The first Indian language translation novel awarded the Booker Prize (2022) is notable for its sweeping imagination and power of language, writes Alka Saraogi Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi) Geetanjali Shree Rajkamal Prakashan Rs.299 376 pp The first Indian language translation to be awarded the Booker Prize 2022 and the fifth novel of Geetanjali Shree leaves the reader wonderstruck with its sweeping imagination and sheer unprecedented and uninhibited power of language. Shree is known for her experiments with content and form, but this new novel grips you with its storyline as well, which had not been the author’s forte earlier. To narrate a bit of the first part of the story, an 80-plus mother turns back on the world after being widowed. The family keeps cajoling her to come out of her isolation and the narrative unfolds into the familiar saga of a doting son, a recalcitrant daughter-in-law and a daughter, who with her rebellious lifestyle is not on speaking terms with her disapproving brother. This is the first part of the novel, but the story is told with thousands of fine nuances of relationships expressed in language that’s minted anew. It is the language we speak inside us, a continuous chatter without punctuation. In written form, this language acquires a rhythm of its own with abundant synonyms including words and sounds unheard that fit seamlessly. The craft of storytelling is discussed throughout the novel and there are many confusing voices. Even crows become narrators to display knowledge of saris and at other times to acknowledge their power to transcend borders dividing nations. This playfulness within the story can be exhilarating or exasperating depending on the mood and propensity of the reader. This reader found herself waiting to go back to the narrative all day, leaving it at times to wonder what it takes to write a book like this. One is pretty sure the author also left writing it many a times and picked it up to start anew, waiting for another mood to dawn. This is a book to be read in many sittings, and the reader is likely to experience a craving to go back to it. The details of thoughts and emotions as well as settings weave a compelling magic. The first part ends with the aged mother coming back to face life again and distributing her goods and possessions to all in the neighbourhood. She also disappears one day for more than 24 hours but is found after much agony in the family and resolves to live with her daughter. The second half of the narrative is a great love story of mother and daughter. The daughter brings the old woman back to life, even as the mother literally rediscovers the child in herself and the caring daughter, a writer by profession, becomes the mother, totally giving up personal freedom. Side stories of a live-in relationship of the daughter, and a friendship that the old mother shares with a eunuch — playing the double role…
The deep yearning for unity, justice and freedom of Arab people united by religion has invariably been thwarted in The Arabs: A History, writes Dilip Thakore The Arabs: A History Eugene Rogan Penguin Random House Rs.899 Pages 718 Although an estimated 7.6 million Indian citizens and people of Indian origin are employed throughout Middle East countries, especially in the Gulf Emirates and Saudi Arabia, in India there is hardly any awareness or knowledge of the history of the Arab world. Syllabuses and national curriculum frameworks designed by faux academics have ensured that despite our geographical contiguity and commerce and intellectual linkages dating back several millennia with Arab countries, there’s almost no real sense within the general populace of the tumultuous history of this volatile region, despite the God-gifted crude oil reserves of the Middle East being of vital importance for growth and development of the Indian economy. Therefore this book, first written in 2009 by Eugene Rogan, professor of Middle Eastern history at Oxford University (UK) and updated in 2018, is highly recommended to students of geopolitics, economists, businessmen and media pundits who often make ill-informed references to Arab politics in lectures and essays. After reading this brilliantly researched history drawn from a bibliography rich with Arab sources, documentation and narratives — the author is evidently fluent in the language — one can’t help but conclude that never in global history have a people united by one religion and a common language, been so wronged. Even if during the past half century, providence has compensated them — or at least their rulers — with vast fortunes flowing from crude oil reserves buried beneath burning, unyielding desert sands, the essential tragedy of the Arab people is that their deep yearning for unity, justice and freedom has invariably been thwarted by the machinations of 20th century European colonial powers, and also by their own narrow-minded clergy and autocratic leaders. The golden age of Arabs was the five centuries after establishment of Islam as the dominant religion of Arabia in 700 CE (current era). But the golden age of Arab empires ended in 1453 when the Ottoman Turks of Balkans and central Asian ethnicity captured Constantinople, the last major Christian stronghold in Asia. After that, Turks who renamed Constantinople as Istanbul, ruled Arabs for “four of the past five centuries”. Turkish rule over Arab satrapies came to an end when the Ottomans chose to ally with Germany in World War I (1914-18). After the war, the victorious European allies — Britain and France in particular — recklessly redrew boundary lines and lorded over old and newly created Arab sultanates of the Middle East and North Africa. The imperious recklessness with which colonial powers of the early 20th century redrew regional boundaries and established monarchies and governments in the Arab world, have had repercussions for over a century and have kept the Middle East and Arab people in a state of disequilibrium ever since. In 1921, the British carved Jordan out of Palestine to…
“All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” wrote 19th century English historian Lord Acton (1834-1902). Quite clearly, neighbouring Sri Lanka’s recently ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, swept to highest office in 2019 with a massive majority, became power drunk. Three of his brothers were brazenly appointed prime minister, irrigation and finance minister; his son and several relatives were awarded high public offices. Such blatant nepotism compounded by muscular majoritarianism evidenced by failure to conciliate Sri Lanka’s 5 million Tamil minority, were acts of commission and omission of a brash politician corrupted by power. In 2005, after Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected president, he appointed his brother Gotabaya to crush the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) who started an armed rebellion in 1983 against Sinhala oppression of the island’s Tamil minority. Gotabaya discharged his mandate with ruthless efficiency and crushed the LTTE rebellion taking a toll of 100,000 lives before a ceasefire was called in 2009. As a result, Mahinda was re-elected president in 2010. Although ousted from office in 2015 following corruption and nepotism scandals, after a suspicious bombing of several Christian churches in Colombo on Easter Sunday, 2019, allegedly by Muslim minority extremists, Gotabaya who had brutally crushed LTTE extremists, was swept to presidential office with strong support of the business community. As quid pro quo, immediately after election he slashed income and VAT taxes. A year later, when the Covid-19 virus swept the world, the government’s revenue was insufficient to fund the food and healthcare subsidies for the general populace following lockdown of industry and commerce. Simultaneously, the island republic’s substantial income from tourism dried up. With typical arrogance, instead of consulting with expert economists and business leaders, President Gotabaya and prime minister Mahinda whimsically mandated a switch to organic farming to save the cost of imported fertilizer, adversely affecting agriculture production — especially of tea, a major earner of foreign exchange. Moreover, instead of slashing establishment expenditure, the SLPF government resorted to massive money printing, driving up the fiscal deficit as runaway inflation swept the nation. The rise and swift fall of Sri Lanka’s Gotabaya government done in by authoritarian exercise of power, has important lessons for the BJP leadership which also practices muscular majoritarian politics while enacting momentous legislation — demonetisation, farm reform bills, GST and the Agnipath scheme — without adequate scrutiny and debate. It’s sobering to note that like Gotabaya, Narendra Modi was elected to office with a landslide majority in 2019. Like Sri Lanka, India is confronted with ballooning inflation and unemployment. India’s next General Election is scheduled for 2024. But Sri Lanka’s history proves a lot can happen before that.
