“There are many wise men saying many wise things in this country. We don’t want wise men saying 20 years from now that all four senior-most judges sold their souls.” Justice J. Chelameswar, one of the four Supreme Court judges who alleged the administration of SC was not in order (January 12) “States shy away from recruiting or posting more teachers keeping in mind higher salaries and finances, but PTR (pupil-teacher-ratio) at the school level is the most critical of all inputs. Teacher provisioning should be the first option to fund as no educationally developed country has built up a sound schooling foundation without a professionally-motivated teaching cadre in place.” Maninder Kaur Dwivedi (IAS officer) in ‘The ABC of RTE (The Hindu, January 12) “When exhibition of a film is stopped like this… my constitutional conscience is shocked. If you go by the arguments against films, I have no hesitation in saying 60 percent of literature, even classical literature of India, cannot be read.” Dipak Misra, Chief Justice of India, ordering screening of Bollywood movie Padmaavat (January 18) “Darwin’s theory (of evolution) is scientifically wrong. It needs to change in school and college curriculums. Ever since humans came to Earth, they have always been humans… Nobody, including our ancestors, in written or oral, said they ever saw an ape turning into a human being.” Satyapal Singh, Union minister of state for HRD, speaking in Aurangabad (January 19) “The 2017 Annual Status for Education Report (ASER) has pessimism written all over it. It records how teaching standards are slipping fast, and could soon be under the proverbial ducks tail. Yet, so strong is their aspiration, that the young keep enrolling; even a hopeless school exudes hope. This is the silver lining in the dark ASER clouds.” Dipankar Gupta, well-known sociologist, on the latest ASER 2017 (Times of India, January 27)
