Happy Children
Children at Dhapo Colony Slum
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Unconstitutional, unethical, unscientific
Dr P M Bhargava Lamblasts BRAI Bill. Says Threat to Health.
Source: Arkitect India: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arkitectindia/message/12263
PUSHPA M. BHARGAVA
The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, if passed, will adversely affect agriculture, health of humans and animals, and the environment, causing unparalleled harm.
It is now widely accepted that the existing procedure in India (and even elsewhere) for regulation of genetic engineering technology is faulty and insufficient. It was for this reason that Jairam Ramesh, then Minister for Environment and Forests, put an indefinite moratorium on the open release of genetically engineered Bt brinjal, which was approved by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee of the Ministry on October 14, 2009.
The Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill, proposed to be put up to Parliament, claims to take care of the deficiencies in the existing system of approval of genetically modified (GM) crops. As it turns out, the Bill is unconstitutional, unethical, unscientific, self-contradictory, and not people-oriented. It suffers from greater flaws and deficiencies than the present system. If passed, it will seriously and adversely affect agriculture, health of humans and animals, and the environment, causing unparalleled harm.
BRAI will consist of three full-time and two part-time members. It will have three divisions, each headed by a Chief Regulatory Officer. It will be supported by a Risk Assessment Unit, an Enforcement Unit, a Monitoring Office, a Product Ruling Committee, an Environmental Appraisal Panel, Scientific Advisory Panels, an Inter-ministerial Governing Board, a Biotechnology Advisory Council, and State Biotechnology Regulatory Advisory Committees. These bodies would consist mostly of bureaucrats who are likely to have little knowledge of the highly complex issues that arise in today's biotechnology. No civil society participation is proposed anywhere. Even the proposed Biotechnology Regulatory Appellate Tribunal will not accept complaints from civil society, in spite of the fact that the Bill directly or indirectly affects every citizen. It is not even clear which department of the Government of India will service BRAI. The Convener of the Selection Committee for members of BRAI will be from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), which is a vendor of genetic engineering (the technology that BRAI is supposed to regulate) in the country. The Bill says the members of BRAI will be persons of integrity. There is, however, no requirement of integrity for members of any of the other committees mentioned above!
The Bill is unconstitutional as agriculture is a State subject, and it takes away from the State government the authority to take decisions on GM plant products. In this connection, it is noteworthy that more than 10 States cutting across political affiliations formally told Mr. Ramesh in 2009-2010 that they would not permit Bt brinjal to be released in their territories.
No public consultation
Article 28 of the Bill states the information declared by BRAI “confidential commercial information†will not come under the RTI Act, and there is no way civil society can challenge its decision to declare any information confidential. In spite of the fact that BRAI encompasses activities that would virtually affect every Indian, there is no mention in the Bill of public consultation.
Articles 81, 86 and 87.2, which allow BRAI to override any existing law in the areas covered by BRAI, contradict Article 86, which says “the provisions [of BRAI] shall be in addition to, and not in derogation of, any other law for the time being in force.â€
The definition of modern biotechnology in Article 3 (r) is absurd as it excludes a large number (over 25) of areas such as peptide synthesis, immuno-technology, tissue culture, stem cells and nano-biotechnology that are an integral part of today's biotechnology. Not only that, it would make techniques that are used in everyday research in modern biology such as isolation or sequencing of DNA and the PCR technique illegal, unless approved by BRAI in every specific case. So every university in the country teaching these extremely widely used techniques will have to get BRAI permission for teaching them to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Funnier is the inclusion in Schedule I (which lists organisms and products “which should be regulated by the Authorityâ€) of cloned animals, DNA vaccines, and stem cell-based products. There is no mention of them in the main text of the Bill. Schedule 1 also includes “products of synthetic biology for human or animal use.†I have been in the business of modern biology for six decades and seen the modern biological evolution from very close quarters with more than 20 of my friends having won Nobel prizes but, for the life of me, I cannot make out what is meant by “products of synthetic biology.â€
In fact, if one strictly followed item 2(d) of Schedule 1, no organ transplantation would be possible in the country without BRAI permission!
