Opposition Leader Satheeshan calls on Ommen Chandy to resolve disputes in Congress
The Hindu
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan earlier said the Congress was disintegrating, and the rank and file of the party had lost faith in the faction-riven leadership
Opposition Leader V. D. Satheeshan called on Congress veteran Oomen Chandy at his house at Puthupallly in Kottayam on Sunday to ease the strain in inner-party relations caused by the contentious appointment of District Congress Committee (DCC) presidents. The visit came a day after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the Congress was disintegrating, and the rank and file of the party had lost faith in the faction-riven leadership. Mr. Satheeshan told journalists there were some issues in the Congress in Kerala. Such disputes were common in political parties, and Congress was no exception. "You cannot close your eyes to problems and say the world is dark," he said.“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.