Two teams tied at national inter-school crossword contest
The Hindu
Due to the pandemic, the Cryptic Crossword Contest 2021 is being held in an online format
Two teams were tied at the first and second positions at the end of Phase I of the prestigious annual national-level inter-school Cryptic Crossword Contest 2021, on Sunday. The contest was inaugurated on July 31. The teams led by Vijval Ekbote of The Mother’s International School, New Delhi, and Adya Singh of Notre Dame Academy, Patna, shared the first spot; those led by Vaishnavi Pandey of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) Farrukhabad and Aditya Sharma of JNV Faridabad shared the second spot. The team led by Ashish M. of DPS Pune got the third position. The rankings are based on the cumulative scores of the two online rounds on July 31 and August 1. Based on the overall rankings, school teams will now be shortlisted for a face-to-face online round and then for an offline Grand Finale in Phase II. All online rounds are hosted on the portal crypticsingh.com.“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.