Pharmaceutical companies are committed to a science first approach in the development of COVID-19 vaccines even as the pressure piles on to end the pandemic, the representative of a Singapore-based industry body has said.

Vaccine development is a complex process, traditionally it takes as long as 20 years, said Ashish Pal, vice-president of the Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (SAPI).

Shares of HCL Technologies hit a fresh record high of Rs 835, up 3 per cent on the BSE in the early morning deals on Monday after the company announced its intent to acquire IT company DWS Limited, a leading Australian IT, business, and management consulting group, for $158.2 million (approximately Rs 1,162 crore). The acquisition is expected to be completed by December 2020. The stock surpassed its previous high of Rs 824 touched on Friday, September 18, 2020.

DWS is a provider of IT, Business, and Management Consulting services in Australia and New Zealand.

A total of eight MPs were suspended from Rajya Sabha on Monday for unruly behaviour on Sunday. The MPs include Derek O Brien, Sanjay Singh, Raju Satav, KK Ragesh, Ripun Bora, Dola Sen, Syed Nazir Hussain and Elamaran Karim.

Condemning the MP’s misbehaviour with Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh on Sunday, Rajya Sabha Chairman Venkaiah Naidu said that it was a bad day for the Upper House of the Parliament.

In another gift to poll-bound Bihar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of nine highway projects through video conferencing on Monday.

The PM will also inaugurate optical fibre internet services under which all the 45,945 villages of Bihar will be connected through optical fibre internet service.

In a major tragedy, at least people were killed and several feared trapped after a three-storeyed building in Maharashtra's Bhiwandi collapsed on Monday.

The three-storied building was located in the Patel Compound area in Bhiwandi, Thane and is said to be 43 years old. It had 40 flats with a total occupancy of 150 people.

Delhi Capitals (DC) beat Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) after a dramatic super-over clash in the second match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 in Dubai on Sunday (September 20).

Earlier in the day, KXIP skipper KL Rahul had won the toss and welcomed Delhi Capitals to bat first.

The India, China Corps Commander meeting will take place on Monday (September 21, 2020) morning at 9 am IST at Moldo, the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

This time a diplomat from the Indian side will be present at the meeting. Naveen Srivastava, Joint Secretary East Asia of Ministry of External Affairs will attend the Corps Commander meet tomorrow.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday launched a unified COVID-19 application which will help in better tracking of the pandemic in the state.

Speaking at the launch of labreports.upcovid19tracks.in app, the Chief Minister said, While tracing the pandemic in the state, we faced a number of problems as many patients, whose reports came positive, gave their wrong addresses and wrong contact numbers. Due to this, we faced a lot of problems controlling COVID-19 in the state.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Sunday (September 20, 2020) informed that second countrywide serosurvey for COVID-19 has been successfully completed and the final phase analysis of the survey is now underway.

The second round of countrywide serosurvey led by ICMR has been successfully completed. The final phase analysis of the survey is now underway and will offer a comparison with the results of the first survey #IndiaFightsCOVID19, the ICMR said in a tweet.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday morning arrested nine terrorists of banned terror organisation Al-Qaeda from multiple locations in West Bengal and Kerala.

As per the anti-terror probe agency, simultaneous raids were conducted at several locations in Kerala's Ernakulam and West Bengal's Murshidabad. The nine arrested terrorists are associated with Pakistan sponsored module of Al-Qaeda.

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