For sentient citizens with memory and/or knowledge of India’s unique freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Dr. Ambedkar and a galaxy of leaders invested with genuine idealism and integrity, the nation’s 75th Independence Day (August 15) is likely to be an occasion for sober introspection. To be sure, commemoration of the day when almost two centuries of extractive misrule by British imperialists which beggared the country ended, will be celebrated with pomp, ceremony and bombast. The prime minister will address the citizenry from the ramparts of Delhi’s Red Fort and proclaim the greatness and prosperity of free India set to become a $5 trillion economy in the near future, detail the nation’s robust defence capability, and claim credit for the rising prosperity of citizens at the base of free India’s socio-economic pyramid. Yet the plain truth is that the idea of a religiously secular, economically/egalitarian and socially harmonious India governed by the rule of law, is unravelling. Never in the history of independent India has society been as deeply divided along religious, caste, language, ethnicity and class fault lines as it is today. The RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), the ideological mentor organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party ruling at the Centre and in 18 states of India with an iron hand, was a non-participant in the freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi, a passionate champion of Hindu-Muslim unity, because it was — and remains — committed to transforming India into a Hindu majoritarian nation. With the prime minister and most of his cabinet colleagues having begun their careers as RSS foot-soldiers, the BJP which was swept to power at the Centre in 2014 and again in 2019, has used its brute majority in Parliament to enact legislation — Citizenship Amendment Act, anti-cow slaughter, religious conversion, love jihad etc — targeting India’s 215 million-strong Muslim minority. The party’s plain intent is to consolidate the majoritarian (85 percent) Hindu vote and win the legislative assembly elections imminent in several states. Although electorally successful, BJP’s divide-and-rule strategy is inimical to national development. It is deepening atavistic antagonisms at a critical time when the economy is struggling to recover momentum after suffering its first-ever GDP growth contraction in 2021-22 because of the Covid-19 pandemic disruption. Demonization of minorities, muscular nationalism and persecution of civil rights and media activists at a time when Parliament is in chaos, the judiciary is wilting under the weight of a 30 million cases backlog, unemployment and inflation is soaring and foreign investment is pulling out, is reckless politics. Independence Day celebrations need to be tempered by quiet introspection about the idea of India envisioned by the great men and women who won the country its freedom from foreign rule 75 years ago.
It’s highly unlikely that you’ll encounter an individual as enthused by the surprisingly unsung exploits and initiatives of Barefoot College, Tilonia (Rajasthan) as your correspondent. During the past decade, I have written three cover features on this pioneer community college which has greened the desert landscape of Tilonia (pop.4,500) and a cluster of villages in its neighbourhood, and restored the dignity and self-respect of thousands of rural folk of Ajmer district. The promotion and development of BC into a model education institution based on Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy and development model by Sanjit (Bunker) Roy, an alum of the The Doon School, Dehradun and Delhi’s blue-chip St. Stephens’s College, is a story of extraordinary grit and determination to deliver some benefits of the successful freedom movement led by Gandhiji to the neglected majority of rural Bharat, the other India. The decision of newly independent India to take the socialist road and prioritise development of heavy industry through promotion of monopoly public sector enterprises (PSEs) has proved a disastrous failure. Managed by venal politicians and business-illiterate bureaucrats, PSEs have egregiously failed to generate the promised surpluses (‘profit’ is a dirty word in the leftist lexicon) for investment in public education, healthcare and infrastructure in rural India which has evolved into poor, backward and illiterate Bharat, almost another country. Although 65 percent of India’s population toils in hinterland Bharat, it contributes a mere 16 percent of annual GDP and the average per capita income of Bharat is half of urban India. This is the iniquity that the Barefoot College management led by Roy has successfully addressed since this community college was established fifty years ago in the water-stressed boondocks of Rajasthan. Early this year, BC modestly celebrated its Golden Jubilee, a landmark which inspired the third detailed cover feature on this grassroots development model which on merit should have been replicated in all 742 districts of India, but has not been. Why and how this extraordinary skills development institution which provides a blueprint to lift the rural majority out of poverty, has been ignored and at best damned with faint praise — and has recently suffered institutional schism — is explained in our Independence Day cover feature. It’s also a sad story of betrayal and compassion deficit. There’s a lot else in this content rich issue of the country’s premier education newsmagazine. Read about the collateral damage caused by the hasty imposition of CUET as also Sanjaya Baru’s essay and our editorials which recommend reflection and introspection on India’s 75th Independence Day.
-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) Pune-based Sushma Pathare is principal of the free-of-charge Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation English Medium School, Bopkhel (PCMC-EMS, estb. 2016) — one of 26 primary-secondary schools managed by the Mumbai-based Akanksha Foundation in private-public partnership with local governments. Affiliated with the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, PCMC-EMS provides English-medium education to 315 K-VI students mentored by 13 teachers. The school campus also hosts a K-10 Marathi-medium school with an enrolment of 700 students. Newspeg. PCMC-EMS, Bopkhel is one of five Indian schools shortlisted for the inaugural US$250,000 (Rs.1.9 crore) World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration in five categories. This global award is an initiative of the London-based T4 Education, a voluntary organisation, and the Nassau (Bahamas)-based Templeton World Charity Foundation, Accenture and American Express. The Top 3 finalists for five World’s Best School Prize in the categories of Community Collaboration, Environmental Action, Innovation, Overcoming Adversity, and Supporting Healthy Lives will be announced later this year, and prize winners this October. History. An education postgraduate of Pune’s Savitribai Phule University, Pathare began her career in 2005 as a teacher with Akanksha Foundation acquiring over a decade’s valuable admin and teaching experience in several schools managed by the foundation. She was appointed principal of PCMC-EMS in 2018. Direct talk. “We believe in teaching children in partnership with parents. Therefore, since inception, we have routinely organised monthly meetings, open forums, parenting and skill building workshops including financial literacy and government schemes awareness programmes for our parents community. When Covid-19 swept India in March 2020 and the school was locked down for 101 weeks, we provided ration kits to our parents who suffered job and livelihood losses, and leveraged the relationship building skills of members of our School Management Committee and parent volunteers to connect with students and parents on a daily basis. Moreover during the pandemic lockdown, we established a learning centre for the community, distributed learning material for children and initiated online intervention classes for small groups to bridge learning gaps. In 2021, students of classes III-V were provided Lenovo digital tablets and access to the internet. As a result, our children and teachers have emerged from the pandemic with minimal learning gaps,” says Pathare. Future plans. Encouraged by the rising number of admission applications far exceeding seats available, Pathare is hopeful that the corporation will invest in additional infrastructure to increase capacity. “We are experiencing severe shortage of space. We need a larger budget to enable our children to access modern facilities such as science and computer labs, playgrounds, etc. We want to make PCMC-EMS a model primary school which builds a strong foundation for secondary and higher secondary education,” says Pathare. God speed. Also Read: Indefatigable orphan children’s champion: P. Purnachandra Rao
