Roadmap For Safe Reopening of Schools Post Lockdown

UNESCO, UNICEF, WFP & World Bank have issued new guidelines on the safe reopening of schools in the midst of ongoing closures affecting nearly 1.3 billion students worldwide and affecting approximately 32 Crores students in India, including those in schools and universities.

The Guidelines warn that the widespread closures of educational facilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic pose an unprecedented risk to education and well-being of children, especially for the most marginalized children who rely on school for their education, health, safety and nutrition. The guidelines offer practical advice on how to keep children safe when they return to school for the national and local authorities.

The guidelines state that while there is still not enough evidence to assess the influence of school closures on rates of disease transmission, the negative effects of school closures on the health and learning of children are well known. Gains made in increasing access to education for children in recent decades are at risk of being lost and, in the worst cases, entirely reversed.

Based on an evaluation of the potential benefits and risks to education, public health and socio-economic factors, the best interests of children and overall public health concerns must be central to the decisions of the national and local authorities to reopen schools, the guidelines state.

Schools need to look at how they can reopen better, including health, nutrition, psychosocial support and water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, with improved learning and more comprehensive support for school children.

As countries struggle to reopen schools, UNESCO, UNICEF and WFP, as part of the Global Education Alliance, encourage policymakers to consider the advantages of classroom-based teaching compared to remote learning, and the risk factors associated with reopening schools, acknowledging the inconclusive evidence on the risks associated with school attendance for infections.

Jointly discussed for the first time at a meeting of the ministers of education convened by UNESCO on preparing for the reopening of schools, the recommendations include:

Policy reform: policy consequences cover all facets of the guidelines, including consistent school opening and closing policies during crises in public safety, changes required to improve equal education for disadvantaged and out-of-school children, as well as improving and standardizing remote learning.

Financing requirements: Address COVID-19’s impact on education, and invest in strengthening recovery and resilience education systems.

Safe operations: ensuring conditions that reduce transmission of disease, safeguarding essential services and supplies and promoting healthy behavior. This requires access to soap and clean water for proper handwashing, guidelines for whether staff or students feel unwell, social distance protocols and good hygiene practices.

Compensating learning: Concentrate on activities that compensate for lost instructional time, reinforce pedagogy and draw on alternative learning models such as combining strategies in distance and remote education. This must include knowledge on the transmission and prevention of diseases.

Wellness and security: Increase the emphasis on the well-being of students and improve children’s safety through improved referral processes and the provision of critical school-based services including health care and school feeding.

To serve the most vulnerable: Change school opening policies and activities to increase access to disadvantaged communities such as children already out-of-school, children and minorities who are displaced and migrants. Diversify and extend critical communications by making them available in relevant languages and accessible formats.

Once schools start reopening, the priority is to reintegrate students into school settings safely and in ways that enable learning to recover again, especially for those who have suffered the greatest learning losses. This is a critical moment as it is the launch pad for a new normal that should be more effective and equitable. Schools will have to be logistically prepared with the teaching workforce ready to manage the reopening. And they will need to have plans specifically to help the most disadvantaged students recover from learning.

 Mr.Uttam Singh, Principal, Jindal Public School.

The Bloomsbury launches “Fate of Eight” a chronicle of Women’s life based on birth, marriage and death.

"Fate of the Eight" – written by Dhiraj highlights 4 strong female characters and gradually transitions to the agonizing tragedy that revolves around their lives.

Dhiraj has achieved a unique modern diction in his fifth book, "Fate of Eight," published by Bloomsbury, with a perfect melodrama with the little but intellectual flavor of politics, spirituality, romance, action, revenge. Dhiraj's differentiation is part of his ability to link all the dots at the end in a way that produces a real-life experience and leaves the readers spellbound again.

Riveting suspense, "Fate of Eight" tells the story of eight people whose lives are interwoven through one's life's three main milestones: birth, marriage, and death. Birth, marriage, and death are the three most important milestones of one's life and Dhiraj celebrated them in style! All right, until the very end! Diya, Mira, Pratima, and Radhika are four powerful women who each embody a trait designed by God. Their destinies are tied to four other men-Venkat, Guru, Jagdambe, and Rahim 's unique personalities. The common destiny points for this chosen group of eight are birth, marriage, and death, the only condition God sets for their souls. What's happening in between is a saga of choice and destiny. In the course of their lives, they all cross each other's path-as lovers, spouses, siblings, friends, sworn enemies. There are some relationships that last for life and some break in between. And not all of them survive fate tests.

