Athletes and coaches recently complained of being pressured to finish training earlier so that an IAS officer may walk his dog on the ground. The event sparked widespread criticism on social media.

On the other side, another IAS officer, Keerthi Jalli, has become an internet phenomenon for all the right reasons. Jalli was recently seen inspecting flood-affected regions in Assam’s Cachar district, walking barefoot through the murky waters, and talking with locals who had been uprooted by the natural disaster.

A photo of the officer deployed in Assam was shared by Awanish Sharan, a 2009-batch IAS officer. The officer was captured in a boat with a village woman in the now-viral photograph. The post got over 52k likes and more than 3k retweets already. 

Many other users on the platform, including Sharan, praised the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer for her work ethic and humility.

Jalli was the first female Deputy Commissioner of the Hailakandi district in southern Assam since it was founded in 1989, and she was also highly involved in a number of projects in the area.

Meanwhile, the current floods in Assam have wreaked havoc in Cachar. Scores of people are still being housed in makeshift relief camps throughout the district. This year’s floods have affected approximately 1,63,000 people in 291 villages, according to reports. In Cachar, 11,200 dwellings have been damaged, and 5,915 hectares of cropland have been flooded.