Fraudster’s arrest puts top leaders, officers in a spot
The Hindu
Their photos with Monson go viral
Several politicians and top police officers were reportedly left red-faced after photographs and videos showing them in the company of alleged fake antique dealer and “debt-dodging confidence trickster” Monson Mavunkal went viral on mainstream and social media on Monday.
Monson had fallen into the police dragnet on Sunday on the charge of palming off recently handcrafted cheap knock-offs as authentic relics to wealthy, uninformed and eager collectors.
The suspect’s social media account showed him in the company of an astonishing number of rich, famous and influential people, including Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president K. Sudhakaran, MP, actors and the police top brass.
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.