One of the most regularly advanced arguments in favour of the BJP/NDA government at the Centre by its fervent supporters is that compared to the Congress-led UPA-I and UPA-II governments (2004-14), which were neck-deep in corruption, it is pristine pure.
However, the Berlin-based Transparency International (TI), an independent NGO which measures the incidence of public corruption […]
With hundreds of millions of industry professionals and business people obliged to work from home and schools and higher education institutions shut down for months on end, OTT (defined “as a means of providing television and film content over the Internet at the request and to suit the requirements of the individual consumer”) content providers […]
The Indian cricket team’s 2-1 series win against Australia and particularly the January 19 triumph at Brisbane’s Gabba cricket ground on which no visiting team has won a match since 1988, was indeed a famous victory. Especially after the visiting Indian team was bowled out for 36 in the first test match in Adelaide, the […]
Book: Middle Class, Media and Modi
Middle class, media & Modi: The making of a new electoral politics; Nagesh Prabhu; Sage publications; Rs.350; Pages 374
Ashutosh Kumar (The Book Review)
The ‘exceptionalism’ of the book under review according to its author, a senior journalist, lies in the fact that it seeks to unravel […]
A ringside seat to history: An autobiography; Pascal Alan Nazareth; Konark publishers; Rs.800; Pages 256
Amitabha Bhattacharya (The Book Review)
What exactly does an ambassador or a career diplomat do? Is the job about enjoying a comfortable life, mouthing high sounding ideals and engaging in protocol and immigration issues? How much scope is there for individual initiatives […]
Dr. Shashi Tharoor is Member of Parliament and former Minister of State for Education in the Congress-led UPA-II government at the Centre. Also a skilled debater and spokesperson of the Congress Party, Dr. Tharoor is a prolific, multiple awards winning author having written over 20 bestseller mainly non-fiction books. Excerpts from an interview with Dilip […]
As schools and colleges shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic cautiously reopen, educators are confronted with challenges of repairing the academic, emotional and nutrition damage suffered by tens of millions of children countrywide – Summiya Yasmeen
Children of pandemic shuttered Kolkata primary school: malnutrition damage danger
One year after governments around the world first discerned […]
President Erdoğan: twitter qualification partiality
Dozens of Turkish university rectors have no international research record but tweet prolifically in support of the Ankara government, scholars have warned, raising further concerns about academic independence as the country has moved towards autocracy.
In its annual review of academic freedom, Turkey’s Science Academy, a breakaway group formed in […]
China has declared itself the world’s leader in massive open online courses (Moocs), in terms of the number of courses and participants. This announcement has directed academic attention to a type of learning that was pronounced “dead” in 2017 by a vice-president of Udacity, a US educational technology giant.
In October 2020, China had more than […]
Professors who chair disciplinary panels at Imperial College, London, have warned that the institution’s handling of bullying cases involving its president and finance chief could hamper their ability to fulfill their roles.
There is mounting anger at this globally respected institution that president Alice Gast and chief financial officer Muir Sanderson were allowed to retain their […]
Face-to-face lectures are unlikely to return to several Australian campuses once Covid-19 has been vanquished, raising questions about whether the pandemic will have a decisive impact globally on the long-running debate about the future of large-group teaching.
Perth’s Curtin University proposes to scrap all lectures by the end of this year, starting with those involving 100 […]
Uganda girl children: pandemic impact danger
For much of human history and in many places, girls were considered property. Or, at best, subordinate people, required to obey their fathers until the day they had to start obeying their husbands. Few people thought it worthwhile to educate them. Even fewer imagined that a girl could […]
The creators of a holiday resort for US college students studying online during their Covid lockdowns are promising to expand the concept into a fundamental reimagining of the residential campus experience.
The idea by three Princeton University graduates — long-term luxury hotel rentals for students taking remote classes — has already been blocked in multiple US […]
Cardona: equal opportunity champion
President Joe Biden’s choice of a former schoolteacher with low-income Puerto Rican family roots as US education secretary has been seen as pointing towards a renewed focus on equality in universities.
If confirmed by the US Senate, Miguel Cardona would become the third Latino to serve in the nation’s top education […]
Sumesh Nair is the Mumbai-based co-founder and CEO of Board Infinity, a career exploration platform
In recent years, larger budgets for digital learning programmes, new tech innovations, enhancement of virtual training tools and rising popularity of social media, have given a huge stimulus to e-learning.
According to a 2016 report by US-based Statista Research Department, the […]
When the cost of the pandemic damage inflicted upon the country’s education sector is assessed after the polity limps back to normalcy, it’s certain to be very heavy. Especially in the nascent early childhood care and education sector – Dilip Thakore
Pre-primary school children: massive learning loss prospect
According to most indicators, the worst of […]
Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
The youngest chef to win four silver medals in the ‘pastry and culinary artistry’ individual categories at the world’s oldest and toughest Culinary Olympics 2020, staged in Stuttgart (Germany) last February, Chennai-based Yeshwanth Kumar Umasankar (17) has been awarded an entry into the India Book of Records.
