Vedant Thadani, an alum of Goldsmiths College, University of London and works with Muskan Productions, Delhi The crisis in Ukraine has alerted many Indians to the plight of their fellow countrymen who were stranded in that country. The overwhelming majority of them were medical students who had left India to pursue undergrad degrees. Ukraine isn’t a global leader in education like the US or UK, but still over 20,000 Indians were enrolled in universities there. Over a million Indian students go abroad for higher education annually. That number is projected to reach 1.8 million by 2024. While there are a host of reasons for this annual exodus, the most glaring is the lack of higher education options in India. As of 2016, only 8.15 percent of citizens held a college degree — an embarrassingly low figure for a country proclaiming itself a rising power. Admission into Indian universities is notoriously difficult. The competition is ridiculously severe and, in some cases, less than 2 percent of admission applications are accepted. This leaves young Indians with no option but to look elsewhere. There is a huge demand-supply gap in acceptable quality higher education, and this has been the case for at least the past two decades. Education in India isn’t a free market — the vast majority of schools and universities cannot operate a profit-making model. The University Grants Commission (UGC) Act, 1956 does not explicitly restrict for-profit education. But s. 26 (1) (g) of the Act grants UGC the power to regulate the “maintenance of standards and the coordination of work or facilities in universities.” This allows the commission to regulate fees in higher education institutions.
Afterlives Abdulrazak Gurnah bloomsbury publishing Rs.499 Pages 273 -Sharmila Narayana Afterlives is the latest book from Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Nobel laureate for literature, 2021. His novels predominantly focus on the themes of displacement, colonisation, migration, identity and slavery. In an essay published in 2004, Gurnah explains that his own hardships, anxiety, state terror and humiliation, as he migrated from Zanzibar to the UK, became prominent themes in his works. The background of this novel is the German occupation of East Africa, the Maji Maji Uprising against the Germans and the First World War. It explores the impact of European colonialism, and violence and racism of Germans in Africa, hitherto a well-kept secret. The book is divided into four sections. The first takes the reader to the heart of a bleeding East Africa suffering German colonisation and the Maji Maji uprising. The Germans, apart from using military force, starve the people into submission. Through his slow and detailed narration, Gurnah recreates the trauma and horrors of colonisation. Lives are torn asunder, shattered and bruised. Ilyas runs away from home, only to be captured by German troops. His sister, Afiya, is given away to another family by her father after her mother’s death. Gurnah graphically details Afiya’s miserable life with her foster parents and the abuse and violence to which she is regularly subjected. Ilyas escapes and returns to his hardly recognisable ancestral village in search of his sister. The protagonist, Hamza, is introduced in the second section which pivots around his harrowing experiences in the German army fighting World War I, including sexual abuse by an officer. The horrors of war come alive in this section. Severely wounded, Hamza is nursed back to life by a kind pastor and his family. However, like Ilyas, when he returns to his birthplace on the coast after seven years, he finds it unrecognisable, with no trace of family and friends. Neighbourhoods had just vanished. “When he fled it had seemed like an undoing of a life but for now it has ended with the futility of him returning to where he had been before, older, half-broken, empty-handed,” writes Gurnah. In section three, Hamza, overwhelmed by the cruelties he has experienced, makes a determined effort to rebuild his life. He finds work at Nassor Biashara’s warehouse and gets modest accommodation in Khalifa’s house, where he falls in love with Afiya. Hamza and Afiya marry and settle down, promising to comfort each other. The last section dwells on Afiya and Hamza’s son, Ilyas, named in remembrance of Afiya’s brother, who never returned from the war. The trauma of war continues to haunt Hamza as he has nightmares. He wonders whether it is his own trauma or Afiya’s memories of her lost brother that are haunting him. As the novel ends, Ilyas is 38 years old employed as a broadcaster in the Federal Republic of Germany. There he discovers that uncle Ilyas was sent to the Sachsenhausen Concentration camp for breaking Nazi race laws, and was eventually…
A new cold war: Henry Kissinger & the rise of china Edited by Sanjay Barua & Rahul Sharma harper collins Rs.799 Pages 295 -Dilip Thakore February 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of a historic meeting in Beijing, China, between US President Richard Nixon and China’s Chairman Mao Zedong in 1972, which future historians may well mark as an inflection point in global history. This event signalled a rapprochement between the US and China which had fought several proxy wars in Korea (1950), Vietnam (1965-72) and face-offs in lesser battles in other countries around the world. It was the outcome of top-secret negotiations between communist China’s top leadership and a clandestine visit via Pakistan of Dr. Henry Kissinger, America’s secretary of state and a highly acclaimed foreign affairs scholar-strategist a year earlier. These first ever meetings had been initiated by the two American leaders to cut down to size the Soviet Union, with whom the US had been engaged in a prolonged ideologically-driven Cold War. Last July (2021), to mark the golden jubilee of Kissinger’s secret visit to China which has dramatically changed the balance of global power, public intellectuals Sanjaya Baru and Rahul Sharma commissioned this excellent compendium of 19 essays, penned by disparate experts in foreign affairs and international diplomacy to expound upon the fallout of that great thaw in US-China relations. The galaxy of international policy wonks and analysts who have contributed to Henry Kissinger and the Rise of China — A New Cold War include Kishore Mahbubani, Kanti Bajpai, Rana Mitter, Sujan Chinoy, Suhasini Haidar — names perhaps familiar to Indian readers, plus US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia foreign policy experts. Their impressive credentials are summarised in an index of this compendium. Without exception, all of them have contributed valuable insights explaining the rapid rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from a backward third world country devastated by famines during Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958-60) and the Cultural Revolution (1965-75) social engineering experiments, into the world’s second largest economic and military power. The rise of modern China began with the Kissinger-Nixon diplomatic initiative 50 years ago. Today PRC is a formidable rival to the US and has transformed the post-World War II global order. Kissinger’s covert visit to China which is mile-stoned, if not celebrated, in this volume of essays was driven by his many years of study of European balance of power politics. When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he appointed Kissinger, then a Harvard professor to break the Soviet/China communist nexus. To appreciate the historic significance of the Kissinger/Nixon rapprochement with communist China in the early 1970s, it’s important to bear in mind that after 1949 when the Red Flag was hoisted by Mao Zedong in Peking (Beijing), the US — a staunch ally of pre-communist China, and the Kuomintang government led by Generalissimo Chiang-Kai Shek during World War II — hadn’t acknowledged the communist regime. Until Nixon and Mao shook hands in Beijing in 1972, the US continued to…
Unsurprisingly, the maiden public issue of the public sector Life Insurance Corporation of India (estb.1956), which is likely to be launched within the next few months, is generating heated excitement in the stock market and within India’s fast expanding investors’ community. The cash-strapped Union government, the sole owner of the corporation, is set to offer 316 million equity shares equivalent to 5 percent of its total shareholding in the corporation to raise Rs.66,000 crore in the largest public issue in Indian history. Certainly the corporation has come a long way since 1956 in the prime of Nehruvian socialism when more than 200 private life insurance companies doing business in India were nationalised and amalgamated into LIC. But within a year, LIC was embroiled in the Mundhra scandal which led to the resignation of Union finance minister T.T. Krishnamachari. Subsequently, it rapidly morphed into a typical public sector enterprise swarming with clerks. In 1979 your diarist, then editor of Business India, wrote the first ever detailed cover feature on this corporation, which had acquired a notorious reputation for rejecting insurance payout claims on flimsiest pretexts. To the extent that a Supreme Court judge described it as “a corporation without a heart”. Nevertheless, the forthcoming LIC public issue is likely to be heavily over-subscribed. According to stock market mavens, after the government calibrates the premium payable on its shares, the corporation’s market cap is likely to balloon to Rs.22 lakh crore transforming LIC into the country’s most valuable company, ahead of Reliance Industries (Rs.16 lakh crore). Yet with the Union government divesting a mere 5 percent of its equity shareholding, LIC will overwhelmingly remain a slothful public sector enterprise. In the past 60 years during which it was an elephantine monopoly, it managed to provide insurance cover to a mere 3 percent of the adult population. In the US, 54 percent of the population is covered by life insurance. At best, LIC is a failed success.