-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) Karun Tadepalli is the Hyderabad and Dallas, Texas (USA)-based CEO and co-founder of byteXL India Pvt. Ltd (estb.2020, headcount: 125). The company has developed an edtech platform that offers second, third and final year engineering undergrads self-learning courseware and guided training programmes in emerging technologies (Devops, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, AI, ML, and Fullstack Development), to boost their employability in the booming ICT (information communication technologies) industry. In the past two years since it was promoted, byteXL has partnered with 85 engineering colleges across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Delhi NCR, and Punjab to upskill 100,000 students. Newspeg. On July 25, the company made its foray into Gujarat by inking a partnership agreement with Parul University, Vadodara, to skill 10,000 students. History. An engineering and business management alum of Gannon (Pennsylvania) and Texas universities, Tadepalli worked for 19 years with blue-chip companies (Accenture, Health Management Systems, AT & T) in the US before deciding to go solo and transnational with the mission “to bridge the huge academia-industry skills gap” that he discerned while working in industry. Together with brother Sricharan, Tadepalli invested his savings to co-promote byteXL India Pvt. Ltd in 2020. To fund its mission, last year byteXL successfully raised $250,000 by way of seed capital from a group of angel investors led by the US-based Joy Family Investment. Direct talk. “Our USP (unique sales proposition) is not just our curriculum and mode of delivery, but also our unique student-centred digital platform. The proprietary analytics of byteXL enables instant assessment to ascertain students’ weak learning areas and enables them to catch up. We offer two programmes — Expert and Career Accelerator. Both include 160 hours of instructor-led training per year and 120 hours of platform engagement through prescribed reading material, recorded videos, coding challenges and assessments supplemented with soft skills development to boost students’ employability quotient. Within two years, we have enabled placement of 10,000 students in blue-chip companies,” says Tadepalli with evident satisfaction. Future plans. With the company having got off to a smooth start, Tadepalli has ambitious expansion plans. “In 2022, we intend to partner with an additional 150 engineering colleges to upskill 240,000 students. Having established partnerships in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are our next target states. Currently, our focus is on engineering colleges but going forward, we may extend our services to arts, science and commerce colleges as well. As we scale, we intend to disrupt the market with learning, skilling, placements, and emerge as strong players in upskilling students in higher education to reduce high employee induction and training costs of India Inc,” says Tadepalli. Wind in your sails! Also Read:Indefatigable orphan children’s champion: P. Purnachandra Rao
-Dilip Thakore (Bengaluru) An indefatigable champion of orphaned and marginalised children, P. Purnachandra Rao is the promoter (founder-secretary) of the Needy Illiterate Children Education (NICE) School (estb.2002). Sited in Mynampadu village (pop.5,900), an hour’s drive from Guntur (pop.800,000), NICE is a free-of-charge K-10 English-medium residential school affiliated with the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) which has 24,000 upscale schools countrywide affiliated with it. NICE has 200 children including 50 girls — 70 percent of whom are orphaned — on its muster rolls. Newspeg. NICE is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year in sombre circumstances. For the first time in its history, the aggregate number of students has declined and the school’s income has fallen because of Covid-10 pandemic disruption of the economy. The forced and unduly long closure (275 days in 2020) because of the Covid lockdown, has cast a shadow over this residential school’s celebrations. “In 2019-20, we had 270 children. This number fell to 150 in 2021-22 because of the pandemic. Simultaneously, our annual income — the school is entirely dependent on donations — dipped from Rs.1.48 crore to Rs.1.05 crore. But with the school having reopened on June 1 for the new academic year 2022-23, we have welcomed 80 new students of whom 60 children are from educationally neglected tribal areas who desperately need good quality education,” says Rao. Moreover, the pain of the pandemic has been assuaged by NICE School having recorded its best-ever pass percentage in the CBSE board exam written in April this year. The school’s cohort of 24 children who wrote the exam averaged 69 percent with the topper averaging 94 percent. History. Born into a family of small farmers, Rao suffered the early misfortune of losing his father when he was only four years of age, and had to depend on the generosity of village elders to complete his school education. Subsequently, he funded his higher education by working part-time and graduated from Nagarjuna University, Guntur with a degree in English literature. “The hardships faced by my mother to provide for me — I was an only child — and the deprivations I suffered made me sensitive to the plight of children without any parents at all, and I resolved to start a free-of-charge residential school for orphaned and marginalised children,” recalls Rao. Steadfast in intent, after graduation he worked in industry for 12 years with Suven Pharmaceuticals and Lokesh Mechanics, and at age 33 registered NICE Society in the millennium year. In 2002, he started the eponymous school in Mynampadu with an investment of Rs.85,000 mobilised from his savings and proceeds of sale of his ancestral home in neighbouring Bollapally village and admitted his first batch of ten orphan children in a 400 sq. ft building. Since then, the school has grown into a full-fledged K-10 English-medium boarding school whose 48,000 sq. ft main block houses 12 classrooms. Moreover, the two-acre campus hosts a library with 4,500 volumes, science and maths labs, a 1.2-acre sports field and separate hostels…
The BJP is a well-organised electoral juggernaut, it is ruthless in using state power to intimidate opponents… But a formidable opponent and repression often galvanize an Opposition, not make them comatose. But the Opposition is not held back by the power of the BJP. Its besetting sin is its own excruciating littleness. -Pratap Bhanu Mehta, public intellectual, on raids by the Enforcement Directorate on opposition party leaders (Indian Express, July 23) Be it technical education, medical education or law education, when we do not teach all these in Indian languages, then we limit the capabilities and potential of our country. But when teaching all this in Indian languages, we will be able to utilise the 100% potential of the country. -Union home minister Amit Shah on second anniversary of the National Education Policy 2020 (Hindustan Times, July 30) Too many kids fight for too few seats in hallowed academic institutions. They are forced to sacrifice everything that gives them some pleasure and fun in life to mug up answers to questions that they would most probably never encounter in their life after the examinations. -Anand Neelakantan, author of Bahubali trilogy, on the rising incidence of suicide among students (The New Indian Express, July 31) Indian industry has to become more competitive and productive. In 2021 the estimated output per worker was worth only $6,413 as compared to China’s $16,697. -Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief, on the sinking rupee and its fallout (India Today, August 1) India is open to capital for education from everywhere. We must ensure that market forces don’t overpower institutions and there is no commercialisation. Anyone is welcome to our system with one expectation — it should not be exploited. -Dharmendra Pradhan, Union education minister (The Economic Times, August 3)
-Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) West Bengal’s stop-go government school teacher recruitment process stretching back to 2015 ,which has been subject to continuous street demonstrations, court injunctions and sporadic appointments — as regularly reported by your correspondent — came to a head on July 22-23 when the Enforcement Directorate, a financial frauds investigation unit of the BJP-controlled Central government, raided the residences of Partha Chatterjee and his close aide cinema actress Arpita Mukherjee and discovered a cash mountain of Rs.21 crore. Subsequent raids on 15 properties including three houses owned by Chatterjee and four upscale apartments owned by Mukherjee unearthed another Rs.50 crore in cash and title deeds of 12 properties. A heavyweight of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government and close confidant of three-term chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Partha Chatterjee was industries minister of the TMC government which trounced the BJP in the state legislative election of 2020. More significantly, Chatterjee (now suspended from party membership) was West Bengal’s education minister for seven years (2014-21) when 50,000 primary teachers — from 2.8 million applicants who wrote the TET (teacher eligibility test) in 2015 and 2016 — were belatedly recruited and appointed in government schools earlier this year. Teaching jobs in government schools (and higher education institutions) which are high wage islands paying salaries benchmarked with pay scales decreed by Pay Commissions appointed by the Central government to ring-fence government employees against inflation, are highly prized countrywide as they offer life-long security with minimal accountability, relatively high salaries (compared to private schools), healthcare coverage and three vacations per year. Government school jobs are especially prized in West Bengal (pop.91 million) which following 34 years (1977-2011) of uninterrupted rule by a CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) Left Front coalition, experienced continuous flight of capital and investment famine which have burdened the state with mass unemployment. According to ED sources, money and other valuables recovered from Chatterjee and Arpita’s properties were accumulated bribes collected from families desperate for sons and daughters to be employed as teachers and clerks in state government-run schools. Chatterjee reportedly demanded — and bagged — bribes of Rs.10 lakh for Group C and D jobs; Rs.10-12 lakh for primary teachers’ jobs; Rs.15-18 lakh for secondary and Rs.18-20 lakh for higher secondary teachers’ posts. The total amount extracted from desperate job-seekers is estimated at Rs.400-500 crore. As the probe into the mega scam unfolds, the jobs of 43,000 teachers recruited by the education ministry in 2016 for having cleared TET 2014 are at stake. In fact, the appointment of 269 teachers has already been cancelled because of tainted recruitment. The CBI is reportedly examining documents related to these appointments. Meanwhile with teacher recruitment having stagnated since the TMC government was elected for the first time in 2011, thousands of educated unemployed youth statewide who have written TET but whose results have been stayed by the courts, have lost hope and have accepted low-paid jobs in the private sector or are working as private tutors. Moreover, because of rising teacher vacancies, the…
