NEWS

Amid the second peak of Covid-19 being witnessed across the country, the Union health ministry has identified the states which are not doing enough RT-PCR tests to track Covid-19 infections. The list includes Puducherry, Chandigarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Jharkhand, Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Bihar and Telangana — Telangana accounting the lowest percentage of RT-PCR test of only 15.50.
In Gujarat, where over 2,000 new infections are being reported daily, the percentage of RT-PCR test remains as low as 23,89. In Delhi, the percentage is 46.04, while the Centre has asked all states and Union territories to bring the percentage to at least 70, while the rest can be rapid antigen testing.

Rapid antigen testing is easier to be carried out on a mass scale as it is cheaper and quicker than RT-PCR, while it may produce false-negative tests. As several states are testing randomly in crowded areas, this rapid testing is convenient, but RT-PCR testing is considered the gold standard in Covid-19 testing.

The last few weeks have been busy ones for the people of Puducherry -- a small Union Territory (UT) going to polls with four states. High-profile leaders from all major political parties have visited the UT and the election fever is intensifying ahead of the April 6 voting day.

On Thursday, Union home minister and Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) star campaigner Amit Shah was in Puducherry.

He landed around 10 am, went straight to the Sithanandha temple and then kick started his roadshow from the Subhash Chandra Bose statue.

At Subhash Chandra Bose statute, he was felicitated by senior BJP leaders and later garlanded statute of the iconic freedom fighter.

Senior election officials and police officers said that no incident of violence was reported so far from the 13 districts where the voting took place.

In a few polling stations, voting was halted for some time due to technical snags in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), which were soon rectified.

Men, women and first-time voters queued up in front of the polling stations in large numbers well before the voting began at 7 a.m. Polling time has been increased by an hour till 6 p.m. by the election officials in view of the Covid-19 situation.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer of Assam, Nitin Khade, 73,44,631 voters, including 36,09,959 women, are eligible to cast their votes across 10,592 polling stations in the second phase that will decide the fate of candidates in 39 Assembly constituencies. As many as 556 polling stations are being managed by women officials.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, JP Nadda, on Thursday said time was ripe to throw out two corrupt coalitions of Kerala. Nadda, while addressing a public meeting in Karunagapally in Kollam district, said people of the state are fed up and turning to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in a big way.

Nadda said the time has come to show doors to scamsters and smugglers. “This land is known for cashew industry, coir and many other small scale units. But wrong policies of both destroyed these sectors. One is neck-deep in solar scam and the other in gold smuggling. Both have tried to hamper cultural and traditional aspects of the state,” he said.

Nadda took out a roadshow in Attingal and Kazhakootam (south Kerala) for NDA candidates.