PM Narendra Modi to address the nation at 5 pm today.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 5 PM on Monday, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has tweeted. He is likely to speak on the prevailing Covid-19 situation in the country, as several states across the country including Maharashtra and Delhi have started the process of ‘unlocking’ by gradually easing coronavirus-induced restrictions and curfews.

However, there are also some states, like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Goa, that have decided to continue with lockdown in view of the Covid-19 situation in the respective states.

The Prime Minister is also expected to talk about vaccine procurement as more and more states are asking the Centre to step in after having drawn a blank in global tenders to purchase vaccines and the Supreme Court raising a



slew of questions, the Union government is considering reverting to centralised procurement.

“If all states want the Union government to centrally procure, we will discuss it. We are willing to consider such a request,” a top government source told The Indian Express Sunday.

Meanwhile, India reported 1,00,636 new Covid-19 cases and 2,427 deaths on Monday. Part of it has to do with low testing on Sunday. Only 15.87 lakh samples were tested on Sunday, compared to an average of more than 20 lakh in the last week. Tamil Nadu, the top contributor, reported 20,421 cases. Only four states had a case count of more than 10,000. On the fatalities front, about 1,600 of the total deaths in the last 24 hours has been reported from just four states – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.