One would also have expected that the Bill, if it was people-oriented, to state the procedure to be adopted before approval of a GM product. The first step should be to determine the need for the product through a socio-economic survey and analysis. If there is need, then one should determine if there are cheaper, better and well-established alternatives such as smart or molecular breeding, organic agriculture, or use of Integrated Pest Management or bio-pesticides in the case of GM products containing a foreign pesticidal gene. If it is concluded that there is no alternative to, say, a GM crop, one would need to state a mechanism for deciding what tests the GM crop would need to undergo, and a statement of who will do the tests to ensure public credibility. There is no provision in the Bill for an independent testing laboratory for GM crops, in which civil society would have confidence.
No mention of mandatory labelling
There is no mention of mandatory labelling of GM food products, and there is no protection provided to, say, farmers whose fields growing, for example products of organic agriculture, get contaminated with a GM product of the neighbouring farm.
Article 62 under “Offences and Penalties†is unprecedented. It implies that anyone making a statement about a GM crop which BRAI decides is false or misleading, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend up to three months and also with a fine which may extend to Rs. 5 lakh. BRAI will not be obliged to state the basis of its decision which is not challengeable by any member of civil society. The Bill thus assumes that all the wisdom of biotechnology lies with the five members of the Authority, and what thousands of leading scientists say will cut no ice with the members of BRAI.
One may justifiably ask why this Bill. The reasons are clear. Food business is the biggest in the world. Whosoever controls it will control the world. To control food production, one needs to control just seed and agrochemicals production. This is what a handful of multinational seed companies, which are also producers of agrochemicals such as pesticides and weedicides, are attempting to do through patented GM crops. These companies are located in the United States, and liaise closely with the U.S. government.
In fact, one of the biggest quarrels between the U.S. and Europe is that Europe, by and large, does not allow GM crops and requires appropriate labelling of all food products that contain more than 0.9 per cent of GM material. No such labelling is required in the U.S. where, therefore, a person today does not know if he is consuming GM food.
Till a few years ago, there was no significant opposition to GM crops in India. In fact, the mechanism set up by the Government of India, ostensibly to regulate GM products, largely worked as a vendor of GM products, serving the interests of seed and agrochemical MNCs. But, then, people of India became wiser and better-informed. Consequently, against all odds and expectations of the MNCs, and of the U.S. government and the rulers in India, we had an indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal, and the opposition to GM crops became a force to reckon with. Some components of the existing regulatory system have also begun to assert themselves. As of today, at least five States (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh) have formally declared that they will not allow field trials and/or open release of any GM crop. So, the present system had to be disabled, and roadblocks to fulfilling the ambition of the U.S. and the seed MNCs removed. What better way to achieve this than by BRAI — so the government thought. But, I believe, the GoI has again underestimated the collective wisdom of the people of India!
(Pushpa M. Bhargava is former Vice-Chairman, National Knowledge Commission.)
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Where motive is profit, education takes a back seat
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-openpage/article2746073.ece
Hema Ramanathan, Parvathy P. B.
Section 12 of the Right to Education Act, 2009, which enforces a private-public partnership by reserving 25 per cent seats for the economically backward living in the vicinity of a private school, is a major source of anxiety for these institutions. Private trusts and managements fret about eroding autonomy, while parents in elite schools question the high fees in institutions that have lost the right to exclude. This opposition, driven by the middle class, seeks to defend its privileged and rarefied education system from encroachments, which were the initial trigger for the private school movement in India.
Modelled on the British public schools, the early private schools of the pre-independence era, such as Bishop Cotton School and the Lawrence Schools, educated children of English officers and scions of the most privileged Indian families. Schools aided by the government were intended to produce lettered civil servants. In the decades preceding independence, prominent Indian institutions such as the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and the Delhi Public School Society focussed on developing leaders with an Indian ethos. Over the decades, these schools provided free India with its first bureaucrats and administrators.
Post-independence, democracy universalised education, which until then had been a privilege, signalled by increased enrolments across all demographic profiles. The exodus of the middle class from government to private schools that flourished through the 1960s and 1970s was an acknowledgement of a middle class elitism that was clearly discomfited by the blurring class and caste lines in the classroom. Largely controlled by the upper castes, these private schools were avowedly secular but reinforced caste divisions. Established by non-profit organisations mostly in metropolitan areas, they further distanced the rural-urban educational experience. The mushrooming of lower-end “budget” schools in the last two decades, accounting for 60 per cent of urban enrolment growth in primary education between 1986 and 1993, was a market response to the rising clamour for English education from an aspiring, upwardly mobile lower middle class which did not have the means to send its children to more exclusive private schools.
