Most of the schools reported good attendance in the morning, state education director Bhushan Savaikar told news persons.

The educational institutions have been asked to strictly follow the standard operating procedures and COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, he said.

The schools in the coastal state had moved to the online mode after the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.

On Monday, the schools resumed offline sessions for Classes 1 to 12 as well as the pre-primary ones, Sawaikar said.

There is enthusiasm among students as they are returning to physical classes after such a gap, he said.

In the wake of a decline in COVID-19 cases in Goa, the state education department had last week issued a circular for the resumption of offline classes from Monday.

The education department had also instructed schools to conduct the exams in offline mode only and not to make uniforms mandatory for students.

It had also said that timing concession, if required, may be given to students in initial days.

On Sunday, Goa reported 40 new COVID-19 cases and three fatalities, raising the infection tally in the state to 2,44,713 and the death toll to 3,792, as per official figures.

meanwhile

All major political parties contesting the February 14 Goa Assembly elections, including BJP, Congress, AAP and TMC, have promised resumption of mining operations in the state, but voters feel that the assurance may not see the light of day as the issue has been raised just with an eye on polls and will be forgotten after that.

The mining industry, which used to be one of the major sources of revenue for Goa, had come to a grinding halt in the state in March 2018 after the Supreme Court quashed 88 mining leases.

The post Goa schools resume offline classes appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

Establishment of Kamdhenu Chair or Kamdhenu Study Centre or Kamdhenu Research Centre in all colleges and universities across the country has been appreciated by all and it is getting the country-wide momentum. For raising mass awareness about Indigenous Cows among young Students and every other citizen, RASTRIYA KAMDHENU AAYOG(RKA) has come out with a noble initiative of making Study materials about Cow Science available and conduct “Kamdhenu Gau-VigyanPrachar-Prasar Examination”. This will infuse the curiosity into all Indians about the cows, and make them aware of the unexplored potential and business opportunities a cow can offer, even after it stops giving milk.

KamdhenuGau-VigyanPrachar-PrasarExam will be an online exam to be conducted throughout the country on 25^th February, 2021. The proposed details for this examination will be put on our official website very soon. The website http://kamdhenu.gov.in and http:// kamdhenu.blog.The exam will be conducted in four categories (1) Primary level up to Std 8th (2)  Secondary level (from class 9^th to class 12^th)(3)  College level (after 12^th+) (4)  For the general public.

The KamdhenuGau-VigyanPrachar-Prasar Exam will be of 100 marks and one-hour duration in Hindi, English and 12 regional languages.There is no fee for the examination.The examination will be tick-mark objective type question-answers (MCQ).The syllabus as well as other literature and reference books on cows, which will be recommended on the website of the RashtriyaKamdhenuAayog, will help the examinees prepare for the exam. Blogs, videos and other selected reading material will be uploaded on official website. Scientists, entrepreneurs, GauSevaks, farmers, youth and women as well as senior citizens will actively work to make this mega event a grand success.

The examination will be conducted in a transparent and impartial manner. Questions will be set in such a way that during the online exam there will be no scope for any maneuvering. Results will be immediately declared on the website of RKA. Certificates will be given to all. Successful meritorious candidates will be given prizes and certificates afterwards. Appreciation letters will be issued to all those who help in organizing this exam.

The Registration Link for this online exam will be available on website of RashtriyaKamdhenuAayog, which is “kamdhenu.gov.in” / “kamdhenu.blog”.To make this event a grand success, Union Education Ministers/Chief Ministers/State Education Ministers/Chairmen of GauSevaAayogs of all States/District Education Officers of all States/Principals of all schools/ Print and Electronic Media, NGOs and Cow Donors will be involved in this mammoth exercise.TheKamdhenuGau-VigyanPrachar-Prasar Exam will be an annual event of the RashtriyaKamdhenuAayog in future.It will also fulfil the objectives of Atmanirbhar Bharat/Vocal for Local/Green India/Digital India/Clean India/Healthy India/Make in India concepts of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. For further information relating to KamdhenuGau-VigyanPrachar-Prasar Exam, please visit the website of RKA “kamdhenu.gov.in” / “kamdhenu.

RKA has been successful in delivering the message across the country that the cow is not just a milk-giving animalbut its Environmental, Health and Economic benefits are immense if used properly. Its so-called waste products like cow-dung and cow-urine, which are cheap and abundantly available, are bio-degradable and environmentally friendly. Hence, these can be gainfully used by cow entrepreneurs to make the cow-rearing sustainable, which in turn can contribute towards economic growth of the country. A few campaigns of RKA this year, namely, GaumayaGanesha Campaign, KamdhenuDeepawali Campaign, Kamdhenu DevDeepawali and a series of seminars and webinars have carried the message of other uses of cow dung and cow urine very effectively.

