People stand outside a Covid-19 vaccination centre to receive jabs in Nagaon on Friday
GUWAHATI: The northeast’s biggest quarantine centre, which was set up on the premises of an athletic stadium here one year back when the first wave of Covid-19 hit the state and dismantled seven months later after improvement in the situation, has been re-built to serve as a Covid care centre in the ongoing second wave.
The state’s caseload of active cases in the current month has increased from 1,881 on April 1 to over 15,000 and death of 67 persons in these 23 days till Friday.
On Friday, the state saw a spike of 2,348 new cases of which 883 have been detected in Kamrup (Metropolitan) district. The test positivity percentage also crossed 3% on Friday.
Himanta Biswa Sarma
GUWAHATI: Health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday put the state’s 30 lakh-strong force of tea garden workers on a high pedestal by saying that the community, which has taken Assam’s name to the global stage with the sweat of its brow, is “more worthy Assamese.”
In a power-packed speech at the distribution ceremony of Rs 3,000 each through DBT mode to tea garden workers by Union finance minister Niramala Sitharaman, Sarma said, “This government has worked for socio-economic and political uplift of tea garden workers. But when Paresh Baruah (Ulfa leader) says the tea community people are not Assamese, my reply is that they are more worthy sons of Assam.”
Picture used for representational purpose only
GUWAHATI: The return of primary students to schools in Assam has brought the buzz back on the campus. The state government decided to allow the opening of primary schools from the first week of January and this is being seen by teachers and parents alike as a positive way to begin the new year.
Teachers said nearly 80-90% students from lower primary classes (1-5) are attending offline classes though they were considered most vulnerable to infection.
It may take months to bring back normalcy in schools though. Many institutions have reduced the school bus capacity to 50% as a precaution against the virus. Campuses are being sanitized every Sunday. But many things are missing from the campus, as in morning assembly, sports and lunch time games and other activities. From December 15 students of Classes X and XII have been allowed to stay in residential schools, while for the rest in this category, online mode has been the best option.