September 5, 2023

With the water flow returning to normal in Sutlej, educational institutions reopened in the areas of eastern Punjab affected by the recent flooding in the river. According to the education department, the 63 schools have been opened again which were closed last month on August 20 after Sutlej submerged a vast area along its path. Forty-eight of these are in Pakpattan tehsil and the remaining 15 in Arifwala tehsil. Both of these tehsils are part of the Pakpattan district. On the other hand, the irrigation department says inflow at Sulemanki Headworks is 30,988 cusecs with an outflow of 16,866 cusecs. Source:https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Sep-2023/schools-reopened-in-areas-affected-by-sutlej-floods

BLACK ROCK CITY-Tens of thousands of festivalgoers were stranded Sunday in deep mud in the Nevada desert after rain turned the annual Burning Man gathering into a quagmire, with police investigating one death. Video footage showed costume-wearing “burners” struggling across the wet gray-brown site, some using trash bags as makeshift boots, while many vehicles were stuck in the sludge. All events at the counterculture festival, which drew some 70,000 people, were canceled after rain tore down structures for dance parties, art installations and other entertainment. Police said they were probing one death, without giving further details. Road gates in and out of the Black Rock City venue were closed, but some desperate attendees trudged on foot for hours to reach the nearest road and hitch a lift out. “It was an incredibly harrowing six-mile (10 kilometer) hike at midnight through heavy and slippery mud, but I got safely out,” lawyer Neal Katyal said on social media. “It is very slippery and the mud is like cement and sticks to your boots. “No one should try this unless in good shape and part of a group. These are dangerous conditions to hike and will likely get worse.” Festival crowds were asked to shelter in place and conserve food and water after the heavy rains started Friday night, with more downpours forecast on Sunday. “You can’t really walk or drive,” a young woman named Christine Lee, a circus performer, said on TikTok. Internet service was either not available or patchy, she said. “My boots are five inches, and the mud became five inches so I was kind of on stilts,” Lee said, adding people were being told they may be stuck until Tuesday. “We have enough tuna for a week so we’re OK.” A video posted on social media showed comedian Chris Rock hitching a ride in the back of a pickup truck after managing to leave. Source: https://www.nation.com.pk/05-Sep-2023/thousands-still-stuck-in-mud-at-burning-man-festival-one-dead

French public schools have sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – long, loose-fitting robes worn by some Muslim women and girls – on the first day of the school year, according to Education Minister Gabriel Attal. Defying a ban on the garment seen as a religious symbol, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing abayas, Attal told the BFM broadcaster on Tuesday. end of list Most agreed to change out of the robe, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said. The government announced last month it was banning the abaya in schools, saying it broke the rules on secularism in education that have already seen headscarves banned on the grounds they constitute a display of religious affiliation. The move gladdened the political right but the hard left argued it represented an affront to civil liberties. Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris before the ban came into force said Attal deemed the garment a religious symbol which violates French secularism. “Since 2004, in France, religious signs and symbols have been banned in schools, including headscarves, kippas and crosses,” she said. “Gabriel Attal, the education minister, says that no one should walk into a classroom wearing something which could suggest what their religion is.” Attal said on Tuesday the girls refused entry on Monday were given a letter addressed to their families saying that “secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty”. If they showed up at school again wearing the gown there would be a “new dialogue”, the minister said. ‘Worst consequences’ On Monday evening, President Emmanuel Macron defended the controversial measure, saying there was a “minority” in France who “hijack a religion and challenge the republic and secularism”. He said it leads to the “worst consequences” such as the murder three years ago of teacher Samuel Paty for showing Prophet Muhammad caricatures during a civics education class. “We cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened,” he said in an interview with the YouTube channel, HugoDecrypte. An association representing Muslims has filed a motion with the State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against state authorities, for an injunction against the ban on the abaya and the qamis, its equivalent dress for men. The Action for the Rights of Muslims (ADM) motion is to be examined later on Tuesday. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/5/schools-in-france-send-dozens-of-muslim-girls-home-for-wearing-abaya