The post Kamdhenu Gau-Vigyan Prachar-Prasar Exam appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

His statement comes nearly a week after the CBSE confirmed that the 10th 12th Board Exam 2021 would be conducted offline.

Bhardwaj also exuded confidence that the board will be able to manage the exams in 2021 in offline mode without hassles. “CBSE successfully completed the compartment exams amid the pandemic and based on the learning from that we will manage board exams in 2021 in offline mode”, he told Times of India.

CBSE’s Controller or Examinations further said that there is a possibility that students will get more gap days between their exams than last year due to the prevailing COVID situation and academic loss.

“While preparing the datasheet in 2019, students got more than enough gap between the two exams. Even if some exams were scheduled back to back, it was made sure that subsequent exam was easy”, he added.

Talking about the practical examinations, Bhardwaj hoped that state governments will soon reopen schools and students will get time to prepare for the exams. “Usually, schools get around 1.5 months. This year, they may get more than two months to conduct practical exams and complete all formalities while keeping COVID-19 guidelines in mind”,

The post CBSE Class X, XII Board Exams 2021 to be Held in Feb-March appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

“Held a meeting to review India’s planning on vaccine  and the way forward. Important issues related to progress of vaccine development, regulatory approvals and procurement were discussed,” PM Modi tweeted.

“Reviewed various issues like prioritisation of population groups, reaching out to HCWs, cold-chain Infrastructure augmentation, adding vaccinators and tech platform for vaccine roll-out,” he tweeted.

Several drug companies are involved in developing a vaccine to fight COVID-19, which has killed millions across nations since its outbreak in China in December last year.

Many are in advanced stages of trials and they have reported over 90 per cent effectiveness.

“Five vaccines are in advanced stages of development in India, out of which 4 are in Phase II/III and one is in Phase-I/II.  Countries such as Bangladesh, Myanmar, Qatar, Bhutan, Switzerland, Bahrain, Austria and South Korea – have shown keen interest in partnering for vaccine development of Indian vaccines and use thereof,” the government said in a statement .

Meanwhile  All schools under the jurisdiction of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai will remain shut till 31st December, 2020, in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. Meanwhile, Maharashtra Education Minister said local administration will have to take a call while reopening schools for students of class 9 to class 11, from 23rd November. After a reduction in the number of tests during Diwali, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has increased testing again. The corporation has also started 244 new testing centres, considering the possibility of a second wave of COVID-19.The state at present has nearly 80,000 active cases.

The Gujarat government has decided to impose a complete curfew in Ahmedabad during the weekend from 9 pm today. However, the night curfew will remain in force from Monday onwards until further orders. The decision has been taken to curb the rising number of Covid-19 cases in recent days. The weekend curfew will remain in force from 9 pm today to 6 am on Monday in Ahmedabad. While, 9 pm to 6 am curfew will continue from Monday onwards till further notice.The state government has also decided to postpone the reopening of schools and colleges from 23rd November. AIR correspondent reports that Ahmedabad city witnessed a spike in daily cases of infections after Diwali. There are nearly 12,700 active cases in the state at present.

In Rajasthan, 2,549 persons have been tested positive for COVID 19 during the last 24 hours. It is the highest number of infections reported in a single day so far. After the increase in Corona cases, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot interacted with representatives of private hospitals through video conference today. The number of active patients in the capital city of Jaipur has reached close to 7,000, while there are more than 20,100 active cases in the state. There is now a shortage of ICU beds in government and private hospitals. In view of the situation, the Chief Minister has urged private hospitals to increase the number of beds for COVID patients. After reports of COVID patients in Jodhpur not getting proper treatment, the State Human Rights Commission has constituted a high level committee under the chairmanship of the Divisional Commissioner, to inspect all private and government hospitals and submit a factual report.

The post PM reviews COVID planning appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

Schools will reopen in Assam, AndhraPradesh, Tamilnadu state and kendriya vidyalya  from today  seven months due to coronavirus pandemic. According to officials of Assam Education Department, only students from Classes 6th to 12th will be allowed to attend the classes under strict COVID-19 guidelines. The officials added that a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been issued by the government in this regard.

The schools will follow an odd-even system to minimise the risk of coronavirus spread. Students in Classes 6, 8 and 12 will attend school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday while students of classes 7, 9 and 11 will attend classes on the other three days.

