The road from Gandhinagar capital of the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop. 60 million) — which chief minister Narendra Modi dominates like a colossus — to Delhi is through numerous global capitals. To counter popular domestic resistance to his emergence as the BJP front-runner in the 2014 prime ministerial sweepstakes, Modi has taken to […]
At an inconvenient time when the incumbent BJP government of Karnataka is confronted with a split in its ranks following the exit of former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, and the state scheduled to go to the hustings in May, it is taking heat for infiltrating hindutva propaganda (“saffronisation”) into textbooks of primary and secondary children […]
The rash of scandals including charging prohibited capitation fees, faking the number of minimum faculty members, and other forms of malpractices rampant in several of Tamil Nadu’s 19 government and 23 private medical colleges and one government and 26 private dental colleges, which have been hitting newspaper headlines in Chennai for the past year, have […]
The ruling Trinamool Congress government of West Bengal, after ousting the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) led-Left Front government which ruled this eastern seaboard state uninterruptedly for 34 years in the historic state legislative election of 2011, is set to celebrate the second anniversary of that famous victory in May. One of its major pre-election promises […]
“The president takes the salute on the Raj Path from a parade that is spectacular for the most part but rather reminiscent, with its tanks and missiles of Soviet-style hubris that is unbecoming of a democratic republic.” Gautam Adhikari, well-known journalist, on India’s Republic Day celebrations (Times of India, January 26)
With most of India’s cities — especially metros — under-served in terms of privately-promoted primary-secondary schools (middle class households won’t touch government schools with a barge pole), admission of tiny tots into nurseries of Delhi’s most highly-ranked K-12 private schools is a top priority of every aspirational middle class family as it ensures smooth progression […]
Even as the school admission season has already commenced in India’s crowded (20.5 million) commercial capital, unaided minority schools exempted by the Supreme Court in its landmark judgement in Society for Unaided Private Schools vs. Union of India & Anr delivered last April from having to compulsorily reserve a 25 percent quota in class I […]
Eight months after the Karnataka state government notified the state Rules for the implementation of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act), it is still floundering in troubled waters. The state’s 13,527 primary/higher primary private schools, which as per s.12 (1) (c) of the Act are obliged to admit 25 […]
After a hat-trick victory at the hustings, and sworn-in as chief minister of the western seaboard state of Gujarat (pop. 60 million) for a record fourth time in a row on December 26, Narendra Modi’s retention of stewardship of the state — widely trumpeted as the fastest (economically) growing in the country — has been cautiously welcomed […]
Agitational including street politics popularised by Trinamool Congress Party leader and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who famously ended 34 years of uninterrupted rule in the state of the CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist)-led Left Front government in the summer of 2011, seems to have struck a resonant chord within the state’s student communities. […]
Despite the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop.72.1 million), which is rapidly emerging as a manufacturing hub, experiencing an acute shortage — and rising wages — of skilled technicians in its automobile, construction and service sectors, there are not many takers for vocational education and training (VET) in the state. In spite of the […]
“An education programme, is by definition, a societal programme. Work should be done in schools rather than at home.”
French President Francois Hollande on why his government wants to ban homework in schools (Times of India, December 16)
“What I advocate is that during classroom time — when you get human beings together — we should be interactive […]
That public education is a low priority of the Congress party is hardly a national secret. Although the global average outlay for education is 5 percent of GDP and the Kothari Commission recommended 6 percent way back in 1966, post-independence India’s (Centre plus states) annual allocation for education has never exceeded 4 percent of GDP […]
Five months after a devastating fire in Mantralaya — headquarters of the Maharashtra state government — which destroyed the offices of the chief minister and the deputy chief minister on June 21, and took a toll of two dead and 16 injured, a survey made public on October 29, reveals that an estimated 1.64 million […]
A century ago the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop. 91 million) was the epicentre of India’s intellectual and cultural renaissance under great scholars such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dwarkanath and Rabindranath Tagore. But since then, the state’s intellectual tradition has been reduced to a sorry condition following the 34 years (1977-2011) rule […]
A spate of media reports highlighting that the 83-year-old unitary Annamalai University (AU, estb. 1929) sited in Chidambaram, is reeling under a severe financial crisis has taken the academic community in the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu — and Chennai in particular — by shock and surprise. There is bewilderment within academia and […]
Right until the late 1970s, one of India’s most respected universities — especially for graduating highly skilled and industry-ready engineers — Bangalore University (BU, estb. 1964), which has 600 colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 700,000 students affiliated with it, has suffered a precipitous decline in norms and standards during the past quarter century. Industry […]
“Arvind Kejriwal has no answer for how they’ll find honest candidates.”
Social activist Anna Hazare (India Today, November 5)
“The success of the 16th President teaches that hard times are precisely when political dexterity is needed most. Politics is the machinery by which we meet tough challenges. Lincoln drilled this idea into his closest aides…” David Von Drehle on […]
Child rights champions and activists in the national capital are up in arms against Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Mehta Vidyalaya, a private school which has reportedly been levying above normative tuition fees upon students with disabilities. In a public interest litigation (PIL) writ petition filed against the school by well-known NGO Social Jurist, a division bench […]
Sixteen years ago, Maharashtra (pop. 112 million) — India’s most industrialized state accounting for 25 percent of the country’s industrial production — became the first state of the Indian Union to declare special education for challenged children a major priority and announced sweeping changes (Maharashtra has 600 special schools exclusively for children with various types […]
The tumultuous reign of Dr. N. Prabhu Dev as vice chancellor of Bangalore University (BU, estb.1964), which has 600 colleges in Karnataka with an aggregate enrolment of 700,000 students affiliated with it, ended four months prematurely on October 13 when he submitted his resignation to Karnataka governor and ex officio BU chancellor H.R. Bhardwaj. Prabhu […]
Nine students of Gujarat National Law University (GNLU, estb. 2003), who filed a writ petition in the high court against GNLU challenging a varsity order detaining them in the third year of their five-year degree course, have won a major victory.
