The level of infection in the state is still high but with more establishments and businesses opening up in Unlock 4.0, the situation is likely to go out of control.

Tamil Nadu is bracing for a second wave is f Covid-19 infections because many more services and establishments have been opened up even though the first one shows no signs of abating. Since the pandemic outbreak in March, more than 7600 deaths have been recorded in the state. The number of new cases remain high, just short of 6,000 a day, which means that the first wave is still strong in the state.

A seeo-prevalence study in Chennai indicated that as much as 20 percent of the city’s population, which account for one-eighth of the state’s total population, could be infected. Anecdotal evidence, too, points to a massive jump in infection rates. In the past two days alone, 60 Covid positive cases were detected in an old age home on the southern outskirts of Chennai. In a Facebook post, which has independently confirmed, the organisation running it said that the infected woman were taken to three government hospitals.

Many prominent persons were in hospital. S.P. Balasubramaniyan, whose melodious voice has enthralled many generations of Indians is fighting for life at a private hospital. He is on the support of a ventilator and an extra corporeal membrane oxegenation machine (ECMO). The first Member of Parliament to fall victim to Covid infection is from Tamil Nadu-H.P. Vasanthakumar, a Congress MP from Kanyakumari and a businessman.

In a bid to prevent the second wave of infection, the Thackeray government proceeds with caution in easing lockdown restrictions.

When Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray announced in August that the lockdown would not be lifted fully in Maharashtra, he was repeating the State’s by now well established policy of taking it slow when it came to easing lockdown restrictions. In Maharashtra’s ‘Mission Begin Again’ phase 4, the lockdown will continue to be in place for the whole of September. The decision is based on what is largely seen to be a successful plan to combat the pandemic.

The thinking of Mantralaya, the state’s administrative headquarters, is that it is better to proceed slowly rather than impose a second lockdown. Thackeray spelt out his government’s strategy on August 27 after inaugurating a jumbo Covid-19 facility in Pune. He said:” If we relax and believe that the virus will now be under control, we might have to face the second wave. Those countries which believed that “abhi ho gaya, humne maat kardi”( we have defeated the pandemic) were all proved wrong as they saw a second wave.” Besides, he said, the belief that a person who has tested positive will not be infected agains has been proved wrong.

The Centre’s decision to hold final year examinations amid the raging pandemic displays a complete lack of senstivity to student’s concerns, the digital divide and the spiralling cases.

On August 28, in a judgement with far-reaching consequences, the Supreme Court upheld guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission(UGC) on July 6 directing institutions of higher learning to conduct examinations for final semester students by September 30.

This came on the heels of an August 17 order by the apex court for the conduct of the national eligibility cum entrance test (NEET) for medical courses and the joint entrance examination for engineering programmes in the first week of September. The Supreme Court gave the go-ahead despite a request from six chief minister of opposition ruled states for a review of its order.

While approving the new guidelines, a bench comprising Justices Ashok Buushan. M.R. Shah and R. Subhash Reddy observed that the UGC’s objective was to ensure that all universities follow a uniform academic calendar and that final/terminal examinations were held. The UGC’s revised guidelines, which were a complete reversal of its advisory of April 29, decreed that examinations be conducted in offline (pen and paper), online or blended(online plus offline) modes while observing the Covid-19 protocol.

While Maharashtra and Delhi appear to have contained the pandemic, there are fears that the virus will gain the upper hand in the southern states. In Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, people’s and the authorities attention has shifted to politics. A roundup from the battlegrounds.

Public celebrations in the national capital on August 15 were muted owing to the coronavirus pandemic. Desperate to get back to the normal life after the fatigue induced by the lockdown of three months, some people welcomed Independence Day with gusto on their terraces, flying kites and socialising with family and friends.

But Delhi should not get complacent, warned Dr Srinivas Rajkumar T of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS) in Delhi. “We are in a better situation than before, since mid-July. Now there are around 1,000 cases consistently everyday. This will continue but infection will spread through new demographic shifts, when people go to the office and malls or resume social activities, or when the elderly get exposed, which will lead to isolates spikes.”

The AIIMS administration had sent the senior resident doctor in the department of psychiatry a show cause notice after he criticised in a tweet the substandard quality of the personal protective equipment (PPE), provided to AIIMS health care workers.

Devotional Hinduism has been quick to use technology in its chase of spirituality, with worshippers staying safe at home while performing their rituals in coincidence with a global community of devotees. To see these practices as being seperate from the political project of consolidating the nation on religious lines would be a mistake.

Once the coronavirus recedes into history, we will remember the pandemic of 2020 as ushering in a new era of digital darshan’s of virtual gods that stream in through Microsoft windows more steadily than through the temple doors.

The beginning of the lockdown in March across most of the world coincided with important days on the ritual calendar of nearly all faiths, and all of them turned to the internet of worship. Catholics got to see and hear, in real time, Pope Francis deliver his Easter sermon in the deserted St. Petres Square; Muslims joined in Ramzan prayers streamed from mosques; Jews participated in Passover seders over Zoom; while Hindus got to participate remotely in Ram Navami celebrations, complete with bhajans and aartis. Virtual darshan’s and aartis became a daily affair for many, as did the daily masses and calls to prayer from countless churches and mosques. Online scripture reading groups sprung up, and sadly, online funeral services thrived.

The time frames of several provisions of National Education Policy 2020, designed in a pre pandemic situation, make it difficult to figure out their implications in a rapidly changing, unpredictable world.

The National Education Policy(NEP)2020, approved by the Union cabinet and announced on July 31, has evoked a variety of responses. Immediately afterwards, Education secretary Amit Khare announced speedy implementations of its provisions that would not have immediate financial implications. This, in itself, raises questions. If educational institution mobilises and/or are taken over by those who can afford to do so, the ongoing process of privitisation will probably proceed at faster speed.