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Bengaluru, Jun 29: A 99-year-old woman has successfully recovered from coronavirus in Bengaluru, leaving the medical fraternity and her family elated.

The woman had contracted the pathogen after coming in contact with her grandson and was hospitalised on her 99th birthday on June 18.

The woman was taken to the government Victoria Hospital along with her 70-year-old son, daughter-in-law and grandson.

"While we three developed symptoms like cold, cough and fever, my mother remained asymptomatic," the woman's son said.

The family members are still wondering how they got infected by the virus as all except the woman's grandson, were confined to their home most of the time.

Her 29-year-old grandson was the only one who went out to buy groceries.

Initially, the family approached a private hospital nearby for treatment, but they refused to accept COVID-19 patients.

Left with no option, the family got admitted to the Victoria hospital.

"We had reservations about Victoria hospital, but it turned out be a good one.

We did not spend a penny since the day we were admitted and my mother and son fully recovered," the woman's son said.

According to Dr Asima Banu, nodal officer of the Trauma Care Centre at the Victoria hospital, the woman was reluctant to get treatment at the hospital.

"With moral support from doctors and nurses at the Trauma Care Centre, she recovered very fast. She is always positive in life," the doctor said.

Bengaluru, Jun 7: An eminent scientist on Sunday suggested a shift system in schools to prevent spread of the coronavirus and continuing with online classes with focus on project-based learning in a big way to promote creativity.

Former Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) V K Saraswat supported the idea of online teaching in the absence of regular classes in view of closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, he said it should be organised in far better and more interactive ways so that delivery of knowledge can be better. The NITI Aayog member stressed the need for schools to have a strategy when they reopen keeping in mind the safety of students.

May be they will have to organise shifts so that within the same space they can handle the students; May be they will have to employ more teachers, and they can run two shifts. "May be half the strength in a class can come in the morning and others in the afternoon.

Or students of first to sixth standard can come in the morning and seventh to tenth can come in the afternoon, Saraswat told PTI. Reopening strategy will have to be worked out by the education department, added the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister.

Along with normal classes, online education should be continued as a regular system in future, and promoted in a big way because that is the way technology is going to help delivery of knowledge, he added. Saraswat also raised the pitch for reforms in the education sector, saying India is facing the problem of rote learning.

Rote learning has to give way for more project-based teaching, he underlined. Children should be made to work on projects at home and that can be done online. That will also support the changeover from rote learning to creative learning.

I personally believe the education delivery system -- primary, secondary and college levels -- has to be completely changed because creativity in India is less and creativity would come only if we replace rote learning with project-based learning, Saraswat said.

On some academics holding the view that the marks-based model is killing the education system in India as it does not promote creativity, he said evaluation of any outcome is important. Even when we perform in our normal way, evaluation cannot be replaced.

Otherwise, you cant find out how much you have succeeded in delivery. Certainly evaluation cannot be dispensed with. He did not agree with some experts, who favoured a single, uniform system for school education in India by dispensing with CBSE, ICSE and state boards. I am not for normalising everything in life.

I personally believe variety should be there. This concept of one kind of a system is okay for a Communist society, society which was trying to drive everybody like a herd, he said.

Creativity comes with variety, and there is nothing wrong in having different kinds of education system, but one thing which is important is we have to integrate vocational training as part of the education curriculum," Saraswat said. Vocational part cannot be kept away from the education system, he added.

Kasaragod, Mar 28: A pregnant Bihari migrant woman in labour gave birth in an ambulance after the Karnataka police allegedly refused to allow the ambulance carrying her to cross the border road to Mangaluru to reach her hospital.

The border road was shut due to the lockdown. The woman used to consult a doctor in Mangaluru across the border.

As Karnataka police stopped the vehicle at the border in Talapady, saying no vehicle, including ambulances from Kerala, could be permitted to their state, the drivers decided to take the woman was taken to the general hospital here, but she went into labour and delivered a baby girl in the vehicle

Both the mother and baby are doing fine, authorities said.

Hailing from Patna in Bihar, 25-year-old Gowri Devi and her husband were working in a local plywood factory in this north Kerala district, from where the maximum number of coronavirus cases have been reported so far in the state.

Those living in the border towns and villages of Kasaragod are dependent on the hospitals in Mangaluru as it is nearer, local people said.

The ambulance drivers- Aslam and Musthafa- said they stopped the vehicle by the wayside, making it safe for the woman. The baby girl and the mother were soon shifted to the government general hospital here and both of them are safe and healthy, they said.

Local people complained that not only pregnant women, but even patients requiring daily dialysis and emergency cardiac and cancer treatment were being sent back by Karnataka.