-Nishant Saxena (Lucknow) On july 24, residents of Lucknow (pop.3.8 million), the administrative capital of the Hindi heartland, BJP-ruled state of Uttar Pradesh, woke up to bold face newspaper headlines and screaming television news anchors proclaiming that seven out of 18 students who attained the top score of 99.75 percent in the recently-completed class XII ISC exam of the Delhi-based Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) board, are from schools in the state. Informed academics in Lucknow University, the state’s premier varsity (estb.1920) which was awarded the highest A++ grading (cumulative grade point average of 3.55 out of a maximum 4) of the Bengaluru-based National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) on July 26 to become the first university in UP to be awarded this status, are less impressed. According to them, given the huge population of UP (215 million) — “if Uttar Pradesh was a nation instead of a state, it would be fifth most populous country in the world” — seven students topping a national exam is nothing to write home about. Secondly, of UP’s total number of 243,000 primary-secondary schools, a mere 436 are affiliated with the upscale CISCE examination board which prescribes stringent infrastructure, teacher-pupil ratio and other qualitative norms as preconditions of affiliation. All told, UP’s CISCE-affiliated schools — headed by the Lucknow-based City Montessori School with 17 campuses in the city and certified by Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest single-city primary-secondary (aggregate enrolment: 58,000) and routinely ranked UP’s #1 co-ed day school — have a modest 500,000 children on their muster rolls. Nor are other monitors of the neglected education system of the country’s most populous state impressed. Niti Aayog, the Union government’s think tank which replaced the Nehruvian Soviet-inspired Planning Commission in 2015, ranks Uttar Pradesh #19 among India’s 28 states on its SDG Index of Quality Education with a score of 21 cf. the national average of 29. Worse, the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation ranks it #19 among major states in its PIE (performance infrastructure & equity) Index 2020-21, just ahead of last-ranked Bihar. The low-ranking routinely awarded to UP in all national surveys is the outcome of the state’s dismal data on several parameters of public education management. For instance, in the state’s 169,000 government and aided schools, the teacher-pupil ratio is 1:39 as against the 1:25 recommended by the RTE Act, 2009; UP hosts the largest number of single teacher schools (22,223) and an estimated 25 percent of the state’s 670,000 government school teachers are absent from work every day. Although Uttar Pradesh has a long history of education neglect — especially of foundational primary education under Congress governments which ruled the state for over half a century after independence — educationists in Lucknow believe that the situation has worsened since the incumbent BJP government led by saffron clad monk Yogi Adityanath was swept to power in Lucknow in the legislative election of 2017. The consensus is that BJP governments at the Centre and states are…
-Reshma Ravishanker The Karnataka BJP government’s 26 position papers on National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which is being rolled out nationally after being kept on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic disruption, submitted in early July to the National Council for Educational Research & Training (NCERT), have sparked outrage within the academy. Submitted in response to the Union education ministry’s invitation to state governments for suggestions to finalise the new K-12 National Curriculum Framework (NCF) being finalised by NCERT, the position papers have provoked a hail of criticism for promoting Hindutva ideology, language chauvinism, passing of myth as history, and undermining scientific temper. Drafted by a committee of experts chaired by H.V. Ranganath, former chief secretary of Karnataka, the 26 papers offer suggestions relating to language education, knowledge of India, curriculum and pedagogy, science and gender education among other issues. Yet it has sparked academic outrage because a ‘Knowledge of India’ paper proposes introduction of indigenous (bharatiya) pedagogies and rejection of “Western science”. In particular, this paper posits that the Pythagoras theorem and Newton’s law of gravity are “fake news”, and should be excised from all school syllabuses. Another position paper on health and wellness recommends discontinuation of eggs in school children’s mid-day meals as “they cause lifestyle disorders”. In a statement dated July 21, several medical practitioners and educationists including Dr. Yogananda Reddy, former president of Indian Medical Association, Karnataka and Niranjanaradhya V.P, fellow and programme head — Universalisation of Education at NLSUI, Bengaluru, severely criticised the state government’s position papers. “An elaborate study conducted by the Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University, Gadag has very clearly shown that children in Yadgir district where mid-day meals were supplemented with egg protein recorded significant gains in weight and body mass index… Therefore, the recommendation of the position paper completely goes against the decision of the Karnataka government,” says the statement. Yet the Ranganath Committee’s NEP 2020 recommendation paper that has angered educationists most, is on language education. It recommends that in foundational classes (nursery-class V) the compulsory medium of instruction should be mother tongue and/or Kannada. Private schools are shocked that the expert committee has raked up this issue settled by the Supreme Court in 2014 after a 33-year battle in the courts. In State of Karnataka & Anr. vs. Associated Management of (Government Recognised Unaided English medium) Primary and Secondary Schools & Ors. (AIR 2014 SC 2094), the apex court ruled that parents have a fundamental right to choose the medium of instruction of their children. “The Ranganath Committee’s position paper on language education is in contempt of the Supreme Court of India. We demand immediate withdrawal of this position paper. The state government should refrain from imposing a new medium of instruction policy under the guise of implementing NEP 2020,” says D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of Private Schools in Karnataka (KAMS). Meanwhile, responding to the volley of criticism against the state’s NEP position papers, education minister B.C. Nagesh says they are “only recommendations; a final…
More than 60 marathi-medium private aided school managements have filed writ petitions before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court demanding complete autonomy to appoint teachers. Currently, there are a total 66,750 primary-secondary schools statewide with an aggregate enrolment of 5.25 million children mentored by 450,000 teachers. Private-aided Marathi-medium schools number 20,120 (30 percent). Private aided schools are a uniquely Indian phenomenon. Although promoted by private trusts and societies, salaries of their teachers and non-teaching staff are paid by the state government. The quid pro quo is that the tuition fees of private aided schools are calibrated by government to enable the children of lower middle and working class households to access them. Until 2012, the tradition was that recruitment and appointment of teachers was the prerogative of private aided school managements. However in that year, the then Congress government of Maharashtra banned teacher appointments in private aided schools until ‘excess’ teachers in government and private aided schools were appropriately deployed. Subsequently in 2017, the then Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena led government (2014-19) accused private aided school managements of indulging in widespread corrupt practices in recruiting teachers whose salaries are paid by government. In June 2017, a government resolution mandated registration of teacher vacancies on its Pavitra portal to ensure transparency and accountability in the teacher recruitment process. Read:Maharashtra: TET scandals Aspiring teachers who had written and passed the teacher eligibility test (TET) and/or the Maharashtra Teacher Aptitude and Intelligence Test (TAIT) were allocated to registered schools by the education ministry. In sum, teacher recruitment of private aided schools passed from their managements to government. Unsurprisingly, the recruitment process through the Pavitra portal is riddled with technical glitches with no teachers recruited since the first batch of 8,000 teachers appointed in 2017. The Maharashtra Rajya Shikshan Sanstha Mahamandal (MRSSM), a representative body of 20,000 private aided schools and junior colleges, has always opposed teacher recruitment and appointments through the Pavitra portal on the ground that it dilutes the autonomy of privately promoted schools. MRSSM leaders contend that a full bench Supreme Court judgement in the landmark T.M.A. Pai vs. Union of India (2002) upheld the right of privately promoted professional education institutions to establish and ‘administer’ institutions of their choice. The right to administer includes right to recruit and appoint teachers of their choice. “Many of our schools are operating with less than half the required number of teachers which has severely compromised the quality of education provided to children. It’s well-known that there is a steady exodus of children from government schools because quality of education they dispense is very poor. When the education ministry is unable to do a good job of its own schools, why should it continue interfering with our work? The government is also incapable of conducting a scam-free teacher eligibility test as evident from recent TET scams in Maharashtra. So, why should we hire TET cleared candidates with questionable qualifications?” argues Ashokrao Thorat, vice president, MRSSM, with reference to the arrest last December…
