New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 8 pm on Tuesday, the Prime Minister’s Office said.Shri @narendramodi will be addressing the nation at 8 PM this evening.— PMO India (@PMOIndia) May 12, 2020The prime minister’s address comes a day after he interacted with chief ministers in a video conference and called for a “balanced strategy” to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.During the interaction, which was also attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, home minister Amit Shah, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and health minister Harsh Vardhan among others, the prime minister sought inputs from states on the way forward in fighting the pandemic.During the video conference, some chief ministers also sought for an expansion of testing, while many also demanded financial support for states.Some state chief ministers also suggested that a certain degree of autonomy be conferred on them to declare red, orange or green zones after taking into account the ground realities.Also read: Politics and COVID-19: Will the Pandemic Result in State Power Expanding?While Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal reportedly favoured allowing all economic activities, barring in the identified containment zones, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh favoured extending the lockdown in view of the rising number of cases.West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on the other hand, pointed out that the Centre wanted strict lockdown enforcement on one hand, but was resuming train services on the other.According to the health ministry, India now has 70,756 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 46,008 active confirmed cases in the country. The death toll has also risen to 2,293 deaths.The last time the prime minister had addressed the nation was on April 14 when he said that lockdown restrictions had been extended till May 3 to curb the spread of COVID-19.(With inputs from PTI)