Junior Digest

New Delhi, Jul03 ,2020: Stressing on early hospitalization of the Covid 19 patients to reduce the mortality rate, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that more testing of those suspected of this disease must be done to reduce infection rate in the NCR region.
Chairing a review meeting with Chief Ministers of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh for a unified strategy for COVID19 in the National Capital Region (NCR) today, he further said that adoption of testing via Rapid Antigen Test Kits will help in reducing infection transmission rate below 10 percent as suggested by World Health Organization and nearly 90 percent of screening can possibly be done through these kits.
He also assured the UP and Haryana CMs that Rapid Antigen Test Kits can be provided to them as much as they want.
While emphasising on wide use of Arogya Setu and Itihas Apps to help COVID19 mapping in the NCR, Mr Shah also said that the AIIMS Delhi Telemedicine consultation model being used in Delhi for COVID patients should be replicated in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana also.
“UP and Haryana can join AIIMS-Telemedicine COVID consultation through which patients can get advice by expert doctors. The training for doctors in small hospitals in UP and Haryana can be provided by AIIMS with the help of Tele-videography”, he said.

NITI Aayog Member Dr VK Paul, also gave a presentation on the strategy of tackling COVID19 in NCR. He provided details of best practices adopted in Delhi-NCR and the way ahead.

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Harshvardhan, the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and senior officials of Centre and states were also present in the meeting.

Washington , June 28,2020: Despite suffering multiple casualties in a violent faceoff with India in Galway Valley area, China has still not disclosed how many of its soldiers were killed in the incident.
This decision of the Chinese Communist Party has upset Chinese families who lost their loved ones in the incident, US-based Breitbart News has reported.
According to Breitbart, the Chinese government is struggling to silence the families of soldiers who are using Weibo and other platforms to vent their anger and frustration.
Following the June 15 incident, the Indian government had acknowledged that 20 of its soldiers were killed in the brawl with the Chinese troops.
The Chinese government has acknowledged the deaths of only a few officers so far. Indian intercepts have revealed that the Chinese side suffered 43 casualties including the dead and seriously injured.
Although the Chinese government is mum regarding the casualties, its state-media editor-in-chief had revealed that the Chinese side has also suffered casualties during the June 15 face-off with Indian troops in Ladakh.
“Based on what I know, the Chinese side also suffered casualties in the Galwan Valley physical clash,” Hu Xijin, Editor-in-Chief of Chinese state-run media said in a tweet.
According to multiple reports, Chinese families are using Weibo to express their frustration over the secrecy of their government
The June 15 violent face-off occurred after China attempted to unilaterally change the status quo during de-escalation in eastern Ladakh. India has said that the situation could have been avoided if the agreement at the higher level been scrupulously followed by the Chinese side.

Jul 02, 2020: Gunmen burst into an unregistered drug rehabilitation centre in central Mexico and opened fire Wednesday, killing 24 people and wounding seven, authorities said.

Police in the north-central state of Guanajuato said the attack occurred in the city of Irapuato. Three of the seven wounded were reported in serious condition.

Apparently the attackers shot everyone at the rehab centre. State police said nobody was abducted. Photos purporting to show the scene suggest those at the centre were lying down when they were sprayed with bullets.
Guanajuato is the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Jalisco cartel and a local gang, and the state has become the most violent in Mexico.

No motive was given in the attack, but Gov. Diego Sinhue Rodriguez Vallejo said drug gangs appeared to have been involved.

New Delhi , June 28,2020: The Supreme Court on Sunday dismissed the plea challenging the Rajasthan High Court decision upholding the conduct of two remaining State Board Examinations for Class 10 on June 29 and 30.
A three-judge bench led by Justice AM Khanwilkar dismissed the plea. The apex court stated that Rajasthan High Court order under challenge was passed a month back i.e. on May 29 and since then there has been no COVID-19 positive cases located in the examination centres. The top court said that state government is taking precautions.
Earlier also, the top court had passed similar order for Karnataka State Board exams.
The plea, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation, stated that the decision of the state board of conducting the Secondary examination of the remaining two papers of Class 10 to be conducted on June 29 and 30 is “erroneous” and deserves to be set aside.
The plea filed by the parent of a Class 10 student who had appeared for four exams conducted by the board, stated that the decision to conduct the remaining examinations during the midst of COVID-19 is arbitrary and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.
“About 120 schools which are designated examination centres were used to quarantine people for shelter labourers in transit and that the conducting of examinations is wrong, illegal and discriminatory for the reason that it jeopardises the health of the students undertaking the exams and thus, amounting to violation of Article 21 and 14 of the constitution,” stated the plea.
“The High Court failed to appreciate that the state board has not given any solution to the practical problems such as the movements of the students residing in the containment zones and the unavailability of private vehicles for all students, thereby restricting the movement,” the petition read.
It also said that recently the Supreme Court accepted the decision of the CBSE and ICSE to cancel the remaining exams of Class 10 and 12 scheduled from July 1 to 15 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the board of secondary education in Rajasthan, which had conducted the last exam on March 18 directed that remaining two exams will be conducted in June 29 and 30 and 11,86,418 students of Class 10 would be giving exams, plea said.

