During Durga Puja, while festivities marked cities, these Bengal villages used art to fight COVID-19
The Hindu
The campaign, which began on October 1, is being organised by the community radio of Jadavpur University with support from UNICEF and is being executed by the Kolkata-based Chalchitra Academy.
Earlier this month, when the cities of West Bengal were busy celebrating Durga Puja, children in five tribal villages of the State were painting the walls of their modest homes to create awareness against COVID-19, which continues to be a major threat in both urban and rural areas.
The campaign, which began on October 1, is being organised by the community radio of Jadavpur University with support from UNICEF and is being executed by the Kolkata-based Chalchitra Academy, a collective of artists.
“The pandemic was not only pushing many rural communities into isolation but was also threatening many forms of folk art. People were on the verge of abandoning those arts and taking up professions that brought more income. So we decided to use these very people and their art forms to spread awareness about COVID-19 and to promote vaccination,” Imankalyan Lahiri, who teaches international relations at the university and is the convener of the community radio, told The Hindu.
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.
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