Centre cancels CBSE Class 10 exams, puts off Class 12 boards

Keeping in view rising Covid cases and apprehensions expressed by students and school administrators, the Centre on Wednesday decided to cancel the Class 10 board exams and reschedule Class12 boards with a decision to be taken on fresh dates on June 1.

The decisions were taken at a review meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Initial discussions considered rescheduling both Class 10 and12 exams but the Prime Minister is understood to have remarked that students had already suffered considerable uncertainty and should be spared further travails to the extent possible.

The meeting decided that the Class 10 board exams be scrapped with students unhappy with their results permitted to take the tests whenever they are held next.

The Centre’s decision pertains to India's largest board, CBSE, and the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations, a private board with a much less number of affiliated schools, will announce its plans in the next two days. It was felt that the Class 12 board exams have a significant bearing on higher education choices and so should not be scrapped right now. An official said the assessment formulae could impact students unevenly, and the effort would be to try and hold the exam at a later date.

According to CBSE officials, this is the first instance when the board has to scrap the Class 10 exams altogether. Last year, due to the riots in North-East Delhi and coronavirus infections, the exams were partially cancelled. A formula based on marks scored in the exams a student did take was used to calculate the final result.

This year, 21,50,761 candidates were scheduled to appear in the Class 10 exams, which is nearly 2.5 lakh more than 2020. A total of 14,30,243 candidates registered for the Class 12 exams, which is almost 2.2 lakh more than last year.

The meeting to review the examinations was attended by education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, the principal secretary to the PM, the cabinet secretary, school and higher education secretaries and other top officials.

With active Covid-19 cases crossing the 13-lakh mark, it was reported that the government was reviewing the Board exam schedule. In the meeting on Wednesday, it was decided that the board exams for Class 12, scheduled to be held from May 4 to June 14, will be rescheduled and a further review of the situation will be held on June 1 by the CBSE. A notice of at least 15 days will be given before the start of the examinations.

The CBSE will prepare objective criteria for the results of Class 10. Any candidate who is not satisfied with his/her marks on this basis will be given an opportunity to sit for an exam as and when conditions are conducive to hold it.

Many school principals and educationists welcomed the decision.

Covid-19: Daily cases at 1,99,620

India reported nearly 2 lakh fresh Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, with the daily case count almost doubling in 10 days amid an unprecedented surge in the pandemic.

A total of 1,99,620 new cases was recorded, just 380 short of the 2-lakh milestone, a mere 10 days after the singleday case tally had crossed 1 lakh. 

The US, the only other country to log over 2 lakh cases in a day, had taken 21 days to hit the grim milestone after crossing the 1-lakh mark. Cases in the US hit 1 lakh on October 30 last year and crossed 2 lakh on November 20. The country went on to record a peak of 3,09,035 cases in a single day on January 8, as per worldometers.info.

Such has been the second-wave surge in India that daily cases have hit a new high on nine of the last 11 days — the only two exceptions being Mondays, when numbers usually drop sharply due to lower testing and staff shortages over the weekend.

The death toll from the virus was over 1,000 for the second day running as 1,038 fatalities were recorded on Wednesday, the highest daily toll since October 2. On Tuesday, India had reported a total of 1,035 deaths.

The pandemic continued to spread alarmingly through several states, particularly those in the Hindi heartland. As many as nine states posted their highest-ever rise in daily count on Wednesday.

Through the day, huge crowds of migrants from UP and Bihar thronged the Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, desperate to return home. Among them were daily wagers who worked in shops, restaurants and markets. Besides, there were electricians, carpenters and drivers who found their work drying up.

Activists working with the poor say the Maharashtra government’s Rs 5,476-crore relief package is too little given the enormity of the distress caused by the stringent restrictions. The state government is offering 3kg of wheat and 2kg of rice free of cost for a month for those who hold ration cards under the National Food Security Act. The state has 7 crore listed beneficiaries.

The state’s relief scheme will also provide two lakh Shiv bhojan thalis free of cost to the needy for a month. 

The state has also announced relief worth Rs 1,500 each for 12 lakh construction workers, five lakh hawkers and 12 lakh rickshaw drivers for a month.

Covid-19: India’s daily cases hit new peak of 1.85 lakh

India continued to report new peaks in daily Covid-19 cases with a record 1.85 lakh fresh infections added to the caseload on Tuesday, an 8.5% rise from the previous peak of 1.7 lakh recorded on Sunday.

Daily deaths crossed 1,000 for the first time since October 2, with at least 1,035 fatalities recorded on Tuesday, with data from Assam yet to be received till late at night.

