Buoyed by vaccine optimism, educational administrators are working with vigour to end the prolonged disruption to schooling, and conduct traditional pen-and-paper public examinations in 2021. The CBSE, with more than 20,000 schools under its ambit at the secondary level, has weighed in favour of written mode tests, obviously counting on progress in dealing with the pandemic. As a system with 1.2 million students registering for its senior school certificate examination, and covering schools for expatriates as well, the Board is a bellwether for academic schedules. Quite fortuitously, it was able to wrap up its 2020 examination schedule that began in mid-February, without getting derailed by the national lockdown in March. State Boards, however, are yet to make up their minds on the schedule for annual examinations and the academic session for next year; badly affected Maharashtra and Gujarat are thinking of postponing the final examinations. Reflecting the overall concern on lost
When Joe Biden left the government in 2017 after having served as Barack Obama’s Vice-President for eight years, the U.S.-Iran relationship was on a totally different trajectory from what it is now. The U.S., along with other international powers, had signed a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 and both countries were cooperating in the war against the Islamic State in Iraq. Then came Donald Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the nuclear deal is called, and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Now, when Mr. Biden would assume the presidency on January 20, one of his most pressing early diplomatic challenges would be Iran. During the campaign, his promise was to take the U.S. back to the deal, but any such move would meet with strong opposition from its allies in West Asia, especially Israel. The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian nuclear physicist, last week has escalated tensions in the region. Iran has blamed Israel for the attack
