manedge

When the Right to Education (RTE) Act was promulgated in 2009-10, the most talked about provision was 'no detention' of students up to Class-VIII. The philosophy behind this provision was to ensure that all students in the age-group of 6 to 14 years would not be deprived of education. As 25% seats were being reserved for students from the disadvantaged sections of the society, this provision was supposed to ensure that such students were not thrown out of the system due to their failure to cope up with it, coming as they were from a background which had no educated parents or additional teaching support. Furthermore, there was also a provision of age-appropriate admission. If a none year old was coming to school for the first time she had to be admitted to Class-IV. The school and the teachers were supposed to ensure that such students were brought at par with others. Sadly, this did not happen. In reality, the states' education departments took some time to implement...

The case of Chandan Mitra who has jumped ship by moving from the BJP to the TMC is indeed curious. It is indeed intriguing that someone who has spent the best part of his life in Chandigarh as the editor of The Pioneer , been two-time Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh, and could not win a Lok Sabha seat from West Bengal in 2014, has resigned because he was not able to do much for his state (West Bengal), as mentioned by him. This is political opportunism, and nothing else. We have had prior examples of journalists jumping into politics like M J Akbar, who first joined the Congress and then the BJP; Rajiv Shukla, who first joined the Congress and then moved to the BCCI and the IPL, and whose example is being partly emulated by Rajat Sharma who had the BJP's backing in the recent DDCA elections; Arun Shourie, who was a vehement champion of Hindutva in his initial days in the BJP, and is now a vociferous critic of the present dispensation; to name a few. What is worrying th...

Indian cricket team's tour itinerary to Australia is highly lopsided. India begin their tour with three T20Is, followed by four Tests and finally play three ODIs. Playing the shortest format of cricket ahead of the longest format is no practice when a majority of the Test players like Pujara, Vijay, Rahul, Rahane, and Ishant do not play T20 for India. When a team is going primarily for 4 Tests on a difficult tour to Australia, it should ideally play 2 to 3 three-day or four-day games to get a feel of the weather, pitches and playing conditions. Though it has not been mentioned specifically in the published itinerary, one hopes the team plays at least two three-day first class games in the ten days between the last T20I and the first Test.  The Test team needs a rhythm, as was seen in South Africa recently when India improved as the series went on, having jumped off the plane straightaway into Tests after playing a limited overs series at home against Sri Lanka. Virat Kohli ha...

What India faces today is the crisis of integrity. Integrity of behavior in public life has been under a cloud, accentuated by first the way the political establishment has appropriated authority and the manner in which the bureaucracy has stamped its mark on embezzlement of funds. The bank scams of recent years are the tip of the iceberg made up of siphoning off of public money by a plethora of state and central government departments since times immemorial. As a teenager who had started seeing the  funny side of misuse of power depicted in cartoons, I remember how the minister's wife would be looking forward to the opportunity for an aerial survey of flood-hit areas while the minister would be licking his lips at the aid material. The problem with we Indians is that we have always seen only the funny side of corruption and corrupt behavior which includes violating laws, rules and regulations. If our MLA or MP or a minister in our vicinity was not living in a mansion that was g...

For almost a month now, and perhaps for 13 months in 2012-13 and 12 months 1989-90, I have had a blissful experience of the morning paper, literally in my hands. When I shifted to Bhilai in 1990, it would be The Times of India, Delhi edition being delivered in the evening. The newspaper would come by air to Raipur and would be delivered in the evening. So the year long luxury of fresh newsprint while I was in Delhi, came to an end. Logistics issues meant there would be no regularity of the TOI being delivered on time. Though it scares me now, but I must confess that for almost two years I had no morning newspaper to read. Gradually I shifted to Teh Hitavada and The Indian Express - Nagpur editions. When The Hindustan Times was launched from Raipur, I shifted to that as well. But my discomfort continued, so to speak. Even prior to 1990, I missed the morning 'national' newspaper having lived in smaller towns like Ranchi, Obra, and Muzaffarpur. It was only in 2007, during a v...

That we had to bring in a law (the RTE Act, 2010) to make education a right six decades after independence itself speaks of how two of our basic rights - healthcare and education were denied to the masses. In the backdrop of huge investment - public as well as private - in the two areas notwithstanding, should have been taken as an indictment of India's failure to fulfill the basic needs of its citizens.  The ASER 2017 report by Pratham (http://img.asercentre.org/docs/Publications/ASER%20Reports/ASER%202017/aser2017fullreport.pdf) has only confirmed our worst fears. The teenagers (14-18 years) are badly disabled, so to speak when it comes to basic skills. Let us not forget that these are amongst those who suddenly, from an exam-based evaluation system, which was in vogue till 2010, had to shift to no exams at all for the last seven years. The Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE), in the absence of proper teacher training and ineffective implementation, resulted in sc...

Arriving at an optimum examination schedule keeping in  mind the holidays, festivals and elections (at times), is a challenge. Last year the Class-X and XII Board examinations conducted by the CBSE started late on account of elections in U.P. Otherwise March 1 has been the traditional start date for the start of the examinations, year after year. The CBSE Class-XII Examination Schedule for 2018 is badly skewed against the interests of science students. There is absolutely no gap between Mathematics (on 21st March) and Engineering Graphics (22nd March). It is a given that all the Engineering Graphics students study Mathematics.  Stung by delays and inaccuracies in evaluation last year, the CBSE had earlier talked of advancing the start of the board examinations to February. However it did not find favour with schools as it would have affected course completion as well the schedule of the school-level examinations for other classes which are held simultaneously with th...

The abject surrender by the numero uno Test team's famed batting line-up - not once but twice at Newlands, Cape Town in the first Test of the ongoing series - is not unexpected. The Indian team landed in South Africa without any preparation at all. Only a few days back they were playing Sri Lanka at home and decimating them. But even against one of the weakest teams today, the Indian batting line-up struggled in the Kolkata Test due to seaming conditions. In fact, India surrendered to Lakmal and co. at Dharamshala in the first ODI. In 2016, India had lost to Sri Lanka in a T20I at Pune on a grassy 'English' pitch. So against the weakest team if we had demonstrated again and again that our world-record beating batsmen cannot stand muster on seaming pitches with grass, was there any doubt that we will not surrender in South Africa, or for that matter England and Australia later on in 2018? Not that this issue wasn't raised? Skipper Kohli himself raised the issu...