Govt says home delivery of essential medicines can be organised in containment zones

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Centre has suggested states and UTs to organise home delivery of essential medicines like calcium, iron/folic acid and zinc tablets besides contraceptives in containment zones to ensure maternal and child healthcare is not affected due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

In its ‘Guidance note on Provision of Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health Plus Nutrition (RMNCAH+N) services during and post COVID-19 pandemic’ released on Wednesday, the ministry stressed that critical services for women, children and adolescent should be provided irrespective of their COVID-19 status.

“Under no circumstances should there be a denial of essential services,” it highlighted.

“Home deliveries of essential medicines like IFA, Calcium, ORS, Zinc, contraceptives etc. can be organized in containment zones,” it said.

Campaign mode services like mass vitamin A prophylaxis, campaigns for Intensified Diarrhea Control Fortnight (IDCF), National Deworming Day (NDD) and Test treat and Talk (T3) camps for Anemia, can be organised on an alternative mechanism like through home delivery of essential services and commodities etc. based on local situation, it said.

In case the number of beneficiaries is more, then additional sessions/clinics could be organized. Community based activities should have limited participation (5-10) at a time. The procedure site and all equipment should be sanitized properly before and after the clinics/sessions, it said.

All COVID-19 suspects and positive cases should preferably be provided services at dedicated COVID facility.

“COVID-19 testing is not mandatory for RMNCAH+N service. ICMR testing guidelines need to be followed,” it said, while underlining that tele consultation services should be promoted at all levels to prevent overcrowding and reduce cross infection.

As far as immunisation services are concerned, birth dose vaccination should be continued at all health facilities as the beneficiaries are already in the facility.

In other cases, providing vaccination doses will only be allowed outside the containment and buffer zones, and in green zones.

An area enlisted as a ”containment or buffer zone” should stop health facility-based sessions and outreach sessions, but if a beneficiary walks-into a health facility to get their child vaccinated, he/she should not be turned away.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded additional attention of our healthcare system and it is vital that during this period the essential RMNCAH+N services are not affected,” Union health secretary Preeti Sudan said in a letter to chief secretaries and health secretaries of states and UTs recently.

“Each state/UT needs to ensure access to these services in order to avert the increased risk of morbidities, unwanted pregnancies and mortalities thereby ensuring the health and well-being of mothers and children,” she said.

The guidance note issued on Wednesday elaborates that services such as antenatal and newborn care, immunization, family planning and adolescent health among others are to be provided at different levels in accordance with the zonal categorization of containment zones, buffer zones and beyond these zones.

“India also has the largest adolescent and youth population. Therefore, in addition to the current priority for COVID-19 for health facilities and health workers, it is also vital that essential health services for vulnerable population like this segment are continued during the pandemic,” it said.

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Hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19: Can we go back to science?

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Authored by Dr SP Kalantri

Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has been the biggest buzzword across the world lately. Until December 2019, this was a meek drug, used mainly by rheumatologists, internists, and dermatologists for inflammatory diseases. Its cousin Chloroquine has been the most popular drug for malaria. We have known and used these drugs for decades.

The antiviral properties of these drugs are known since the 90s, when it was found to inhibit HIV, Dengue, Ebola and SARS — though all in lab studies. At each time in history, it was touted as “The” drug to cure these diseases. However, when used on humans as part of clinical trials, the drug failed to show any benefits, and these doors were all but closed.

Revival
The end of 2019 brought about the worst healthcare disaster seen in over a century, as a small outbreak of Wuhan mutated into a deadly pandemic over a course of months. This extent and rapidity of spread did not give scientists enough time to understand the virus or figure out a treatment strategy. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and scientists in China and France started using Hydroxychloroquine off label as well as in clinical trials.

Is HCQ effective as a treatment for those who already have COVID-19?
Early results of small trials from both countries suggested a faster clearance of the virus from the nose, and possibly faster recovery. However, these results were never affirmed in larger studies. In fact, there has been mounting evidence of higher deaths in patients hospitalized for Covid 19 and put on HCQ. This evidence is not proof of harm, but is strong enough to raise serious concerns. On 24 May even WHO suspended the use of HCQ in its large, multinational trial. The WHO is looking at published data, the interim analysis from the Solidarity trial by the committee that is monitoring drug safety and the findings from other ongoing trials that include hydroxychloroquine as one of their study arms. Possibly, WHO might restart the trial only after an interim analysis of ongoing trials confirms the safety of this drug.

