Educationists, life style gurus and business management experts have suddenly discovered that without well-developed life skills, even the brightest and best students are doomed to shallows and misery. However there is considerable confusion about the type of life skills that need to be taught in the country’s education institutions – Dilip Thakore & Summiya Yasmeen
Despite birth control becoming a taboo subject in Indian politics and the public discourse after the excesses of the Emergency (1975-77), for the past 48 years the Delhi-based PFI has been actively propagating and devising plans and strategies to decelerate India’s population growth momentum – Dilip Thakore & Indranil Banerjie
Indranil Banerjie interviewed Poonam Muttreja, executive director of PFI, in Delhi. Excerpts:
What were the prime objectives for which the Family Planning Foundation — now the Population Foundation of India (PFI) — was established almost 50 years ago? How satisfied are you that these objectives have been achieved?
The erstwhile Family Planning Foundation was established in 1970 […]
Chandrabhan Prasad is a well-known Dalit public intellectual, slayer of orthodoxy and an individual unafraid to challenge mainstream thinking in the Dalit movement on capitalism, globalisation and liberalisation. After having played a mentor’s role in the creation of the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI, estb.2005), he now publishes an attractive new monthly […]
The first K-12 venture of the Witty Group, WIS, Malad (estb. 2001) has quickly established a reputation for providing an intensively researched curriculum, continuous pedagogy improvements, enabling infrastructure and innovative student development initiatives – Dipta Joshi
Sited on a 150,000 sq. ft immaculately maintained campus in Mumbai’s northern suburb of Malad, Witty International School (WIS, estb.2001) […]
Widely acknowledged as one of the world’s premier teaching and research higher ed institutions, UNSW is ranked #45 worldwide and #3 in Australia in the QS World University Rankings
Established in 1949, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s premier teaching and research higher education institutions. In the […]
Given the extraordinary ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity of India, one would expect its citizens to be well-mannered, tolerant and civil. After all, when citizens have to brush shoulders, transact business and interact socially with people from entirely different cultural and religious backgrounds on an everyday basis, they have to necessarily learn to tread […]
Thanks for focusing a spotlight on India’s emerging private universities in the EW India Higher Education Rankings 2018-19 (EW May). Some of them offer excellent education — notwithstanding the whimsical and arbitrary diktats of the government and its regulatory agencies. Deemed or otherwise, some of these private universities have eclipsed state-run varsities with higher NAAC […]
The US-based college board (estb.1900), which conducts the globally famous SAT (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test) that determines admission into colleges and universities in the US, UK, Singapore and Canada, has announced a new India-specific initiative. Under this initiative ten highly ranked private universities in India and the US have formed an alliance to help India’s […]
On April 24, the Delhi-based University Grants Commission (UGC, estb.1956), the apex Soviet-style body empowered to licence, monitor, and provide discretionary grants-in-aid to all non-technical institutions of higher education, released a list of unrecognised, self-styled universities unauthorisedly operating in contravention of the UGC Act, 1956, and merrily issuing degrees, diplomas and certificates.
Student council elections in college and university campuses of Maharashtra (pop.114 million), will be held after a gap of 23 years in the forthcoming academic year 2018-19. While student leaders are jubilant about elections being permitted after an interregnum of two decades-plus — not a few leaders of national parties including Congress, BJP, CPM among […]
On the eve of commencement of the new academic (school) year 2018-19 which begins in June, a huge row has erupted over a suspected high price mark-ups textbooks racket.
On May 21, a large crowd of parents of the vintage Baldwin group of three schools — Baldwin Boys High School, Baldwin Girls High School (estb.1880) and Baldwin […]
A major drive of the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million) to ensure admissions under s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 (which mandates reservation of 25 percent capacity in private, unaided non-minority primary schools for children from socio-economically disadvantaged households in their neighbourhood) in the […]
Public education and health, widely accepted as prerequisites of economic development, were grossly neglected during the 34-year uninterrupted rule of the CPM-led Left Front government (1977-2011) in West Bengal. The consequence is that the country’s then most industrially and academically advanced state transformed into the most backward following a massive — and continuing — flight of […]
“Universities have existed since the times of Plato’s Academia and one of the fundamental activities of all of these institutions has been to question the yet ‘unquestioned’. But what we observe globally (including India) in recent times is that this very act of questioning by the universities is itself being questioned.”
Sumit Howladar, assistant professor, Jagran Lakecity […]
CHANDIGARH, MAY 10. The state government formally inaugurated 31 undergraduate colleges for women students which will be completed in the academic year 2018-19, said Ram Bilas Sharma, education minister, speaking at a function in the city.
