“Intellectualism was never associated with Indian politicians, but never before have there been such blatant attempts to de-intellectualise the country as now.”
Anand Teltumbde in ‘The New Normal in Modi’s New India’ (Economic & Political Weekly, August 4)
“Why do we hesitate to spend on them? Why do we constantly look for ways to reduce the budgets and cut here and there? Schools’ budgets should be enhanced.”
Urmila Chowdhury, education director of NGO ARK International, on improving India’s government schools (Business Standard, August 16)
“Demonetisation, the sacking of Rajan and the appointment of Yogi Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh chief minister were the three key decisions that made me realise that Modi isn’t the economic reformer we think him to be.”
James Crabtree, journalist and author of the recently released The Billionaire’s Raj: A Journey through India’s Gilded Age (Business Standard, August 18)
“Universities in India are over-regulated and under-governed. While there have been some reforms in higher education, including the granting of autonomy to 52 universities, the benefit of these reforms will not be seen until the state governments and the wider set of regulatory bodies that govern higher education are involved in the granting of autonomy.”
C. Raj Kumar, founding vice-chancellor, OP Jindal Global University (Deccan Herald, August 25)
“…the reality is that most of them know that their degree isn’t worth the paper it is printed on… For these lakhs of boys and girls desperately writing exam after exam in the hope of even the humblest of jobs, the education system has simply failed them. It is a collective failure of which we should all be ashamed.”
Raghavan Srinivasan, editor, Business Line, on Indian Railways receiving 19 million applications for Group D jobs (The Hindu, August 26)