In a judgement delivered on October 17, Justice K.S. Jhaveri upheld the petition which challenged the […]
Estranged from the Congress-led UPA-II government in New Delhi, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool government passed the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Act, 2012 on September 27. Following approval of the Act by the state legislative assembly, a state government representative will replace the UGC member on the search panel to select vice chancellors of the […]
Reports of continuous mismanagement of the city-based Pachaiyappa Trust (PT, estb. 1842), which runs 15 educational institutions in Tamil Nadu, have been hitting the newspaper headlines in Chennai for over two months, raising doubts about whether the government-aided education model is serving any public purpose.
Founded by munificent philanthropist Pachaiyappa Mudaliar 170 years ago, PT manages […]
“We’re not saying anything new but that’s the beauty of the plan.” Pawan Agarwal, advisor (higher education) to the Planning Commission on the 12th Five Year Plan (Forbes, October 12)
“A deal over the border has for years been self-evident: China gets to keep Aksai Chin in the west and India gets to keep the 80,000 sq. […]
The long-standing proposal of the Union government to establish 14 autonomous ‘innovation universities’ — first announced by the National Knowledge Commission in 2010 and for which purpose a draft Universities for Research and Innovation Bill 2012 was tabled in Parliament in May (where it has been stuck in logjam following the prolonged disruption of parliamentary […]
Primary school education in Maharashtra (pop. 112 million) — India’s most industrialised state accounting for 25 percent of the country’s industrial production — is in pathetic condition. And this is official.
According to the latest flash statistics of the District Information System for Education (DISE) 2010-11 of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), […]
Following a spate of tragedies suffered by school children in Tamil Nadu which drew attention to public and official apathy towards child safety rules and regulations, a new scourge of sexual abuse of children is spreading through the state’s 55,567 government and aided and 10,000 private schools, further tarnishing the image of this southern state’s […]
A criminal indictment and trial which had hung like a malevolent cloud over Kolkata’s bhadralok (English literate middle class) — who pride themselves if their children are admitted into the elite La Martiniere for Boys School (LMB, estb. 1836) — was lifted on September 21. Delivering a 11-page written judgement, Judge Madhuchanda Bose, additional district […]
Well-known for his assertive — critics say authoritarian — style of putting his stamp and impress upon every sector of the economy of Gujarat (pop. 60 million), chief minister Narendra Modi is under fire for interfering with higher education institutions, particularly appointments of vice chancellors to universities in the state.
“When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.” Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention (Time, September 17)
“It was a deal worked out over dinner on the kitchen table. I made three dollars on this film, but they’re worth it.”
Author Salman Rushdie on […]
Pursuing higher education in India and abroad is set to become easier. The newly re-appointed Union finance minister P. Chidambaram announced that the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA, estb. 1946), of which 173 banks — including 26 public, 23 private sector, 38 foreign banks with offices in India and 61 co-operative banks as also 25 financial […]
The dismal condition of 1,167 primary and secondary schools with an aggregate enrolment of 650,000 children, run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in India’s commercial capital (pop. 20.5 million), is now officially admitted. On July 26, by a resolution of the corporation, private educators including corporates, education trusts and NGOs were invited to take […]
Although the southern seaboard state of Tamil Nadu (pop. 72 million) prides itself for its high academic standards and quality of schools, its school safety record is the mirror opposite of its academic attainments. Almost a decade ago on July 16, 2004, the state’s appalling child safety record hit national headlines when 93 primary school […]
After 34 years of uninterrupted rule of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM)-led Left Front government during which era the education system of West Bengal (pop. 90 million) — once widely accepted as the best in India — was run into the ground by CPM apparatchiks and cadres, academics and parents expected major reforms after […]
Against the backdrop of the Right to Free & Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (aka RTE Act) which makes it compulsory for the State, i.e the Central and/or state governments to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of six-14, the primary-higher secondary (class I-XII) education system in the southern state of […]
Privately promoted B-schools countrywide offering postgraduate diplomas in management (PGDM — considered equivalent to an MBA degree programme which can be offered only by University Grants Commission-approved universities) inched a step closer to financial autonomy on July 10. Delivering an interim order in AICTE vs. Education Promotion Society for India, Association of Indian Management Schools […]
The controversial and hotly debated Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which was substantially upheld by the Supreme Court’s April 12 verdict in Society for Unaided Private Schools of Rajasthan vs. Union of India, has raised more questions than answers. While the apex court famously upheld the constitutional validity of s.12 (1) […]
A week-long (July 16-22) strike called by the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association (KUSMA), which boasts a membership of 1,800 private unaided schools, to protest the “clumsy” implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009 by the state government, received a lukewarm response. Only a handful of private unaided school managements responded to KUSMA’s […]
Following the end of 34 years of rule (1977-2011) of the Communist Party of India (CPM)-led Left Front government in West Bengal (pop. 90 million) in which private initiatives in higher education were strictly verboten, the legislative assembly passed the Techno India University Bill 2012 on July 6 to establish West Bengal’s first private university […]
- Mita Mukherjee Nearly 25 lakh persons working as pre-primary facilitators and caregivers in the country will be offered training to equip them with the .....Read More
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