“Till the time their construction is complete, the colleges will function from vacant buildings of government schools or other organisations starting […]
MUMBAI, MAY 18. The Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) celebrated its inclusion in the Top 50 Global MBAs for Finance league table of the London-based Financial Times by ‘ringing the bell’ at the Bombay Stock Exchange. ISB continues to be the only Indian B-School in the Top 50 FT Finance MBA global rankings. Adi Godrej, […]
Back in Jhajjar (Haryana) from the XXI Commonwealth Games 2018, which concluded in Gold Coast, Australia amid a blaze of colour and pageantry on April 15, teenage sharpshooting sensation Manu Bhaker (16) brought home a gold medal after besting 25 shooters from 18 countries in the women’s 10 metre Air Pistol event. But that’s only one […]
A bio-informatics postgraduate of Rohtak’s Maharishi Dayanand University and a Ph D scholar at the Complex Systems, Big Data and Informatics Initiative of New Zealand’s vintage Lincoln University (LU, estb.1878) in Christchurch, Pooja Pawar is making an impact within scientific communities with her breakthrough research in developing vaccines for drug-resistant tuberculosis (aka TB). New Zealand’s not-for-profit OSPRI […]
With an increasing number of buyers insisting on best construction practices and sound titles, the demand for home inspection and certification services is zooming – Paromita Sengupta
Unlike the multi-billion dollar real estate industry in the US where every eight of ten homes for sale/rent/bank mortgage requires clearance from a home inspection audit team, professional home […]
I’m a final year BA student interested in a professional acting career. Which institutions offer training programmes and what are their eligibility requirements? — Sarla Patil, Mumbai
The Film & Television Institute of India, Pune offers a two-year postgraduate diploma in acting. Graduate students are eligible to write the FTII entrance examination followed by a personal interview. […]
Change is invariably the result and objective of all revolutions — peaceful and bloody. Change is also the outcome when revolutionary technologies disrupt age-old businesses and traditional education systems. This is what we are witnessing today on a global scale with pioneering new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) and 3D printing. […]
River of Life, River of Death: the Ganges & India’s future, Victor Mallet; Oxford University Press; Rs.550, Pages 344
Victor Mallet is the latest in a string of visitors over the centuries who have evocatively recorded their fascination for India’s life-giving River Ganges. They include Xuanzang in the 7th century, who was in raptures of its waters, “dark blue […]
By the Grace of God: An Autobiography, Fr. Tom Uzhunnalil, Kristu Jyoti Publications; Rs. 130, Pages 160
On March 4, 2016, a group of terrorists barged into a care-home for the destitute run by Catholic nuns in the poverty-stricken, war-torn Middle East country of Yemen. They shot 16 people, including four nuns and several locals dead, […]
A news report to the effect that four senior managers of the Bangalore-based Infosys Technologies Ltd will receive annual remuneration packages of Rs.14 crore-plus for the year ended 2017-18, triggered old memories about asinine government rules and regulations governing managerial remuneration in Indian industry.
Most latter-day readers of this publication are unlikely to be aware that […]
Despite the plain fact that they offer the cheapest non-government education worldwide, there is deep-seated animosity towards private schools within the establishment, including the academy and media. Decades of propaganda by self-serving socialist politicians and Left intellectuals who dominate academia, media and the public discourse, has created a sense of entitlement within India’s greedy middle […]
Nehruvians, bolshies and jholawalas, who for the past 70 years have been foolishly trying to transform India which has a 5,000-year tradition of free enterprise into a socialist country, routinely trash the American electorate for electing millionaires to the White House, e.g, its current incumbent. But typically, they seem to be unaware that our socialist […]
The drama and suspense following the declaration of results of the 15th legislative assembly election in the southern state of Karnataka on May 15, has aroused much comment, most of it derisive. Certainly, the initiative of Vajubhai Vala, appointed governor of Karnataka by the BJP government at the Centre, to invite B.S.
Yeddyurappa, president of […]
Emerging higher education systems in Southeast Asia need to be wary of focusing too much on creating a handful of ‘world-class’ universities to boost international research collaboration, according to a British Council report.
The study, which looks at policy among countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), is being released to coincide with the […]
Students in Asia are embracing online higher education because they realise its a golden opportunity for them to climb the “social mobility ladder”, a conference has heard.
Giving a keynote speech at the opening of the Going Global Conference 2018 in Malaysia last month (May), technology entrepreneur Dr. Ayesha Khanna said people in many Western nations […]
Almost 300 new universities could be created in Nigeria in the near future to help the west African country cope with its rapidly growing youth population, says a senior state official.
Abulrasheed Abubakar, executive secretary of Nigeria’s National Universities Commission, says his organisation is processing 292 applications from institutions that aspire to become private universities. If […]
Higher education experts have predicted that India is poised to become a major recruiter of overseas students, under a new internationalisation strategy that eschews the revenue-focused approaches favoured by other countries.
The Study in India scheme, launched jointly by four ministries, aims to increase the number of international students from a mere 47,000 currently to 200,000 […]
A giant banner at the entrance to the University of Nanterre advertises events to commemorate the May ’68 student uprising. There are seminars on “counterculture” and “revolutions”, and a conference on the intersection between art and politics. Around the corner, past partially obscured graffiti reading “Macron we’re going to hang you”, today’s generation is staging […]
The gap between China’s elite universities and the rest of its higher education sector is widening, according to the results of Times Higher Education’s latest ranking, suggesting the country’s excellence initiative is already starting to have an effect.
China’s Peking University and Tsinghua University claim the top two ranks of the THE Emerging Economies University Rankings […]
The number of Australians with enormous student debts has increased by almost 30 percent in a year, adding impetus to the government’s drive to rein in lending. The total amount of outstanding student debt reached A$54 billion (Rs.2.57 lakh crore) last June, up from less than A$48 billion a year earlier, with more than 14,000 […]
A revelation attributed to Ruchir Sharma, the well-known author and head of the Emerging Markets division of the globe-girdling financial services megacorp Morgan Stanley, that 23,000 dollar millionaire Indians have shaken the dust of this country off their feet and migrated abroad in the past three years, hasn’t received the attention it should in the […]
The father of an Indian student studying in the United States of America has sought help from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for expediting .....Read More
Reshma Ravishanker A day after the Central Board of Secondary Examinations (CBSE) issued a new draft policy on class X board exams 2026 that led .....Read More