By default, government schools became synonymous with mass education and were increasingly apportioned to the lower castes and Dalits who aspired to be educated. By the 1980s, because of defunding and slackening civic pressure, the system had collapsed and was marked by low teacher morale, high dropout rates, and rampant absenteeism among both students and teachers.
Over the past 30 years, this deep divide between the two systems has fostered two distinctive streams of education and thereby two exclusive educational and life experiences. The alternative private schooling system has contributed to a social transformation by creating an educated middle class that values economic growth but not social cohesion; that acknowledges education as a critical resource but endorses the marginalisation of groups based on financial status; and that has a sense of entitlement but does not actively advocate universalisation of education.
While the continued existence of private schools is an indictment of the government, in that it has failed to respond to the educational needs of its children, it has also legitimated an attitude that allows the privileged to dissociate themselves from the educational needs of the larger society. With all its shortcomings, which have been extensively documented, the RtE should be commended for trying to bridge the chasm by building on the bedrock of inclusion.
The push by the RtE to re-engage with private schools and re-integrate them into the Indian educational mainstream is an acknowledgement that the market cannot be trusted to deliver education with any degree of equity. To bring in additional resources, the 2010-11 Mid-Year Plan Review advocates deletion of the crucial stipulation that only non-profit educational trusts and charities may operate private schools. More recently, some educational trusts are alleged to be fronts for ‘for-profit' organisations that siphon off the profits, ploughing back little into improving infrastructure and teacher expertise. Formally allowing ‘for-profit' institutions to operate schools, even as they enjoy land, tax and infrastructure concessions, will merely legitimise this profiteering and deepen the systemic inequity along economic fault lines. If taken to its logical end, this could well kill the spirit of the RtE and the Directive Principles enshrined in our Constitution. Experience, national and international, tells us that private players in elementary education foster neither inclusiveness nor equity.
Education is a legal, collective and moral entitlement. When the middle class undertakes to share in this responsibility and ends its apathy to mass education, it may have earned the privilege of a private schooling system. In the process, government schools, responding to a more demanding constituency, are more likely to effectively meet the needs of not just the poor and the marginalised but of society at large.
(Hema Ramanathan is Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar, 2011-12, and Associate Professor, University of West Georgia. Her email ID is: hramanat@gmail.com and Parvathy's ID is: parvathy_pb@ hotmail.com)
Hema Ramanathan, Parvathy P. B.
Section 12 of the Right to Education Act, 2009, which enforces a private-public partnership by reserving 25 per cent seats for the economically backward living in the vicinity of a private school, is a major source of anxiety for these institutions. Private trusts and managements fret about eroding autonomy, while parents in elite schools question the high fees in institutions that have lost the right to exclude. This opposition, driven by the middle class, seeks to defend its privileged and rarefied education system from encroachments, which were the initial trigger for the private school movement in India.
Modelled on the British public schools, the early private schools of the pre-independence era, such as Bishop Cotton School and the Lawrence Schools, educated children of English officers and scions of the most privileged Indian families. Schools aided by the government were intended to produce lettered civil servants. In the decades preceding independence, prominent Indian institutions such as the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and the Delhi Public School Society focussed on developing leaders with an Indian ethos. Over the decades, these schools provided free India with its first bureaucrats and administrators.
Post-independence, democracy universalised education, which until then had been a privilege, signalled by increased enrolments across all demographic profiles. The exodus of the middle class from government to private schools that flourished through the 1960s and 1970s was an acknowledgement of a middle class elitism that was clearly discomfited by the blurring class and caste lines in the classroom. Largely controlled by the upper castes, these private schools were avowedly secular but reinforced caste divisions. Established by non-profit organisations mostly in metropolitan areas, they further distanced the rural-urban educational experience. The mushrooming of lower-end “budget” schools in the last two decades, accounting for 60 per cent of urban enrolment growth in primary education between 1986 and 1993, was a market response to the rising clamour for English education from an aspiring, upwardly mobile lower middle class which did not have the means to send its children to more exclusive private schools.