Jun 28,2020:The Madhya Pradesh government will launch a ‘Kill Corona’ campaign from July 1 to control the spread of coronavirus in the State.

Under the campaign, door-to-door survey will be conducted and tests would also be done on citizens for other diseases, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said during a virtual review meeting on the COVID-19 pandemic on Saturday.

Mr. Chouhan said during the 15-day campaign, 2.5 lakh tests will be carried out and 15,000 to 20,000 samples would be collected daily, according to a press release.
He said the testing capacity will be doubled from 4,000 per 10 lakh people to 8,000 per 10 lakh people.

Washington, Jun 30 ,2020: The United States is ending defence exports to Hong Kong and is considering further restrictions on trade with the territory, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday.

China recently moved to impose new security legislation that has raised concerns among Hong Kong democracy activists that Beijing is further eroding the extensive autonomy promised when Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.
The announcements come at a time of intensified US rhetoric against Beijing as President Donald Trump campaigns for re-election. Opinion polls have shown voters increasingly embittered toward China, especially over the coronavirus, which began there.

Hyderabad (Telangana), June 30,2020: Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech announced that it has successfully developed Covaxin, India’s first vaccine candidate for Covid-19, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).
The Drug Controller General of India – CDSCO, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare granted permission to initiate Phase I & II Human clinical trials after the company submitted results generated from preclinical studies, demonstrating safety and immune response. Human clinical trials are scheduled to start across India in July 2020.
The SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech.
The indigenous, inactivated vaccine developed and manufactured in the company’s Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) High Containment facility located in Genome Valley, Hyderabad.
Announcing the vaccine development milestone, Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director said: “We are proud to announce COVAXIN, India’s first indigenous vaccine against COVID-19. The collaboration with ICMR and NIV was instrumental in the development of this vaccine.”
Dr Ella added, “The proactive support and guidance from CDSCO has enabled approvals to this project. Our R&D and Manufacturing teams worked tirelessly to deploy our proprietary technologies towards this platform.”
Expedited through national regulatory protocols, the company accelerated its objective in completing the comprehensive pre-clinical studies. Results from these studies have been promising and show extensive safety and effective immune responses.
Speaking about Bharat Biotech’s prowess, Suchitra Ella, Joint Managing Director said, “Our ongoing research and expertise in forecasting epidemics has enabled us to successfully manufacture a vaccine for the H1N1 pandemic.”
“Continuing our focus on creating the only BSL-3 containment facilities for manufacturing and testing in India, Bharat Biotech is committed to advancing vaccine development as a matter of national importance to demonstrate India’s strength in handling future pandemics,” she added.
Bharat Biotech’s track record in developing vero cell culture platform technologies has been proven in several vaccines for Polio, Rabies, Rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Chikungunya and Zika.

Washington, June 26,2020: The United States Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can deport some people seeking asylum without allowing them to make their case to a federal judge.
The court’s 7-2 ruling applies to people who fail their initial asylum screenings, making them eligible for quick deportation, or expedited removal, an Al Jazeera report said.
The judges ruling came with regards to a Sri Lankan man who said he fled persecution as a member of Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, but failed to persuade immigration officials that he faced harm if he returned to Sri Lanka. The man was arrested soon after he slipped across the US border from Mexico.
The high court reversed a lower court ruling in favour of the man, Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam, who was placed in expedited removal proceedings that prohibit people who fail initial interviews from asking federal courts for much help.
Since 2004, immigration officials have targeted for quick deportation undocumented immigrants who are picked up within 100 miles (160km) of the US border and within 14 days of entering the country. The Trump administration is seeking to expand that authority so that people detained anywhere in the US and up to two years after they got here could be quickly deported.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court threw out a trial judge’s ruling that had blocked the expanded policy. Other legal issues remain to be resolved in the case.