Commendable facts checking by several online news portals, including Quint have refuted social media reports that the BJP won 165 of its 255 seats in the recently concluded Uttar Pradesh legislative election by less than 2,000 votes, and that the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) — a political party promoted by the Hyderabad-based Asaduddin Owaisi — had “scored generously” in these 165 constituencies and split the Muslim vote. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that in numerous constituencies, AIMIM played spoiler. Many Muslim votes harvested by AIMIM would have gone to the Samajwadi Party, which with 111 seats came a distant second to BJP in the 403-strong UP legislative assembly. Undoubtedly Owaisi, a London-trained barrister, is well-versed in constitutional law and an articulate spokesperson of India’s 200 million-strong Muslim community. This minority has been at the receiving end of Hindu majoritarianism and hindutva politics skillfully practised by the BJP dispensation at the Centre since 2014 and in UP — India’s most populous state — since 2017. Yet the proper response to BJP which is hell-bent on consolidating India’s 85 percent Hindu majority behind it, is to intelligently ally with one or several anti-BJP parties which are committed to non-discriminatory, religious secularism that the leaders of India’s freedom movement and founding fathers of the elaborate Constitution of India preached and practised. In addition to going it alone, Owaisi is making the strategic mistake of pandering to the orthodox Sunni clerics who have assumed leadership of India’s 200 million-strong Muslim community. Owaisi’s role model should be Prince Karim Agha Khan who over the past almost half century in cooperation with highly educated Ismaili Muslims, has transformed his 12-15 million followers scattered worldwide, into perhaps the world’s most prosperous non-Arab Muslim community. Among India’s Muslims who chose democratic India over theocratic Pakistan in 1947, there are millions of well-educated and enterprising individuals who can provide good political and economic leadership to the community, far better than the regressive clergy.
Several huge ads featured on March 8 in almost all dailies including the pink papers in remembrance of the late Aditya Vikram Birla (1943-95), proclaimed the judges, juries and awardees of the 22nd Aditya Birla Scholarship Programme. In the early years of the new millennium, this struggling publication was on the favoured list of Industry House, Mumbai and enjoyed the grace and benediction flowing from these annual ads. However in recent years despite EW having consolidated its position as the country’s premier education news magazine, this annual benediction has been withdrawn. This notwithstanding AVB’s son and heir, Kumaramangalam Birla, being the recipient of a complimentary copy of this sui generis magazine for years. This omission is the unkindest cut because in a previous avatar as editor of Businessworld, your diarist highlighted the business legerdemain of the late AVB in several unprecedented cover features, and was the first journo to interview and write a rehabilitative cover feature on the much maligned G.D. Birla (1894-1983), who established the Birla empire, the usufruct of which K’Mangalam enjoys to the full. In this connection, it’s also pertinent to note that in the heyday of India’s neta-babu socialism, Birla-Tata and businessmen in general, were national hate figures reviled from every public platform. Until your correspondent as founding-editor of Business India and Businessworld informed the gullible public that they were actually heroes who despite every official discouragement built the industrial base of the nation. Although few will give them credit, these pioneer business publications prepared the ground for the historic liberalisation and deregulation of the economy in 1991 from which Industry House and its ingrate presiding incumbent have benefited mightily. Hence the heartburn.
The annual EW rankings deliberately exclude IITs and NITs from our league tables to enable 98 percent of students who don’t make it into these routinely top-ranked government institutes to choose the most suitable among India’s 3,415 private engineering colleges, writes Summiya Yasmeen Introduced in 2013, the annual EducationWorld pan-India engineering college rankings league tables are sui generis and differentiated from the ranking of other magazines and dailies including pink papers. Although initially for two years, the EW league tables included and ranked the Central-government promoted Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), in 2016 we excluded these highly-subsidised institutions because they routinely topped all league tables and also because they admit a mere 2 percent of the 1.3 million class XII graduates who write the annual IIT/NIT Joint Entrance Exam. Instead, the annual EW survey opted to rate and rank the country’s private engineering colleges to enable 98 percent of students who don’t make it into the IITs/NITs to choose the most suitable among India’s 3,415 non-government engineering colleges, some of whom are closing the IITs/NITs versus the rest gap. To compile the EW India Private Engineering Institutes Rankings (EWIPEIR) 2022-23, the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting and Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb.2000), which also conducts our pioneer annual EducationWorld India School Rankings (estb.2007) and EW India Preschool Rankings (2010), interviewed 2,893 sample respondents including 1,136 engineering colleges faculty, 1,288 final year students and 469 industry representatives countrywide. These sample respondents were persuaded to rate engineering institutes/colleges (of whom they had sufficient knowledge) on nine parameters of excellence — faculty competence, placement, research and innovation, industry interface, value for money, infrastructure, faculty welfare, leadership and governance, and curriculum and pedagogy (digital readiness). Digital readiness rating was introduced last year to assess engineering colleges’ transition to the online digital medium during the pandemic education lockdown. The scores awarded by respondents under each parameter were totaled to rank the country’s Top 100 private engineering colleges/institutes inter se. Low-profile institutions assessed by less than 25 respondents are not ranked. The 2022-23 league table of India’s best private engineering institutes has undergone a makeover. Ranked #1 for three consecutive years (2019-21), the high-profile Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani (conferred deemed university status under s.3 of the UGC Act, 1956 in 1964) has ceded top rank in 2022-23 to the low-profile International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), jointly ranked #1. BITS-Pilani is ranked #2 followed by Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information & Communication Technology, Gandhinagar at #3, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore at #4 and Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala at #5 — all of whom have retained their last year’s rankings.
