Analysis | Amit Shah visit likely to boost BJP ahead of Maharashtra civic polls
The Hindu
Party making calculated move by invoking Shivaji and Ambedkar, according to analysts
Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s two-day visit to Maharashtra is expected to ahead of the crucial civic polls, particularly the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) election scheduled for February next year.
On Sunday, Mr. Shah will lay the foundation stone of Chhatrapati Shivaji’s statue within the PMC premises and unveil a bust of Babasaheb Ambedkar at the entrance of the newly constructed civic building.
According to analysts, the BJP’s play around the and the greatest Dalit leader appears to be a calculated one at a time when the ire of both the Maratha and OBC communities is directed against the tripartite ‘Maha Vikas Aghadi’ government of the Shiv Sena, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Congress for having failed to ensure reservation for them.
“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.