New cases in the last 24 hours stood at 1,84,705, with Assam's count yet to be added. This was the eighth new all-time of daily cases reported in the last 10 days. During this period, the peak has risen from 1,03844 on April 4, registering a steep 78% increase.

Uttar Pradesh: Seven-year-old tigress found dead in Dudhwa

A seven-year-old tigress was found dead in Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary of Dudhwa tiger reserve in UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri district on Tuesday afternoon. This is the fourth tiger death in Uttar Pradesh in a span of 45 days. Three of them died in Lakhimpur Kheri district.

The carcass was found in Chaltua beat. Officials claimed that the tigress had injuries on its genitalia and was not able to hunt. They believe it died a natural death but will await its autopsy report. The autopsy will be conducted by a panel of experts at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Bareilly on Wednesday.

Soon, e-courts may let cases be filed 24/7

Limiting the registry’s role in prioritising cases, Phase 3 of the e-Courts project, currently in the draft stage, has proposed a 24/7 digital window to litigants and lawyers to file cases from anywhere, anytime with the provision of scheduling digital hearings in an open court, ensuring compliance of timelines by both judges and litigants.

Use of artificial intelligence has been proposed to “intelligently recommend schedules for hearing by optimising and coordinating the schedules and time of different actors (judges, lawyers and litigants)”, the draft proposal put up on the website of the justice department seeking stakeholders’ suggestions said.

The Centre’s ambitious e-Courts project, initiated in 2005, has completed two phases so far. At a cost of Rs 2,300 crore, it has computerised almost all 19,000 functional district and subordinate courts with broadband connectivity and equipped judges and courtrooms with modern communication gadgets. The Supreme Court e-Committee is responsible for policy planning and strategic direction.

The next phase of judicial reforms envisages a complete transformation of Indian courts into digital platforms — having facilities of e-Pay, e-Summons, e-Hearings and e-Judgment — where litigants can appear remotely, schedule hearings at his/her convenience and an option of choosing alternative dispute resolution mechanism or a regular case while e-Filing.

It has proposed an interoperable criminal justice system where connectivity between courts, prison and police will be leveraged to ensure speedy trial of cases and limiting adjournments on account of non-appearance of witnesses or unavailability of lawyers. The digital court will provide for a data exchange protocol embedded with a privacy policy. During the second phase of the e-Courts project, more than 3,400 courts were made videoconference compatible, providing connectivity with prisons. These facilities are already available in the Supreme Court and HCs.

Phase 3 also proposes transcription of court proceedings from audio/video format to typed digital record that can be made available to litigants and lawyers after the end of hearings. “Live streaming or sharing recorded court proceedings can enable courts to become more open,” the draft proposal said.

Government fast-tracks nods for vax cleared in other countries

With surging Covid-19 cases fuelling calls for faster vaccination, the Centre enabled faster access to foreign-made vaccines by doing away with bridging trial studies prior to grant of emergency authorisation for shots approved by recognised regulators like the US FDA or UK’s MHRA.

The changes in regulatory approvals are intended to increase availability of jabs amid a steep second wave of the infection. The vaccines can be imported in ready-touse vials or in a fill-and-use form, health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said. Vaccines granted emergency approval by drug regulators of the US, the EU, Japan and the UK or those listed with WHO for emergency use will be given the exemption.

There will, however, be post-approval parallel bridging clinical trials in the Indian population for such foreign vaccines. Further, the first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for seven days for safety outcomes before a wider rollout for the immunisation programme, the health ministry said. The government said it would carry out price and supply negotiations with vaccine makers.

The decision to facilitate quicker access to foreign vaccines is expected to encourage imports, including import of bulk drug material, optimal utilisation of domestic fill and finish capacity which will, in turn, provide a fillip to vaccine manufacturing capacities and availability for domestic use, the government said. The decision to do away with pre-approval bridging studies is understood to reflect both the urgency of the situation and evaluation of evidence that many vaccines are doing well with millions of people having received the shots.

“The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19, after comprehensive deliberation, recommended that vaccines for Covid-19, which have been developed and are being manufactured in foreign countries, and which have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) may be granted emergency use approval in India, mandating the requirement of post-approval parallel bridging clinical trial in place of conduct of local clinical trial as per the provisions prescribed under Second Schedule of the New Drugs & Clinical Trials Rules 2019,” the health ministry said.