Constructive criticism I read your detailed cover story ‘NEP 2020: Project implementation progress report’ (EW July) with great interest. It highlights the slow progress being made to implement the National Education Policy 2020, two years after it was presented to Parliament with great hope and expectation. This is further proof that overhauling India’s education system has never been a priority of the BJP government. I also agree with the author that the Union education minister’s refusal to be interviewed is against the public interest. If the minister is too preoccupied to respond to individual queries given his many responsibilities, he owes the nation an obligation to update the public through periodic media briefings. Hope the learned minister reads your well-written story which offers constructive criticism. Mahesh Goyal, Jodhpur Better cover design I am a regular reader of EducationWorld. I am pleased that your July cover is a departure from your routine covers. Its depiction of the education minister riding a bullock cart scores a bull’s eye for satire. Also the yellow and black combination is fresh and attractive. I look forward to many more bright and cheerful covers. Riddhima Sagar, Mumbai Biased feature Your cover story ‘Project implementation progress report’ (EW July) which runs into several pages fails to highlight several initiatives already launched by the government under NEP 2020. For instance, the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and Academic Bank of Credits (ABC). Your story seems to be more a platform for venting your anti-establishment vengeance and frustration at not having received any response from education minister Dharmendra Pradhan. A policy which seeks to completely overhaul Indian education from early childhood to university is bound to have teething problems. Dr. Padmavathi R.,Bengaluru Shocking mess Congratulations on a well-researched Special Report ‘India’s mighty medical education mess’ (EW July) which beams a spotlight on India’s huge demand-supply imbalance in medical education, prompting an annual exodus of aspiring medicos to foreign countries. The government and Medical Council of India are solely responsible for this mess. It’s shocking that a country of over 1.45 billion people offers a mere 88,000 MBBS seats per year. No wonder our doctor-population ratio is one of the lowest worldwide. The newly formed National Medical Commission must make its mission to liberalise medical education while ensuring teaching-learning standards are maintained. The onerous rules and regulations for private medical colleges to increase student intake capacity need to be rationalised to enable optimal capacity utilisation. It’s a shame that colleges built on huge acres of land with large teaching hospitals are permitted to admit only 100-200 MBBS undergrads annually. Harinder Singh, Ludhiana Words of praise I glance through every issue of EducationWorld, reading selected pieces. But I never miss your editorials. When fear and terror are official weapons, when 50 percent of citizens have become sheep and goats, and perhaps 90 percent of media has turned into official mouthpiece out of greed and trepidation, you deserve congratulations for maintaining the free spirit, intellectual independence and basic values of your profession.…
-Autar Nehru Perhaps the sole political party in India whose leadership believes that provision, upgradation and universalisation of school education is an election-winning issue is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which was born out of social reformer Anna Hazare’s futile anti-corruption crusade of 2012. In 2015, AAP led by former government bureaucrat Arvind Kejriwal, stunned the country by winning the Delhi state legislative assembly election bagging 67 of the 70 seats of the house, an astonishing electoral coup given that the BJP which had swept to a landslide victory in General Election 2014 held a few months earlier, was expected to sweep Delhi as well. Five years later, AAP won Delhi again with an even larger majority. Its promise to wipe out petty corruption which is endemic in the state and local governments of the national capital (which was conferred special statehood in 1991) apart, upgrading and contemporisation of Delhi’s 1,028 state government schools with an aggregate enrolment of 1.8 million children has been a major plank of its successful election campaigns. But the party’s commendable initiatives to expand capacity in state government schools by adding 8,000 classrooms has resulted in the Delhi Lokayukta ordering the chief secretary of the Lt. Governor’s office (i.e, the Central government) to conduct an enquiry into corruption charges levelled against Manish Sisodia, deputy chief and education minister of the AAP government. According to Manoj Tiwari, former president of the Delhi state BJP and incumbent member of Parliament, although the estimated construction cost per classroom was Rs.5 lakh, the AAP government paid out Rs.25-28 lakh per classroom. Tiwari says this is prima facie proof of defalcation aggregating Rs.2,000 crore. When this issue was first raised publicly in 2019 Sisodia reacted sharply by filing defamation suits against Tiwari. Unlike all other parties, the AAP leadership makes education a big issue. It prides itself for allocating 22 percent (Rs.16,278 crore) of its total budgeted expenditure for 2022-23 towards education, the highest proportion of any state countrywide. Moreover, in addition to adding 8,000 classrooms to its 1,028 schools in its second term from 2020, the AAP government has established five specialised universities including skills, sports and teacher education varsities which have an aggregate enrolment of 25,000 youth. However, not a few academics and educationists are sceptical about the AAP government’s claims of great advances in education. According to R.C. Jain, president of the Delhi State Public Schools Management Association, of all children in class IX in state government schools only 50 percent make it to class XII, because under an unwritten policy of the government those who don’t perform well in class IX are asked to leave and enrol in NIOS as independent students to write the NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) board exam. “This is done to ensure that CBSE class XII board results of state government schools are 90 percent-plus,” says Jain. Moreover, he alleges that over 800 state government schools are functioning without headmasters. BJP spokespersons and the rising number of the party’s sympathisers…
Delhi: Foreign applications surge New Delhi, July 4. Against an average 100 admission applications from foreign students in the previous decade, for the academic year 2022-23, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIU), Delhi, has received 650 applications from abroad for admission into undergraduate to Ph D programmes. Among applicants are students from SAARC nations, South Africa, Mauritius, Iran, Russia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Germany and South-East Asia. “The reason behind this quantum surge of applications from foreign students is GGSIU’s drive to diversify our students’ body. The university is grateful for the support of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Study in India programme of Educational Consultants India Ltd (EdCIL),” says a communique from the office of Dr. Mahesh Verma, vice chancellor of GGSIU. Chhattisgarh: Bagless Saturdays Raipur, July 7. The state’s school education ministry announced ‘bagless Saturdays’ for classes I-VIII to enable primary students to participate in yoga, sports, art and value education, among other activities. “The objective is to awaken children’s co-curricular interests and help them remain connected with school. Principals will be requested to plan activities in advance for Saturdays and display agendas on their notice boards,” said a spokesperson of the education ministry. Uttar Pradesh: Negligence investigation Ballia, July 8. Non-teaching staff of a government primary locked the school premises leaving behind a five-year-old boy in a classroom. The child was later rescued by family members who had to break the door open. Maniram Singh, Ballia district’s BSA (basic shiksha adhikari), said the state government has taken cognisance of the incident and directed the block education officer to investigate the matter. “Strict action will be taken against those found guilty of negligence,” he said. According to school staff, the boy had fallen asleep inside the classroom unnoticed by them. Odisha: Alleged ragging suicide Bhubaneswar, July 20. Rohit Pujari, the state’s higher education minister, warned strict action against students who severely ragged a first-year girl student of the BJB Autonomous College prompting her to suicide. The student was found hanging in her hostel room on July 2. Police found a suicide note in the room, in which the student said she was continuously harassed by three seniors. However, local police said they haven’t found any evidence of ragging or harassment. Addressing a press conference, Pujari said: “Police are conducting an inquiry and appropriate action will be taken based on their report. We have established anti-ragging cells and all steps will be taken to punish students/teachers indulging in this retrograde practice.” Meghalaya: SSA teachers’ salary row Shillong, July 20. State education minister Lahkmen Rymbui warned 5,000 teachers of government primary schools who continued a sit-in protest before the state secretariat to press their demand for five months’ overdue salaries. “The Central government is yet to release funds for clearing the pending dues of these teachers appointed under the Centre’s SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan) programme. If they don’t resume classes, we will have to issue a ‘no work, no pay’ order or withdraw grants to schools that are non-functional,”…
