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Operation Plasma Bazaar: India Today exposes how recovered Covid-19 patients are selling their plasma

Plasma therapy, though not a magic bullet, has spurred a global drive to treat the Covid sick with the antibody-rich blood of recovered patients because of its promising results.

But an India Today investigation has unearthed a growing black-market for the lifesaving liquid as despair drives families to buy anything they can to save their loved ones battling the disease.

Invented in the 1890s to cure diphtheria, plasma therapy helped reduce fatalities during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Doctors across the world are now trialling the same technique on moderately-ill Covid patients.

India Today's undercover investigation has found some recovered patients striking deals to give their plasma, the liquid portion of their blood, to Covid positives.

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Video: PM Modi hugs, touches feet of 98-year-old BJP veteran in Bengal

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hugged and honoured 98-year-old Makhanlal Sarkar, one of the earliest and senior most members of the BJP. The scene unfolded on the stage ahead of Suvendu Adhikari's swearing-in as West Bengal's Chief Minister in Kolkata. PM Modi also touched Sarkar's feet and presented a shawl to him as a mark of respect. In 1952, Sarkar was arrested in Kashmir while he was accompanying Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee as the latter was marching to hoist the tricolour there. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya described the elderly party leader as "one of the earliest grassroots figures associated with the nationalist movement in post-Independence India."

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