Sopore (Jammu and Kashmir), July 2 ,2020: Zulfiqar Hasan, ADG Central Reserve Police Force on Thursday said that the allegations that the CRPF took out the civilian from the car and shot him is untrue and reiterated that “he got caught in the firing by terrorists”.
“It was a very unfortunate incident that he had got caught in the firing by the terrorists. I think some people have tried to give it a spin by saying that the CRPF took him (the deceased civilian) out of the vehicle and shot him. It’s totally untrue,” he told reporters.
“After examining a lot of technical details including pictures, we are very confident about what has happened. I would request the people that they should blame the militants that they are hiding inside mosques. The man has been killed by the terrorists firing from a mosque,” he added.
The ADG further said that “there is no question” of the involvement of the CRPF in the incident. “The firing by the CRPF was restrained so that we do not cause any damage to the mosque,” he said further.
A controversy erupted over Sopore encounter in Jammu and Kashmir after a family member alleged that his relative was killed in firing by the security forces.
In a statement, CRPF had clarified that the gunfire was coming from a mosque where terrorists were hiding.
“A civilian vehicle which was coming from Sopore to Kupwara was caught in the firing range of terrorists. An old man who was driving the vehicle stopped the car and got down from the vehicle to move away for a safe spot but got killed by terrorists firing. Later, a young boy was rescued by security forces who took position nearby,” the CRPF stated.
Earlier, a CRPF jawan and a civilian lost their lives after terrorists fired upon a CRPF patrolling party in Sopore.
Two of the injured CRPF jawans are known to be in critical condition.

Washington DC , June 30,2020: The Southwest Research Institute scientists have increased the speed and accuracy of a laboratory-scale instrument for determining the age of planetary specimens onsite.
The team is progressively miniaturising the Chemistry, Organics and Dating Experiment (CODEX) instrument to reach a size suitable for spaceflight and lander missions.
“In situ ageing is an important scientific goal identified by the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey for Mars and the Moon as well as the Lunar and Mars Exploration Programme Analysis Groups, entities responsible for providing the science input needed to plan and prioritize exploration activities,” said SwRI Staff Scientist Dr F Scott Anderson, who is leading CODEX development.
“Doing this onsite rather than trying to return samples back to Earth for evaluation can resolve major dilemmas in planetary science, offers tremendous cost savings and enhances the opportunities for eventual sample return,” Anderson added.
CODEX will be a little larger than a microwave and include seven lasers and a mass spectrometer. In situ measurements will address fundamental questions of solar system history, such as when Mars was potentially habitable. CODEX has a precision of +-20-80 million years, significantly more accurate than dating methods currently in use on Mars, which have a precision of +-350 million years.
“CODEX uses an ablation laser to vaporise a series of tiny bits off of rock samples, such as those on the surface of the Moon or Mars,” said Anderson, who is the lead author of a CODEX paper published in 2020.
Anderson further noted, “We recognise some elements directly from that vapour plume, so we know what a rock is made of. Then the other CODEX lasers selectively pick out and quantify the abundance of trace amounts of radioactive rubidium (Rb) and strontium (Sr). An isotope of Rb decays into Sr over known amounts of time, so by measuring both Rb and Sr, we can determine how much time has passed since the rock formed.”
While radioactivity is a standard technique for dating samples on Earth, few other places in the solar system have been dated this way. Instead, scientists have largely constrained the chronology of the inner solar system by counting impact craters on planetary surfaces.
“The idea behind crater dating is simple: the more craters, the older the surface. It is a little like saying that a person gets wetter the longer they have been standing out in the rain. It is undoubtedly true. But as with the falling rain, we do not really know the rate at which meteorites have fallen from the sky,” said Dr Jonathan Levine, a physicist at Colgate University, who is part of the SwRI-led team.
“That is why radioisotope dating is so important. Radioactive decay is a clock that ticks at a known rate. These techniques accurately determine the ages of rocks and minerals, allowing scientists to date events such as crystallisation, metamorphism, and impacts,” Levine added.
The latest iteration of CODEX is five times more sensitive than its previous incarnation. This precision was largely accomplished by modifying the sample’s distance from the instrument to improve the data quality. The instrument also includes an ultrafast pulsed laser and improved signal-to-noise ratios to better constrain the timing of events in solar system history.
“We are miniaturising the CODEX components for field use on a lander mission to the Moon or Mars. Developing compact lasers with pulse energies comparable with what we currently require is a considerable challenge, though five out of the seven have been successfully miniaturised. These lasers have a repetition rate of 10 kHz, which will allow the instrument to acquire data 500 times faster than the current engineering design,” Anderson said.
The CODEX mass spectrometer, power supplies, and timing electronics are already small enough for spaceflight. Instrument components are being enhanced to improve ruggedness, thermal stability, radiation resistance, and power efficiency to endure launch and extended autonomous operations in alien environments.

