“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 with each other, we should be problem solving with each other, we should be peer-tutoring.”
Salman Khan, founder Khan Academy in a Forbes cover story which describes him “the world’s most famous teacher” (Forbes, December 21)
“These pretty women, highly dented and painted, who come for protests are not students. I have seen them speak on television; usually women of this age are not students.”
Abhijit Mukerjee, Congress MP and son of President Pranab Mukherjee, on protestors demanding justice for a 23-year-old gang rape victim in Delhi (December 28)
“An overwhelming majority of India’s young MPs are inheritors who have long been accustomed to the aam aadmi looking up to the netas with forlorn eyes and the leaders in turn responding with a show of noblesse oblige. For them, good politics always meant doling out favours to a supplicant India.”
Swapan Dasgupta on why young MPs avoided meeting Delhi protestors (Times of India, December 30)
“What’s truly terrible is the manner in which film heroes for decades pestered, stalked and forced their unwanted attentions on heroines in thousands of films, yet ended up getting the girl. That sends the most outrageous of all messages to the public: pestering girls is what heroes do, and a girl’s no actually means “yes”.”
Swaminathan Aiyar on Bollywood films sanctifying pestering and stalking of women (December 30)
“The expressionlessness of his face as he sits in Parliament is one of the wonders of the world. We know he is not sleeping because sleep gives an expression of its own to the human face. The Manmohan face does not have that either.”
T.J.S. George on prime minister Manmohan Singh (Indian Express, December 30)
