Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar on Tuesday became the first Indian student to lose his life in a bomb attack that targeted the Governor's House in Kharkiv. The 21-year-old was standing in a queue to buy groceries at a supermarket in Kharkiv when Russian shelling began in the city.
"We, too, have a plan, should see (about leaving Kharkiv) tomorrow," Naveen, who hails from Karnataka's Haveri district, had told his family during his last video call.
"Do try. Don’t wait there thinking someone will come and help you escape," Naveen's uncle had told him on the phone.

Before Russia declared war on Ukraine on 24 February, Indian students of Kharkiv National Medical University had tried to leave the country, three students who were trapped with Naveen told The Quint. They, however, could not leave the campus as flight charges were unaffordable, and ranged between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh, they said. Read Nikhila Henry and Pratiba Raman's report.

Naveen's death and the desperation of others trapped in Ukraine are a pathetic reflection on the Indian diplomatic mission in Ukraine, which wound up its operations in Kyiv and is relocating in Lviv, near Ukraine’s western border. Clearly late in reacting to escalating tensions between Ukraine and Russia, despite weeks of Western intelligence reports suggesting an imminent attack on Ukraine, Ambassador Partha Satpathy and his diplomatic staff are missing in action. And Indians, particularly students, are facing the brunt of India’s diplomatic positioning and ineffectual diplomatic posturing, writes Nilova Roy Chaudhury.

Meanwhile, closer home, former Turkish Airlines Chairperson Ilker Ayci on Tuesday turned down Tata Sons' offer to be the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Air India. There are many ways one can look at his surprise appointment and then the quick exit, even before the takeover. But one question before we talk of the controversial appointment and the equally controversial exit is this: How did the politically sensitive Tata group even consider a Turkish national for the role?
Here's where it is increasingly clear that CEO candidates should be reasonably vetted on political grounds where the company in question is, in effect, a national institution, writes Madhavan Narayanan.

In other news, on 17 February, 13 people lost their lives due to medical incompetence and no primary healthcare facility in the Nebua Naurangia village of Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar. The incident took place during a wedding ceremony and Shailesh Yadav, a villager, told The Quint that the hospital that is 4 km away from the village didn’t send their ambulance even after an hour-and-a-half.
The villagers have now started an agitation putting forth the condition that if they don’t get their hospital, they will abstain from voting in this election, reports Piyush Rai.

Meanwhile, the recent loss of a 16-year-old student from DPS Faridabad brings back how the time spent in a school’s ecosystem has a longstanding influence on our relationships with ourselves. It cannot be ignored that 54 percent of LGBTQI+ youth have experienced bullying in schools at least once because of their identity, as per a UNESCO study. Multiple studies also find that LGBTQI+ youth who are bullied are three times more likely to be at risk of suicide than those who haven’t.
We need each school to make an active commitment towards giving teachers, students, parents, staff, and caregivers the tools to dismantle their internalised toxic masculinity and patriarchal femininity, which are translating into violence against LGBTQI+ youths and adults, writes Ragi Gupta.