By default, government schools became synonymous with mass education and were increasingly apportioned to the lower castes and Dalits who aspired to be educated. By the 1980s, because of defunding and slackening civic pressure, the system had collapsed and was marked by low teacher morale, high dropout rates, and rampant absenteeism among both students and teachers.
Over the past 30 years, this deep divide between the two systems has fostered two distinctive streams of education and thereby two exclusive educational and life experiences. The alternative private schooling system has contributed to a social transformation by creating an educated middle class that values economic growth but not social cohesion; that acknowledges education as a critical resource but endorses the marginalisation of groups based on financial status; and that has a sense of entitlement but does not actively advocate universalisation of education.
While the continued existence of private schools is an indictment of the government, in that it has failed to respond to the educational needs of its children, it has also legitimated an attitude that allows the privileged to dissociate themselves from the educational needs of the larger society. With all its shortcomings, which have been extensively documented, the RtE should be commended for trying to bridge the chasm by building on the bedrock of inclusion.
The push by the RtE to re-engage with private schools and re-integrate them into the Indian educational mainstream is an acknowledgement that the market cannot be trusted to deliver education with any degree of equity. To bring in additional resources, the 2010-11 Mid-Year Plan Review advocates deletion of the crucial stipulation that only non-profit educational trusts and charities may operate private schools. More recently, some educational trusts are alleged to be fronts for ‘for-profit' organisations that siphon off the profits, ploughing back little into improving infrastructure and teacher expertise. Formally allowing ‘for-profit' institutions to operate schools, even as they enjoy land, tax and infrastructure concessions, will merely legitimise this profiteering and deepen the systemic inequity along economic fault lines. If taken to its logical end, this could well kill the spirit of the RtE and the Directive Principles enshrined in our Constitution. Experience, national and international, tells us that private players in elementary education foster neither inclusiveness nor equity.
Education is a legal, collective and moral entitlement. When the middle class undertakes to share in this responsibility and ends its apathy to mass education, it may have earned the privilege of a private schooling system. In the process, government schools, responding to a more demanding constituency, are more likely to effectively meet the needs of not just the poor and the marginalised but of society at large.
(Hema Ramanathan is Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Scholar, 2011-12, and Associate Professor, University of West Georgia. Her email ID is: hramanat@gmail.com and Parvathy's ID is: parvathy_pb@ hotmail.com)
Friday, December 23, 2011
Manu, Macaulay and Manmohan
G. Haragopal
Member – Presidium, All India Forum for Right to Education
India is one society that has inherited one of the most iniquitous social structures that remained stubborn notwithstanding several socio-political movements including the freedom movement. Manu, the BrahmnicalHindu ideologue provided the framework and justification for not allowing all sections of the society, more sothe labouring classes and women of all communities not having access to written word. This dictum survives through thousands of years after the written word had been invented by the human species. The language of the powerful, Sanskrit, through which they wrote and communicated was their exclusive prerogative. Hinduism perhaps is the only religion that believes that human beings were born unequal and prevents equal access to God, supposedly the creator of man and woman. The denial of access to formal learning not only divided and hierarchised the society, but provided scope and space for manipulation by the propertied and the powerful. This social arrangement continued all through the medieval and colonial period.
It was during the colonial period the English language started replacing the Sanskrit and other local languages. After the first war of independence in 1857, Macaulay advocated the introduction of English language and held that it was the only way to create a support base for the colonial rule. He thought, rightly so, that the English educated Indians would be Indian in colour and English in belief and behaviour. It was again the upper castes who took advantage of their social position and linguistic skills monopolized the opportunities in civil service, legal profession, media, teaching and so on. The English language was as alien to the people as Sanskrit except that the Christian missionaries opened schools where the hitherto forbidden sections had an entry point. In fact they provided access to God though Church and formal learning though schools. This opening up made no qualitative difference to the basic structure of social relations, but created a class of people, as Macaulay believed, who were entrapped into colonial mind-set and continue to perpetuate it even after six decades of the so-called victory of anti-colonial freedom struggle.
It was Phule and SavitribaiPhule realising the importance of role of education started schools, particularly for girls. Education for all as an idea entered the freedom movement in the early part of the last century and picked up momentum and by 40s is came to be accepted by the Congress party who resolved to universalise right to education within a decade after independence. Given the aspirations and promise of the freedom movement it ought to have been incorporated in the fundamental rights chapter but on the grounds of resources and Nation’s preparedness it was pushed into non-justiciable directive principles of State policy.
