Jammu-Srinagar highway blocked due to landslides; Mughal Road closed after first snowfall
The Hindu
The incessant rains are hampering the restoration work on the highway, according to a senior police official
The traffic on the 270-km Jammu-Srinagar national highway and the Mughal Road was suspended on Saturday as heavy rains lashed several parts of Jammu with higher reaches experiencing first moderate snowfall, officials said.
The Jammu-Srinagar national highway, the only all-weather road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country, was blocked by a massive landslide triggered by heavy rains at Cafeteria Morh near Ramban town, forcing suspension of traffic, Senior Superintendent of Police (national highway) Shabir Malik said.
He said falling of stones from hillock overlooking the highway were also reported from several places between the Ramban-Banihal sector, including Kela Morh and Moumpassi.
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.