manedge

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...