The silver lining immediately after independence was that whatever or wherever schools existed or newly opened they were all publicly funded common schools resembling the ‘neighbourhood schools’ concept as all children living in the vicinity went to the same school and studied through their mother tongue as medium of instruction. The limitation was that there was no concerted effort to ensure that all children go to the school which resulted in an India that has the distinction of having the largest number of illiterates in the world. This policy, by and large, continued till 1985-86. There was a shift in the policy which instead of initiating measures to provide access and quality education to all children introduced the policy of multi-layered schools bringing in inequity and inequality that Manu and Macaulay did earlier.
The widespread mass unrest in India on various counts including the growing inequalities compelling the rulers to take some measures and Right to Education Act of 2009 is one such step which is supposed to have encoded the right to education as a fundamental right. While this step is important in letter, the spirit of the Act is not qualitatively different from Manu, Macaulay mindset. The Act should have straight away scraped all the private schools and has gone for common school through neighbourhood schools and raising the standardsof each school to that of central school. Instead the Act talks of private-public partnership which in principals concedes the continued presence of private schools at one level and accentuates the medium of instruction divide. It talks of 25% reservation of seats to poorer children in corporate schools. One starts wondering how a fundamental right could be so dividing and discriminatory. This has led to a country-wide debate whether the right in this form can ever be treated and accepted as a fundamental right. The public-private partnership is a device of the neo-liberal model to plunder public resources for private profiteering. The corporate schools used to amassing of wealth challenged the Act in the Courts opposing the admission of poor children into their schools. Assuming that the Court in principle concedes, which is very unlikely, what happens to the other 75% of the poor children condemned to study in government schools which are poorly funded and qualitatively inferior. Is it not the time that the nation in one voice demands that all children of this country in the age group of 0-18 have equal access to quality education though common schools though neighbourhood schools?
The scenario in higher education is equally pitiable. There are six to eight bills waiting for parliamentary ratification. Of all the bills the most Macaulian is the Foreign Universities Bill. KapilSibal addressing the last All India Vice Chancellors conference looked concerned about only two issues: the Foreign Universities Bill and introduction of semesterisation in Delhi university as if they are the only issues afflicting higher education. Of course, during the recent visit of Manmohan Singh to the USA, one of the items that came up in the discussion with Obama was opening up of higher education for foreign investment. The Prime Minister in his Independence day address to the nation from the Red Fort made a specific reference to the urgency of educational reforms. The saddest part of higher education is the pathetic conditions of State Universities. No state government, without exception, has any interest left in higher education as the sons and daughters of the ruling classes go for private medical, engineering, legal and other professional streams of education. The most prosperous are sending their children to foreign universities and are arguing that the ‘craze’ can be met only by inviting foreign universities to the Indian soil. It is precisely this cause that led to serious cuts in grants, stopping recruitment of new staff and all forms of support of the state. In the same breath they also want to privatise accreditation, distance education, tribunalization of educational litigation, abolition of UGC and manning the new council for higher education with corporate representatives. The teaching fraternity lured by the 6th pay commission evinced no interest in the neo-liberal assault on higher education.
It is the wake of these drastic changes in school and university education, the All India Forum for Right to Education held its national conference in Yusuf Meharelly centre near Bombay. The forum draws its membership from socialists, Lohiaites, Gandhians, leftists, radicals and democratise. They are drawn from 16 states of India and are engaged in building a nationwide movement against these undemocratic, uncalled for, anti people reforms in education. It is time that spirit of freedom struggle is retrieved and we build a movement for an equitable, humane, fair and just society. The cause of education is one of the powerful weapons to realize this goal. This would invariably be a fight against Manu-Macaulay-Manmohan mind-set. The posterity may not forgive this generation of academia. These sections are bound to carry their own battle against unjust society with or without the support of the academia.
