Amid coronavirus pandemic, the Tamil Nadu government decided to cancel all examinations for undergraduate and postgraduate students except for the final semester examination. Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced it on Wednesday.

The latest announcement will be applicable to students who have to write arrear exams.

Except for the final semester exams, students who have paid fees for subjects related to other semesters and waiting for exams shall be exempted from taking the examinations and they would be awarded marks, said the CM while pointing out that the decision was made after accepting the request of students considering their welfare and as per the recommendations of a high-level committee.

Following the guidelines of the University Grants Commission( UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education, Palaniswami said he has directed the Higher Education department to issue a detailed government order on the matter.

Undergraduate students in their first and second year pursuing polytechnic, arts and science and those in the first, second and third year of their engineering courses were exempted from writing their semester exams and allowed to move on to the next academic year by Palaniswami on 23 July.

The first-year postgraduate students of arts, science and engineering streams and first and second year MCA students were also let off and promoted. Meanwhile, the state today registered 5,958 new Covid19 cases, taking the total number of persons who tested positive for coronavirus infection in the state so far to 3,97,261, a few thousands below four lakhs mark. As many as 118 Covid-19 patients died today.

Meanwhile, two hospitals in Tamil Nadu have been selected to participate in the Covid-19 vaccine trials conducted by Oxford University. The vaccine, dubbed Covishield in India and is backed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, is expected to provide immunity against the SARS-CoV-2.

In a statement, state health minister Dr C Vijayabaskar said that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) selected Chennai to participate in the clinical trials.

The vaccine, which is currently in phase 2 of trials, will be tested on around 300 people at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and Sri Ramachandra Medical Center (SRMC), Porur.

According to the statement, the testing will be conducted by the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) and ICMR on healthy individuals above the age of 18. Dr TS Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine will be the Principal Investigator for the trials in Chennai.

K’taka Dy CM on NEET:

Amid calls from some quarters against conduct of NEET as scheduled, Karnataka deputy chief minister C N Ashwath Narayan on Wednesday said he saw no reason for putting it off and claimed “vested interests” were trying to disrupt the medical entrance exam since its inception, adds PTI.

The state government had successfully conducted the common entrance test (CET) for engineering and other courses for more than 1.94 lakh students, including 63 Covid positive students who achieved good ranks, he said. “When the reality is so conducive, I do not understand why people are opposing the conduct of NEET. I would like to advise all of them that they should not play with the future of the children,” he told reporters here.