Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 5 PM today. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) tweeted the announcement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address the nation at 5 pm today. PM Modi has addressed the nation a number of times since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, offering suggestions to people and outlining measures his government has been taking to deal with the situation. He has also made new announcements at times in the address. 

PM Modi’s address to the nation on Monday comes at a time when the country recorded its lowest coronavirus cases in two months with 1 lakh fresh cases. The daily Covid-19 death toll has also come down while the number of active cases in the country has decreased to 14 lakh.

The Centre’s decisions on vaccines were fell short when India was devastated by the scale of Covid cases in the second wave in March-April. The government had to pause exports of Covid shots under its “Vaccine Maitri” programme and scrambled to procure more doses to tackle shortage in the country as it widened vaccinations to all adults. The slow roll-out has become a big concern as experts warn of a third wave of Covid.

Addressing a meeting of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Society via video conference, PM Modi, who is also the president of the scientific body, cited India’s experience in the previous century to say that the country used to wait for years to lay its hands on innovations achieved abroad, but its scientists are now working shoulder to shoulder with their counterparts outside.

Mean-while, India reported 1,14,460 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest daily surge in 60 days, and 2,677 deaths (the lowest in 42 days) in the last 24 hours, as per Health Ministry data on Sunday. In a sign of improvement in the Covid-19 situation, India has been reporting below 2 lakh Coronavirus cases for the past few weeks. As many as 189,232 patients have been cured/discharged from the hospitals, while and 2,677 succumbed deaths in the last 24 hours, Health Ministry said on Sunday. Single-day rise of 1,14,460 cases pushed India’s Covid-19 tally to 2,88,09,339; Death toll surged to 3,46,759 with 2,677 fatalities in the last 24 hours, as per Health Ministry data. The daily positivity rate further dropped to 5.62 percent; active Covid-19 cases also dropped to 14,77,799, now accounts for just 5.13 percent of total cases.