UPSC aspirants meet MCD commissioner, flag safety concerns at Delhi's coaching centres
New Delhi (PTI): A delegation of UPSC aspirants met MCD Commissioner Ashwani Kumar at the agency headquarters here on Wednesday amid protests that have erupted following the death of three students at a coaching centre in the national capital.
The students have approached Kumar to discuss the poor safety measures at several coaching centres that pose a threat to their lives, among other issues.
The meeting is currently underway, a civic body official said.
Meanwhile, the protest by civil services aspirants at central Delhi's Old Rajinder Nagar, against the July 27 incident which claimed three lives, entered the fourth day on Wednesday.
Students protestors said a coordination committee comprising 15 members has been formed to decide the protest's future course of action and communicate with the authorities concerned.
"We have formed a 15-member committee and the committee members will decide further course of action," said Goutam, a civil services aspirant.
Aspirants from different coaching centres have been staging a dharna in front of Rau's Study Circle from Sunday.
Some students also began a hunger strike on Tuesday against the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to press their demands.
"We will continue our protest till our demands are met," another student Sunil Kumar said.
Senior police officers are visiting the protest site and interacting with the demonstrators to understand their demands, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) M Harsha Vardhan said.
DCP Vardhan said, "On Tuesday, committee members formed by the students had met Delhi LG. I have also given them (students) information about what action has been taken, and how far the investigation has gone."
The Delhi Police on Tuesday questioned VP Gupta, the father-in-law of the owner of the coaching centre.
The police have also asked four municipal officers to join the investigation.
A senior police officer said that they questioned Gupta about ownership rights of the coaching centre, adding that they may also call Rau's IAS Study Circle owner Abhishek Gupta's wife for questioning.
Five people, including four co-owners of basement of the building where the coaching centre was functioning were arrested.
The driver of an SUV which drove through the flooded street, causing the water to swell and breach the gates of the three-storey building and inundate the basement, was among the five arrested. The SUV was also seized.
Three students identified as Shreya Yadav, Tanya Soni, and Nevin Dalvin have died in the incident after rain water gushed inside of basement of a coaching institute building 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.