Jun26,2020: A landslip, induced by heavy rainfall, killed a minor in Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar on Thursday while a woman drowned in twin city Naharlagun. Another person drowned in Assam’s Dhemaji district as the death toll in floods and landslips since mid-May rose to 36.

Officials in Itanagar said the body of the minor was retrieved from under the debris at the city’s Doni Colony after 8 a.m on Thursday. Around the same time, a woman’s body was retrieved from the Lagun River near Naharlagun.

“Heavy rainfall for three days has added to our problem of combating COVID-19,” Chief Minister Pema Khandu said, announcing an immediate release of Rs. 4 lakh to the next of kin of each victim.

On May 23, a 27-year-old woman and her two children were buried alive in a landslip at Arzoo village in Dibang Valley district.

The flood situation in Assam worsened, with the number of affected people jumping from 37,675 to 1,89,314 across nine districts in less than 24 hours. The number of affected districts on Wednesday was five.

“A person drowned in Dhemaji’s Sisiborgaon area today. So far, 15 people have died by drowning in two waves of floods while landslips claimed 21 others’ lives,” a spokesperson of Assam State Disaster Management Authority said.

Of the displaced people, 11,468 have moved into relief camps across four districts, most of them in Tinsukia, which overnight became the third most affected district after Dhemaji and Majuli. The other affected districts are Biswanath, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Lakhimpur, Jorhat and Sivasagar.
Blowout capping hit

Floodwaters inundated the Baghjan site in Tinsukia district where a natural gas wells caught fire almost a fortnight after a blowout on May 27, hampering Oil India Limited’s capping operations. A concrete bridge on the road to the site was also damaged, preventing movement of men and material.

“Clearing of debris, crucial for the operation, has also been hit due to the flooding of the site,” an OIL spokesperson said.

In the adjoining Dibrugarh district, heavy rainfall resulted in water-logging in several areas of district headquarters Dibrugarh. The worst affected was the All India Radio station, where a short-circuit due to flooding led to the suspension of all broadcast services from the studios.

“We are broadcasting from an emergency transmitter at Lepetkata, 18 km away. The entire complex is inundated because of faulty drainage system,” said AIR programme executive Lohit Deka.

AIR Dibrugarh is among India’s 13 most sophisticate stations with high-power transmitter and has been broadcasting programmes in 12 languages and dialects – six in Assam and six in Arunachal Pradesh. It is also among the most awarded, having received 27 national awards for innovative programmes.

Dibrugarh’s Deputy Commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha said a series of protests and COVID-19 lockdown affected a drainage project. “But 1,000 mm of rainfall for two consecutive days is a huge quantity and difficult to control for any urban set-up,” he pointed out.