Member – Presidium, All India Forum for Right to Education
India is one society that has inherited one of the most iniquitous social structures that remained stubborn notwithstanding several socio-political movements including the freedom movement. Manu, the BrahmnicalHindu ideologue provided the framework and justification for not allowing all sections of the society, more sothe labouring classes and women of all communities not having access to written word. This dictum survives through thousands of years after the written word had been invented by the human species. The language of the powerful, Sanskrit, through which they wrote and communicated was their exclusive prerogative. Hinduism perhaps is the only religion that believes that human beings were born unequal and prevents equal access to God, supposedly the creator of man and woman. The denial of access to formal learning not only divided and hierarchised the society, but provided scope and space for manipulation by the propertied and the powerful. This social arrangement continued all through the medieval and colonial period.
It was during the colonial period the English language started replacing the Sanskrit and other local languages. After the first war of independence in 1857, Macaulay advocated the introduction of English language and held that it was the only way to create a support base for the colonial rule. He thought, rightly so, that the English educated Indians would be Indian in colour and English in belief and behaviour. It was again the upper castes who took advantage of their social position and linguistic skills monopolized the opportunities in civil service, legal profession, media, teaching and so on. The English language was as alien to the people as Sanskrit except that the Christian missionaries opened schools where the hitherto forbidden sections had an entry point. In fact they provided access to God though Church and formal learning though schools. This opening up made no qualitative difference to the basic structure of social relations, but created a class of people, as Macaulay believed, who were entrapped into colonial mind-set and continue to perpetuate it even after six decades of the so-called victory of anti-colonial freedom struggle.
It was Phule and SavitribaiPhule realising the importance of role of education started schools, particularly for girls. Education for all as an idea entered the freedom movement in the early part of the last century and picked up momentum and by 40s is came to be accepted by the Congress party who resolved to universalise right to education within a decade after independence. Given the aspirations and promise of the freedom movement it ought to have been incorporated in the fundamental rights chapter but on the grounds of resources and Nation’s preparedness it was pushed into non-justiciable directive principles of State policy.
The silver lining immediately after independence was that whatever or wherever schools existed or newly opened they were all publicly funded common schools resembling the ‘neighbourhood schools’ concept as all children living in the vicinity went to the same school and studied through their mother tongue as medium of instruction. The limitation was that there was no concerted effort to ensure that all children go to the school which resulted in an India that has the distinction of having the largest number of illiterates in the world. This policy, by and large, continued till 1985-86. There was a shift in the policy which instead of initiating measures to provide access and quality education to all children introduced the policy of multi-layered schools bringing in inequity and inequality that Manu and Macaulay did earlier.
The widespread mass unrest in India on various counts including the growing inequalities compelling the rulers to take some measures and Right to Education Act of 2009 is one such step which is supposed to have encoded the right to education as a fundamental right. While this step is important in letter, the spirit of the Act is not qualitatively different from Manu, Macaulay mindset. The Act should have straight away scraped all the private schools and has gone for common school through neighbourhood schools and raising the standardsof each school to that of central school. Instead the Act talks of private-public partnership which in principals concedes the continued presence of private schools at one level and accentuates the medium of instruction divide. It talks of 25% reservation of seats to poorer children in corporate schools. One starts wondering how a fundamental right could be so dividing and discriminatory. This has led to a country-wide debate whether the right in this form can ever be treated and accepted as a fundamental right. The public-private partnership is a device of the neo-liberal model to plunder public resources for private profiteering. The corporate schools used to amassing of wealth challenged the Act in the Courts opposing the admission of poor children into their schools. Assuming that the Court in principle concedes, which is very unlikely, what happens to the other 75% of the poor children condemned to study in government schools which are poorly funded and qualitatively inferior. Is it not the time that the nation in one voice demands that all children of this country in the age group of 0-18 have equal access to quality education though common schools though neighbourhood schools?
The scenario in higher education is equally pitiable. There are six to eight bills waiting for parliamentary ratification. Of all the bills the most Macaulian is the Foreign Universities Bill. KapilSibal addressing the last All India Vice Chancellors conference looked concerned about only two issues: the Foreign Universities Bill and introduction of semesterisation in Delhi university as if they are the only issues afflicting higher education. Of course, during the recent visit of Manmohan Singh to the USA, one of the items that came up in the discussion with Obama was opening up of higher education for foreign investment. The Prime Minister in his Independence day address to the nation from the Red Fort made a specific reference to the urgency of educational reforms. The saddest part of higher education is the pathetic conditions of State Universities. No state government, without exception, has any interest left in higher education as the sons and daughters of the ruling classes go for private medical, engineering, legal and other professional streams of education. The most prosperous are sending their children to foreign universities and are arguing that the ‘craze’ can be met only by inviting foreign universities to the Indian soil. It is precisely this cause that led to serious cuts in grants, stopping recruitment of new staff and all forms of support of the state. In the same breath they also want to privatise accreditation, distance education, tribunalization of educational litigation, abolition of UGC and manning the new council for higher education with corporate representatives. The teaching fraternity lured by the 6th pay commission evinced no interest in the neo-liberal assault on higher education.