Jain U-Maldives agreement Bengaluru, July 12. The Bengaluru-based Jain (deemed-to-be) University and government of the Republic of Maldives signed an MoU under which a Chancellor’s Scholarship and JGI Aid Fund scholarships will be offered to Maldivian students. Under the terms of the MoU, ministry of higher education, Maldives will identify and select deserving students based on predetermined criteria set by Jain University for the latter to provide five fully-funded scholarships for its B.Tech programme; one scholarship for the Ph D programme (public policy and governance); 250 Chancellor’s Scholarships for undergrad and postgrad programmes; and 250 aided scholarships for miscellaneous courses. “This MoU doesn’t merely provide opportunities for Maldivian students to acquire higher education qualifications. It also strengthens the partnership between Jain U and the Republic of Maldives,” said Dr. Chenraj Roychand, Chancellor of Jain University speaking on the occasion. Anant School of Climate Change Ahmedabad, July 19. Anant National University announced the launch of Anant School for Climate Action, a first-of-its-genre institution in India. The school will begin with two foundational courses in the Anant School for Climate Action (ASCA) viz, a four-year B.Tech programme specialising in climate change, and a 12-month Anant postgrad fellowship programme for climate action. “Measuring, predicting, mitigating and adapting to climate change needs an influx of new technologies as well as people skilled in the use of existing and new technologies. ASCA’s objective is to equip students with the latest knowledge to mitigate and adapt to climate change,” said Dr. Miniya Chatterji, founding-director, ASCA and CEO of Sustain Labs, Paris, speaking on the occasion. 3M Inspire Challenge Bengaluru, July 15. The US-based global science company 3M launched the first edition of its 3M Inspire Challenge in India. Previously held in Southeast Asian countries, the case competition is now open for undergraduate college students countrywide. To help shortlisted teams finetune their ideas in preparation for the challenge finals, professionals from 3M will mentor shortlisted participating teams from September 2022 onwards. Kicking off with the country-level semi-finals, three shortlisted teams will compete with local peers in a live judging panel in October this year. The winning team will be awarded a cash prize of US $2,000 and secure internships at the 3M Innovation Centre in Bengaluru. In November, each country champion will proceed to the regional finals where the winning team will receive a US $5,000 cash prize. TCS-GEMS project New Delhi, July 19. TMRW, an education technology company promoted by the Dubai-based GEMS — “the largest private K-12 education provider in the world” — announced that the Mumbai-based IT major Tata Consultancy Services will support its all-in-one integrated platform. Through this partnership, TMRW will leverage its Learning Operating System (LearnOS) to provide the entire spectrum of education and institution management services under a unified umbrella. On its part, TCS will provide consulting, implementation, managed services, and system integration capabilities to schools throughout the world. The agreement includes establishment of a Center of Excellence within TCS, which will be a bridge between TMRW and TCS, utilising each…
Arguably India’s most successful holistic learning school, SA has acquired a national reputation for blending academics, sports and co-curricular education, writes M. Somasekhar Sited on a verdant 4.2-acre campus in Hyderabad (pop.10 million) aka the city of pearls, Suchitra Academy (SA, estb.2011) is arguably India’s most successful holistic learning day school. Over the past 11 years since it admitted its first batch of 26 children and 14 teachers, this CBSE (Delhi)-affiliated school has acquired a national reputation for providing integrated education, optimally blending integrated academic, sports and co-curricular education to its 2,000 students — including 923 girl children — mentored by 155 well-qualified teachers. In 2018, the school also introduced the Cambridge International (early years and primary) curriculums of the UK-based Cambridge Assessment International Education for class I-VI students. In the latest EW India School Rankings 2021-22, Suchitra Academy is ranked among the country’s Top 15 co-ed day schools and #4 in Hyderabad. Promoted by edupreneur K.V. Praveen Raju, SA is the sole K-12 school campus to host a world-class badminton training academy (with seven indoor wooden courts) where two-time Olympics medalist P.V. Sindhu and boxing champion Nikhat Zareen among others train. The autonomous academy, which currently hosts 120 trainees, has been awarded Khelo India status by the Union government. As such, Rs.6 lakh per annum is awarded to every athlete admitted for training. Currently the academy hosts 20 Khelo India athletes. In 2020, the academy was conferred 5-Star rating under the FIT India Schools programme. “In SA, we are fully committed to developing the mind, body and soul of every child. Therefore, our curriculum is an optimal mix of rigorous academics, sports and co-curricular education. With a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:13, we pride ourselves on according individual attention to all children and for providing excellent professional development programmes to our 155 teachers,” says Raju, an engineering alum of Osmania University and former nationally ranked snooker and badminton player. The nationwide lockdown of schools for 82 weeks following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic proved a blessing in disguise, inasmuch as it accelerated the school’s programme to build a new interactive analytics platform and enable better curriculum delivery. The management promptly orchestrated “seamless transition to online platforms for admin, teaching-learning, student assessment and co-curricular education”. “Our curriculum is designed to cover at least 35 percent of teaching-learning through deep project work. To provide students a headstart in new-age digital disciplines and careers, post-Covid, subjects such as artificial intelligence and coding have also been integrated into the school’s core curriculum,” says Deepa Kapoor, an English literature alumna of Osmania University, who signed up as an academic co-ordinator in 2011 and was promoted to principal’s office in 2020. The school’s fully Wi-Fi enabled campus spread over four green acres hosts five state-of-the-art buildings. They house 75 spacious ICT-enabled classrooms fitted with digital display boards, eight state-of-the-art labs including four science, two computer, maths and home science labs, three multipurpose halls, a 1,700-seat amphitheatre, media studio, and a well-stocked library with 7,937 volumes,…
Ranked among the Top 5 in Canada in QS World University Rankings 2023 and #110 worldwide, University of Alberta, Canada, has an aggregate enrolment of 41,061 scholars from 156 countries, writes Reshma Ravishanker Sprawled across four campuses in Edmonton, University of Alberta (UoA, estb.1908) is a high-ranked public higher education institution with an aggregate enrolment of 40,061 scholars from 156 countries worldwide. This 114-year-old varsity is ranked among the Top 5 in Canada in QS World University Rankings 2023 and #110 worldwide. UoA is also highly ranked for research impact — #4 in Canada and #81 globally in the NTU (National Taiwan University) Rankings 2019. A member institution of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, and Worldwide Universities Network, UoA’s 18 faculties offer over 200 undergraduate and 500 graduate programmes in the humanities, sciences, creative arts, business, engineering and health sciences. Distinguished alumni include the late physicist Richard E. Taylor, Nobel Prize (1990) winner; Joe Clark, former Canada prime minister; former chief justice Beverley McLachlin and Canadian football star Nereo Bolzon. Established by the University Act 1906, UoA admitted its first batch of 45 students including seven women into its English, mathematics and modern languages faculties in 1908. Since then, the university has expanded steadily by establishing faculties of agriculture, law, medicine, engineering and applied sciences. Edmonton. Sited on the banks of North Saskatchewan River, Edmonton (pop.1.1 million) is the northern most city of North America and administrative capital of Alberta province. A government, cultural, and educational hub, Edmonton is also known as ‘Canada’s Festival City’ because it hosts a slew of festivals year-round. A popular tourist