India's Agni long-range missiles broke UN limits, says China

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/ Jammu, Jun 29: Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the face of Kashmir's separatist politics for over three decades, has quit the Hurriyat Conference, the biggest separatist amalgam in Kashmir. The 90-year-old, who had led the separatist movement in Kashmir Valley since the 1990s, was a lifelong chairman of the Hurriyat.

He has mostly been in house arrest since 2010, when anger and violence over police firing on protesters consumed Kashmir.

In an audio message, Syed Ali Shah Geelani said he was announcing his resignation from the All Party Hurriyat Conference because of "the current circumstances" in the umbrella group.

"In view of the current state of the Hurriyat Conference, I am announcing my complete dissociation from the forum. In this context I have already sent a detailed letter to all constituents of the forum," said Geelani in an audio message released this morning.

This marks a major development for separatist politics in Jammu and Kashmir after the government ended its special status under the constitution's Article 370 in August last, split it into two union territories and enforced massive restrictions in movement besides jailing scores of leaders.

Geelani also released a two-page letter in which he accused constituents of Hurriyat of inaction after the scrapping of Article 370.

"I sent messages to you through various means so the next course of action could be decided but all my efforts were in vain. Now that the sword of accountability is hanging over your heads for the financial and other irregularities, you thought of calling the advisory committee meeting," he wrote.

The letter accused Hurriyat constituents of hatching "conspiracy and resorting to lies against him" and also teaming up with the Hurriyat chapter in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, which had targeted him. "Instead of reprimanding them, you called a meeting in Srinagar and ratified their stand. You people have become part of the conspiracy and lies," said the letter.

"The lack of discipline and other shortcomings were ignored and you did not allow a robust accountability system to be established over the years but today, you have crossed all limits and indulged in rebellion against the leadership."

Sources say Geelani had been attacked by groups in Pakistan for what they called his failure to respond to the government's big move. Many questioned the silence of the separatist hardliner, who was prone to calls for protest shutdowns and election boycotts.

A three-time MLA from Sopore, Geelani quit electoral politics after militancy erupted in Kashmir. Recent reports have claimed that he has been unwell.

New Delhi, Apr 11: As India battles the Covid-19 crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held a video conference with chief ministers primarily to take their feedback on whether the 21-nation-wide lockdown be extended beyond April 14 to stem the tide of the infections.

The Central government is understood to have also obtained views on the issue from all the relevant agencies and stakeholders involved in the efforts to contain the spread of the pandemic.

The video conference, which began at 11am, comes amidst indications that the central government may extend the nationwide lockdown with some possible relaxations even as Punjab and Odisha have already announced extending the lockdown beyond April 14 when the current spell of 21-day shutdown across the country ends on Tuesday.

The Union Home Ministry has sought views of state governments on various aspects, including whether more categories of people and services need to be exempted. In the current lockdown only essential services are exempted.

This is for the second time the prime minister is interacting with the chief ministers via video link after the lockdown was imposed.

During his April 2 interaction with chief ministers, Modi had pitched for a "staggered" exit from the ongoing lockdown.

A PTI tally of numbers reported by various states as on Thursday at 9.30pm showed a total of 7,510 having been affected by the virus nationwide so far with at least 251 deaths. More than 700 have been cured and discharged. However, the last update from the Union Health Ministry put the number of confirmed infections at 7,447 and the death toll at 239.

Addressing floor leaders of various parties who have representation in Parliament, Modi had on Wednesday made it clear that the lockdown cannot be lifted in one go, asserting that the priority of his government is to "save each and every life".

According to an official statement after the Wednesday interaction, the prime minister told these leaders that states, district administrations and experts have suggested extension of the lockdown to contain the spread of the virus.

Before the lockdown was announced on March 24, the prime minister had interacted with the chief ministers on March 20 to discuss ways and means to check the spread of the novel coronavirus.