ICMR actually took a pragmatic approach in using HCQ in those already suffering from COVID-19. Despite some evidence of efficacy in treatment, they decided to first conduct clinical trials in India. For now, they have allowed the use of HCQ for patients with severe disease on a case-by-case basis.

HCQ for prophylaxis in healthy, but at risk people
This is where the baffling absurdity of idiosyncrasies begin. It is scientifically, ethically, and morally wrong to prescribe a drug to anyone, let alone a healthy person, when we have no clear idea of its risk- benefit ratio. It violates the first principle of medicine – Primum non nocere: First, do not harm.

Every drug has side effects. Yet physicians prescribe the drugs when the expected benefits outweigh the potential harms. As an example, clot blusters used to treat heart attacks can cause fatal strokes, but overall their benefits far outweigh the small risk of a stroke and thus they have become the standard of care in the treatment of heart attacks. Therefore, any new intervention (drug, operation or a procedure) strategy needs to be ratified by large clinical trials; these trials must be monitored for drug safety, trial findings peer-reviewed by experts and should be published in medical journals. A drug arrives at the patient’s bedside only after it proves its mettle. This applies even to old drugs, whenever they are picked up for a new disease.

On 23 March 2020, ICMR recommended that people in close contact with COVID-19 patients should take weekly HCQ for 7 weeks. This was a blanket recommendation, not a trial. The advisory document assured there was both pre-clinical and clinical data to support this strategy. Interestingly, as on 25 May 2020, not a single published clinical trial backs this recommendation. No other country is following this strategy outside of clinical trial settings.

ICMR decided to give an untested drug to thousands of healthy people, who were at a high risk of developing COVID-19, without any clinical data to back its claims. Instead of a trial, they decided to offer the prophylaxis to people, and observe them. They failed to disclose the experimental nature or the unclear efficacy of this intervention. The “participants” were to report any side effects themselves, and there was no provision to screen for COVID before, during, or after the drug was taken.

Effectively, this has been a large, poorly designed, unmonitored, human trial without an informed consent.

The latest ICMR advisory now cites “Observational data” derived from this population, which they claim supports the use of HCQ as prophylaxis. What would be the veracity of such data when neither testing nor adverse effect reporting has been standardized? Moreover, the data is not available on public domain—either raw or as a research paper—for external review. The study parameters are unknown and the results unclear. ICMR released a snippet that among 1323 healthcare workers, 1.9% developed “cardio-vascular” effects, and 1.7% developed hypoglycemia. These sound concerning, but the nature or severity of these events was never reported. Moreover, the side effect numbers much lower than reported from across the world, raising doubts on the validity of this self-reported safety data.

Unless we have an accurate idea of the efficacy of HCQ in preventing COVID, and the adverse effect profile, how are we to calculate the risk-benefit ratio? HCQ is a relatively safe drug in autoimmune diseases, and we have used for a long time. Doctors are well aware that it can cause electrical conduction problems in the heart, which are usually mild and inconsequential. However, we do not fully understand COVID yet. The corona virus is known to cause cardiac problems. Is it safe to use HCQ in those who are at high risk of developing COVID? Can it contribute to chaotic heart rhythms?

The answer is, we do not know. If only there was a double-blind, randomized controlled trial, maybe we would have known better.

The way forward
Now that WHO has put on hold HCQ in its trial, does it mean we should dump it?

No, that is not how the science works. Hasty reactions to incomplete evidence create more problems than they solve. Moreover, ill-conceived, rapidly changing recommendations erode the faith of people in medicine. HCQ, Remdesivir, plasma therapy seem to be the frontrunners for treatment of COVID-19, but none of these have yet shown overwhelming promise. ICMR needs to ensure there are appropriate placebo controlled trials to make sure we find which one works. ICMR today argued that because we know that the drug may be beneficial, it does not need to be tested in trials—a statement that holds little water. This precisely is the perfect setting to launch a trial.

