Tourists throng Yercaud for New Year celebrations
The Hindu
Tourists throng Yercaud for New Year celebrations; police issue guidelines & deploy extra forces to ensure safety.
Thousands of tourists thronged Yercaud on Sunday, December 31 for New Year celebrations. The police had strengthened checking and permitted vehicles going to the hill town after checking, on Sunday.
The Yercaud police issued guidelines on Saturday for the public and tourists and urged them to avoid celebrations in public places. On Sunday morning, more police were deployed at the checkpoint in the Yercaud foothills, and all vehicles, including two-wheelers, cars, and tourist vehicles, were completely checked before they were allowed. The police also warned that liquor bottles would be seized if they were carried in the vehicles.
Since Yercaud was home to several lodges and resorts, police said they provided strict instructions not to allow tourists to come inebriated and to monitor the premises using CCTV cameras. The police also warned against bursting crackers, cutting cakes in public, and disturbing other tourists. The police are also checking vehicles at Yercaud town to curb over speeding and drunken driving.
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.