It is the wake of these drastic changes in school and university education, the All India Forum for Right to Education held its national conference in Yusuf Meharelly centre near Bombay. The forum draws its membership from socialists, Lohiaites, Gandhians, leftists, radicals and democratise. They are drawn from 16 states of India and are engaged in building a nationwide movement against these undemocratic, uncalled for, anti people reforms in education. It is time that spirit of freedom struggle is retrieved and we build a movement for an equitable, humane, fair and just society. The cause of education is one of the powerful weapons to realize this goal. This would invariably be a fight against Manu-Macaulay-Manmohan mind-set. The posterity may not forgive this generation of academia. These sections are bound to carry their own battle against unjust society with or without the support of the academia.
Monday, December 19, 2011
AWARDING BHARAT RATNA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/arkitectindia/message/12205
AWARDING BHARAT RATNA
BY Justice Markandey Katju
Chairman, Press Council of India
“Jab tawaqqo hi uth gaee Ghalib
Kyun kisee ka gila kare koee”
I have been criticized for demanding Bharat Ratna for Mirza Ghalib and Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya. Some even lampooned me by saying that Bharat Ratna should also be given to Lord Rama and Gautam Buddha, and Param Vir Chakra to Tatia Tope.
In reply I wish to say that there is nothing wrong in giving awards posthumously provided they are given to the right persons, and Bharat Ratna has been often conferred posthumously in the past e.g. to Sardar Patel and Dr. Ambedkar.
Moreover, Ghalib is a modern figure, not a legendary one like Lord Rama, or an ancient one like Gautam Buddha. Many of his thoughts were, for his times, surprisingly modern. Though he was steeped in the feudal tradition, he often broke through that tradition on perceiving the advantages of modern civilization.
Thus, in one sher (couplet) Ghalib writes:
“Imaan mujhe roke hai, jo khenche he muje kufr
Kaaba merey peechey hai, kaleesa merey aage”
The word ‘kaleesa’ literally means church, but here it means modern civilization. Similarly, ‘kaaba’ literally refers to the holy place in Mecca, but here it means feudalism.
So the sher really means:
“Religious faith is holding me back, but scepticism is pulling me forward
feudalism is behind me, modern civilization is in front”
Thus, Ghalib is rejecting feudalism and approving of modern civilization. And this at the time of the Great Mutiny of 1857 when India was steeped in feudalism.
Urdu poetry is a shining gem in the treasury of Indian culture (see my article ’What is Urdu’ on the website kgfindia.com). Before 1947 Urdu was the common language of the educated class in large parts of India – whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. Regrettably, after 1947 some vested interests created a false propaganda that Urdu was a foreign language and a language of Muslims alone.
Mirza Ghalib is the foremost figure in Urdu, and in our composite culture. He no doubt died over a century back, but our culture, of which Urdu is a vital part, is still alive.
When I first appealed for award of Bharat Ratna to Ghalib in the Jashn-e-bahaar Mushaira in Delhi in April 2011 my appeal was seconded by many prominent persons in the audience e.g. Mrs. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr. Salman Khurshid, Hon’ble Union Law Minister, Mr. Qureshi, Chief Election Commissioner, etc. However, soon thereafter a leading journal described my, appeal as ‘sentimentalism gone berserk’.
As regards Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya, in a recent function in Kolkata I appealed for award of Bharat Ratna to him. Here was a man who in a feudal society (early 20th Century Bengal) launched a full blooded attack on the caste system, against women’s oppression, and superstitions (see Shrikant, Shesh Prashna, Charitraheen, Devdas, Brahman ki beti, Gramin Samaj, etc).