As for prophylaxis, regardless of the “observational evidence”, ICMR is yet to present, thousands cannot be subjected to this drug without proof of safety and efficacy. This needs to be restricted to clinical trials only.

Currently, we do not know how many people need to take the drug for how long to prevent one infection. We also have no idea how many develop adverse reactions. So, we have effectively no idea what the risk-benefit ratio is for taking this drug.

As per its March 23rd advisory, ICMR seems to have decided that HCQS is effective as prophylaxis. It has repeatedly brushed aside any need of a controlled trial, and has started an observational study. This is not acceptable. Nowhere else in the world has HCQ been recommended for prophylaxis outside of clinical trials. The observational study ICMR is busy with is in no way a substitute for randomized, placebo-controlled trials.

Now that the WHO has put HCQ arm of its trial on hold, and ICMR is no mood to start a clinical trial, the public is caught between Scylla of coronavirus and the Charybdis of Hydroxychloroquine. We need expert policy makers to steer the ship to safer shores.

Author’s note: Dr SP Kalantri is a physician, researcher and medical superintendent at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sevagram, Maharashtra.

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How a 24-year-old created an edtech startup and convinced the Swiggy co-founder to join him

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The coronavirus pandemic has permanently altered several aspects of our lives, least our professional lives, with most people having to work from home.

But it did not take a pandemic for Ayush Jaiswal, now 24 years old, to realise the potential of remote work.

The engineering dropout spotted an opportunity back in 2018 and set up Pesto Tech, a startup that trains India’s engineers and connects them with job opportunities across the world.

As of today, the startup claims that ‘Pesto Grads’ as the startup refers to its user base, draw in an average salary $46,000, which translates to Rs 30 lakh per annum.

Buying into this career accelerator story in May 2019 were Matrix Partners and a clutch of angel investors, which included Swiggy founders Sriharsha Majety, Rahul Jaimani and Nandan Reddy; Innov8 founder Ritesh Malik; Posist founder Ashish Tulsian and OIC Capital’s Jack Yeung. Collectively, they pooled in a seed round of $2 million.

Cut to 2020, his angel investor — co-founder and chief technology officer at Swiggy Rahul Jaimini — decided to step down and join Pesto as a Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO).

How did Ayush manage to convince the man who has been credited for building Swiggy’s technology backbone, to move away from food tech and bet on this ed-tech mission?

CNBC-TV18 caught up with Ayush for an exclusive web interview.

Q: First things first, talk to us about how you managed to rope in Rahul Jaimini, co-founder of Swiggy to Pesto Tech? Give us details on what happened behind the scenes?

A: Rahul has been one of our earliest cheerleaders. In fact, the whole Swiggy team has been mentors to us from our foundation days. Rahul and I share a great bond and an equally strong conviction in Pesto’s mission.

He had been advising us since last year and was quite passionate about the problem we were trying to solve. He was first an investor, then a mentor, then a brother, and now my co-founder. I think you have to be blessed to get that lucky. His belief in our mission and potential has been a huge driving force behind what we have accomplished so far.

Q: All three co-founders of Swiggy backed Pesto as angel investors last year. How did you meet Rahul and the team?

A: I got introduced to Rahul via our investors Matrix Partners during our seed round. The idea was to find people to partner or invest in Pesto, people who’re equally passionate about the mission behind the company.

It didn’t take more than 20 minutes for all 3 of them to fill up all the space in the round that was left. We connected very quickly not just professionally but personally as well and it’s a relationship that I cherish deeply.

Q: At what point did you think Rahul was starting to show interest in joining you full-time and step down from his role at Swiggy?

A: Rahul has been a mentor, friend and angel for us since last year. We started with exploring advisory roles for the board and lucky for us, one of those conversations converted to this role because of the very strong alignment of our vision.

Q: Let’s back up a little now. What made you bet big on remote work and startup Pesto in the first place?

A: When I visited the US for the first time, I realized that the engineers had a very different role than what I had seen while working in India. The exposure and opportunities to work at scale were significantly larger.

I realized that most Indian engineers with the right amount of training and guidance can be at par with global talent with respect to opportunities. I found out about companies like Gitlab, Zapier and many others who had been working remotely for the last 10 years. Then I had this Eureka moment when I realized that the way tech has enabled people to work from anywhere can be a gamechanger. After doing some more research, it made no sense for me logically to expect people, especially who work in tech, to go to a physical location to work.

