Kolkata diary
Convocation for 200 students amid Covid
Ramakrishna Mission Vidyamandira will hold its annual convocation on the Belur campus on December 12 maintaining all health and safety protocols. Around 200 students of undergraduate, postgraduate, PhD and MPhil will be awarded their degree certificates during the ceremony. The college authorities said they had decided to hold the ceremony on the campus as Unlock VI guidelines of the Centre allowed social, academic, and other congregations in closed spaces using up to 50 per cent of the hall capacity and with up to 200 people.
About 1,500 live turtles seized
Around 1,500 dead and live turtles, stacked in jute sacks and being ferried with onions, were seized from a pick-up van in Barasat, North 24-Parganas, on the northern fringe of Kolkata, on Wednesday. Police arrested six men who were ferrying the turtles. The pick-up van had a registration number issued by the Uttar Pradesh government and all six accused are from Sultanpur in UP. ‘’We seized 1,295 live and 188 dead Indian flap shell turtles and 17 live Indian Peacock-shell turtles. Both species are protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act,’’ said an official of the forest department.
State gears up for vaccine drive
West Bengal government will start training senior health officials in various districts on how to handle cold chains after the Centre on Tuesday asked state governments to ramp up infrastructure to store Covid-19 vaccines, and also, prepare for the immunisation process. A cold chain is a temperature-controlled unit where handlers are responsible for the storage and preservation of vaccines for immunisations and last-mile delivery. There are 25-40 cold chain centres in each Bengal district. Last week, the central health ministry said vaccines would arrive by the end of December or early next year
IIEST to hold exams digitally
Indian Institute of Engineering Science And Technology, Shibpur will hold its upcoming semester exams through a digital platform after students, during Monday’s senate meeting, expressed their fears about writing the tests on the campus because of the Covid-19 pandemic, said an official of the institute. Final-year BTech students of the Shibpur institute had written the final semester supplementary exams on the campus last month, but a much larger number will write the upcoming semester tests. Only 59 students had written the supplementary exams on the campus while as many as 3,000 are slated to write the semester tests in December and January.
pranab mondal
Our correspondent in West Bengal pranabm@newindianexpress.com