Tamil Nadu news live: Schools waiting for govt nod to open

The Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation moved by the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP challenging the validity of a committee constituted by the state government to study the impact of NEET on students from socially and economically backward classes.

Dr Reddys Laboratories Ltd, which soft-launched Russia's COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V here on May 14 has expanded the pilot project to over 50 other cities and towns in the country. In a tweet on Monday night, the city-based drug maker said it will strengthen the commercial rollout of Sputnik V in the coming weeks.

Hundreds of assistant nurses from across the state staged a protest on Tuesday at the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMRHS) in Tenampet, Chennai demanding government jobs. Few of the nurses were detained by police before entering the campus and are kept at a nearby marriage hall. Hearing the detention of fellow protesters hundreds of other nurses sit on dharna and hold placards demanding government jobs.

Puducherry on Tuesday added 124 fresh cases to its Covid-19 tally, which surged to 1,19,181. The new cases were less than 100 on Monday but shot up to 124 today at the end of examination of swabs of 5756 people. No new fatality was reported for second straight day today and the toll remained 1,771.

The academic community and school managements of Tamil Nadu are waiting for the government's nod to open in the state. The call for reopening of schools has begun after neighbouring Puducherry announced resumption of classes for students from 9 to 12 standard as well as opening of all colleges. Tamil Nadu school managements are of the opinion that online classes are affecting the studies of the students and that the schools are waiting for a government nod to resume classes.

The state government will on Tuesday launch the Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) under universal immunisation programme. It is expected to help reduce deaths due to pneumonia and meningitis among children below five. Roughly 9.23 lakh children are expected to benefit from the programme in the coming year. Health minister Ma Subramanian will inaugurate the programme at a staterun health centre in Poonamallee, said director of public health Dr TS Selvavinayagam.

With Puducherry announcing reopening of schools for Classes IX to XII from July 16, schools in the city have urged the state government to consider reopening for Class X and XII on a trial basis from the first week of August. Several principals said prolonged online classes have affected the quality of education of students, and physical classes should start with a sense of urgency.

Madras high court has directed Tamil Nadu government to carry out measures to prevent the spread of vectorinduced diseases like dengue across the state and not restrict it to only to cities like Chennai. "We are expecting monsoon in the next few months and that would result in an increase in such cases. The corporation and other authorities should do the needful since people are already weakened by a Covid-19 attack," said the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.

The Puducherry government's decision to reopen schools for Classes 9 to 12 has triggered a debate among the public health authorities, academicians, parents and students alike in the Union territory. A section of them welcomed the government's decision as a balanced and calculated risk considering the education of the students while the others expressed serious concern over the reopening of schools without ensuring that all the teaching and non-teaching staff members have taken at least one dose of Covid-19 infection.

Many of the TNSTC and SETC bus services, which were allowed to start operations with 50% occupancy by the government as a precautionary measure to prevent Covid-19 spread, have seen flouting the safety norms. Standard operating procedures such as checking temperature, ensuring marks and providing sanitisers to the passengers are not followed properly. Buses in Madurai city are operating with passengers occupying all the seats, and during the peak hours, passengers can be seen standing on busy routes. Mostly buses connecting various bus terminals in the city and those operated to a few distant routes within the district are crowded.

The Adi Dravidar and tribal welfare department will be starting a mobile learning programme to ensure that students at tribal settlements in the district are educated as the schools are closed due to the pandemic. A senior official from the department said as schools are closed due to the pandemic and most of the tribal students do not have access to online education due to lack of smart phones, power supply and mobile network, the commissionerate of tribal welfare has decided to launch the programme.

It's back to basics for the travel sector as travel agents are back in demand during the pandemic. As international travel has grown complicated due to frequently changing restrictions and rules for documentation, traditional travel agents are back in popularity. The trend of people switching to online booking sites for tickets, hotels and tours has begun to reverse during the pandemic. Agents say they have started getting back business as professional advice and contacts of an agent is crucial to make sense of the rules. Online sites may reflect the changes but absence of personal rapport has made travellers hesitate to book online these days. The trend of online research and booking of flights, hotels, itinerary especially by the tech savvy young was growing in Chennai in the pre-covid days.

With more than 7.5 lakh vaccines in stock, Tamil Nadu vaccinated more than 3.7lakh people on Monday. But the irregular supply and dry days this month brought down the average number of people vaccinated in a day by nearly 22% from 1.9 lakh in June to 1.4 lakh in July (till Sunday). Ironically, private vaccination centres that received 16.30 lakh doses until June 30, have vaccinated 10.4 lakh people between May 1 and July 11 – an average of 14,000 people a day. The state’s request to decrease supply to private hospitals from 25% to10% has been turned down. The centre has told the state that if the private sector in Tamil Nadu does not use the 25% vaccines, it will be allotted to private hospitals in other states. This means of the 72.5 lakh doses allotted to the state in July at least 17.75 lakh doses will be allotted to the private sector.

Alleging that Madurai Corporation commissioner K P Karthikeyan has disrespected the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, its chairman M Venkatesan on Monday said that he would raise a complaint against the commissioner with the Tamil Nadu chief minister and the chief secretary and with the President of the country, if required.

BJP’s stand is not for bifurcating Tamil Nadu nor for creating Kongu Nadu (western belt). The party’s aim to create a prosperous Tamil Nadu and a strong Bharat, spokesperson of BJP’s TN unit A N S Prasad said on Monday.

An all-party meeting led by Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Monday urged the Union government not to give clearances by any of its ministries to Karnataka’s Mekedatu dam project.