Ukraine says Russia captures Donbas villages around Severodonetsk
The Hindu
Their capture puts Russian troops deeper in the Donbas region where they appear closer to encircling the two urban hubs which are separated by the Donets river
Ukraine said Thursday that its troops lost control over two settlements in the eastern Donbas region where it is fighting fiercely to retain control of the twin cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.
“We lost control over Loskutivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka,” said the Lugansk regional governor, Sergiy Gaiday, referring to two hamlets south east of Lysychansk.
Also read:Severodonetsk | Battle for the Donbas
Their capture puts Russian troops deeper in the Donbas region where they appear closer to encircling the two urban hubs which are separated by the Donets river.
Mr. Gaiday added that Russian forces were working to capture Severodonetsk, an industrial town with a pre-war population of around 100,000 where Ukrainian and Russian troops have been fighting in a brutal standoff for weeks.
He said Moscow’s army was “conducting offensive operations to encircle our troops in the Lysychansk area, and are blocking the Lysychansk-Bakhmut route,” a key lifeline out of the embattled area.
“Severodonetsk is being destroyed, all positions of our forces are shelled around the clock,” 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.