Although several colleges affiliated with Delhi University are the most popular and preferred countrywide and eminently eligible, they haven’t been conferred autonomous status and are tied to the apron strings of DU It’s a measure of the bewilderingly complex and irrational higher education regulatory system devised by post-independence India’s omniscient neta-babu brotherhood under the cloak of socialism, that while 871 (of 45,000) colleges countrywide have been conferred autonomous status, India’s most popular undergrad colleges — St. Stephen’s, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Miranda House — are non-autonomous institutions of tertiary education. Despite their proven track records of academic excellence, these among other colleges, providing infinitely superior education have been denied autonomy for decades. They are still tied to the apron strings of Delhi University and denied the freedom of syllabus design, to introduce new study programmes, recruit faculty and exercise the academic and operational flexibility awarded to less distinguished private and government autonomous colleges. Paradoxically, some private non-autonomous undergrad colleges — especially of Delhi University — are the favourites of higher secondary school-leavers countrywide and attract a hailstorm of admission applications. Consequently for supply-demand reasons, they are obliged to prescribe sky-high cut-off grades in class XII board exams, and admit only a small minority of applicants with the highest scores in board exams. A substantial number among them were established over a century ago and have devised excellent teaching-learning and administrative systems. The reasons why India’s most respected and preferred undergrad colleges — the high parameter ratings and total scores awarded by EW sample respondents to St. Stephen’s, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram, by far outstrips the totals of top-ranked private autonomous Arts, Science and Commerce (ASC) colleges — is a matter of conjecture and speculation because academics are reluctant to air their views on the subject. However, it’s pertinent to note that the majority of top-ranked non-autonomous ASC colleges are affiliated with Delhi University.
Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) At the Hero Asian Champions Tournament 2021 in Dhaka last December, India’s national men’s hockey team goalie Naib Subedar Suraj Karkera (26) was conferred the ‘best goalkeeper’ award after Team India beat arch-rivals Pakistan 4-3 to win the bronze medal. A boy wonder who took naturally to field hockey when he was only nine, Suraj was selected to play for the First XI of his alma mater Children’s Academy, Malad (Mumbai). Under the tutelage of coach Marzban Patel, young Suraj quickly developed excellent goal-keeping skills to the extent that Patel recommended his name for a national junior hockey camp in Delhi in 2015 and introduced him to the world of professional hockey. It’s noteworthy that Marzban Patel, a Dronacharya awardee (2019) has mentored and trained several olympians and continues to train Suraj. Suraj made his debut in the national junior hockey team in 2015. “I saved a penalty shot and enabled India to win the Junior Asia Cup 2015 against Pakistan,” he recalls. Two years and 33 international tournaments later, Suraj donned national colours as member of India’s gold-medal winning squad at the Asia Cup 2017. Impressed with his achievements, the Indian Army offered him the post of junior commissioned officer which he has since accepted. Currently, he serves with the Bombay Sappers — a regiment of the corps of engineers. The only child of civil contractor Harishchandra Karkera, and his wife Ashalata, a beautician, Suraj believes in the power of education and recently completed his commerce undergrad degree from Mumbai’s Rizvi Educational Complex. “My career in sport is as important to me as education which I know will take me a long way,” says Suraj. With an eye on the ongoing F1H Hockey Pro League 2021-22 tournament, Suraj has intensified his training to a rigorous daily regimen of six hours at Bengaluru’s Sports Authority of India. “My ultimate dream is to bring home an Olympics gold and the Men’s F1H World Cup,” which might well come true for this gritty last line of defence player par excellence. Also Read:Young Achiever: Ronita Mookerji
Autar Nehru (Delhi) Delhi-based computer science enthusiast and young author Krish Mittal (17) entered the International Book of Records last November (2021) for becoming the ‘youngest writer of an educational book’ Let’s learn C — self-published on Amazon in September 2020. That’s not all. Earlier in the summer of the pandemic year 2020, this class XII student of Venkateshwar Global School, Rohini, who signed up for the ‘Summer of Making’ student programme of the Vermont (USA)-based Hack Club, a non-profit network of 14,000 high school computer hackers, makers and coders, was awarded a research grant to develop an autonomous disaster management robot, a project he had been ideating since middle school. The only child of business couple Sumit and Nandita Mittal, who run Delhi’s Chocolate Villa bakery, Krish took to serious coding in class IX after struggling to self-learn programming language C for a year from opensource resources and software such as YouTube and Reddit. “It was only when I was inducted into the Summer of Making programme 2020 that I realised coding challenges were common to all beginners. Having mastered the language, I contemplated creating YouTube videos. But instead because of lack of written material on the subject, I decided to write a simple applications-oriented book. It took me a year to complete,” he recalls. While making opensource discoveries, in 2021 Krish came across quibitbyquibit, which provides a funded year-long college course in quantum computing. “My research proposals won 100 percent funding ($700) from the multinational technology giant IBM,” says Krish. Now a master of five programming languages, Krish delivers online lectures on the digital platform schoolhouse.world. “I attribute my storytelling skills to my social studies teacher Gunjan Ma’am who had the unique ability to spin tales from history that kept me wide awake,” he recalls. After completing Plus Two, this whizkid is intent on signing up for a computer science engineering degree programme. However, he intends to continue writing as well. “I have begun ideating my second book of the same series titled Let’s Learn Python which I will complete after my class XII board exams. Moreover, I will further develop my newly launched educational platform worldoflearners.com,” he says. Way to go, bro! Also Read:Young Achiever: Ronita Mookerji
There’s no change in the top echelons of India’s best autonomous ASC colleges promoted by state governments. Although they are sufficiently qualified to be awarded autonomous status, they are totally ignored by media A major reform proposed in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a mandate to India’s 45,000 undergraduate colleges to upgrade into multi-disciplinary degree-awarding autonomous higher education institutions, and phasing out of the university-college affiliation system by 2035. This is a tall order. To date, a mere 871 undergrad colleges countrywide have been granted autonomous status i.e, academic and operational autonomy by the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC, estb.1956). The remaining 44,129 are non-autonomous colleges tied to the apron strings of their affiliating universities. UGC sets stringent conditions precedent — uniformly applicable to private and government colleges — for awarding much-prized autonomous status. Applicant colleges must be of more than ten years vintage and “accredited by either NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) with minimum ‘A’ Grade or by NBA (National Board of Accreditation of the All India Council for Technical Education) for at least three programme (s) or be awarded autonomy by a corresponding accreditation grade/score from a UGC empanelled accreditation agency”. After conferment of autonomous status, colleges are permitted to review existing courses/programmes and restructure, redesign and prescribe their own courses/programmes of study and syllabi; introduce new courses/ programmes; evolve independent performance evaluation systems, conduct examinations and notify results. They are also allowed to issue mark sheets, migration and other certificates. Although their degrees are awarded by the affiliating university, the name of the college is permitted to be inscribed on the degree certificate. Of the 871 colleges conferred autonomous status by UGC (as on February 22, 2022), 689 are privately promoted and 182 established by the state governments.
