Zoos face hardship in arranging food for animals

New Delhi: A large number of zoos across the country have been facing “severe hardships” in arranging food and drinking water for animals due to the restrictions imposed for containment of the novel coronavirus, the Central Zoo Authority said on Tuesday. The authority, a statutory body of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, has now written to states and Union Territories to specify supply of food and drinking water, and upkeep and health care of captive animals in zoos as “essential services” to exempt them from the restrictions. PTI

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Pune firm develops testing kit for virus

Mumbai: In what may go down as an important solution in India’s fight against Covid, Pune-based Mylabs Discovery Solutions has created an indigenous solution to test patients, which can halve the time taken for results. “The molecular diagnostic company, which received statutory approvals late on Monday from the authorities, can manufacture over 15,000 testing kits per day from its facility at Lonavala in Pune district and the same will be ramped up to 25,000 kits per day,” its co-founder Shrikant Patole said. Patole said the company was able to shorten the test time to 2.5 hours with the “Mylab PathoDetect COVID-19 Qualitative PCR kit” as against the prevalent six to eight hours. pti