Barcelona [Spain], June 28 ,2020: Exposure to smoking (both maternal smoking during pregnancy and second-hand smoking during childhood), air pollution, as well as certain characteristics of the built environment may be associated with a higher development of obesity in children, according to a recent study.
The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, and the University of Southern California led the first major study to investigate the associations between many pollutants and environmental factors
The new study, which forms a part of the HELIX project and was published in Environmental Health Perspectives, used data on more than 1,300 children aged 6 to 11 years from birth cohort studies in six European countries: France, Greece, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The authors used data on body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, skinfold thickness and body fat mass to determine the children’s overweight and obesity status. Blood and urine samples from the children and their mothers during pregnancy were also analysed.
In total, 77 pregnancy and 96 childhood exposures were assessed, including air pollutants, built environment, green spaces, smoking, and chemical pollutants (persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, phthalates, phenols and pesticides).
ISGlobal researcher Martine Vrijheid, who coordinates the HELIX project and was the first author of the study, commented: “The prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing at alarming rates across the globe and may have increased even more than usual during the COVID-19 lockdown period.”
The findings of the study, which used data collected before anti-COVID-19 measures were introduced, were in line with global trends: the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity was 29% for the study population as a whole, with higher percentages for the cohorts from Spain (43 per cent) and Greece (37 per cent).
The results showed that exposure to smoking (both maternal smoking during pregnancy and second-hand smoking during childhood), air pollution (PM2.5 and PM10 particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide, indoor and outdoor) as well as certain characteristics of the built environment were associated with a higher childhood BMI. Differences in socioeconomic status did not explain these findings.
Associations with chemical pollutants were less consistent, with some chemicals measured in child blood (heavy metals copper and cesium) showing higher BMI, and others (persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs and DDE pesticides) showing lower BMI.
This may be explained by the fact that chemicals were measured at the same time as obesity in the children, and obesity status may have influenced chemical blood levels. A longitudinal follow-up of the cohort is needed to establish this.
“The children who live in densely populated areas and go to schools in areas with few services and facilities were more likely to be obese,” commented Leda Chatzi, Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California and the last author of the study.
The relationship between obesity and the characteristics of the built environment “is in line with the findings of previous research and could be explained by a lack of opportunities for children to walk or engage in other outdoor physical activities,” she added.
“These findings provide further evidence that modifying environmental exposures early in life can limit the risk of obesity and associated complications,” commented Martine Vrijheid.
“The implications for public health are important since these results may help to identify obesity-related exposures that could be targeted for prevention and intervention early in life,” Vrijheid added.

SRINAGAR, Jun 30,2020: A veteran separatist politician in Kashmir quit his hardline faction within an umbrella alliance of secessionists on Monday.

The decision of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, 90, could further weaken the separatist cause after India last August scrapped a decades-old constitutional provision giving Jammu and Kashmir state special rights.

Geelani, who has been under house arrest in the region’s largest city Srinagar for several years, accused the faction he led within the umbrella Hurriyat Conference, of inaction over New Delhi’s move in a two-page letter and short audio message.

“Keeping in view the present situation in Hurriyat Conference, I announce my decision to part ways with it,” he said, accusing members of the grouping of conspiring against him and saying it lacked discipline and accountability.

Hurriyat Conference was formed by various separatist groups in Kashmir in 1993 to provide a political platform for seceding from India in the wake of an armed revolt against New Delhi.

The multiplanetary system of newly discovered super-Earths orbiting nearby red dwarf star Gliese 887 is seen in this artist’s impression. Mark Garlick/Handout via REUTERS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Up to three planets – potentially rocky like Earth – have been spotted around a star located relatively near our solar system – a planetary system offering astronomers intriguing possibilities in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

The planets orbit Gliese 887, a so-called red dwarf star half the sun’s mass located 11 light years from Earth – right in our backyard in cosmic terms, researchers said on Friday. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

Only 12 other stars are closer to our solar system.

Two planets have been definitively identified, one orbiting Gliese 887 every nine days and the other every 21 days. One of these two is situated just inside what is called the habitable zone, or Goldilocks zone, around the star – not too hot and not too cold, perhaps able to maintain liquid water on the surface and harbor life.

A third potential planet orbiting every 50 days is located in the habitable zone, but still needs further confirmation.

“They are ‘super-Earth’ planets, which means that they are a few times the mass of the Earth and are expected to have a solid core like the Earth, as opposed to the big gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn,” said astronomer Sandra Jeffers of the University of Göttingen in Germany, lead author of the research published this week in the journal Science.

“The newly detected planets are the best possibilities of all the known planets in close proximity to the sun to see if they have atmospheres and to study these atmospheres in detail,” Jeffers added, to learn whether their conditions are “amenable for life.”

This planetary system will be a key target for study using NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, due for a 2021 launch, Jeffers said.

Red dwarf stars are relatively small and cool. Gliese 887 is exceptionally inactive in terms of energetic outbursts and dark starspots, meaning it could be hospitable to life on the planets in its orbit.