Description and visualization are such that a film like an experience is created. For the first time, at the beginning of the book itself Dhiraj introduced God as a character and that too as a woman! God produces billions of amazing tales of real-life and that must be one of her most thrilling ones!

Who among the eight will be linked to one another in death's final destination? Who is going to get the true love that lasts forever? Where ends up leading to the plan of God? Dhiraj leads us into a nail-biting, absolute experience of "page-turning" while discovering the answers to those questions. To sum up, "Fate of Eight" is a gripping story of human relationships and destiny, of success and failure, culminating in a murder and a thrilling search for the killer!

Children to Paint their Imagination of Clean Ganga this Environment Day

We have chosen the themes of the competition in a way that the children are made aware of the changing situations of the river: Atulya Ganga

We are into the mid of Lockdown 4 making our best efforts to fight this nasty disease. Lockdown is not only a new word for all of us but all together with a new and the first-of-its-kind experience in all our lives, undoubtedly posing a lot of challenges onto our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Therefore, Atulya Ganga, keeping in mind the utmost efforts we are making to keep it together it is launching an online drawing completion for children as well as elders, and what better event to choose than World Environment Day to organize the competition and bring everyone together if not physically at least virtually. Atulya Ganga is an organization of retired Army Veterans who have made it their life mission to make our very own natural treasure Ganga clean. Now that the competition is about to set afloat everyone at Atulya Ganga is buried in preparations. All of the participants are expected to enroll themselves in the online form issued by Atulya Ganga. The results will be announced on the 5^th of June, next month and the winners will be awarded assorted gifts and prizes.

The competition has been named as “Meri Rango Se Meri Ganga” and they have devised several themes keeping in mind age groups and attempting to provide all, the freedom of imagination along with it making them aware of the Ganga we had then and now, also trying to probe their hearts with it as Ganga has always been special to every individual one way or another. We all have witnessed how our river Ganga has rejuvenated during lockdown since there was no one around to disturb its free flow. This is one sense will also somewhere ignite the desire to protect the river and try to bring it to the state it originally was and has always deserved. Retired Colonel-General Manoj Keshwar of Atulya Ganga shared that, "We have chosen the themes of the competition in a way that the children are made aware of the changing situations of the river. Through this online competition, children will be able to use their imaginations to the fullest and we are confident that we will get the art composed by the children, which we will display in front of people on our official online portal so that there will be increased awareness about Ganga amongst the masses.”

This initiative is as unique as it has been widely appreciated by esteemed schools like Jindal Public School. The Principal of Dwarka-based Jindal Public School expressed, "We are very impressed by the initiative of online competition, and ‘Meri Rango Se Meri Ganga’ being organized by the Atulya Ganga and our school children are excited to participate in this competition. Ganga is an integral part of the country and if children get a chance to contribute to this great river by any means, then they must join. This competition will increase awareness about the river between older people and children ". Anu Bajaj of St. Mary School also shared, “This online art competition being organized for children will increase awareness among children to save Ganga. We know how impressionable minds children have and it will be amazing to see what all their unbridled imagination can do. They can leave a long-lasting impression on people and society about Ganga with their painting. I can’t wait to see them all.”    

Being an exceptional competition as it is so is the organization Atulya Ganga who brainchild this idea. It is the only organization that is run by the dedicated army veterans of the country, who aim to protect Ganga from industrialization and pollution. The institution is always trying to connect school children with Ganga’s heritage because the institution believes that the future of Mahanadi Ganga rests with the country as well as the children, who will be our future. We wish people will continue to introspect and do the best that they can as humans, as citizens, and as an individual.

ANALYZING IN AND OUT OF COVID IMPACT ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING SECTOR

Seeing that the coronavirus pandemic outbreak has slackened economic growth across the globe, India is most likely to take a significant toll on various sectors. That will have a multiplier impact on the real estate market that has been seeking revival in the coming years. However, both the industrial and residential segments will face the repercussions of the virus outbreak, and affordable housing will be the worst-hit.