“The decision has created an enabling regulatory provision to enable those foreign-made Covid vaccines that have been approved by credible foreign regulators,” the ministry said, underlining that it denotes streamlining and fast-tracking of the regulatory system to increase availability and accessibility. Meanwhile, makers of Russian vaccine Sputnik V welcomed emergency use approval by India, saying 60 countries had allowed use of the shot that is seen to deliver 91% efficacy. Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF said deals were in place with Gland Pharma, Hetero Biopharma, Panacea Biotec, Stelis Biopharma and Virchow Biotech for manufacture.

So far, India has granted emergency approval to three vaccines for restricted use. While Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Serum Institute of India’s Covishield are part of the national vaccination drive, the recently approved Sputnik V will be initially imported for distribution before local manufacturing begins.

While Covaxin, being a locally developed vaccine, is undergoing full clinical trials in India, bridging studies to check safety, efficacy and immunogenicity in local population were conducted on both Covishield and Sputnik V before grant of emergency use authorisation.

Mumbai: Miyawaki therapy

A canopy of kanchan, karanj, neem, jamun and palash trees casting a 20-feet-high shade on the Central Railside Warehouse in Jogeshwari is barely reminiscent of the cement bags, construction debris and toxic air particles that once defined this corner until a year ago. The 23,000-sq-ft of dusty wasteland is now a foliage-rich micro forest with over 7,000 kinds of medicinal and fruit trees with bumble bees and butterflies around.

This jungle-like greenwood, in the middle of Mumbai’s urban sprawl, is the first urban forest that sprouted to life in 2020 when Pradeep Tripathi of Green Yatra, an NGO, used the Japanese Miyawaki planting technique to recreate in one year, a natural forest. “A green wall,” is what Tripathi calls this bulwark against heat, dust, carbon and concrete in the city.

At least 50 such miniature fast forests have been popping up in the city — dumping yards like Nisarga Udyan, busy road like Chembur’s Eastern Freeway and in barren wastelands such as Bhakti Park’s industrial ward.

Developed by Japanese vegetation ecologist Akira Miyawaki in the ’80s and adapted by urban cities like Singapore, Kenya, New York, and now Mumbai, crafting these DIY forests requires saplings with well-developed roots of 20 to 50 different species planted closely together in a random mix like one would find in the wild.

Advocates for the method say these micro forests “grow 10 times faster, 30 times denser and are 100 times more biodiverse” than those planted by conventional methods.

Tripathi has sown nearly 7 lakh saplings in and around Mumbai and gearing up to plant another lakh across Navi Mumbai before monsoon. BMC too has planted 2.21 lakh trees to fill 43 tiny Miyawaki forests over the past year, the first of which bloomed near Worli in January. “The BMC, in its budget for 2020 and 2021, allocated Rs 20 crore to plant at least 3.75 lakh trees using the Miyawaki method and the fact that most of these trees have reached a height of 5 to 7 feet in just one year is a sign that the forests are growing properly and can become the city’s lungs,” said Jitendra Pardeshi, BMC’s superintendent of gardens.

A would-be forester needs to bear a high initial cost for the intensive process of surveying natural vegetation of the area, to test the soil, dig pits, build nutrients into the soil and judiciously plot out a mix of trees. “It can cost you up to Rs 500-800 per sapling,” says Tripathi.

But is creating mini forests enough to salvage the city’s traditional tree cover? Urban planner Pankaj Joshi, principal director of Urban Centre Mumbai, feels, while Miyawaki afforestation of critical stretches with large infrastructure projects may be a good way to heal sore plots of land and a great alternative to “farcical” tree transplantations that don’t survive, “Care has to be taken that most species planted are indigenous,” he says, pointing at the silver oaks brought into Panchgani between the ’20s and ’40s. “It’s been 100 years and even now birds don’t sit on those plants nor eat their fruit. It’s important that these trees don’t just perform as a plant but the entire ecosystem responds.”

Tripathi agrees. Just a shade of green does not mean biodiversity. “The flaming red Gulmohar from Madagascar, rain trees native to South America or yellow peltophorum from southeast Asia that you get to see in Mumbai these days are all non-native with hardly any birds nesting in them,” he says.

And though Miyawaki forests cannot replace natural ones — “carbon content in an individual tree is less compared to one growing in a natural forest and they score less in hydrology due to a lack of deep roots” points out Subhash Ashutosh, director general, Forest Survey of India — the pros outweigh the cons. “Miyawaki forests can still be effective as a quality reforestation process because their total biomass content is high and so is their nutrient uptake due to their dense 1000-tree cluster of different species compared to natural forests with not more than 250-300 trees,” reassures Ashutosh.

Tripathi recently planted 40,000 saplings at Nisarga Udyan in Koparkhairane that will transform the 3-acre landfill site into the largest urban forest in Mumbai metro region. “No land is bad land anymore,” he smiles.