New Delhi, July1,2020: In a pro-poor announcement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to the nation on Tuesday, extended the free foodgrain scheme to 80 crore poor families to avail the five kg free foodgrains till November-end.
In a televised address to the nation, Mr Modi said the Government will keep providing free foodgrains to the poor section of the society, due to the increased need during the festivals.
He said the Government will incur an additional expenditure of Rs 90,000 crore to provide five kg rice or wheat and one kg gram every month to the poor, pointing out that the free distribution of foodgrains to 80 crore people in India could feed 2.5 times the US population, 12 times the UK population and, twice the European Union’s population.
In his sixth address to the nation since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Prime Minister said under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, the Centre announced a package of Rs 1.75 lakh crore.
In the past three months, Rs 31,000 crore was deposited in bank accounts of 20 crore poor families. Also, Rs 18,000 crore was deposited in bank accounts of more than nine crore farmers, he added.
‘Simultaneously, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan was quickly launched to provide employment of labourers in rural areas. The Government is spending Rs 50,000 crore on this scheme,’ Mr Modi added.
He also urged the citizens not to let their guard down as restrictions were being lifted across the country. He said nobody is above the law and rules must be followed by everyone, in order to beat the virus.
‘A timely lockdown and other decisions helped saved lakhs of lives in the country,’ he added.

NEW DELHI:June 26, 2020: The Supreme Court accepted a Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) scheme where students of class 10 and 12 will be assessed for the exams cancelled due to the pandemic by taking an average of their best performance in the papers they have already taken.
The cancelled exams were originally scheduled between July 1 and 15. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for CBSE, said the assessment scheme is available on the official website.

“Assessment of the performance of students in the cancelled examinations will be done based on the assessment scheme,” a three-judge Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar referred to the CBSE notification in a 10-page order.

The Bench said its order and the notification will govern “any petition pending in this court or any other court concerning the subject of conducting examinations for classes 10 and 12 by the CBSE scheduled from July 1 to July 15”.
ICSE Plan

The ICSE, represented by senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, said it will have a “slightly different” assessment scheme from that of the CBSE. The ICSE had also cancelled its exams scheduled between July 1 and 14. Mr. Gupta informed the court that its scheme would be available on its website in a week.

According to the CBSE scheme, students of Class X and XII who have completed their exams would be assessed on their performance. Those who have taken the exam in more than three subjects will be assessed after the average in their three best performing subjects is taken to assess their scores for the cancelled papers. If students have appeared for only three exams so far, the average of the best two subjects would be taken as their scores in the cancelled papers. In a few cases such as Delhi, if students have appeared in one or two subjects, the average of these marks along with their internal and practical scores would be used for assessment. Assessment results would be out by July 15.

The assessment results would be treated as final for class 10. However, class 12 students can choose to appear for “optional examinations” to be held in future for the exams that were cancelled. These optional exams would be held when the health situation is “more conducive”.

However, unlike CBSE, Mr. Gupta said the ICSE may allow its class 10 students to appear for an optional exams like their class 12 counterparts.

Parents, who are the petitioners in this case and represented by advocate Rishi Malhotra, said a time limit should be specified for the class 12 CBSE students to decide whether they want to appear in the optional exams.

Mr. Malhotra suggested that students should specify within 15 days of the declaration of the assessment results whether they want to appear in the optional examinations.

“The option has to be exercised by the student within 15 days, otherwise this will lead to further litigation They have to conduct the exam within a certain period, say within 15 days of declaration of results. This would be bind the students to take a call within a period,” Mr. Malhotra submitted.

To this, Mr. Mehta countered, “suppose the situation gets conducive in October. Then, let the students decide in September. Why 15 days? Why put pressure on them to take a decision… What we do must be pro student”.

The court agreed with the Solicitor General, saying “whenever the CBSE decides to conduct the optional exam, it will be notified and the dates will come in that notification”.

Jun 29,2020:The gunmen attacked the building with grenades and guns, media reported.

Four gunmen attacked the Pakistani Stock Exchange building in the city of Karachi on Monday but security forces soon killed them all, police said.

Two other people were also killed, the military said.

The gunmen attacked the building, which is in a high security zone that also houses the head offices of many private banks, with grenades and guns, Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon told Reuters.

“Four attackers have been killed, they had come in a silver Corolla car,” Mr. Memon said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Pakistan has long been plagued by Islamist militant violence but attacks have become less frequent in recent years.

The gunmen initially threw a grenade then opened fire on a security post outside the building. The four were killed when security forces posted there responded.

“The situation is still unfolding and management, with the help of security forces, is managing the security and controlling the situation,” the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) said on Twitter.