The affordable housing sector has increase with significant growth rate with the help of Government initiatives like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), which was announced back in 2016, Housing for All by 2022, but this growth gradually decelerated due to various factors and will now fall further due to the COVID-19 woes.

As public-private partnership projects were initiated by the government, developers were reluctant to enter the sector for various reasons, such as land shortages, unrecognized bottlenecks on property records, market dynamism, unfavorable weather conditions, socio-political implications, and skilled labor supply work throughout the project lifecycle.

Recently, the Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs in Parliament said that a revised demand assessment had been made and now the demand is for 1,12 crore homes, and he was sure that it can be met in the next month or so in terms of approval. However, the recent a survey conducted by a real estate consultancy appears to contrast with the Minister's assertion that inventories of unsold goods in the affordable sector could slightly increase in 2020.

Despite the recent rise in demand for affordable housing, the lockdown came as a significant setback for the market, which was already reeling under crisis. This will further prevent developers from barring into the affordable segment as they already struggled with cost management to boost the bottom line in these projects.

COVID-19 crisis is all about changing the dynamics of the affordable housing segment in real estate. Let’s see how:

Developers need to weigh a variety of factors – such as preparation and design, research and development, raw materials, work, and time – when reducing costs. Of these, while meeting the cost, input materials, labor, and time will become a major challenge for the developers.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, laborers fled to their respective native lands from the metro cities or major cities in fear of missing out on earnings. The lockdown has prolonged their stay further, which would now trigger a big labor-demand crisis that would have a significant effect on the sector that was already struggling for lack of skilled labor supply.

Secondly, developers will also face the problem of obtaining cheap raw material as the manufacturing units are closed and they will also feel the heat of laborers' shortage in time. Besides this, producers will still be looking to make up for the loss they experience during the lockout. Developers would, therefore, have yet another uphill challenge to get the material at cheap rates.

With a shortage of manpower, it will also become a big challenge to complete projects on time. Developers raise this problem and ideally, the government will consider offering relaxation for project delivery. Nevertheless, the production delay inevitably results in cost overruns.

In addition to all of these factors, poor buyer sentiment will also hit the segment as buyers will now wait to invest in some form of the housing project. With limited income and concerns of unemployment, affordable home buyers will postpone purchasing decisions, contributing to a rise in unsold inventories. This would result in rental accommodation and more delays in improving consumer feelings.

A Ray Of Hope For Affordable Housing Sector.

Currently, the level of economic uncertainty is at an all-time high with the recovery pace hard to foresee. Recently the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a fresh Rs 50,000 crore targeted long-term repo operation to resolve shadow banks and microfinance institutions' liquidity stress and indicated the possibility of further rate cuts in the future. RBI high the reverse repo rate to 3.75 percent by 25 basis points.  The cut in the reverse repo is a direct sign that RBI needs banks to step up lending, rather than park excess funds with the central bank. Loans provided to real estate companies by NBFCs will provide similar benefits as scheduled commercial banks would provide, thus ease the financial burden on developers.

It can be assumed that the Government will soon implement concrete fiscal steps to provide the sector with much-needed stimulus. Assuming that reducing the reverse repo rate to 3.75% from the recent 4% would make lending attractive to financial institutions, which would greatly benefit homebuyers and the real estate industry. In the current period when consumer expectations need to be strengthened, more interest rate cuts, GST, or a special home loan rate will help organized and established developers gain maximum leverage and drive sales in the upcoming period, and will also greatly influence buyers in making a purchase decision.

Such steps are necessary but it is also necessary not to be able to obstruct the recovery by government rules and policies. Insiders in the commercial real estate investment industry have expressed concern that a liquidity issue could emerge due to policies in place.

However, long-term real estate buyers will consider opportunities to pick up properties at depressed prices and less than most of us have seen in our long career with funding costs. Much as big funds came in to purchase land and homes when prices were low, we'll probably see similar trends take place in the crisis now taking shape. Those buyers will be sure to make all such purchases with diligent due diligence and studious eye.

Neh Srivastava,

Under Secretary Ministry of Home Affairs and President,

Central Secretariat Services Officers Society