destination, it boasts West Edmonton Mall, the second largest mall in North America; Fort Edmonton Park, Canada’s largest living history museum; the Elk Island National Park, and Royal Alberta Museum. Edmonton has freezing winters and sunny summers. Winter temperatures can dip below -10oC and average 23oC in summer. Campus facilities. UoA is spread across four sites in Edmonton and one in Camrose. The main North campus is located in the heart of the city with a blend of heritage buildings and modern architecture. Set amidst sprawling green lawns, it comprises 150 buildings housing modern academic and laboratory facilities. A short shuttle ride from the North campus is Campus Sain Jean which offers degree programmes in arts, commerce, education, engineering, science, nursing, conservation and environmental sciences. South Campus is a hub for agriculture education and also hosts the university’s state-of-the-art Saville Community Sports Centre, a 32,516 sq. m multi-sports facility. The fourth Enterprise Square campus sited in downtown Edmonton’s historic Bay Building comprises TEC Edmonton, faculty of extension, Alberta School of Business executive education and family business programs, advancement and alumni relations. The Augustana campus, located in Camrose, 93 km from Edmonton equipped with modern classrooms, labs and residential facilities, offers degree programmes in the liberal arts and sciences, outdoor education and sport. UoA’s library system is the second largest nationwide and houses 13 million volumes, 1.3 million…
Fifty years after its initiatives in rural education, healthcare, solar energy, water conservation, handicrafts, waste management and wasteland development have transformed the lives of millions in the neglected outbacks of hinterland India, the overwhelming majority of citizens are unaware of this unique institution, writes Dilip Thakore Early this year as the country was recovering from the unwarrantedly prolonged 82 weeks lockdown of all education institutions from preschool to Ph D, the golden jubilee year of the pioneer but largely unsung, Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan (BC, estb.1972) passed almost unnoticed. Apart from a few puppet shows and its annual Tilonia Bazaar staged in Jaipur and Delhi and celebrations in Tilonia (pop.4,000) and surrounding villages, the golden jubilee of arguably the most successful and high-potential initiative in rural education and development passed unheralded. Because of sustained establishment — including media — disconnect with rural India, the overwhelming majority of citizens are unaware of the existence of Barefoot College, let alone its pioneer initiatives in rural education, healthcare, solar energy, water conservation, handicrafts, waste management and wasteland development which have transformed the lives of millions in the neglected outbacks of hinterland India. That half a century after Sanjit (‘Bunker’) Roy, an alum of the top-ranked The Doon School, Dehradun and St. Stephen’s College, Delhi forsook a promising career in the civil service in favour of drilling open wells for drinking water and irrigation in Tilonia, and 100 bone dry, water-stressed villages in the desert state of Rajasthan and registered the Social Work & Research Centre (SWRC) aka, Barefoot College, this institution — felicitated by the Dalai Lama, Prince Charles and Bill Clinton among other notables — is largely unknown back home, is a telling commentary on the indifference of the establishment to rural India which grudgingly hosts 60 percent of the country’s 1.30 billion citizens. The genesis of rural India’s backwardness is the Left turn taken by Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, a natural sciences graduate of Cambridge University (UK), ignorant of elementary economics and the subcontinent’s long history of private enterprise. Born into the wealthy family of Motilal Nehru, perhaps the most successful lawyer in pre-independence India, Jawaharlal was schooled in the elite Harrow College and Cambridge, where under the influence of Britain’s trendy Bloomsbury Square socialists he naively became enamoured with communism and the Soviet-style centrally planned heavy industry development model. In essence this model, officially adopted by the Congress party under Nehru’s direction, necessitated siphoning rural and national savings for promotion and development of heavy industry — coal, steel, power, fertilizer etc — public sector enterprises (PSEs). Inevitably, the agriculture sector, which at the time supported 80 percent of the population, suffered severe infrastructure and logistics deficiencies and near-famine conditions. PSEs mismanaged by commerce-illiterate politicians and bureaucrats, aka the neta-babu brotherhood, conspicuously failed to generate promised surpluses (‘profit’ was — and remains — a dirty word in the leftist lexicon) for investment in rural infrastructure and development, especially primary education and healthcare. The outcome of the disastrous Left turn…
-Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru) Although he has just entered his first teenage year, Karnav Rastogi (13), a class VIII student of Mumbai’s top-ranked R.N. Podar School, has already written four paperback novels and three e-graphic books titled Kartik and Mixie featuring a ten-year-old boy and walking-talking robot. Acknowledged as India’s ‘youngest fiction writer’ by India Book of Records (2017), Future Kalam Book of Records (2018), and Indian Achievers’ Book of Records, Karnav released his first book Kartik & Mixie — A Journey About Creation when he was only eight years of age. His latest ouevre Kartik, Mixie & Climate Change: It’s Now or Never was released on World Environment Day (June 5). “I believe in the power of the written word. The world is confronted with grave challenges of environment destruction because of climate change. The objective of my latest book is to suggest ways and means to combat climate change,” says this woke young author. Similarly, Kartik, Mixie & Corona: A Journey about Coronavirus Prevention (2020) provided practical suggestions about Covid prevention while Kartik, Daddy And Plastic attempts to find solutions to the menace of plastic pollution. Moreover, for his poem ‘Plastic — A Curse’, Karnav was felicitated by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2020. The only child of Paras Rastogi, a cybersecurity professional, and Dr. Shweta, a clinical dietician, Karnav started reading when he was four. “I am blessed with parents who gifted me books of my choice over the years. They even signed me up as a library member when I was in kindergarten. However, my late grandfather and cardiologist Dr. S.K. Rastogi whose medical articles I have grown up reading, was my major inspiration,” says this gifted teen author. To inspire young children into creative writing, Karnav has since conducted 20 ‘Author in You — Magic with Words’ workshops at prominent schools in Mumbai, Aurangabad, Pune and Bengaluru. “After I complete my Plus Two, my goal is to qualify as a doctor while continuing to write books for the betterment of humanity,” says this woke idealist. Power to your pen! Read:Young Achiever: Riaan Kumar
-Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) Chennai-based teenage chess prodigy and GM (grand master) R. Praggnanandhaa (aka RP) created history on February 22 by besting Norway’s five-time reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen in 39 moves at the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour’s Airthings Masters online tournament. Only two other Indians — Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna — have achieved this feat. History was repeated on May 21 at the Chessables Masters online rapid chess tournament in which RP again defeated Carlsen in 40 moves. Over the past six years RP has checkmated several global Top 10 GMs including Russia-born Dutch player Anish Giri, Armenian-American Levon Aronian, Azerbaijani Mamedyarov Shakhriyar, and Filipino-American Wesley So. However, he most values his victory against Paraguayan GM Axel Bachmann at the Isle of Man championship way back in 2016, which launched his international career. The younger of two children of A. Rameshbabu, a manager at the Tamil Nadu Co-operative Bank, and homemaker Nagalakshmi, RP is a class XI student of the Velammal Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chennai. “I attribute my latest success to school and parental support,” he acknowledges. According to his teachers, RP is an excellent and dedicated student, who on several occasions wrote examinations on schedule after completing tournaments at 2 a.m. RP took to playing this complex mind game in his tender years, inspired by his elder sister R.Vaishali, also a GM. At age four, he began training at the city’s Bloom Chess Academy. By age five, he began competing and winning district and state-level championships and in 2012, won the National under-7 championship staged in Puducherry. Despite his young age and natural aptitude for chess, RP is committed to serious training. His daily regimen includes seven hours of practice under the watchful eye of coach R.B. Ramesh. “Chess players are fortunate compared to players of field sports. During the first and second waves of the Covid lockdown, I practiced on my laptop and was busy playing online tournaments and improved my game. But although I train seriously, I play to enjoy the game without worrying about outcomes,” says India’s youngest ever chess GM. Way to go Champ! Read:Jemimah Rodrigues
