CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu CM designate MK Stalin on Tuesday announced media professionals as frontline workers. The journalists will now be eligible for all benefits, including priority vaccination against coronavirus.
Stalin in a tweet stated that all journalists working in newspapers and visual media risk their lives and their work will be considered as front-line workers in Tamil Nadu.
"All media persons working in newspapers, visual and audio media at the risk of their lives due to rain, sun and floods will be considered as frontline employees in Tamil Nadu," Stalin tweeted in Tamil.
"Rights of Priority Employees - Privileges will be given to them accordingly," he added.
Earlier, Sates including Bihar, Punjab, and Madhya Pradesh have included Journalists in the list of frontline warriors in the fight against COVID-19.
India's total tally of COVID-19 cases crossed the 2-crore mark with over 50 lakh infections being added in just 15 days.
The total tally of coronavirus cases in the country mounted to 2,02,82,833 with 3,57,229 new infections being reported in a day, while the death toll increased to 2,22,408 with 3,449 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.
India's total COVID-19 infections had surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19 after which it took 107 days to reach 1.25 crore on April 5. However, it only took 15 days for the cases to cross the 1.50 mark.
Registering a steady increase, the active cases have increased to 34,47,133 comprising 17 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 81.91 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.
(With inputs from PTI)