Conceived by a group of German […]
Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru)
HappyInc, a free-of-charge online peer counseling service designed for teenagers to overcome pandemic-induced stress, anxiety and depression, launched last August by Kian Godhwani and Nandini Bhattacharya — class XII students of the high-ranked Lawrence School, Lovedale (Ooty) — was adjudged runner-up in the University of Arizona Studentpreneur Challenge by a […]
Initially funded by donations from the city council to provide engineering education, over the past half century the multi-disciplinary UCSD has established a global reputation for teaching and research – Dipta Joshi
UCSD vista: high global ranking
One of ten campuses of the University of California’s public education system, over the past half century the […]
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic having forced closure of this greenfield enterprise within six months of admitting its first batch, this tech-savvy IB candidate school has got off to a good start because of excellent word-of-mouth publicity received from satisfied parents and students- Autar Nehru
Prometheus snapshot: good start in bad times
Despite the mint-fresh Prometheus […]
New Delhi, January 12. CyberPeace Foundation, a think tank and NGO promoted by cyber security and policy experts, launched a cyber security training programme in collaboration with the Union ministry of education and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for the benefit of industry, academia, government and civil society. The objective of the programme […]
Mathura, January 2. Sixty-six suspects have been taken into police custody for alleged involvement in a fraudulent diversion of Rs.23 crore from the state’s post-matriculation scholarship fund during the period 2015-20.
Those booked include social welfare officer Karunes Tripathi, suspended by chief minister Yogi Adityanath last December, three clerks of the district’s social welfare department and […]
“The turning point in my life and Reliance’s life was when India embraced economic reforms. Liberalisation freed the suppressed entrepreneurial energies in our country and gave us the hum kissi se kam nahin spirit.” — Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries (India Today, January 4)
“From 2021, let us recommit ourselves to improving Indian education. Not with […]
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
With the countdown for the west bengal legislative assembly polls scheduled in April/May having begun in right earnest, the prime contenders — the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Amit Shah-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — are loudly promoting their distinctive election agendas.
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who famously ended 34 years of uninterrupted […]
Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai)
Like most of India’s 33 school exam boards, the Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Examinations (TNBSE) has reduced the syllabus for its classes X and XII school-leaving public examinations this year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic induced closure of all schools statewide since last March. With teaching-learning adversely affected, the board announced a […]
Aditi Maheshwari (Bhopal)
The BJP government of the state is set to merge all government schools situated within a 15 km radius of each other to reconstitute them into composite K-12 schools. This proposal made under the chief minister’s Rise School programme launched last summer (May 2020), will reduce the number of government schools in 224 […]
Fazal: unjust & unfair
Amrita Ghosh (Bengaluru)
Several associations of private schools are all set to file writ petitions in the high court against the constitutional validity of a January 30 state government directive to all private schools — including institutions affiliated with pan-India CBSE and CISCE exam boards — statewide to collect only 70 […]
Joseph (centre): pandemic opportunity
Dipta Joshi (Mumbai)
Shuttered for over nine months because of the national lockdown of all education institutions countrywide to prevent spread of the Coronavirus pandemic, a rising number of private K-12 schools in Maharashtra are up for sale. Confronted with government indifference, banks unwilling to provide credit and parents unwilling and/or […]
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman (right): human capital blindspot
Autar Nehru (Delhi)
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 hammered out after a gap of 34 years last July, promised to increase the national outlay for education to 6 percent of GDP. But in early 2020, a deadly new flu virus spread from Wuhan (China) and infected […]
Congratulations for your well-researched cover story ‘Future of learning in post-pandemic era’ (EW January). Your views resonated with me. The closure of education institutions for over nine months has certainly forced change-averse schools to adopt new tech-driven teaching-learning systems. But it has also highlighted and exacerbated prevailing inequalities in Indian education.
While a few hundred top-ranked […]
On january 20, america awoke to a bright new dawn. A new chapter has begun in the history of the United States of America (pop.331 million), the world’s oldest democratic nation (estb.1776). Joseph (‘Joe’) Biden, former vice president of the US during the presidency of Barack Obama (2009-2017), with a respectable 40-year track record in […]
By the time you read this editorial, the Union Budget 2021-22 will have been done, dusted and presented to Parliament and the people. Although the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 presented last July firmly resolved to double the national (Centre plus states) annual outlay for education to 6 percent — a recommendation first made and […]
According to all indications, the worst of the Coronavirus aka Covid-19 pandemic which prompted the complete shutdown of industry, business and trade nationwide for over three months — and closure of all education institutions from pre-primary to Ph D for over nine months and counting — is over. The infections curve has flattened across the […]
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Budget 2021-22 ignores NEP 2020
Protiva Kundu is associate director of research at the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), New Delhi
Year 2020 has been exceptional — a year unlike any other. Before the Covid-19 induced lockdown on March 25, India’s economy was already struggling. The national lockdown plunged it into severe recession. Therefore, there was little headroom […]