continue on Day Five (Saturday, June 28, 2025) with three finals on the schedule: 10m Air Rifle Women T4, 25m Pistol Women T4, and 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men T3. Anish is coming into the third and fourth rounds of the trials after the Munich World Cup. Anish, as has been for a while now, was a facile winner in the men's Rapid Fire Pistol. He qualified third for the six-man final with a score of 581 and then shot two perfect series of 5-hits in the eight 5-shot series decider, to ensure all others were always playing catch-up. Rajasthan's Bhavesh Shekhawat came in second with 34 hits, while Punjab's Vijayveer Sidhu won bronze.
India Gazette
24-06-2025
- Sport
- India Gazette
National Selection Trials 3 and 4: Anish Bhanwala leading after day-1
Dehradun (Uttarakhand)[India], June 24 (ANI): The opening day of competitions at the National Selection Trials 3 and 4 (Group 'A' Rifle/Pistol) saw Olympian Anish Bhanwala emerge on top of the leaderboard in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (RFP) T3 Men's qualification Stage 1, held here at the Trishul Shooting Range, Maharana Pratap Sports College, Raipur, according to an official statement from the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI). Anish delivered a solid and consistent performance, shooting a series of 99, 97 and 97, to finish with a total of 293 at the end of round one of qualifications. His Paris Olympics teammate Vijayveer Sidhu (99,99,94) followed closely to take second spot with 292, while Anish's statemate from Haryana, Mandeep Singh, stood third with 290, the statement added. Rounding off the top five were Pradeep Singh Shekhawat (Navy) with 290 and Uttarakhand's own Ankur Goel with 289. The top six shooters after Stage 2 of qualification will advance to the final of the event. The action continues on Wednesday with Stage 2 of the men's RFP T3 qualifications, preceding the final. Two more finals, the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women and the 10m Air Rifle Men, are also scheduled for Day 2. These trials will help in shaping the Indian shooting team for the 16th Asian Shooting Championships 2025 in Kazakhstan in August and the ISSF World Cup in Ningbo, China, in September. (ANI)
The Hindu
24-06-2025
- Sport
- The Hindu
Olympian Anish Bhanwala leads after Day 1 of National Selection Trials
The opening day of competitions at the National Selection Trials 3&4 (Group 'A' Rifle/Pistol) saw Olympian Anish Bhanwala emerge on top of the leaderboard in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (RFP) T3 Men's qualification Stage 1, held at the Trishul Shooting Range in Dehradun on Tuesday. Anish delivered a solid and consistent performance, shooting series of 99, 97 and 97, to finish with a total of 293 at the end of round one of qualifications. His Paris Olympics teammate Vijayveer Sidhu (99,99,94) followed closely to take second spot with 292, while Anish's statemate from Haryana, Mandeep Singh, stood third with 290. Rounding off the top five were Pradeep Singh Shekhawat (Navy) with 290 and Uttarakhand's own Ankur Goel with 289. The top six shooters after Stage 2 of qualification will advance to the final of the event. The second day of action will feature Stage 2 of the men's RFP T3 qualifications, preceding the final. Also scheduled are two more finals, the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women and the 10m Air Rifle Men. These trials will help in shaping the Indian shooting team for the 16th Asian Shooting Championships 2025 in Kazakhstan in August and the ISSF World Cup in Ningbo, China in September.