To inspire, aid and enable class XII students to select the most suitable undergrad colleges, since 2018 EducationWorld has been rating India’s Top 500 Arts, Science and Commerce, and Engineering colleges on several critical parameters of education excellence and ranking them in separate categories, writes Dilip Thakore Now that the novel Coronavirus pandemic which forced the longest disruption and closure of education institutions from pre-primaries to universities (March 2020-February 2022) in India, is over, and the world’s largest, national population of children and youth is streaming back into campuses at the fag end of the academic year 2021-22, all that remains for online school-leavers is to write their class X and XII board exams. How well they perform in these vitally important exams will determine their junior college and undergrad education destinations. According to all indications, after almost two years of online learning, all board exams will have to be written offline in designated examination centres this month (April). Even though syllabuses have been pruned, school-leavers have anxious times ahead. They have to score high marks in their chosen streams to ensure they enter the country’s best undergrad arts, science, commerce and engineering colleges. Inevitably, in a nation which has foolishly under-invested in education and human capital development, competition for admission into the Top 500 of the country’s 45,000 undergrad colleges and 1,005 universities is intense. The total number of India’s higher secondary school-leavers per year is estimated at 12 million. Against this, the Top 500 can at best admit 500,000 top-scoring school-leavers from across the country. To aspire to enter the best colleges, toppers need to know which are the country’s most-respected undergrad education institutions. Therefore to inspire, aid and enable class XII students to select and aim for most suitable undergrad colleges, since 2018 EducationWorld has been rating India’s Top 500 Arts, Science and Commerce, and Engineering colleges on several critical parameters of education excellence and ranking them inter se. In addition for the past nine years, we have also been ranking the country’s Top 300 universities and 100 private B-schools. The prime objective of this elaborate exercise which involves field interviews spread over three months with more than 4,000 informed sample respondents (faculty and final year students) is to aid and assist top-ranked school-leavers to choose the most aptitudinally suitable higher learning institutions for continuing their education. Admittedly, several other publications including India Today, some business magazines and dailies also publish league tables rating and ranking the country’s best higher education institutions. But we believe as an exclusively education-focused magazine of greater depth and experience of the education sector, EducationWorld is better qualified to provide context and analysis of our carefully curated league tables. Moreover, for ideological and accessibility reasons, unlike other publications, we rank public and private higher ed institutions (HEIs) separately. The rationale of this separation is that government HEIs provide highly subsidised education and therefore, tend to be the first choice of school-leavers. However…
CEO for month programme Mumbai, March 22. The Bengaluru-based Adecco Group (India), a workforce solutions company, invites applications for its ‘CEO for One Month’ mentorship programme for the year 2022. Under this initiative, currently in its seventh year, the India winner gets an opportunity to be mentored by Vidya Sagar Gannamani, chairman and managing director of Adecco India Pvt. Ltd. Candidates in the age group 18-24 years can register and apply online at the company’s ‘CEO for One Month’ link. Registrations close on April 15. Shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview and further assessment for selecting an India winner. The selected candidate will get to shadow Vidya Sagar Gannamani, working side-by-side to experience the life of a senior business leader. Subsequently, ten outstanding candidates from foreign countries will be selected for a global bootcamp and one contender from this group will be chosen to work alongside and shadow the global CEO of the Adecco Group for one month. “The ‘CEO for One Month’ programme is a golden opportunity for aspirants to learn the ropes from senior business leaders who are at the top of their game. We welcome ambitious and hardworking participants to take this chance to learn and make their mark,” says Vidya Sagar Gannamani. The Switzerland-based Adecco Group is a Fortune 500 company which skills, develops and hires talent in 57 countries. AU-NUS concordat New Delhi, March 10. The Sonipat (Haryana)-based Ashoka University (AU) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National University of Singapore (NUS). Under the agreement, the two institutions will exchange scientific, academic, and technical information, appropriate academic materials and other information of mutual interest. The MoU also obliges AU and NSU to identify areas for cooperation and joint research. “This MOU opens new opportunities for students and faculty to collaborate on various fronts with NUS, Singapore. I am excited about this initiative since I have been working on it for a few years,” said Vanita Shastri, dean of global education & strategic programmes at AU, speaking on the occasion. Added Loh Wai Lam, academic director at NUS: “This agreement is the start of a budding partnership between AU and NUS. We look forward to future opportunities for collaboration between our institutions.” IIT-M-TCS programme Chennai, March 22. Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) has partnered with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to launch a web-enabled industrial AI (artificial intelligence) programme targeted at upskilling corporate employees. This 18-month course, designed in consultation with TCS, will be offered by IIT-M online through virtual classrooms. The first cohort of students for the programme will be TCS professionals. “This programme will have strong theoretical courses and lab work covering important topics in data science and AI. It will be supplemented by applied courses covering implementation of AI solutions for industrial problems in case study formats. Put together, these courses are expected to provide a strong theoretical foundation and significant application perspective to participants in the course,” said Prof. V. Kamakoti, director, IIT-Madras, speaking on the occasion. Climate change…
Meghalaya: Salary arrears assurance Shillong, March 3. Education minister Lahkmen Rymbui assured 12,451 teachers employed in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan — the Centre’s flagship programme for universalisation of elementary education — schools statewide that their pending dues of the past two months will be paid soon. This assurance was given in response to protest marches staged by SSA teachers against the government for failing to pay their salaries since last October. According to the minister, Rs.145 crore is required to clear five months salary arrears of SSA teachers. “The government will clear the remaining three months’ pending dues after the Centre sanctions funds for this education scheme. Meanwhile we will make all efforts to resolve issues related to implementation of the SSA programme in the state,” he said. Delhi: Delhi Teachers University New Delhi, March 4. Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia inaugurated the Delhi Teachers University (DTU) in the national capital. DTU will offer undergraduate BA-B.Ed and B.Sc-B.Ed programmes to school-leavers and conduct education research programmes. “This is Delhi’s first-of-its-kind university which will offer a new age, integrated teacher education programme after class XII to produce a new generation of teachers. It will also focus on fundamental and applied research in education by collaborating with national and international organisations. The government wants to inspire today’s students to become tomorrow’s teachers,” said Sisodia in a Twitter message. DTU students will acquire experiential teaching experience in Delhi’s government schools for the duration of their course, he added. Haryana: Free digital tablets Chandigarh, March 7. Education minister Kanwar Pal proposed distribution of free-of-charge digital tablets to classes X-XII students of government schools across the state. To this end, the state government has decided to purchase 500,000 tablets at an estimated cost of Rs.620 crore, the minister said during the budget session of the state assembly. “Tablets with preloaded content and personalised and adaptive learning software and free Internet data will be provided to students in May this year. This scheme aims to bridge the digital education gap between children in government schools who are from economically weaker and deprived sections and unable to purchase devices like smartphones and tablets, and children in CBSE and CISCE schools,” said Pal. Jharkhand: Women’s Day initiatives Ranchi, march 8. On the occasion of Women’s Day (March 8) chief minister Hemant Soren inaugurated a vocational skills training centre in Dhanbad under the state’s Tejaswini project. The project’s objective is to provide skills training and secondary education to adolescent girls and young women in the 14-24 age group in 17 districts of the state. “Considerable work is being done to empower women through various schemes. The government intends to extend all possible support to them. Rural women need special attention and we have to reach them,” he said, speaking on the occasion. The chief minister also honoured anganwadi workers of West Singhbhum district. Uttar Pradesh: English exam cancelled Lucknow, March 30. The class XII English exam of the Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shikshak Parishad state examination board was cancelled in 24…
