Delhi Confidential: Travel Challenge

Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, who shared the dais with Science Minister Jitendra Singh at the India International Space Conclave Tuesday, said he has been travelling a lot over the last couple of months to attend events and share his space experience. He said he gets to meet the minister at many of these events, but by the time he returns to Bengaluru, he sees online that the minister is elsewhere addressing another event. Shukla said if his engagements are so tiring for him, he can only imagine what it must be like for the minister. In the coming month, Shukla will keep up his travels, but this time in the cockpit. After spending a year training for the Axiom-4 mission, he will return to his regular flying training in December.

Regional Touch

The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) organised a unique interaction on Jal Jeevan Mission with village heads (sarpanch) across the country on Tuesday. DDWS officials, coming from different states, were asked to engage with the sarpanchs in their respective regional language or dialect. Following the instructions, the officials spoke to the village heads in different regional languages, including Odia, Hindi, Rajasthani, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Mizo, Manipuri, Bundelkhandi and Magahi. DDWS Secretary Ashok K K Meena, a 1993-batch IAS officer from the Odisha cadre, was seen interacting with the sarpanchs in Odia.

Show of Strength

The swearing-in ceremony of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is likely to be a show of strength for the NDA, which swept the state polls last week, ahead of the Assembly elections in neighbouring West Bengal next year. In addition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, many senior members of the NDA-led Centre are expected to attend the event, sources said. Chief Ministers of BJP and NDA-led states are also likely to join the ceremony in Patna on Thursday.