Chief Minister of Puducherry V Narayanasamy on Monday said holding of virtual classes for students appearing for the class X public examinations in the Union Territory is not feasible as most of students in rural areas do not have smart phone.
He told newsmen that he would write to the Union HRD Ministry in this regard and ensure that the rural students’ interests are taken care of and convenient steps be adopted to hold classes for such students.
The chief minister urged the Vice-Chancellor of Pondicherry University, a centrally sponsored higher education institution, Gurmeet Singh to wait for the directives from the Union HRD Ministry on the modalities of holding the university examinations.
He said he has asked the university to reconsider its decision to hold the examinations in July after he received representations from parents.
Pointing a finger at vegetable vendors, Narayanasamy said the retail shops, having now brought back to the old locations, would be again forced to move if there was no improvement in adherence to the norms of the virus-induced lockdown such as wearing of masks, maintaining social distancing and other conditions to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
“I will visit the shops shortly and make an on-the-spot assessment and if there is no improvement in adhering to the curbs all the retail vegetable stalls would be shifted to some other places,” he said.
He said this while referring to the Koyambedu market in Chennai as an eye-opener as the market turned out to be a hotspot for COVID-19 cases.
Faulting the manner in which a virus victim’s body was buried, he said two of the workers of the municipality and one health workers have been suspended.
A full-fledged enquiry would be held to find out whether there was any lapse on the part of the workers in handling the body during the burial.