“All of us who believe in @INCIndia are hurting from the results of the recent assembly elections. It is time to reaffirm the idea of India that the Congress has stood for and the positive agenda it offers the nation – and to reform our organisational leadership in a manner that will reignite those ideas and inspire the people.” Shashi Tharoor, Congress MP, on the Congress party’s defeat in the assembly elections in five states (March 10, twitter.com) “Online education is the new avatar of disaster capitalism… Despite the devastating digital divide, ignoring that education is essentially a social process, UGC approved 350 online courses and allowed regular university students to ‘customise’ their courses. This potpourri portends to be a travesty of quality.” Anita Rampal, former dean, faculty of education, Delhi University on UGC’s massive thrust on online education (Times of India, March 13) “There is one simple thing Indian democracy will have to think about after these elections. The fact that a politics that has venom, hate, prejudice, violence, repression and deceit is not a deal breaker for voters is something to think about. This road always ends in catastrophe.” Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, public intellectual, on the BJP’s decisive win in four state assembly elections (Indian Express, March 17) “…some English loving and living people say we want to go back. Yes we want to go back to our roots, to know the greatness of our culture and heritage, to understand the great amount of treasure in our Vedas, our books, our scriptures… they don’t want us to know our greatness; they want us to suffer with inferiority complex… they say we are saffronising… what is wrong with saffron?” Venkaiah Naidu, vice president, at the inauguration of South Asian Institute of Peace and Reconciliation, in Haridwar (Hindustan Times, March 20)
Shivani Chaturvedi (Chennai) The announcement by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of the Central Universities Entrance Test (CUET) as mandatory for admission into all undergraduate programmes of the country’s 45 highly-prized Central universities from the start of this academic year 2022-23, has provoked strong opposition in Tamil Nadu (pop.79 million). The state’s political class across the spectrum and academics have strongly opposed CUET on the ground that it favours privileged students from urban backgrounds and will deprive underprivileged and rural students from accessing Central universities and their blue-chip affiliated undergrad colleges such as St. Stephen’s, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Lady Shri Ram and Miranda House. In a statement issued on March 23, K. Ponmudi, the state’s higher education minister, said: “The CUET exam will adversely affect the opportunities of impoverished students from the state. Just like NEET students from rural and poor backgrounds, they will also be denied admission for lack of coaching through professional entrance coaching institutes. This will lead to students not being able to get admission into prestigious colleges like Jawaharlal Nehru University and other Central universities like Hyderabad Central University.” Ponmudi’s strong criticism of CUET is rooted in the state’s united opposition to the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) — the sole exam for entry into the country’s medical colleges. For the past five years since NEET was introduced in 2016, the state government has been fiercely opposing the test for disadvantaging students from its 37,500 Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education (TNBSE)-affiliated schools. Resistance to common entrance exams is not new to the state. In 2006, the M. Karunanidhi-led DMK government repealed the common entrance exam for admission into the state’s professional (engineering and medical) colleges. Since then, admission has been on the basis of class XII exam scores of students. Every year, 850,000 students pass the class XII TNBSE exam. “CUET is bad news for TNBSE students especially from rural areas who can’t afford professional coaching, which has now become mandatory to succeed in any national competitive exam. When NEET was introduced, there was a spurt in the number of coaching centres offering prep courses. The same will happen now. If at all we want to bring in a common entrance exam, it should be localised, state-based rather than a national entrance system,” says Prof. Nagarajan, the Tirunelveli-based national secretary, All India Federation of University and College Teachers Organisation. Recommended: CUET-UG: Common mode of admissions for all educational institutions? CUET: Unwarranted haste Academics in the state are also infuriated that the CUET exam will be based on textbooks published by the Delhi-based National Council for Educational Research & Training (NCERT) to which the country’s 26,054 CBSE-affiliated schools are wholly committed. Although officially autonomous, NCERT and CBSE are subsidiaries of the Union education ministry in Delhi. On the other hand, most states including Tamil Nadu publish textbooks through their own SCERTs (State Council of Educational Research & Training) which although they follow NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework guidelines, include considerable local content, especially in history and…
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) With all schools in the state reopening from February 16 after a 23-month lockdown, classrooms across Bengal are coming to life. But judging by the reports published in local vernacular dailies, a large number of benches in the state’s 50,000 government primary schools are empty. During the pandemic lockdown, with a great majority of children in government schools having no internet access and/or digital devices such as computers, tablets, or even smartphones, an estimated 4.8 million have dropped out of the school system and are working as under-paid domestic, farm and factory labour. In December 2021, seven government-run junior high schools in East Midnapore district were shut down after district officials conducted reopening surveys which found that attendance had plummeted to zero. It is pertinent to note that if India’s education sector pandemic lockdown was the world’s longest (82 weeks), within India, West Bengal’s was the longest among all states (99 weeks). Educationists and educators across the state are dismayed by the sheer scale of the challenge confronting them. The consensus of opinion among bona fide educators in the state is that assessment of the extent of learning loss is the first step that needs to be taken. It is important to note that learning outcomes (basic reading and arithmetic) of primary school children in Bengal were not satisfactory even in pre-Covid times. A 2018 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey conducted by the Pratham Education Foundation revealed that only a third of all children enrolled in class III in Bengal were at “grade level,” i.e, capable of reading a simple text of equivalent level of difficulty and could recognise numbers up to 100 and solve simple two-digit subtraction sums. A subsequent December 2021 ASER survey shows that three years later, there was a steep decline in learning outcomes during the pandemic. Currently, class III children in government schools able to read a simple class II textbook story has declined from 36.6 percent in 2018 to 27.7 percent. A sharp drop in math skills is discernible as well. The consequences of the world’s longest schools lockdown are likely to be dire. A 2020 World Bank research paper says South Asian children will be poorer by an average $5,813 (Rs.4.4 lakh) by the time they wrap up work life. They will earn $319 less per year, costing children in the region over $800 billion (Rs.60 lakh crore) in a generation. India will bear more than half of that loss. According to Prof. Pabitra Sarkar, a renowned academic, former vice chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University and former vice-chairman of the West Bengal State Council of Higher Education, the immediate priority of the state government should be to initiate a back-to-basics revision programme in all schools. “This implies liberating teachers from the burden of syllabus completion, allowing them the autonomy to focus on remedial education. The government will also need to mobilise resources to tackle this crisis and invest in digital technologies to make good the learning loss of…
Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru) The high cost of the prolonged pandemic-induced 82-week schools closure in India — the most prolonged of any major country worldwide — is becoming manifest. Even though education activists have been ringing alarm bells that over the past two years several thousands of children have dropped out of the education system and have been forced into child labour, early marriage, child trafficking, etc, official confirmation and data has been sparse. However on March 13, Karnataka’s primary and secondary education minister, B.C. Nagesh, divulged data confirming the worst fears of cassandras. Responding to a question posed in the legislative assembly, the minister disclosed that 1,400 government and private schools across the state reported zero new enrolments in the recently concluded academic year 2021-2022. Of the 1,400 schools reporting nil enrolment, 966 are budget private schools (BPS). A unique third world and especially Indian phenomenon glorified in Prof. James Tooley’s book The Beautiful Tree (2009), BPS are low-cost private schools — many ‘unrecognised’ by state education ministries — established by education entrepreneurs to cater to children of upwardly mobile lower-middle and working class households fleeing dysfunctional state government and municipal schools defined by crumbling buildings, chronic teacher truancy and English language aversion. With government schools going from bad to worse as testified by the Annual Status of Education Report of the highly respected Pratham Education Foundation, the number of BPS countrywide has risen to 400,000 with a staggering aggregate enrolment of 60 million children, according to the Centre for Civil Society, a Delhi-based think tank. With the economy devastated during the repeated pandemic lockdowns of industry, business and trade, a large number of parents have pulled their children out of BPS. The acute financial distress suffered by MSMEs (micro small and medium enterprises) explains why a substantial number of children reverse migrated into government schools. The Annual Status of Education Report 2021 says that enrolments in Karnataka’s government schools increased by 10 percent in 2021-22. Nevertheless, although the education minister revealed that 1,400 schools statewide have reported zero new enrolments, there’s no official word yet on the number of already enroled children who have dropped out of the school system. The National Coalition for Education Emergency (NCEE), a pan-India alliance of individuals, organisations and networks, has demanded that the state government immediately launch a door-to-door survey to determine the actual number of students in schools across the state. “The state government needs to immediately conduct a household survey to ascertain student drop outs and total new enrolments. Such a survey will provide the basis to launch initiatives and programmes to bring children back to school,” says Gurumurthy Kasinathan, Bengaluru-based director of IT For Change, an NGO, and member of NCEE. NCEE has made several recommendations to the Karnataka government to get children back into classrooms after the pandemic. Among them: conduct a household census, contact all private and government schools at village/block level to identify children who have dropped out, organise back-to-school campaigns, ask teachers to contact absent or…
Dipta Joshi (Mumbai) The Maharashtra education ministry’s drive to match government and government-aided schools’ student enrolments with their UID (unique identification number) aka Aadhaar card registrations, has opened a Pandora’s box. Of the 2.1 million students enroled on the ministry’s online portal, SARAL, 1.9 million have fake Aadhaar cards while another 2.9 million have been enroled without the mandatory Aadhaar registration. Translated, this means that the number of students in government and aided schools has been bloated by 4.8 million. Since 2015, all school admissions in the state have been linked to the 12-digit Aadhaar card issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India on behalf of the Union government. However, for the first time Maharashtra’s education ministry has compared the number of Aadhaar cards issued to school students with the actual number of children enroled in government and aided schools. The huge mismatch suggests a scam perpetrated by corrupt education ministry officials in cahoots with school managements. The Maharashtra government which allocated Rs.64,000 crore for education in the state budget 2022-23 presented to the legislative assembly on March 11, spends Rs.45,000 per student annually. Grants for student entitlements and teacher salaries are awarded to schools based on the number of students enrolled. Therefore, a large number of government and government aided schools are receiving grants for ‘ghost’ students. It’s a moot point where the amounts paid into the bank accounts of schools for non-existent students vanish. Unsurprisingly, officials of the school education department are underplaying the mismatch between Aadhaar registrations and student enrolments, attributing discrepancies to technical glitches in the SARAL platform and large-scale student migration within the state during the pandemic. However, the SARAL platform is designed to acknowledge student transfers and admissions to other schools within the state. Allegations of fake enrolments are falling on receptive ears because Maharashtra has a history of inflating student numbers in government schools. In 2011, a state-wide survey found as many as 2.4 million fake students enroled in government schools. In 1,400 of these schools, only 50 percent of the total number enroled were actually attending class. However, teacher deployments and student entitlements (scholarships, books, uniforms, admin expenses and mid-day meals payments) were made on the full complement of students recorded on the SARAL platform. Following this scam, in 2012 Brijmohan Mishra, a teacher from Maharashtra’s Beed district, filed a PIL (public interest litigation) writ against the Maharashtra government, praying for action against schools that report excess student numbers with intent to avail government grants on the basis of inflated enrolments. Responding to charges of bogus Aadhaar registrations, the school education department has set up committees comprising taluka-level education officers to verify the incongruities reported by schools. However, the huge number of enrolments shown on the basis of fake Aadhaar registrations prompted Mishra to file another PIL (Brijmohan S/o Dhirajprasad Mishra vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors.) in February this year demanding a CBI enquiry into the matter. “Even if we consider school teacher appointments based on the 1:40 teacher-pupil ratio,…
