“Weakening institutions, making way for commercialisation of higher education and slashing support for educational welfare are some of the obvious examples of the short-sightedness herein. Notwithstanding the rhetoric, the present government’s report card on education has more misses than hits.” Academics Shivali Tukdeo and Subhankar Chakraborty in ‘BJP’s record on education runs afoul of its own manifesto’ (thewire.in, March 1) “Don’t try to make NASA great; make ISRO better.” Charles Bolden, ex-administrator, NASA, USA, replying to an engineering college student in Bangalore asking about employment opportunities in NASA (March 6) “The most successful surgical strikes conducted by this government have been on science and scholarship. Research capacity built up over seventy years has been wilfully undermined, with grievous consequences for our economic and technological future.” Ramachandra Guha, well-known author (twitter, March 8) “There will not be a separate admissions system for the wealthy. And there will not be a separate criminal justice system either.” Andrew Lelling, US Attorney for Massachusetts, on the college admission scandal that rocked elite American universities (March 12) “If you don’t fail, you don’t learn, and if you don’t learn, you can’t change.” Peter Tabichi, a Kenyan teacher, who won the $1 million Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2019 (March 24) “He visited the whole world and hugged everyone, but didn’t hug his own people.” Priyanka Gandhi, Congress leader, on prime minister Narendra Modi, at an election rally in Ayodhya (March 29) “Bottom of the pyramid politics, despite decades of programmes and crores of subsidies, has morphed into bottom of the barrel economics.” Shankkar Aiyar, journalist in ‘Raga tunes and sop ragas’ (The New Indian Express, March 31)
