Coaching centre deaths: Civil services aspirants continue protest for fifth day
New Delhi (PTI): Civil services aspirants protesting the Rajinder Nagar coaching centre deaths continued their agitation for the fifth day on Thursday, a day after the area was again submerged following heavy rain.
"We will continue our protest. The rain on Wednesday showed everyone the situation we face in this area during such conditions," Goutam, a civil service aspirant, said.
Goutam is also a part of the 15-member team that was formed on Wednesday by the protesting students to decide the protest's future course of action and communicate with the authorities concerned.
Senior officials from the Delhi Police and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) visited the protest site to address the concerns of the students and maintain law and order in the area.
Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar area, where three students died due to flooding in the basement of a coaching centre last week, received heavy rain on Wednesday evening, with commuters were seen wading through waterlogged lanes and fearing for their safety.
Several videos of the flood-like situation in the stretch that is lined with many coaching centres surfaced on the internet.
The MCD has been heavily criticised for the incident, which has triggered a political blame game between the BJP and the AAP.
Students have been protesting since the incident happened on July 27 and are demanding improved safety measures at coaching centres that pose a threat to their lives.
After the rain, Rajinder Nagar's AAP MLA Nagar Durgesh Pathak reached the area. In a video shared by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on its X handle, Pathak was seen wading through knee-deep water while being accompanied by some students.
Three students, identified as Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni and Nevin Dalvin, died after rain water gushed inside of basement of Rau's IAS Study Circle in Old Rajinder Nagar on July 27 evening.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
