EC mulls issuing notice to Munde for LS poll expense remark

New Delhi, Feb 4: Four-month-old Mohammed Jahaan accompanied his mother almost every day to the Shaheen Bagh demonstration where he was a favourite with the protesters who would take turns to hold him and often draw the tricolour on his cheeks.

Jahaan will not be seen at Shaheen Bagh anymore. He died last week after acquiring a severe cold and congestion following exposure to the winter chill at the outdoor demonstration. His mother is, however, undeterred and determined to participate in the protests, saying it is "for the future of my children".

The infant's shattered parents, Mohammed Arif and Nazia, live in a tiny shanty put together with plastic sheets and cloth in Batla House area and have two other children -- a five-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son.

Hailing from Bareilly in UP, the couple is barely able to make ends meet. Arif is an embroidery worker and also drives an e-rickshaw. His wife helps him in his embroidery work.

"I haven't been able to earn enough in the last month despite driving the battery rickshaw in addition to my embroidery work. Now with our baby's demise, we have lost everything," he said, showing a picture of little Jahaan wearing a woolen cap that read 'I Love My India'.

A visibly disturbed Nazia said Jahaan passed away in his sleep on night of January 30 after returning from the protests.

"I had returned from Shaheen Baag at around 1 AM. After putting him and other kids to sleep, even I went to sleep. In the morning, I suddenly found him motionless. He was gone in his sleep," she said.

The couple said they took their motionless baby to the nearby Alshifa Hospital on the morning of January 31 where he was declared dead on arrival.

Nazia, who had been visiting the Shaheen Bagh demonstration everyday with Jahaan since December 18, says that he died after catching a cold that turned lethal.

She said she didn't realise that his congestion was so severe. However, the baby's death certificate issued by the hospital does not mention any specific reason for the death.

Shazia, a neighbour who was present at the couple's home, said Nazia had fought with her mother and husband to visit Shaheen Bagh everyday. Nazia would gather all women in the bylane outside her house so that they could together walk to the demonstration, around 2 km away. Sometimes, Arif would drop some of them to Shaheen Bagh on his e-rickshaw.

Nazia said she strongly feels that the CAA and NRC are against the welfare of all communities and will join the Shaheen Bagh protests, but this time without her children.

"Why was I doing this? For my children and the children of all us who need a bright future in this country," she told PTI.

"The CAA divides us on religion and should never be accepted. I don't know if there is politics involved but I know that I must question what is against the future of my children."

Arif, however, blamed the NRC and CAA for his child's death.

"Had the government not brought CAA and NRC, people would not have protested and my wife would not have joined them, my son would have been alive," he said.

New Delhi, May 25: The pending class 10 and 12 board exams will be conducted by CBSE at 15,000 centres across the country instead of 3,000 centres planned earlier, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' announced on Monday.

The exams, which were postponed due to a nationwide lockdown imposed on March 25 to contain the spread of COVID-19, will now be held from July 1 to 15.

"The class 10, 12 exams will now be conducted at over 15,000 exam centres across India. Earlier, CBSE was slated to hold exams at only 3,000 centres," Nishank said.

The decision has been taken to ensure social distancing at exam centres and minimise travel for students.

The HRD ministry has already announced that students will appear for exams at schools in which they are enrolled rather than external examination centres.

According to home ministry guidelines, there will be no exam centre in COVID-19 containment zones and states will be responsible for making transport arrangements for students to reach their respective centres.

Usually, board examinations are held at designated test centres to ensure minimum bias from schools and enable independent external invigilators to monitor the examination process.

While Class 12 exams will be conducted across the country, the Class 10 exams are only pending in North East Delhi, where they could not be held due to the law-and-order situation in the wake of protests against the amended citizenship act.

The CBSE class 10 and 12 board exam evaluation is being carried out from home.

The HRD ministry had earmarked 3,000 evaluation centres from where answer sheets would be distributed to teachers at their homes for evaluation and then collected.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

Later, a 21-day nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. It has now been extended till May 31. The board was not able to conduct class 10 and 12 exams on eight examination days due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Due to the law-and-order situation in North East Delhi, CBSE was not able to conduct exams on four examination days, while a very small number of students from and around this district were not able to appear in exams on six days.

The board had last month announced that it will only conduct pending exams in 29 subjects which are crucial for promotion and admission to higher educational institutions.

The modalities of assessment for the subjects for which exams are not being conducted will be announced soon by the board.

The schedule has been decided in order to ensure that the board exams are completed before competitive examinations such as engineering entrance JEE-Mains, which is scheduled from July 18-23 and medical entrance exam NEET that will be held on July 26.

New Delhi, Jul 19: India's Covid-19 case fatality rate is "progressively falling" and is currently at 2.49 per cent, which is one of the lowest in the world, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday, crediting efficient clinical management of hospitalised cases for it.

There are 29 states and union territories with a case fatality rate (CFR) lower than India's average, with five of them having a CFR of zero and 14 having fatality rate of less than 1 per cent.

The focused efforts of the Centre and state and UT governments on efficient clinical management of hospitalised cases have ensured that India's case fatality rate has fallen below 2.5 per cent, the ministry said.

With effective containment strategy, aggressive testing and standardized clinical management protocols based on holistic standard of care approach, the CFR has significantly dipped, it said.

"The CFR is progressively falling and currently, it is 2.49 per cent. India has one of the lowest fatality rates in the world," the ministry said.

From 2.82 per cent over a month earlier, India's Covid-19 case fatality rate declined to 2.72 per cent on July 10 and has further reduced to 2.49 per cent presently.

Under the guidance of the Centre, the state and UT governments have ramped up testing and hospital infrastructure by combining public and private sector efforts, the ministry said.

Many states have conducted the population surveys to map and identify the vulnerable population like the elderly, pregnant women and those with co-morbidities.

This, with the help of technological solutions like mobile apps, has ensured keeping the high-risk population under continuous observation, thus aiding early identification, timely clinical treatment and reducing fatalities, the ministry said.

"At the ground level, frontline health workers like ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activists) and ANMs (Auxiliary Nursing Midwives) have done a commendable job of managing the migrant population and to enhance awareness at the community level.

"As a result, there are 29 States and UTs with CFR lower than India's average. This shows commendable work done by public health apparatus of the country," the ministry said.

Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram, Andaman and Nicobar Islands have zero case fatality rate.

States and UTs having a CFR below the national average include Tripura (0.19 pc),  Assam (0.23 pc), Kerala (0.34 pc), Odisha (0.51 pc), Goa (0.60 pc), Himachal Pradesh (0.75 pc), Bihar (0.83 pc), Telangana (0.93 pc), Andhra Pradesh (1.31 pc), Tamil Nadu (1.45 pc), Chandigarh (1.71 pc), Rajasthan (1.94 pc), Karnataka (2.08 pc) and Uttar Pradesh (2.36 pc).

India saw a record single-day jump of 38,902 Covid-19 cases pushing its tally to 10,77,618 on Sunday, while the total number of recoveries increased to 6,77,422.

A total of 23, 672 patients have recuperated in the past 24 hours, the highest so far in a day, according to the health ministry data updated at 8 AM.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 1,37,91,869 samples have been tested up to July 18 with 3,58,127 samples being tested on Saturday.