The out-of-the-blue announcement of a Central Universities Entrance Test (CUET) for admission into undergraduate programmes of all 45 Central government universities from the start of this academic year (2022-23), has sparked a nationwide debate on its impact on higher secondary school education, the future of school examination boards and board exams, homogenisation of K-12 education and greater impetus to coaching culture. Announcing CUET on March 21, Prof. Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, chairman, University Grants Commission (UGC) — and until recently the controversial vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi — was upbeat that the common entrance test will lessen financial and mental stress of school-leavers having to write multiple entrance tests, free undergrad colleges and universities from the stress of conducting their own entrance tests and eliminate the phenomenon of popular colleges notifying sky-high cut-off scores in class XII board exams for admission into some study programmes. The process for conducting CUET 2022 has already commenced with the National Testing Agency (NTA) under the Union ministry of education announcing application dates from April 2-30. The three-part exams scheduled for July will be spread over several days though actual dates are yet to be announced. Central universities and their affiliated colleges will admit 1.8 lakh school-leavers. Several private deemed universities have also decided to use CUET scores to admit undergrad students. The biggest surprise of CUET is that it has binned the hitherto all-important school-leaving board exam marks, including marks of CBSE and CISCE exam national boards. For entry into top-ranked undergrad colleges such as St. Stephen’s, Shri Ram College of Commerce and Miranda House affiliated with Delhi University, a Central varsity, high scores in school board exams have become irrelevant. Any student who averages above 40 percent is eligible to write CUET. This peremptory reduction of the school-leaving class XII board exam to irrelevance has disturbed knowledgeable educationists. For one, the abrupt speed with which CUET has been declared mandatory for all school-leavers aspiring for admission into premier colleges of Central government universities — especially Delhi University — has shocked many educators, parents and students. In a letter to the Union education ministry, Sudha Acharya, chairperson of the Delhi-based National Progressive Schools Conference which has a membership of 400 private schools wrote: “The present batch of students which will seek admission based on the newly introduced CUET have lived through the pandemic, appeared in the class X board exams in 2020, term-I of the class XII boards in 2021 and are currently preparing for term-II of the class XII boards to be held in April-June. In the middle of their preparation for the term-II exams, they are being told that they will have to appear for another examination for admission into colleges, the application form for which will be available in April. They now have to re-live another stress of appearing for CUET.” Dr. Vineeta Kamran, an English alumna of Punjab University and principal of the CISCE-affiliated City Montessori School, Kanpur Rd, Lucknow, a constituent school of Uttar Pradesh’s eponymous top-ranked…
Mental health focus call Kudos for a well-researched, timely and optimistic cover story ‘10 post-pandemic recovery solutions’ (EW March). These days all we read are stories of gloom and doom and how children will take decades to recover from the learning loss suffered during the world’s longest schools lockdown. In particular, solution #10 draws my support and appreciation as I believe that children’s mental health and well-being have been woefully neglected in the pandemic years. Given the social stigma associated with seeking psychological counseling, the government must ensure that every child has access to the proposed Child Mental Health Mission. Moreover, as children return to classrooms, school teachers should be trained to provide mental health support and emotional mentoring. Rajiv Singh, Jaipur Gap year revelations Your Special Report ‘Incremental popularity of gap year’ (EW March) was interesting and informative. It was an eye opener especially for middle class households like ours who believe taking a gap year is simply a waste of time. As I have understood it, the key lies in planning and proper execution of the gap year. Pranesh T. on email Teachers irreplaceable I am a regular reader of EW. With schools reopening across the country, I am sure children are thrilled to return to in-person classes after two years of online learning. I believe face-to-face education is irreplaceable with teachers playing the important role of mentoring children. A teacher doubles as a friend, counselor and mentor especially in challenging times — not possible in online teaching-learning. Great teachers inspire, guide and challenge their students to realise their potential and succeed in life. To them all, we should be ever indebted. Jubel D’Cruz, Mumbai Govt. viewpoint please As much as I appreciate your cover story (EW March) for drawing up an education recovery roadmap post-pandemic, your solutions are lacking. I expected much more detail. Moreover, I have noticed that most of your cover stories have limited comment from government spokespersons. Especially when anganwadis and mid-day meals make up the subject matter, it is only fair for government officials to be quoted. This will give your magazine more credibility. Sandhya Ghose on e-mail Perhaps because of the Union education minister’s inaccessibility, it’s very difficult to access government spokespersons — Editor Brilliant innovations Educator Deep Narayan Nayak’s education initiatives for rural children are inspirational and commendable (People, EW March). Turning walls of village homes into blackboards and roads into classrooms during the Coronavirus pandemic are brilliant innovations with the potential to uplift and educate many underprivileged children. May your tribe increase! Sridhar Sharma on email Change math teaching In the March issue, I liked reading the EW Research & Analytics feature on Countingwell’s State of Math Learning Report and the reasons for declining maths learning outcomes. It’s sad that a country which produced math geniuses such as Aryabhatta and C.V. Raman is struggling to get its children interested in maths. We need to change the theoretical and boring way maths is taught and train teachers to teach through experiential…
Russia’s invasion of the independent Republic of Ukraine on February 24 and the substantial damage to lives and property that the inconclusive 30-day war has caused in the heavily outgunned and outnumbered latter country, have been universally condemned. Quite rightly, because Russia and particularly its autocratic President Vladimir Putin mounted the largest land offensive since World War II against its hapless neighbour-nation without sufficiently arguing his case in the United Nations General Assembly. For the ‘unprovoked’ invasion of its neighbour republic, the US and the West have imposed unprecedented economic and financial sanctions against Russia. Its hard currency reserves with IMF and International Bank of Settlements have been frozen, and Russia’s lucrative crude oil and liquid natural gas supplies to Europe severely disrupted. These sanctions are likely to deeply hurt the general Russian populace. Nevertheless, it’s not entirely true that Russian aggression against Ukraine was unprovoked. For the past several years, President Putin had repeatedly warned Ukraine — which until 1991 had been integrated in Russia’s precursor United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) aka Soviet Union — against signing up with NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), an anti-Soviet coalition of Western countries established by the United States in 1949, to protect European nations against the threat of westward expansion of Russia under the USSR banner. However during the past 30 years after the USSR imploded in 1991, several former Soviet republics including Estonia, Latvia, Hungary and Poland which neighbour Russia, became NATO member nations. Evidently imminent NATO membership of Ukraine, which for several centuries was a constituent unit of Russia, was the last straw for President Putin. As he observed in a video which has mysteriously disappeared from social media, how would the US react if Russian troops and missiles were sited on the Canada-US or Mexico-US border? The answer is provided by America’s Monroe Doctrine (1823) which declares that stationing of troops or armaments by European or other nations on the soil of any country in the North and South American continents is an act of war against the US. It’s pertinent to recall that in 1962 when the USSR sited missiles in Cuba, President Kennedy blockaded Soviet warships heading for Cuba and nearly triggered a nuclear war. In the circumstances, the continuous expansion of NATO to ring-fence Russia with member nations violates the norms of natural justice and equity. The terms and conditions of a durable peace in Eastern Europe are self-evident. The US should unilaterally abrogate all NATO memberships of former USSR republics on condition of their territorial integrity being guaranteed by the United Nations, and Ukraine should withdraw its NATO membership application. This will enable a face-saving Russian withdrawal from Ukraine on terms and conditions already conceded by Ukraine’s President Zelensky. President Putin not unjustifiably believes that Russia is entitled to a Monroe doctrine equivalent which prohibits foreign troops and bases in its backyard. Also Read: Ending Russia-Ukraine war: A solution
