West Bengal lockdown extended till Sep 20; CM Mamata keeps colleges shut amid NEET-JEE row

With the state consistently reporting over 2500 new Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases daily, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, announced that current lockdown measures will be extended till September 20. As per Bengal's weekly total shutdown, she announced that the state will follow total shutdown on September 7,11 and 12. She added that Educational institutes too will remain closed till September 20, amid the ongoing row with the Centre on conducting NEET/JEE (Main) exams.

Bengal lockdown extended till Sep 20

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Mamata: 'Let's unitedly approach SC'

Earlier in the day, Banerjee attended a video-conference chaired by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi with six other state Chief ministers on the Centre insisting on holding the NEET/JEE (Main) exams in September. Talking to Punjab CM Amarinder Singh, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, Puducherry CM V Narayanaswamy and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Gandhi criticised the Modi govt for dealing with problems of students uncaringly. Banerjee urged all state CMs to approach the Supreme Court if Centre does not listen to her plea to postpone the exams.

She said, "Government already announced dates for exams but how will the students give exams. Over 25 lakh students have enrolled. If Centre doesn't appeal to the SC, we as a state govt will appeal in the SC. Let's do this together. If Punjab, Maharashtra, Puducherry, Rajasthan etc join the appeal, we can approach the SC and launch a public movement at all the Gandhi statues across the country for the students." The West Bengal CM has already written to Prime Minister Modi seeking deferment in the exams.

Apart from Banerjee, Thackeray too raised the issue of infection among children if schools are reopened, citing the example of US where 97,000 children were infected by COVID-19 due to early reopening of schools.  Singh and Soren seconded Banerjee's resolution to approach the SC seeking deferment on exams - with Soren preferring to talk to the PM prior to approaching the Supreme Court. Centre has confirmed that the NEET exam will be held on September 13 while the JEE (Main) too will be held from 1 September to 6 September 2020.

West Bengal reports 58 more COVID deaths, 2,964 fresh cases

Bengal's COVID fight

The COVID-19 death toll in West Bengal mounted to 2,909 after 58 more people succumbed to the disease on Tuesday. The state's coronavirus tally also rose to 1,44,801 after 2,964 new infections were reported in 24 hours. In the last 24 hours, 3,251 COVID-19 patients have recovered improving the states discharge rate to 79.10 per cent from 78.46 per cent on Monday. 16,34,102 such tests were conducted till date in West Bengal.

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