“All the students would not come into the schools at a time and they would attend the schools in different batches in morning and afternoon shift. Fixation of first batch and second batch of students would be done by the head of the institution,” the government said in a news release.

“The first batch of students would come at 8 a.m. and stay up to 12 noon and the second batch of students would come at 12.30 p.m. and stay up to 3.30 p.m.” it added.

Students from Classes 9 to 12 can start attending schools in Andhra Pradesh from today after coronavirus lockdown guidelines were eased as part of the “Unlock5” plan. The guidelines have been eased till the next update till November 30. The classes will be held for half a day every other day.

Assam and Rajasthan will also reopen schools today.

Students from Classes 6 to 8 can start going to school from November 23, while those in primary classes can go to school from December 14.

Schools with more than 750 students will be allowed to open once every three days and they will have to provide midday meal to those attending, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had announced in a video conference on October 20.

As per the SOP issued by the government, the schools have been asked to follow social distancing and other precautionary measures. The guidelines issued by the Assam government also includes a staggered timetable for general colleges, engineering colleges, polytechnic institutions and IITs.

It is to be noted that online education will continue for students who prefer to attend online classes.

The post Schools to reopen in some state appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

“Global school closures since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have presented an unprecedented challenge to children’s education and wellbeing,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “We must prioritize children’s learning. This means making sure that schools are safe to reopen – including with access to hand hygiene, clean drinking water and safe sanitation.”

According to the report, around 818 million children lack basic handwashing facilities at their schools, which puts them at increased risk of COVID-19 and other transmittable diseases. More than one third of these children (295 million) are from sub-Saharan Africa. In the least developed countries, 7 out of 10 schools lack basic handwashing facilities and half of schools lack basic sanitation and water services.

The report stresses that governments seeking to control the spread of COVID-19 must balance the need for implementation of public health measures versus the associated social and economic impacts of lockdown measures. Evidence of the negative impacts of prolonged school closures on children’s safety, wellbeing and learning are well-documented, the report says.

“Access to water, sanitation and hygiene services is essential for effective infection prevention and control in all settings, including schools,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “It must be a major focus of government strategies for the safe reopening and operation of schools during the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic.”

Other key findings from the report include:

Of the 818 million children who lacked a basic handwashing service at their school, 355 million went to schools which had facilities with water but no soap, and 462 million to schools which had no facilities or water available for handwashing.

In the 60 countries at highest risk of health and humanitarian crises due to COVID-19, 3 in 4 children lacked basic handwashing service at their school at the start of the outbreak; half of all children lacked basic water service; and more than half lacked basic sanitation service.

The post Schools around the world lacked basic facilities appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

Speaking on the occasion the Union Minister said that this Calendar provides guidelines to teachers on the use of various technological tools and social media tools available for imparting education in fun-filled, interesting ways, which can be used by learner, parents and teachers even while at home. However, it has taken into account, the varying levels of access to such tools-Mobile, Radio, Television, SMS and various social media. The fact that many of us may not have internet facility in the mobile, or may not be able to use different social media tools- such as whatsapp, facebook, twitter, google, etc., the calendar guides teachers to further guide parents and students through SMS on mobile phones or through voice call. Parents are expected to help elementary stage students to implement this Calendar.

Shri Nishank further said that this calendar caters to the need of all children including Divyang children (Children with Special Need). It includes links for Audio books, Radio programmes and Video programme.

He said that the calendar contains week-wise plan consisting of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to theme/chapter taken from syllabus or textbook. Most importantly, it maps the themes with the learning outcomes. The purpose of mapping of themes with learning outcomes is to facilitate teachers/parents to assess the progress in the learning of children and also to go beyond textbooks. The activities given in the calendar focus on learning outcomes and can thus be achieved through any resource including the textbooks children are using in their state or UT.

It also covers experiential learning activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, yoga, pre-vocational skills, etc. This Calendar contains class-wise and subject-wise activities in tabular forms. This Calendar includes activities related to four languages as subject areas, i.e., Hindi English, Urdu and Sanskrit. This calendar also gives space to the strategies of reducing stress and anxiety among teachers, students and parents. Calendar includes link for Chapter wise e-content available on the e-pathshala, NROER and DIKSHA portal of GoI.

All the given activities are suggestive in nature, not prescriptive, nor is the sequence mandatory. Teachers and parents may opt to contextualize the activities and do those activities that the student shows interest in, irrespective of the sequence.

