| Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day's biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying safe. Draw on experience of holding massive elections to plan speedy delivery of vaccine, says PM Emphasising that every step in the logistics, delivery and administration of Covid-19 vaccine must be put in place rigorously, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that this must include advance planning of cold storage chains, distribution network, monitoring mechanisms, and thorough assessment and preparation of ancillary equipment such as vials and syringes, said a release issued by the Central government on Saturday. The PM on Saturday reviewed the pandemic situation and the preparedness of vaccine delivery, distribution and administration at a meeting attended by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and officials. At the meeting, he stressed that in view of the geographical spread and diversity of the country, speedy access to the vaccine is critical. The PM further directed that India should draw on the experience of successful conduct of elections and disaster management. "The Prime Minister said that in a similar manner, vaccine delivery and administration systems should be put in place. This should involve the participation of States/UTs/district level functionaries, civil society organisations, volunteers, citizens and experts from all necessary domains. The entire process should have a strong IT backbone and the system should be designed in such a manner as to have a lasting value to our healthcare system." Jacinda Ardern wins landslide re-election in New Zealand vote Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's centre-left Labour Party won a landslide victory in New Zealand's general election on Saturday as voters rewarded her for a decisive response to Covid-19. The mandate means that Ardern, 40, could form the first single-party government in decades, and face the challenge of delivering on the progressive transformation she promised but failed to deliver in her first term, where Labour shared power with a nationalist party.  New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gestures as she gives her victory speech to Labour Party members at an event in Auckland on October 17, 2020. "New Zealand has shown the Labour Party its greatest support in almost 50 years," Ardern told supporters after her landslide victory. Labour had 49.0% of the votes, far ahead of National at 27%, the Electoral Commission said, with 77% of ballots counted in an election that was largely a referendum on Ardern's aggressive handling of Covid-19. "This is a historic shift," said political commentator Bryce Edwards of Victoria University in Wellington, describing the vote as one of the biggest swings in New Zealand's electoral history in 80 years. Mumbai court orders probe into complaint against Kangana, sister A magistrate's court in Mumbai has asked the police to investigate a complaint against Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel for allegedly trying to create tension between communities through their tweets. Bandra metropolitan magistrate Jaydeo Y. Ghule passed the order on Friday after casting director Sahil Ashrafali Sayyed lodged the complaint seeking registration of an FIR under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity), 295A (malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings), 124A (sedition) against the actor and her sister, his lawyer Ravish Zamindar said. In his complaint, Sayyed said, "Her (Ms. Ranaut's) tweets are creating divisions between Hindu Artistes and Muslim Artistes. I say that she is maliciously bringing religion in almost all her tweets." He also said, "She has gone to such an extent that she has also blamed Jamaatis for spreading coronavirus etc. thereby trying to create hatred and communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims deliberately as she is well aware that she is a well known actress and has a big fan base so her tweets will be seen and will reach out to many people." The complainant alleged that the actor has been defaming Bollywood since the last two months by calling it a "hub of nepotism" and "favouritism" through her tweets and television interviews. He added that Ranaut's "very objectionable" comments had not only hurt his religious sentiments, but also the feelings of many artistes. Upon perusal of the documents on record and the lawyer's submission, the court found that "cognisable offence" has been committed by the accused. Ghule then directed the police station concerned to initiate necessary action and investigation against the actor and her sister under relevant provisions of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). 76% of rural Indians can't afford a nutritious diet: Study Three out of four rural Indians cannot afford a nutritious diet, according to a paper recently published in the journal Food Policy. Even if they spent their entire income on food, almost two out of three of them would not have the money to pay for the cheapest possible diet that meets the requirements set by the government's premier nutrition body, it says. The paper, titled "Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India", is authored by International Food Policy Research Institute economist Kalyani Raghunathan and others, and uses the latest available food price and wage information from the National Sample Survey's 2011 dataset. According to the study, even if they spent all their income on food, 63.3% of the rural population, or more than 52 crore Indians, would not be able to afford a nutritious meal. If they set aside just a third of their income for non-food expenses, 76% of rural Indians would not be able to afford it. This does not even account for the meals of non-earning members of a household, such as children or older adults.  File photo for representation. "These numbers are somewhat speculative, but they do reveal the scale of the dietary affordability problem in rural India: nutritious diets are too expensive, and incomes far too low," the paper stated. The National Institute for Nutrition's guidelines for a nutritionally adequate diet call for adult women to eat 330 gm of cereals and 75 gm of pulses a day, along with 300 gm of dairy, 100 gm of fruit, and 300 gm of vegetables, which should include at least 100 gm of dark green leafy vegetables. Selecting the cheapest options from actual Indian diets -- wheat, rice, bajra, milk, curd, onions, radish, spinach, bananas -- the study calculated that a day's meals would cost ₹45 (or ₹51 for an adult man). The findings are significant in the light of the fact that India performs abysmally on many nutrition indicators even while the country claims to have achieved food security. On Friday, the Global Hunger Index showed that India has the world's highest prevalence of child wasting, reflecting acute under-nutrition. On indicators that which simply measure calorie intake, India performs relatively better, but they do not account for the nutrition value of those calories. Dr. Reddy's, RDIF get DCGI nod for Sputnik V clinical trial Pharma major Dr. Reddy's Laboratories and Russia's sovereign wealth fund Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) have received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct an adaptive phase 2/3 human clinical trial for Sputnik V vaccine in the country. This will be a multi-centre and randomised controlled study, which will include safety and immunogenicity study. Developed by Gamaleya National Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Russia, Sputnik V vaccine is the world's first registered vaccine against Covid-19 and is based on the human adenoviral vectors platform. The vaccine was registered by Russia's Health Ministry in August.  A nurse prepares to inoculate a volunteer with Russia's new coronavirus vaccine at a clinic in Moscow on September 10, 2020. The DCGI approval "is a significant development that allows us to commence the clinical trial in India," Dr. Reddy's Co-chairman and Managing Director G V Prasad said in a statement issued by the company and RDIF. RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said, "We are pleased to collaborate with the Indian regulators and in addition to Indian clinical trial data, we will provide safety and immunogenicity study from the Russian phase 3 clinical trial. This data will further strengthen the clinical development of Sputnik V vaccine in India." Dr. Reddy's and Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) had last month announced a partnership to conduct clinical trials of Sputnik V vaccine and its distribution in India. Under the partnership, RDIF will be supplying 100 million doses of the vaccine to Dr. Reddy's upon regulatory approval in India. Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 74,85,415 at the time of publishing this newsletter, with the death toll at 1,14,006. In Brief: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday filed a charge sheet in a Delhi court against former AAP councillor Tahir Hussain in a money-laundering case related to the communal violence in northeast Delhi in February. The ED was probing the allegation that Hussain and his associates laundered about ₹1.10 crore by using purported shell or dummy companies to fuel the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the riots. All major non-BJP political parties and social activists on Saturday took to the streets in Ranchi, demanding the immediate release of Stan Swamy, the 83-year-old tribal rights activist, who was arrested last week by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. Several civil society organisations and activists have condemned his arrest, terming it as a violation of human rights and democratic norms. Pakistan speedster Umar Gul on Saturday announced he will retire from all forms of cricket after the end of the ongoing National T20 Cup. "With a very heavy heart and after a lot of thinking, I have decided to bid farewell to all formats of cricket after this National T20 Cup," the 36-year-old wrote on his Twitter handle. From 47 Test matches, Gul took 163 wickets at an average of 34.06. He also claimed 179 wickets from 130 ODIs, besides 85 wickets from 60 T20Is. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
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