Dilip Thakore interviewed Dr. Ranjan Pai, managing director and chief executive of Manipal Education and Medical Group Pvt. Ltd (MEMG), the holding company of all for-profit enterprises of the Manipal Education Group, in his office in Manipal Towers, Bangalore. Excerpts from the 90 minute interview.
For over 50 years the focus of the Manipal Education & Medical Group […]
Since October 2008, Hemant and Sangeeta Chhabra, and Simona Terron, have been on a mission — to collect old bicycles. This mission is not driven by a passion for vintage bicycles or entering the Limca Book of Records, but by the desire to facilitate the access of rural children, many of whom have to walk […]
Perhaps the biggest opportunity missed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance coalition government, which has reigned, even if not ruled, in New Delhi for the past five years, was to implement systemic reforms in education. Under septuagenarian Union HRD minister Arjun Singh, who was preoccupied with politicising higher education rather than reforming it in the […]
California and Texas are both large states that are home to a growing population of minorities. They also share another trait. In a blow to the policy of affirmative action, public universities in the two states were forbidden, a decade ago, from using race as a factor in college admission decisions by a federal court, […]
Like the four annual reports that have preceded it, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2008, published by the highly respected Mumbai-based NGO Pratham, projects a dismal picture of learning outcomes in government primary schools in rural India. Excepting Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, which the report says have recorded some progress. According to ASER […]
England faces a dismal picture on basic skills, despite 5 billion pound (Rs.32,500 crore) being spent over six years on improving adults reading, writing and maths. The House of Commons public accounts committee says that even if the government meets its ambition of 95 percent functional literacy and numeracy among adults by 2020, England will […]
An ambitious plan of the University of Pune (UoP) to set up an offshore campus in Dubai has come a cropper. The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), Dubais apex licensing and regulatory authority for education, has rejected the varsitys detailed proposal. According to an explanation proferred to the media by the KHDA, UoPs bouquet […]
After six weeks spent digesting Australias most comprehensive review of higher education in recent times, the countrys elite universities branded it a road map to mediocrity in late February. The Review of Australian Higher Education, chaired by Denise Bradley, former vice-chancellor of the University of South Australia, had recommended a radical overhaul of the sector, […]
The tragic death of Rohit Kumar (24), a third year electrical engineering student of the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur (estb. 1951), on March 22 prompted unprecedented violence on the placid campus of the institute, the resignation of its director, and has dealt a heavy blow to the global reputation of this internationally-respected IIT.According to IIT-Kgp […]
Growing competition for jobs in the Chinese civil service appears to have produced a boom in dishonesty, with about 1,000 cheats caught in the national entrance exams this year. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed graduates seek safe berths in government offices, but their desperation to succeed has led to the highest level of cheating on […]
With the academic year ended and bills and notices for the new school year starting in June/July, arriving in their homes, middle and upper middle class parents in Bangalore are up in arms against varying increases in school fees announced by the citys estimated 1,200 private schools. As the global economic meltdown begins to impact […]
New local laws being passed by village chiefs in northern Sierra Leone, which decree that when a school girl is impregnated by a male student, both must drop out of school, are causing concern among child protection experts. These laws have been passed by chiefs in parts of Sierra Leones northern Bombali district, according to […]
“Im not a politician. There are many people working to improve their lives. The answer will come from India. Its an absolutely extraordinary nation that is charging through the 21st century and I think they will address their own issues.”
Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle, answering a question on how to improve the conditions of […]
The closure of schools and continuing attacks on students in the southern Helmand province of Afghanistan forced Abdul Wakils parents to send him to a madrasa (Islamic school) in neighbouring Pakistan. Almost two months later, Abdul Wakil (not his real name) quit the school outside Quetta, capital of Pakistans Baluchistan province, and returned home.In the […]
Orissa
Right to education petition
The Orissa State Human Rights Commission (OSHRC) has asked the local administration of Kendrapara district to expeditiously file a report in connection with alleged denial of primary education to over 500 children of sea-erosion hit villages in the district.
