Tamil Nadu government on Monday announced that it will consider the demands of the striking nurses and would take steps to immediately regularise 723 of them on seniority basis by Pongal (mid-January) 2026. Also, a key demand to provide them maternity leave with pay will also be considered positively, state Health Minister Ma Subramanian said as the strike by the government nurses appointed on consolidated pay entered the fifth day today. "Chief Minister M K Stalin has directed to consider the plea for maternity leave with pay and also other demands included in their ten-point charter," Subramanian told reporters here after holding parleys with representatives of the nurses' associations. He assured that the government would take immediate steps to resolve their problems. The nurses have been on strike since December 18 throughout the state and over 500 of them were arrested in Chennai on the third day of their agitation. Braving the nippy weather, some of them had brought their ki