Being ready to face the future
The Hindu
Having started a slew of initiatives to help the community fight the virus, The Bengal Association is now working on augmenting some of them
When 63-year-old Timir Bhattacharya tested COVID-positive in April, his daughters, who were not staying with him, got anxious. Cases were on the rise in Chennai and before there was a need for an oxygen cylinder, they procured one for their dad as a precautionary measure. “Thankfully, my oxygen levels did not go below 90 and I did not have to use the equipment,” says Bhattacharya, a resident of Chembarambakkam. Bhattacharya did not want to keep the 30-litre cylinder that came with a spanner, mask and oxygen flow meter unutilised. He donated it to The Bengal Association Trust that has been running a raft of “COVID Response” initiatives to help the community as well as those in utmost need.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.