A new university at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s planned megacity on the banks of the Red Sea could soon emerge as the country’s premier scientific institution with the backing of its powerful crown prince. Billed as the sustainable city of the future and covering an area the size of Belgium, the $500 billion (Rs.39 lakh crore) Neom project is set to boast improbable wonders such as ‘The Line’, a 177 km-long linear city housing 1 million people without conventional cars, and ‘Oxagon’, an eight-sided floating industrial city — as well as a flagship university, dubbed Neom U. The institution, which last month (June) appointed a founding president, Andreas Cangellaris, currently provost of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, intends to become a ‘pre-eminent knowledge institution’, attracting students from across Saudi Arabia and overseas, and offering on-site and online learning. It will initially focus on computer science, engineering and design, media, art and entertainment, and business studies. Christopher Davidson, an expert in Middle Eastern politics and fellow at the European Centre for International Affairs, says the new university will benefit from the patron age of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — known as MBS. “Given Neom’s close association with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman… it is likely to emerge as Saudi Arabia’s premier and best-resourced research institution,” says Davidson, adding that, as a key component of the Vision 2030 strategy to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuel extraction and diversify its economy, the university is likely to “be well-funded, and heavily promoted, both domestically and internationally”. Significantly, beyond Prof. Cangellaris, many of the key players in the Neom U project are veterans who nurtured the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), until now the beacon of transformation of Saudi Arabia’s research sector, boasting a massive $10 billion endowment, a mostly international student cohort, and the country’s first mixed-gender campus. Nadhmi Al-Nasr, chief executive of the Neom project, was KAUST’s interim president at its foundation and later served as executive vice-president for administration and finance. Neom’s international steering council for education and research is chaired by Jean-Lou Chameau, former president of the top-ranked California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) who led KAUST between 2013-2017. Although KAUST is involved in the development of Neom, Dr. Davidson predicts that “though there will likely be cooperation and collaboration with…KAUST, the latter may eventually fall by the wayside”. “After all, KAUST was a King Abdullah-era project — with his name still buried in the acronym — and MBS is known to have harboured a strong dislike and distrust of King Abdullah’s sons and senior associates, with the most influential having been targeted by MBS’ anti-corruption campaign.” Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at Oxford University agrees that Neom U has the potential to join the top tier of global research institutions. “As KAUST shows, if we judge ‘world-class’ in universities by the quality of the infrastructure, and by quality and quantity of leading faculty and researchers hired, which is the most important…
A new requirement for Russian institutions to appoint rectors for students’ moral development is being interpreted as another sign of a country reverting to Soviet-style thought control. Coined during the USSR era, the position of pro rector in charge of vospitatel’naya rabota — which roughly translates as ‘character-building’ — was once common in universities. Such individuals were tasked with benign activities, such as organising volunteering and student scholarships, as well as more insidious ones, viz, inculcating state propaganda in their young charges. The post still exists at many universities, but now, it will be mandatory for all of them. Announcing this measure, Russian’s deputy minister of education Petr Kucherenko emphasised the importance of developing students not only as specialists in their fields, but also as “fully-fledged citizens of Russian society”, according to state media. Scholars say this initiative recalls times when Communist Russia intervened heavily to shape young people’s worldview. “Given that the old system is gone, the Russian re-Sovietisers are looking for opportunities to recreate similar structures in their universities,” says Anatoly Oleksiyenko, a scholar of post-Soviet studies in higher education policies based at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Oleksiyenko says that for now, it is uncertain whether Moscow will hand-pick candidates for the job, but tasking rectors with selection could be a shrewd political manoeuvre. “Most likely the Kremlin will give this responsibility to rectors, so that they also feel greater responsibility – and thus become extra cautious and anxious – in the processes of student admissions and development,” he says. Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, agrees that this initiative reflects a broader trend toward “re-Sovietisation of Russian universities”, with institutions “resurrecting or reinventing” Soviet rhetoric. “The Kremlin already has far-reaching influence,” agrees Maria Popova, associate professor in the department of political science at McGill University, Montreal, adding this is “a way to make the process of achieving political goals in the university setting more efficient and more centralised”.
If history is “a race between education and catastrophe”, as H.G. Wells once put it, education seemed until recently to be winning. In 1950, only about half of adults globally had any schooling; now at least 85 percent do. Between 2000 and 2018, the proportion of school-age children not enrolled in classes fell from 26 percent to 17 percent. But the rapid rise in attendance masks an ugly truth: many pupils were spending years behind desks but learning very little. In 2019, the World Bank started keeping count of the number of children who still cannot read by the time they finish primary school. It found that less than half of ten-year-olds in developing countries (which grudgingly host 90 percent of the world’s children) can read and understand a simple story. Then the pandemic struck and hundreds of millions of pupils were locked out of school. At first, when it was not yet known whether children were vulnerable to Covid-19 or were likely to spread the virus to older people, school closures were a prudent precaution. But in many countries they continued long after it became clear that the risks of reopening classrooms were relatively small. During the first two years of the pandemic, more than 80 percent of schooldays in Latin America and South Asia were disrupted by closures of some sort. Even today, schools in some countries such as the Philippines, remain shut to most pupils, leaving their minds to atrophy. Globally, the harm that school closures have done to children has vastly outweighed any benefits they may have had for public health. The World Bank says the share of ten-year-olds in middle and low-income countries who can not read and understand a simple story has risen from 57 percent in 2019 to roughly 70 percent. If they lack such elementary skills, they will struggle to earn a good living. The bank estimates that $21 trillion (Rs.1,677 lakh crore) will be wiped off their lifetime earnings — equivalent to about 20 percent of the world’s GDP. Scandalously, many governments spend more on rich pupils than on poor ones. Moreover, too little development aid goes to education, and some is self-interested. A chunk goes to donor countries’ own universities to fund scholarships for the relatively well-to-do from poor countries. Such exchanges are welcome, but funding primary schools in poor countries does more good. At present, a quarter of countries don’t have any plans to help children regain learning lost during the pandemic, according to a survey carried out earlier this year by Unicef. Another quarter have inadequate catch-up strategies. The same energy that was once poured into building schools and filling up classrooms should now be used to improve lessons that take place within them. At stake is the future not only of the generation scarred by the pandemic, but of all the pupils who will come after them.
75th Independence Day reflections
-Sanjaya Baru If one’s birthday tends to be a time for self-reflection, Independence Day should be a time for national self-reflection. Media publishes data and analysis on the state of the nation, economy and the people. Independence Day this year is a special milestone because we observe the 75th anniversary of free India. There are two ways in which one can measure the state of the nation on this momentous occasion. The first option is to take stock of the state of the nation 75 years ago and its condition today. This would be a purely inter-temporal comparison. We can also compare India with countries similarly placed in 1947, and measure our relative progress. Purely inter-temporal comparisons tend to be encouraging and heartening. We are certainly better off today than we were 75 years ago on almost every indicator. Perhaps with one exception — viz, the quality of water, air and soil. Nature has been degraded in the process of economic growth and development. India and the world is trying to remedy this but it will take time, commitment and money to do so. One metric tells a good story. From 1950 to 1980, India’s annual national income increased by 3.5 percent per year. Compared with near zero percent recorded in the period 1890-1940, this achievement was impressive. Subsequently, in the period 1980-2000, the average rate of annual GDP growth increased to 5.5 percent and 7.5 percent in 2000-2015. During the past seven years, it is down to around 6-6.5 percent. Even so, it’s an impressive achievement for a poor developing country burdened with the toxic legacy of colonialism and decades of poverty, illiteracy and disease.