Education Notes

Uttar Pradesh Suspect mid-day meal Sanya (4) and Besma (5) died and 46 other children were hospitalised after consuming milk served during their mid-day meal at the Junior High School in Kanshi Ram Colony near Mathura. Samples of the suspect milk and water have been taken, a police spokesman informed the media on May 5. “The children first complained of stomach ache followed by diarrhoea after drinking the milk served to them. However, the exact cause of food poisoning is being ascertained,” said district magistrate Rajesh Kumar. While 22 children were admitted into the district hospital, 19 were sent to the Swarna Jayanti Hospital and five others to a multi-specialty hospital in serious condition. “Two teams of doctors have been stationed in Kanshi Ram Colony after the incident,” the chief medical officer said, adding that a team of doctors is also providing door-to-door precautionary treatment. Use of water from overhead tanks has also been banned, he added.  Gujarat Sanjeev Kapoor cuisine for JNVs Union human resource development (HRD) minister Smriti Irani announced plans to engage world-class chef Sanjeev Kapoor to help improve the nutrition of students of the country’s 596 wholly residential Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNVs), run by the ministry. Irani was laying the foundation of a new JNV at Hathijan village near Ahmedabad, on May 16. “Bright students from rural households are admitted into JNVs. To provide them nutritious meals on a par with private boarding schools, we have roped in celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor to help improve food quality and nutrition in JNVs,” she said, speaking on the occasion. According to Irani, Kapoor will train cooks employed in CBSE-affiliated JNVs which offer class VI-XII free-of-charge education to meritorious rural students. “This new school which will become fully operational by 2019 will be equipped with smart classrooms. Two similar schools will also be built in Valsad and Dahod districts in the near future,” she added. Rajasthan  Nehru effacement Class VIII students of schools affiliated with the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education will no longer read about Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister. All references to Nehru in their social science textbook have been effaced and replaced with the story of freedom fighter Hemu Kalani, according to information uploaded on the website of the Rajasthan State Textbook Board. The textbook revision exercise was conducted by the Udaipur-based State Institute of Education Research and Training. Inevitably, this history revision initiative has had a political fallout. Noisy protests erupted in the state legislative assembly on May 8 with the opposition Congress party hitting out at the ruling BJP saying the state government has touched a “new low” by omitting all references to India’s first prime minister in a history textbook. Nagaland Pilot financial literacy programme The National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Nagaland Board of Secondary Education (NBSE) have jointly introduced a pilot financial literacy course for 5,153 class IX students in 60 government schools in Kohima, Dimapur and Mokokchung districts, starting in the new academic year. In a function to mark the…