I think the world is ready for remote work, enabling companies to discover and hire talented engineers sitting in Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Guwahati, or even the remote village of Namakkal in rural Tamil Nadu.

When the world goes remote, the ball will be in India’s court. If we do our best, we have a massive opportunity to serve the world’s need for developers with 23.3 percent of the world’s developers already from India. Our goal is to make sure that we help all our developers realize their full potential.

Q: Speaking of your startup story, you set up Pesto along with San Francisco-based serial entrepreneur Andrew Linfoot, who I believe has moved on to start something of his own. Now with Rahul entering the firm, you are dealing with yet another transition. How will this organizational dynamic work?

A: Rahul and I complement each other in a lot of ways when it comes to business and technology. Under the new dynamic, his immediate focus areas would be to scale our training programs and global partnerships.

Q: Rahul Jaimini is credited to have helped Swiggy lay down its technology backbone. But at Pesto, he has joined you as the co-founder & COO, what does this role mean in terms of day to day operation?

A: Pesto’s mission has a very high overlap with Rahul’s journey – from starting as an engineer himself to building teams for scale and hiring top talent of a given market. As COO, he’ll be leading our operations end-to-end – right from the training programs, their curriculum designs to forming the right partnerships.

Q: We have been seeing this trend of recruiting external co-founders or elevating your initial team of employees to give them the co-founder title. What this a part of the deal with Rahul? And as a young founder, does it help to attract the right partner on board?

A: I don’t think there’s any hard rule as such so I shouldn’t generalize it. But a lot depends on how comfortable you are with someone and how well can they complement you.

Q: As twisted as it sounds, has COVID-19 had a positive impact on your business? What is the future roadmap for Pesto Tech looking like?

A: We’re living in very unprecedented times. There’s a lot of uncertainty with respect to the future and millions of people are suffering as we talk. We look at the impact of COVID-19 less as an opportunity for ourselves and more like a responsibility towards the world. We were early adopters of remote work and we would love to share our learnings with others to help them adjust faster.

Our vision for the future was a few years out. We expected the transition to happen over the next few years from offices to remote work. However, the change we expected in a few years happened in a few weeks. Our mission has always been to make opportunities universally accessible to everyone. We feel that one of the positive impacts of this extremely unfortunate crisis is going to be democratisation of opportunities.

Q: Can you decode the future of working remotely? Would this be a temporary trend or will it have a long term impact on work culture and business models across the globe?

A: If people think that remote work is still up for discussion, they are probably quarantined under a rock. In our experience, it takes time to learn about the infrastructure needed to do it right and once organizations nail it, it’s going to unlock an incredible amount of benefits not just for the organization but for the world.

We believe that the future of work doesn’t belong to offices. The companies will also realize the productivity loss that people faced in the office structure. Once companies build their processes around ownership & accountability of work, that’ll make the culture of 9-5 redundant. This will be good for both individuals as well as organizations.

As we speak, north of 7 billion people are forced to be confined to their homes. A big part of this population, probably hundreds of millions are either working or learning from their homes. This is a once in a century kind of event, which has created such a huge change in human behaviour at such a massive scale.

Q: What is the long term goal you have set for yourself and the startup?

A: The underlying concepts in tech education are relatively new and they keep changing. It’s just been about 20 years I think but as I look back, we probably tried to retrofit this creative new world into a 400-year-old traditional model of higher education.

Software engineering makes it especially challenging to keep up with as design patterns change in the tech industry so often because the building blocks don’t stay the same – the speed of innovation is so high in the network or cloud SaaS.

There’s no shortcut to becoming a good engineer. Of course, practice makes one better but in the larger scheme of things, the outdated curriculums give you a bad start in software engineering. This broken discovery is what we are after – we want to streamline your learnings and accelerate your opportunities.

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Universally effective antibodies found in COVID-19 patients: Study

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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A study of 149 people who recovered from COVID-19 shows that most individuals had generated at least some antibodies that were intrinsically capable of neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus, scientists say, a finding that may help develop a universal vaccine for the disease.

