Heartless middle class

Your cover story ‘Ugly truths about young India’ (EW March) brilliantly reveals shocking truths about the country’s ‘educated’ youth. That 74 percent of class IX and first year college students don’t know that legislatures enact laws, and 53 percent want military rule in the country is a telling indictment of India’s ossified education system which has failed to provide basic citizenship education and values to children. Even more disconcerting are the survey respondents’ attitudes towards women and the underprivileged. Their casual acceptance of violence against women and hostility towards dirt poor migrant labour is reflective of India’s misogynist and heartless ‘educated’ middle class. School and college syllabuses and curriculums need to be urgently overhauled to incorporate the values of liberty, justice, democratic citizenship and gender equality.  Mayank Gupta Delhi Grant JU central status! Your special report on Jadavpur University (EW March) was well-written and researched. It’s unfortunate the Trinamool Congress is targeting this top-ranked university to establish its supremacy over the state’s higher education institutions. The education sector in West Bengal has been in the doldrums since the days of the CPM, which during its 34 years of uninterrupted rule in the state ruined its once envied higher education system. There was hope that after the TMC’s huge electoral victory in 2011, things would turn around in education. But alas, the TMC is subverting the state’s colleges and universities in much the same manner as the CPM. I strongly believe that given the excellent national standing of Jadavpur, the Union government must grant it Central university status. Sumana Chatterjee Mumbai Milken misinformation The EducationWorld March 2015 People profile of Michael Milken, the American philanthropist and financier, correctly noted his transformational role in advancing medical research, education and public health; his financial innovations that helped create millions of jobs, and the impact of the annual Milken Institute Global Conference as a highly respected forum for convening international leaders in search of solutions to society’s challenges. But the article misstated some facts, including why and when Milken chose to relocate his business to Los Angeles in the 1970s. The explanation is too long to state here, but the correct information can be found on the biography page at www.mikemilken.com. Geoffrey Moore Advisor to Michael Milken Santa Monica, California Irresponsible silence Thanks for your bold editorial ‘Muslim middle class must lead’ (EW February). You have forthrightly condemned barbarous atrocities inflicted on innocent people and particularly students, by rabid militants inspired by preachers promoting terrorism in the name of Islam. It’s time the Muslim intelligentsia — proud descendants of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Zakir Hussain, among other great nation builders — stepped forward to stop clerics from determining the fate of India’s 150 million Muslims.  The silence of the Muslim intelligentsia and middle class, is majorly responsible for emboldening fatwa-obsessed clerics and vote-bank politicians who are hoodwinking the community in the name of religion. The nation’s Muslims are entitled to the rights bestowed upon all citizens by the Constitution, and deserve…