The BJP’s 4-1 sweep of the five state legislative assembly elections held in February-March has attracted detailed reportage and analysis by respected media pundits and prophets. However, few, if any, have provided a satisfactory explanation for the triumph of BJP in four of the five states which went to the hustings, especially the comprehensive re-election of BJP — the ruling party at the Centre — in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state. The consensus of expert opinion is that it was a combination of the charisma of prime minister Modi, construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, upgradation of temple spaces in Mathura, Varanasi, Char Dham and dog-whistle hindutva propaganda that engineered BJP’s victory. According to media pundits, these factors superseded anti-incumbency and negative realities such as rising prices and unemployment and won the day for Adityanath, the first chief minister in 25 years to be returned to office in Lucknow. Admittedly these factors influenced the final verdict. But perhaps a determinant often dismissed as ‘welfarism’ in the media played a more important role. According to BJP spokespersons, in the period 2017-22, the Adityanath government built 4.4 million homes for targeted poor as against 50 million in the past 30 years. Moreover, in a state in which only 13.2 percent of rural households have tap water connections, the BJP administration claims to have provided 2 million connections in 2020-21 and made an election promise of 22 million by 2024. In addition, it supplied 2 million free-of-charge gas cylinders to 2 million households; built 26 million toilets and distributed free rations to 15 million targeted poor households during the pandemic lockdown. Although casually dismissed as mere welfarism, these carefully targeted initiatives had a powerful demonstration effect in rural UP. Especially since ground level BJP/RSS cadres ensured last mile delivery of declared allocations and provisions. Although similar declarations and provisions have been made in the past by other parties, in a state notorious for official corruption, allocations have been routinely siphoned off by venal bureaucrats and middlemen. The differentiating factor of BJP welfarism is that the party has the advantage of its own and RSS cadres who ensure that proclaimed benefits reach targeted beneficiaries. This was a decisive factor that won the BJP its most recent mandate, and the women’s vote in particular. For champagne socialists who dominate the roundly trounced Congress party and media pundits, a gas connection, tap water and a toilet in the house are taken for granted. But for voters in the bottom deciles of the country’s iniquitous socio-economic pyramid, law and order and modest comforts are life-changing experiences. BJP’s leaders and strategists grasped this reality and won the day. Also Read:BJP should embrace Vajpayee legacy Disappointing four years of BJP rule
Not a few academics and pundits tend to be derisive of education institution rankings. The main criticisms are that they are shallow and compare dissimilar institutions, and sample sizes are too small to provide an accurate assessment of the relative merits of education institutions, each of which is unique in its own right. Critics are also unanimous that media publications publish institutional ranking league tables to rake in advertising revenue and that inevitably, there’s a quid pro quo. Now in their tenth year, the annual EducationWorld India Higher Education Rankings, are designed bearing these criticisms in mind. First, higher education institutions are carefully divided into separate silos to ensure that apples with oranges-type comparisons are eliminated to the maximum extent possible. Thus Arts, Science and Commerce undergrad colleges are not only ranked separately but sub-divided into private autonomous, government autonomous and private non-autonomous colleges. Re sample size, the field surveys for EW preschools. schools and higher education institutions are conducted by the Delhi-based Centre for Forecasting & Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb. 2000), the highly reputed market research and opinion polls company whose clients include several political parties. In its judgement, the sample size of over 4,000 faculty, senior college students and industry representatives is more than sufficient, especially because sample respondents are carefully selected. “We interview a lesser number of respondents to forecast election outcomes in states with populations running into millions,” says Premchand Palety, the founder-director of C-fore. Apropos the charge that media publications tend to rake in high revenue from issues publishing academic institutional rankings, it’s true because after investing money and huge effort, we deliver a valuable service to school leaving students. One can’t pander to well-remunerated academics who believe any profit generating activity is sinful per se. This issue also contains league tables ranking the country’s best private engineering colleges. Government promoted IITs and NITs which are routinely top-ranked in all media rankings but admit a mere 2 percent of the 1.3 million school-leavers who write the IIT-JEE annually, are not ranked in our user-friendly league tables. Nevertheless all these illogical and arbitrary classifications made by the overweening educracy which has messed up the education system, including higher ed, are likely to become redundant in the near future. The National Education Policy 2020 proposes that all undergrad colleges should gradually transform into autonomous multi-disciplinary universities by 2035. It’s aconsummation devoutly to be wished.
Interpreting legislative assembly elections 2022
BJP’s election strategy of mixing ‘faith’ with ‘food’ paid rich dividends. Its hindutva ideology combined with welfare initiatives backed by efficient last mile delivery swelled the BJP tide writes Rasheed Kidwai The outcome of five recently concluded state legislative assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur will have a major impact on the country’s politics — making the BJP-NDA near invincible, demoralising the Congress and shattering prospects of a united opposition against a resurgent BJP led by prime minister Narendra Modi in 2024. In particular, the BJP’s performance in Uttar Pradesh was spectacular at various levels. Yogi Adityanath became the first chief minister of a national party to complete a full five-year term in UP. Adityanath (49) is now a contender for the post of prime minister in the post-Narendra Modi era. Uttar Pradesh (pop.215 million) sends an outsize 80 members to Parliament’s Lok Sabha. The BJP’s election strategy of mixing ‘faith’ and ‘food’ paid rich dividends. Here, faith refers to BJP’s hindutva ideology which has been central to its earlier avatars such as the Jan Sangh, Hindu Mahasabha etc. Its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s focus on Hindu majoritarian assertion, drive against cow slaughter, integration of J&K with India, building a Ram Temple in Ayodhya, upliftment of ancient temples in Kashi, Mathura combined with welfare initiatives such as free 5 kg rice/wheat, one kg lentil, one litre mustard oil, salt and sugar to EWS (economically weaker sections) households, transfer of Rs.1,100 for poor school-going children backed by efficient last mile delivery systems, helped the BJP and Yogi Adityanath tide over adverse factors such as anti-incumbency, caste divides and farmers unrest. The BJP’s resounding electoral success has a message for the opposition, particularly for the rudderless Congress. In the Lok Sabha, 1951-69, India did not have a recognised opposition to the Congress party or a leader of the opposition. Despite this, the sangh parivar (RSS family) stuck to its basic agenda. Finally electoral gains accrued in 1996 and the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP-NDA government ruled from 1999-2004. According to one estimate, the RSS-sangh parivar have 137 affiliated outfits which indirectly work to propagate its socio-economic and political agenda. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi need to ponder how many such affiliates the Congress has. Instead of developing a dedicated cadre, the Congress has started relying on liberals and the Left to fill the void without the awareness that the liberal discourse is often very different from the culture of conservative sections of society, including the majority of Congress leaders at lower levels of the party hierarchy. The BJP-NDA’s gains on March 10, 2022 (when the assembly poll results were announced) has ensured that it will be an easy passage for its nominee to be elected President of India in July. This would not have been the case had the Samajwadi Party-RLD combine won UP, and Congress had retained Punjab and wrested Uttarakhand from BJP. Certainly Congress under the Gandhi trio — Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka — is facing a…