The first results from an immunological study of these patients by researchers from Rockefellar University in the US also found that the amount of antibodies generated varied widely.

Antibodies vary widely in their efficacy. While many may latch on to the virus, only some are truly “neutralising” meaning that they actually block the virus from entering the cells, the researchers noted.

The scientists collecting blood samples from volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19, according to the findings shared on pre-print server BioRxiv ahead of submission to peer-reviewed scientific journals.

The majority of the samples they studied showed poor to modest “neutralising activity,” indicating a weak antibody response, the researchers said.

However, a closer look revealed everyone’s immune system is capable of generating effective antibodies — just not necessarily enough of them, they said.

Even when neutralising antibodies were not present in an individual’s serum in large quantities, researchers could find some rare immune cells that make them.

“This suggests just about everybody can do this, which is very good news for vaccines,” said Michel C. Nussenzweig from Rockefeller University.

“It means if you were able to create a vaccine that elicits these particular antibodies, then the vaccine is likely to be effective and work for a lot of people,” Nussenzweig said.

Moreover, the researchers identified three distinct antibodies that were shown to be the most potent of the bunch in neutralising the virus.

They are working to develop them further into therapeutic and preventive drugs.

From the beginning of April and over 5 weeks, 149 people who had recovered from COVID-19 visited The Rockefeller Hospital to donate plasma, the portion of the blood that contains the antibodies, and the immune B-cells that produce them.

The participants had experienced symptoms for an average of 12 days, and had their first symptoms on average 39 days before plasma donation.

The team used an essay they had developed to test the neutralising activity of the plasma samples.

This involved mixing the plasma with a pseudo SARS-CoV-2 virus and measuring how well this mixture could still infect human cells in a dish.

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Google to give $1000 allowance to staff working from home, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Tech giant Google will provide an allowance of $1,000 to all its staff working from home, reported Engadget. The allowance is aimed at helping the staff in buying gadgets and other materials to make their working experience from home as comfortable as possible, the report said.

In addition to this, the tech giant is also developing a plan to ensure the staff will slowly return to the offices, the report added. As per the report, the staff is likely to continue working from home until the end of the year. But offices will slowly start to reopen by July and employees will come to the office on a rotation basis.

Initially, staff will have to come to office only once in a fortnight, Sundar Pichai said according to the report. This will slowly increase by September ensuring all those who absolutely need to come into the office show up, the report said.

However, the company is unlikely to follow other tech giants like Twitter, which will let most staff work from home indefinitely. This, Pichai explained, is because many of Google’s successes came from “chance encounters in the office.” Further, the tech giant is also not keen on losing the human connection between its staff, the report added.

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Donald Trump offers to ‘mediate or arbitrate’ between India and China

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In a surprise move, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered to “mediate or arbitrate” the raging border dispute between India and China, saying he was “ready, willing and able” to ease the tensions, amid the continuing standoff between the militaries of the two neighbours.

Trump previously offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue, a proposal rejected by New Delhi which maintains that there is no role for any third party in bilateral issues.

“We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute. Thank you!” Trump said in an early morning tweet.

The nearly 3,500-km-long Line of Actual Control (LAC) is the de-facto border between India and China.

Several areas along the LAC in Ladakh and North Sikkim have witnessed major military build-up by both the Indian and Chinese armies recently, in a clear signal of escalating tension and hardening of respective positions by the two sides even two weeks after they were engaged in two separate face-offs.

But on Wednesday, China took an apparently conciliatory tone by saying that the situation at the border with India is “overall stable and controllable,” and both the countries have proper mechanisms and communication channels to resolve the issues through a dialogue and consultation.

India has said the Chinese military was hindering normal patrolling by its troops along the LAC in Ladakh and Sikkim and strongly refuted Beijing’s contention that the escalating tension between the two armies was triggered by trespassing of Indian forces across the Chinese side.

The Ministry of External Affairs said all Indian activities were carried out on its side of the border, asserting that India has always taken a very responsible approach towards border management. At the same time, it said, India was deeply committed to protect its sovereignty and security.

“Any suggestion that Indian troops had undertaken activity across the LAC in the Western sector or the Sikkim sector is not accurate. Indian troops are fully familiar with the alignment of the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas and abide by it scrupulously,” MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said at an online media briefing last week.