NCERT has already started having live interactive sessions with students, parents and teachers through the TV channel Swayam Prabha (Kishore munch)( available through Free DTH channel 128, Dish TV Channel # 950, SunDirect #793, Jio TV, Tatasky #756, Airtel Channel #440, Videocon Channel # 477), Kishore Manch App(can be downloaded from play store) and youtube live (NCERT Official Channel). Daily Monday to Saturday these sessions are telecast for secondary 9:00 am to 10:30 am , for primary classes from 10:30 am to 12:00pm, for upper primary classes from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm and higher secondary classes from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm. In addition to interacting with the viewer, hands on activities along with teaching of topics are demonstrated in these live sessions

The post Alternative academic calendar for Primary section appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

Beginning with senior classes, the academic session in the state will begin from July. However, schools located in containment zones will not be opened. Schools will be opened in districts where no coronavirus cases have been found in a month. In other areas ‘online schools’ will only function, the state minister announced.

The minister said that physical schools will begin in July after following all guidelines and the district administrations have been asked open schools in places where cases haven’t been found for a month.

The minister also said that senior classes will begin first and the online schools will start from June 26.
classes 9, 10 and 12 will start the session from July, while classes 11 will start once the admission procedure is completed after announcement of class 10 board results.

The state government had said that students from classes 6 to 8 will join the school in August, and for students studying in classes 3 to 5, schools will open in September. Meanwhile, the state has also asked school management committees to take a decision on resumption of sessions for children studying in classes 1 and 2.

The government will use the TV platform for education while taking efforts to rope in Doordarshan and radio for the purpose.

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has approved the resumption of the academic session through online/digital medium from June 15.

The post Maharashtra to Open Schools From July appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

Delhiites woke up to a smoggy morning today as the minimum temperature settled at 18.9 degrees Celsius, four notches above the season’s average. The official forecast mainly clear skies with shallow fog in the morning and strong surface winds during day with a speed of 20-25 kmph.

After Delhi, all schools up to Class 12 are closed in the National Capital Region till Tuesday following spike in pollution level.

Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said, “I want to appeal to the people of Delhi that since there is a blanket of smog covering northern India due to stubble burning we need to look into it….if we follow the odd even in the next few days it will help in bringing down the pollution level. We need to do this for our children and future generations.”

Meanwhile Congress MP Manish Tewari said, “If stubble burning is the problem then has anyone asked the farmer why does he burn stubble? The shroud that envelopes Delhi is the shroud a farmer wears on a daily basis.” He added that if people want clean air then they have to pay attention to farmers.

The post HEAVY SMOG IN NCR : School’s Closed appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.

official said primary schools in the Valley will reopen today though officials believe that there won’t be much attendance because of the restrictions. On Sunday, Jammu and Kashmir authorities made 10 more telephone exchanges operational in Kashmir Valley, but again snapped services of one of the 17 centres restored on Saturday, officials said.

The authorities closed one of the 17 exchanges after reports that landline phones were being used for spreading misinformation campaign, they said. With these, around 28,000 fixed-line phones, out of around 50,000 in Kashmir Valley, were functional.

meanwhile Jammu and Kashmir Home Secretary Shaleen Kabra issued a warning against the “fake news” that the weapons of special police officers of J&K police are being seized, “This is purely a rumour being spread by vested interests. It is categorically denied.”

The exchanges that opened on Sunday were in areas around Dal Lake, Civil Secretariat and Nishat in Srinagar district; Pattan, Boniyar and Baramulla town in north Kashmir; Chadoora, Chrar-e Shariff in Budgam district; and Aishmuqam in South Kashmir.

Landline and mobile phone services and Internet were suspended in Kashmir Valley in the early hours of August 5 before the Centre announced its move to abrogate provisions of Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and divide the state into two Union Territories.

Low-speed Internet services in Jammu region, which were made operational on Saturday, were snapped again on Sunday after it was found that a video clip with the potential to trigger communal tension were being circulated.

However, Inspector General of Police, Jammu, Mukesh Singh said the 2G network has “temporarily been disconnected due to some technical reasons which is being rectified and efforts are on to ensure restoration as soon as possible”.

Police said searches were being carried out for nabbing those behind the video clip. Jammu and Kashmir Police chief Dilbag Singh had warned that stern action would taken against anyone misusing Internet facility.

The post SCHOOL OPENED IN JAMMU KASHMIR TODAY appeared first on newsmantra.in l Latest news on Politics, World, Bollywood, Sports, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Trending news | News Mantra.