This notice to the district administration was issued after several parents residing in the […]
Children caught in the intensified conflict in Sri Lankas war-torn north are paying a heavy price by way of death, injury and trauma, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and the UN Childrens Fund (Unicef) have warned. The secretary-general is extremely concerned over the deteriorating situation for civilians trapped in northern Sri Lanka, said a statement issued […]
The Chennai-based Veta Spoken English Training Academy has designed a unique summer programme titled English Holiday, for school students. The programme includes a light and enriching syllabus comprising general knowledge, spoken English, grammar, creative thinking and social etiquette, to help students enhance their soft skills. Spread over a period of 40 hours at each level, […]
Gandhi & Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age by Arthur Herman; Bantam Books; Price: $30; 609 pp
Two icons — master spirits of the first half of the 20th century who changed the course of world history — are profiled by historian Arthur Herman who has conceptualised this book as a […]
The National HRD Network (NHRDN), the apex body of human resource development professionals in India, launched its web2.0 portals (www.nationalhrd.org and www.hrdnetworkdelhi.com) in New Delhi on March 19. The new NHRDN portals are designed to help HR professionals leverage the power of web2.0 and digital media for learning, knowledge sharing and professional networking.The launch of […]
Contemporary Bangalore, the administrative capital of the southern state of Karnataka (pop.57 million) which through the 1980s was repeatedly adjudged the most well-administered and hospitable Indian city in media surveys, represents all that has gone wrong with urban planning and management in Shining India. Today, this once garden city (pop. 7 million), visibly crumbling under […]
British Council (India) has scheduled to hold two certificate teacher training programmes for English language teachers — the Cambridge Young Learners English and Cambridge Main Suite — in June/July.Each three-day teacher training programme is certified by British Council, and will equip participants to train students for the Cambridge Young Learners and Cambridge Main Suite exams […]
For all students who dread the prospect of mugging up mathematical formulae and equations, Ravindra Keskar, a former lecturer at the St. Xavier Institute of Engineering, Mumbai, has a simple solution. He propagates use of the Japanese art of origami (folding paper to create diverse three-dimensional shapes) to make squares, cubes, circles, cylindrical and other […]
Its a car that can fit in the palm of a hand spread wide, powered by a 2.5cc engine and a two-stroke internal combustion engine. But dont go by its dinky size. Christened Beast 2.0, it has won five engineering students from Pune the Full Throttle competition at the IIT Techfest held in Mumbai from […]
The entry of the Manipal Education Group, which over the past half century has focused its energies on higher education, into the primary and secondary schools sector, has created a flutter within the somnolent dovecotes of Indian academia, and generated great expectations within India’s 300 million-strong middle class. Dilip Thakore reports
The entry announced on December 18 […]
Mumbai-based Reuben Pereira (19) aka Bbreak17 spends most part of his days on a computer playing the FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association or International Federation of Association Football) computer game, which is played by 3.5 million e-gamers everyday worldwide for fun, and competitively for money. A professional e-sports gamer for the past four years, […]
The country’s premier and perhaps only university town, Manipal (pop.28,000) is India’s answer to the university towns of the American Mid West and Britain’s Oxbridge. Though Manipal with its utilitarian PWD-style buildings lacks the defining architecture which distinguishes and characterises Britain’s ancient university towns, there is no denying that it is perhaps India’s only (another […]
On February 27 in Bangalore, Laxmi Parmeswar, a US-based clinical psychologist and counselor, and president and chief executive of Positive Outcomes Inc, held the first of 25 proposed workshops for teachers and parents across India. The objective of these workshops is to empower parents and teachers to create nurturing environments at home and in school, […]
As the worlds largest free electorate prepares to vote in Indias 15th general election scheduled to roll out countrywide between April 16-May 13, a striking feature of the election rhetoric is the deafening silence of national and regional political parties on the most important issues confronting 21st century India which owes a deep duty of […]
San Francisco-based author, sports guru and psychologist Dr. George Selleck, a well-known name to readers of this publication by virtue of the monthly Sports Education column he writes for EducationWorld, drew a full house and attracted considerable media attention when he released the Indian edition of his latest book Coach Sense — Coaching to make […]
The forthcoming general election to elect 543 members to the 15th Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) is arguably the most crucial in the history of post-independence India. Its timing coincides with a global economic meltdown which is severely testing the wisdom and crisis management capabilities of legislators and political leaders around the world. With […]
Six distinguished professors of business management from a disparate mix of American universities, headed by Chennai-based Dr. Sankaran P. Raghunathan, have joined forces to promote the National Management School (NMS) Chennai — the southern port citys newest high-end B-school. Formally inaugurated on February 5, NMS is the precursor of a chain of 25 B-schools proposed […]
The March issue of EW made interesting reading. I was particularly fascinated by the cover story about the proposed XavierUniversity. My compliments to the Jesuit Conference of India for their vision.
While I don’t hold a brief for the Union HRD ministry, I would like to mention that Union HRD minister Arjun Singh and D. Purandeshwari, minister of state, have […]
A template for government-funded education Kendriya Vidyalaya Schools In a society where government managed schools are synonymous with ramshackle infrastructure, truant teachers and poor learning ... 
St. Xavier’s College Kolkata to start 3 new PG courses in bio-sciences Mita Mukherjee St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata has decided to introduce three new postgraduate courses in biological sciences from this year ... 
Maharashtra: New upper and lower limits for pre-primary to class I admissions The Maharashtra government has set new age criteria for children seeking admissions to nursery, junior and senior kindergarten and class I ... 
IETE, CyberPeace Foundation & Ranchi University ink MoU for a safer cyber space CyberPeace Foundation, Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) and Ranchi University have entered into a strategic collaboration to work ... 
