18 houses damaged in rain in capital district since Monday
The Hindu
Eighteen houses across six taluks in Thiruvananthapuram district have been damaged in the rain over the past few days
Eighteen houses across six taluks in Thiruvananthapuram district have been damaged in the rain over the past few days.
Four houses were damaged in the Varkala taluk in the rain that has been lashing the district since Monday, five houses each were damaged in Chirayinkeezhu and Nedumangad taluks and two houses in Neyyattinkara taluk. One house each was damaged in Thiruvananthapuram and Kattakada taluks in the heavy rain.
A fishing boat overturned at Muthalapozhi following rough sea. The fishermen were rescued.
The rain also resulted in crop loss to the tune of ₹2.93 crore in the district as per preliminary estimates. Nearly 882 farmers were affected, and crop on 26.68 hectares of land affected in four days. Crops such as rubber, tapioca, coconut, vegetables, and tubers were severely hit. Plaintain crop on 23.88 ha, tapioca on 1.04 ha, vegetables on 1 ha, coconut crop on 0.44 ha, tubers on 0.2 ha, and rubber on 0.12 ha were damaged.
District Collector Geromic George directed various departments, including Revenue, to take urgent steps to mitigate the rain damage.
“Writing, in general, is a very solitary process,” says Yauvanika Chopra, Associate Director at The New India Foundation (NIF), which, earlier this year, announced the 12th edition of its NIF Book Fellowships for research and scholarship about Indian history after Independence. While authors, in general, are built for it, it can still get very lonely, says Chopra, pointing out that the fellowship’s community support is as valuable as the monetary benefits it offers. “There is a solid community of NIF fellows, trustees, language experts, jury members, all of whom are incredibly competent,” she says. “They really help make authors feel supported from manuscript to publication, so you never feel like you’re struggling through isolation.”
Several principals of government and private schools in Delhi on Tuesday said the Directorate of Education (DoE) circular from a day earlier, directing schools to conduct classes in ‘hybrid’ mode, had caused confusion regarding day-to-day operations as they did not know how many students would return to school from Wednesday and how would teachers instruct in two modes — online and in person — at once. The DoE circular on Monday had also stated that the option to “exercise online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians”. Several schoolteachers also expressed confusion regarding the DoE order. A government schoolteacher said he was unsure of how to cope with the resumption of physical classes, given that the order directing government offices to ensure that 50% of the employees work from home is still in place. On Monday, the Commission for Air Quality Management in the National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas (CAQM) had, on the orders of the Supreme Court, directed schools in Delhi-NCR to shift classes to the hybrid mode, following which the DoE had issued the circular. The court had urged the Centre’s pollution watchdog to consider restarting physical classes due to many students missing out on the mid-day meals and lacking the necessary means to attend classes online. The CAQM had, on November 20, asked schools in Delhi-NCR to shift to the online mode of teaching.