Probe into chopper crash may take few more weeks: IAF chief
The Hindu
Says court of inquiry will be a thorough and ‘very fair’ process
The probe into the helicopter crash that killed former Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat and 12 others may take a few more weeks and the court of inquiry would be a thorough process, Chief of Air Staff V.R. Chaudhari said on Saturday.
He said that he would not like to pre-empt any of the findings of the court of inquiry since it is a thorough process. “The mandate given to him (Air Marshal Manvendra Singh, the investigating officer) is to investigate every single angle and look into every single aspect of what could have gone wrong and come out with the suitable recommendations and findings,” he said while addressing the media after reviewing the Combined Graduation Parade (CGP) at the Air Force Academy at Dundigal here.
“I would recommend that I do not make any announcement in haste about what could have been the cause or what are the remedial actions that we are going to institute,” he said. “So, we will just have to wait for a few more weeks till the court of inquiry is completed. Let me assure you that it is a very, very fair process, the entire court of inquiry,” the Air Chief Marshal said, expressing grief over the demise of General Rawat and others.
“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.