Highlights: Worldwide coronavirus caseload has surpassed 80 million in a year India in the last 24 hours recorded 21,821 new cases of Covid-19. The country registered a total of 257,656 active cases, pushing the nation-wide tally to 10,266,674. In the same time period the death toll rose by 299 to 148,738. By hindustantimes.com | Updated: Dec 31, 2020 23:17 IST highlights Doctors from NMMC and Terna Hospital on door to door mass screening at a Covid-19 containment zone at in Navi Mumbai on Saturday (Photo by Bachchan Kumar/ HT Photo) Approval of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine in Britain bears good tidings for India. Serum Institute of India, who is tasked with producing the Oxford vaccine in India had applied for emergency approval but the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) had earlier indicated that it would wait for UK's regulator to approve of the vaccine, and had asked for more data on vaccine efficacy and safety of the vaccine, which was duly submitted last week. With the news of UK's approval India is one step closer to rolling out a vaccination program. Meanwhile state governments have started to impose night curfews to curb rampant spread of the new variant amid unchecked New Year's celebrations.