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ClearTax launches e-invoicing solution to help enterprises

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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ClearTax, country’s fintech SaaS company for GST compliance, income tax compliance and investment-related products, has launched e-invoicing solution.

The e-invoicing product caters to a variety of businesses by providing solutions for IRN generation and e-invoice management. The product can be seamlessly integrated with any ERP, ClearTax said in a statement.

It is highly scalable allowing lakhs of invoices to go through; servers auto scale as per volume encountered, it added

Some of the other features include in-built validations, intelligent analytics, customised template printing and bulk upload.

CBIC has notified e-invoicing for businesses with annual turnover above Rs 500 crore in FY 2019-20 from October 1, 2020. Such companies must continue to raise tax invoices or debit-credit notes on their respective ERP or billing software.

However, while doing so, they must adhere to the schema or template notified by the CBIC on July 30, 2020. They should, in parallel, register the Business-to-Business (B2B) transaction details with the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP).

The portal will verify the authenticity and uniqueness of the invoice, generate an Invoice Reference Number (IRN) along with the QR code, and digitally sign on behalf of the GST Network (GSTN). Thereafter, these e-invoices can be issued to the recipients.

“ClearTax provides three modes of generating the IRN such as through excel, File Transfer Protocol (FTP/SFTP) and API integration. The product offers value additions to its users such as data archiving facility, insightful reports, real-time notifications, and custom print layouts for issuing the e-invoice,” it said.

Archit Gupta, Founder and CEO, ClearTax, said, “E-invoicing will be a game-changer for Indian businesses, it’s the UPI moment for digitising businesses and ClearTax is perfectly poised to the massive scale and technology involved.”

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SBI extends loan EMI moratorium till August: Here’s how you can avail it

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday said it has decided to extend the moratorium on loan equated monthly installments (EMIs) by another three months i.e. June, July and August. This means eligible customers can defer their loan EMI installments till August.

Last week, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced an extension of EMI moratorium on all term loans by three months. Earlier, the central bank had announced a three-month moratorium on all term loans outstanding as on March 1, 2020.

SBI has reached out to all of its eligible loan customers to obtain their consent to stop their Standing Instructions (SIs)/NACH mandate for the EMIs falling due in June, July and August 2020, the lender said in a statement.

“The bank has simplified the process of stopping the EMIs by initiating a SMS communication to nearly 85 lakh eligible borrowers asking about their consent to stop EMIs,” it added.

The borrowers have to reply with a ‘YES’ to a designated virtual mobile number (VMN) mentioned in the SMS sent by the bank within 5 days of receiving the SMS, if they wish to defer the EMIs.

The extension of moratorium and deferment of EMIs would give some respite to the borrowers amid COVID-19 outbreak, SBI noted.

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How to open Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan account? Steps and other details here

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana or PMJDY, a national mission for financial inclusion, ensures access to financial services such as banking, remittance, credit, insurance and pension. Through this scheme, every citizen can access all the financial subsidies passed by the government.

PMJDY account can be opened in any bank branch or business correspondent outlet. Accounts under PMJDY are opened with zero balance. However, if the account-holders wish to get cheque books, they are required to fulfill minimum balance criteria.

(Also read: How to update address in your Aadhaar card online)

Here’s how one can open PMJDY account:

Step 1: Obtain the form for Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana from the official website of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana or any other bank website.

Step 2: Fill form and attach documents required. Passport, driving license, Permanent Account Number (PAN) card, voter’s identity card, job card issued by NREGA duly signed by an officer of state government, letter issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India containing details of name, address and Aadhaar number, or any other document as notified by the central government in consultation with the regulator can be used to open this account.

Step 3: Take the filled form to nearby bank branch. After proper verification of the documents, the bank account will be opened.

(Also read: How to link Aadhaar card to ration card online)

Here are the facilities provided by banks in PMJDY accounts, free of charge, without requirement of minimum balance:

• The deposit of cash at bank branch as well as ATMs.
• Receipt or credit of money through any electronic channel or by means of deposit or collection of cheques drawn by government agencies and departments.
• No limit on number and value of deposits that can be made in a month.
• Maximum of four withdrawals in a month, including own ATMs and other.
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Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow