T.N. places order for 4.5 lakh RT-PCR testing kits

State has one lakh kits in stock

02/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,CHENNAI

Tamil Nadu’s COVID-19 testing figures have been on the rise in the last few weeks. The State currently has a stock of one lakh RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) testing kits in its hospitals and has placed an order for 4.5 lakh more, according to officials of the Health Department.

The number of samples being tested has increased, with the number of samples being tested in a day crossing 9,000 in the last two days. In Chennai alone, over 3,000 samples are being tested a day.

Phased arrival

The State has so far tested 1,29,363 samples. “We have placed orders for 4.5 lakh more kits, and the order is expected to arrive in a phased manner. Of this, two lakh is expected on Monday,” an official of the Health department said.

“One kit, with a PCR probe and RNA extraction tool, is for one RT-PCR test,” he said. An official said that the Chennai Corporation was planning to scale up testing in the coming days.

Madurai and Virudhunagar districts remain in red zone

02/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,MADURAI BUREAU

Except Madurai and Virudhunagar, the remaining eight districts in south Tamil Nadu moved from red to orange zone giving a relief to health officials, civic and respective Collectors on Friday.

According to the medical bulletin released by the State government, out of 10, only Madurai and Virudhunagar were classified in red zones as on May 1 in southern districts.

Theni district, which accounted for 43 positive patients, has discharged 37 persons so far. The last case reported positive was on April 16.

Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram had less positive cases in the last 10 to 15 days. While only Tirupathur was the hotspot in Sivaganga district, Ramanathapuram suffered a jolt as a few areas including Paramakudi and Kilakarai had to be identified as containment zones. While the total number of positive patients from Ramanathapuram stood at 18, effective management brought in some respite, officials said.

In Madurai, the number of positive cases, which was revolving around 60 till last week, rose up to 75, as on a single day 15 cases were reported. The numbers piled up on May 1 and the tally stood at 87. In Virudhunagar district, the number of positive cases was 32 and effective steps to contain the pandemic started fetching results and the last positive case was reported on April 25. The number of discharged persons was 19 so far.

Though the number of positive patients in Dindigul district touched 81 till date, the number of patients recovered and discharged stood at 71. Tirunelveli, which initially saw a steep rise in the number of positive cases, has 63 cases. Gradually, the number started declining and till date 56 among them have been discharged. In Tenkasi district, the numbers were below 10 in the beginning. Suddenly, the tally went up to 38. The number of discharged cases was 5 till date and the administration had not reported any fresh case after April 25.

The situation appears comfortable in Thoothukudi district where the number of patients admitted was 27. As on May 1, only one patient was under treatment while 25 were discharged. One patient succumbed to the virus. In Kanniyakumari, the number of positive patients stood at 16. Till date, the number of discharged patients stood at 11.

According to a Health Department official in Chennai, the zonal classification of districts were based on hotspot analysis communicated by the Central government. It is multi-factorial and takes various aspects into consideration. Every Monday, the classification of zones would be updated, he added.

Three test positive

Three people, including a house surgeon from Kerala, working at the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) tested positive for COVID-19 here on Friday. This takes the total count of cases to 87.

Two others, included a 65-year-old woman from Jaihindipuram and a 25-year-old pregnant woman from Melur tested positive.

While the contact for one of the patient has been established, the district administration is completing the process of contact tracing for two others. Two other people from Tirumangalam and Melur were discharged from GRH after testing negative for COVID-19.

MKU Registrar in-charge resigns

02/05/2020, STAFF REPORTER, MADURAI

Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) Registrar in-charge N. Sankar tendered his resignation on Friday afternoon after serving for about five months in office.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Sankar said that he wants to get back to his life of teaching and science. “I want to get back to my routine job of teaching and research - two things that I enjoy immensely. I have done justice to the chair I occupy,” he said.

The last person to permanently hold the post of MKU Registrar was V. Chinniah who retired in June 2019.

Ever since, two registrars in-charge have been appointed by the administration.

Although the administration had called for an initial scrutiny of candidates for the post in June, interviews for the post have been postponed at least three times.

In January 2020, the university decided to re-advertise for the post of registrar after interviewing 16 candidates as the Syndicate members found the candidates unsatisfactory.

MKU Vice-Chancellor (V-C) M. Krishnan said that if it was not for COVID-19, the administration would have found a permanent replacement for the position.

“Unfortunately, we have to wait until Monday to appoint someone to take the position temporarily after consulting with the Syndicate,” he said.

He added that during his tenure, Mr. Sankar had cooperated well.

HC expresses shock over Madurai Bench staff not available in station

02/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, CHENNAI

The Madras High Court administration has expressed shock over some of its staff in the Madurai Bench having moved out of the headquarters despite the lockdown imposed by the government across the State to fight COVID-19 and instructions issued by the court to remain in station and be available for duty on call.

In a circular, Registrar (Administration) V. Devanathan recalled that the High Court’s Registrar General C. Kumarappan had on March 24 permitted all employees of the High Court in Chennai and Madurai to stay at home to safeguard them and their families from the threat posed by COVID-19.

He had instructed the High Court staff to remain in station and be available to attend emergency calls since the court had decided to hear extremely urgent cases alone, through video conferencing, with the assistance of skeleton staff. This required the presence of technical staff, stenographers and others.

 The circular read: “It has been brought to the notice of the Registry that many have left the headquarters without permission of the Registry and are not available for emergency work. A few staff who are available alone have to be deputed for various tasks repeatedly. “Non availability of any individual, at the time of calling, will be treated as a violation of the High Court’s instructions.”

Kuwait offers to airlift stranded Indian citizens

Echoes evacuation proposal from UAE

02/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

The operation is planned to begin after the lockdown is lifted. File Photo

The Government of Kuwait on Friday said it was willing to evacuate a large number of workers and illegal migrants from India. who are stranded in its territory, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a detailed press statement, the Embassy of Kuwait said the Ambassador of Kuwait Jassem Al Najem has conveyed to India his government’s plans to begin the operations after the nationwide lockdown is lifted.

“The Ambassador highlighted Kuwait’s efforts to evacuate all illegal workers of different nationalities, including Indian nationals who were granted general amnesty by the Kuwaiti government and offered to fetch them back to their respective countries free of cost and by its own civil airlines,” said the embassy in a press note. The Ministry of External Affairs is yet to respond to the Kuwaiti proposal.

The proposal is the second from a Gulf country. A similar idea was presented by the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Ahmed Al Banna on April 10, proposing the evacuation of several thousand Indian nationals from his country.

Relief for illegal workers

The Kuwaiti proposal, however, is significant as it states clearly that the evacuees will include illegal immigrants from India who were found to be residing in Kuwait.

“Kuwait is looking forward to work with the Indian government after the complete lockdown ends on May 3, 2020, in the backdrop of coronavirus pandemic and extraordinary situations the world is witnessing,” the press release said, quoting Mr. Al Najem’s communication with the Indian authorities. The Hindu has reported that India has been planning large-scale evacuations from the Gulf region after the lifting of the lockdown. Wide-bodied aircraft and naval ships have been kept ready for the planned operations.

India’s ties with Kuwait came under a cloud over the last fortnight as a social media campaign began in the Gulf state after a March 2 official communication of the country urged international intervention to safeguard the rights of the Muslim community in India.

Officials on both sides reiterated their commitment to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs.

Kuwait has several hundred Indian nationals who have been infected by COVID-19. New Delhi had sent a team of doctors and experts earlier to assist Kuwait in providing treatment to the Indian nationals.

U.P., Bihar migrants can get rations in other States too

The two have joined One Nation One Ration Card scheme, which integrates a total of 17 States & U.T.s

02/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

Migrant labourers transporting food items in New Delhi on Thursday.APManish Swarup

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar joined the Centre’s ration card portability scheme on International Labour Day, offering some hope that their huge migrant worker populations can start accessing subsidised and free foodgrains in many of the States where they have been left stranded by the COVID-19 lockdown.

Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu also joined the national cluster under the Food Ministry’s One Nation One Ration Card scheme on Thursday, taking the total number of integrated States and Union Territories to 17, according to a Food Ministry statement.

The other States which are already part of the national cluster are Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura.

June 1 deadline

All remaining States and Union Territories are supposed to come on board by June 1. However, the integration of States is running behind schedule, with a number of remaining States yet to complete installation of electronic point of sale machines at all ration shops and seeding of Aadhaar data into their NFSA databases.

In a mid-April interview, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan told The Hindu that “the project has been halted now because of the pandemic”. However, on April 28, the Supreme Court directed the Centre to consider whether it was possible to implement the scheme, keeping in mind the plight of migrants left stranded by the pandemic.

The addition of five new States potentially means nearly 60 crore beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) can now use their ration cards, issued in their home States, to pick up their entitled quota of foodgrains from any ration shop of their choice in these 17 States and Union Territories.

However, the Centre has qualified that actual implementation is still dependent on “on-field readiness”, so it remains to be seen when workers start using the facility. Also, Aadhaar is a precondition for availing this facility as the biometric ID is used to ensure that beneficiaries are not claiming foodgrains in multiple States, above their entitled quota.

The Food Ministry has earlier clarified that a single family holding one ration card can split the locations from where they pick up their ration. If one migrant worker from the family is in a distant city while the rest of the family remains in their home village, both can avail themselves of a 50% portion of the ration allocation in the two different locations by providing ration card and Aadhaar authentication.

The Food Ministry has activated the facility for web-services for inter-State transactions and monitoring through central dashbooards with immediate effect. All 17 States have been requested to formally start seamless portability operations in a single cluster with effect from May 1, “or at the earliest, depending on their on-field readiness”, said the statement.

MHA order on inter-State movement a cruel joke: Cong.

Help MSMEs, make cash transfer to poor: Chidambaram

02/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,NEW DELHI

Sad plight: Migrant workers waiting to board a special bus in Bengaluru on Friday.Bhagya Prakash. KBhagya Prakash K

The Congress on Friday accused the Union government of ‘mercilessly’ abandoning the migrant labourers and asserted that the Home Ministry’s order allowing the inter-State movement of those stranded was a ‘cruel joke and non-starter’.

The party said the Centre should have provided ₹2,500 crore to the State governments to facilitate a smooth movement of workers.

In a series of tweets, former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram offered his suggestions to the government as well. He noted that the government had listened to some of the suggestions of the Congress. There were more that ‘deserve to be accepted by the government forthwith’, he said.

“Make cash transfers to the bottom half of the families (13 crore families). Provide financial assistance package including wage assistance and credit guarantee to MSMEs. Prepare Exit strategy after current lockdown ends on May 3 and announce a Paycheque Protection Programme for low-salaried tax payers,” he said.

Singhvi’s charge

Addressing an online press conference, Rajya Sabha member and party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the Central government’s approach towards the poor was reflected by the ‘mismanagement’ of migrant labourers. “The Centre had mercilessly, cruelly and without a second thought abandoned the entire category of migrant labour,” he alleged.

Mr. Singhvi claimed that U.P. and Bihar alone expected about 42 lakh workers from different parts of the country. Bihar alone expected an estimated 25 lakh workers from States as far as Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra and they cannot be transported unless special trains were pressed into service. “Is this a solution or madness.” Why the Centre could not arrange special trains earlier like it did with special flights, he asked.

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury also complained that Railway Minister Piyush Goyal didn’t even take his call to discuss the issue of moving stranded people of West Bengal.