Last week Ananya decided to do things differently because she was feeling gloomy. This week she tells us about good and bad habits she had picked up during the lockdown. If you want to know more about Ananya, click here to read her bio.
Press the play button to find out which video game Ananya started playing.
Current situation in India 26-05-2020
Last week the number of cases kept increasing rapidly in India. Eventually, there were more COVID-19 cases in India than in China. Modi announced that the lockdown could not be ended, so India is now in lockdown 4.0 till May 31. but the intensity of the lockdown differs per zone.
There is still no decrease in the numbers this passed week. In the last eight days the number of cases increased with 48.752, and 1.145 more deaths. On Monday the 25th of May India became the 10th country with the highest number of cases worldwide.
Exams for students
Students from the tenth and the twelfth class of secondary school will have their Central Board Exam between the 1st of July till July 15. There are 15.000 centers in the country where students will take their exams. Normally there are only 3.000 centers. By expanding the locations social distancing can be ensured and traveling to the centers can be minimalized. There can be no centers in contaminated areas. Students and teachers will have to wear facemasks during the exams.
The Central Board Exams are necessary for admission to higher education institutions.
University exams
Different states in India have announced the dates for universities to hold their exams. In Madhya Pradesh they will take place between June 29 till the 31st of July . In Uttarakhand they will start on the 1st of July till the end of the month.
Concerns over online exams
Taking exams online are seen as one of the solutions during the lockdown. However, this resulted in some protest because there are worries over connectivity and cheating. With the hashtag #DUAgainstOnlineExams students from the Delhi University object the idea of online exams. According to the Teachers Association from this same university, online exams discriminate students who do not have access to all of the necessary technology.
The Delhi University is arranging an open book examination for the final semester of their undergraduate and post-graduate programmes. The idea is that students download a question paper, write their answers on plain paper, scan this and upload it online. This has to be done in a certain amount of time.
Migrant workers
Migrant workers have been struggling a lot during the lockdown. They were unable to reach home. Eventually special shramik trains were announced, but the problems are still not solved. In Mumbai the word of a train to Bihar got out, this led to huge crowds. There were only 1.700 seats on the train, but more than 2.000 people wanted to take the train. The police decided to use lathi-charge (hitting people with a wooden stick) to break up the crowd.
Shramik trains
Migrant workers have to register with authorities before they can get assigned to a train seat. For some workers it is impossible to do this because they don’t have a phone to receive the call when they got a seat.
On Saturday the 23rd of May the Railway Board chairman announced that in the next ten days 3.6 million migrants would be able to travel home on a shramik train.
Lack of contraception will lead to unsafe abortions
Because of the lockdown the access to contraception has been limited. The Foundation for Reproductive Health Services India thinks this will lead to millions of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths. If you would like to know more about this topic, read this article.
Extras
In her voice memo Ananya talks about the pressure on students do to well. According to the Indian National Crime Records Bureau there were 2.625 suicides related to ‘failure in examination’ in 2018. Read this article, or this one, if you want to know more about why exams during the Indian lockdown should be postponed.
Want to know more about how teaching will change because of corona in India? Check out this article.
Watch this video if you want to know more about the issues migrant workers are facing.
Thousands of kilos of grapes got saved because of the help from online communities. This article explains how farmers can be helped, while also getting a better price for their produce.
Domestic flights have resumed which led to chaos at airports. Take a look at this video to see how they prepared for reopening, and read this to find out what caused all the chaos.
In an opinion article Sruthisagar Yamunan writes about how the Delhi police is using the lockdown to arrest anti-CAA activist. For more information read this.
Previous stories on India:
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Manel van Nieuwland 
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