In his acceptance speech organized in Calcutta Town Hall in 1933 to honour him Sharat Chandra said:
“My literary debt is not limited to my predecessors only. I am forever indebted to the deprived, ordinary people who give this world everything they have and yet receive nothing in return, to the weak and oppressed people whose tears nobody bothers to notice. They inspired me to take up their cause and plead for them. I have witnessed endless injustices to these people, unfair, intolerable injustices. It is true that springs do come to this world for some –full of beauty and wealth ---- with its sweet smelling breeze perfumed with newly bloomed flowers and spiced with cuckoo’s songs, but such good things remained well outside the sphere where my sight remained imprisoned”.
These words are strikingly relevant even today when 80% of our people are living in horrible poverty, when on an average 47 farmers have been committing suicide every day for the last 15 years, when there are massive problems of unemployment, health care, housing, education, etc.
How many people in our country have read Ghalib and Sharat Chandra? People are talking of giving Bharat Ratna to cricketers and film stars. This is the low cultural level to which we have sunk. We ignore our real heroes, and hail superficial ones. I regret to say that the present generation of Indians has been almost entirely deculturized, and all they care for is money, film stars, cricket, and superficialities.
Today our country is standing at a cross road. We need persons who can give direction to the country and take it forward. It is such people who should be given Bharat Ratna, even if they are dead. Giving it to people who have no social relevance like cricketers and film stars is making a mockery of the award.
AWARDING BHARAT RATNA
BY Justice Markandey Katju
Chairman, Press Council of India
“Jab tawaqqo hi uth gaee Ghalib
Kyun kisee ka gila kare koee”
I have been criticized for demanding Bharat Ratna for Mirza Ghalib and Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya. Some even lampooned me by saying that Bharat Ratna should also be given to Lord Rama and Gautam Buddha, and Param Vir Chakra to Tatia Tope.
In reply I wish to say that there is nothing wrong in giving awards posthumously provided they are given to the right persons, and Bharat Ratna has been often conferred posthumously in the past e.g. to Sardar Patel and Dr. Ambedkar.
Moreover, Ghalib is a modern figure, not a legendary one like Lord Rama, or an ancient one like Gautam Buddha. Many of his thoughts were, for his times, surprisingly modern. Though he was steeped in the feudal tradition, he often broke through that tradition on perceiving the advantages of modern civilization.
Thus, in one sher (couplet) Ghalib writes:
“Imaan mujhe roke hai, jo khenche he muje kufr
Kaaba merey peechey hai, kaleesa merey aage”
The word ‘kaleesa’ literally means church, but here it means modern civilization. Similarly, ‘kaaba’ literally refers to the holy place in Mecca, but here it means feudalism.
So the sher really means:
“Religious faith is holding me back, but scepticism is pulling me forward
feudalism is behind me, modern civilization is in front”
Thus, Ghalib is rejecting feudalism and approving of modern civilization. And this at the time of the Great Mutiny of 1857 when India was steeped in feudalism.
Urdu poetry is a shining gem in the treasury of Indian culture (see my article ’What is Urdu’ on the website kgfindia.com). Before 1947 Urdu was the common language of the educated class in large parts of India – whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian. Regrettably, after 1947 some vested interests created a false propaganda that Urdu was a foreign language and a language of Muslims alone.
Mirza Ghalib is the foremost figure in Urdu, and in our composite culture. He no doubt died over a century back, but our culture, of which Urdu is a vital part, is still alive.
When I first appealed for award of Bharat Ratna to Ghalib in the Jashn-e-bahaar Mushaira in Delhi in April 2011 my appeal was seconded by many prominent persons in the audience e.g. Mrs. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr. Salman Khurshid, Hon’ble Union Law Minister, Mr. Qureshi, Chief Election Commissioner, etc. However, soon thereafter a leading journal described my, appeal as ‘sentimentalism gone berserk’.
As regards Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya, in a recent function in Kolkata I appealed for award of Bharat Ratna to him. Here was a man who in a feudal society (early 20th Century Bengal) launched a full blooded attack on the caste system, against women’s oppression, and superstitions (see Shrikant, Shesh Prashna, Charitraheen, Devdas, Brahman ki beti, Gramin Samaj, etc).
In his acceptance speech organized in Calcutta Town Hall in 1933 to honour him Sharat Chandra said:
“My literary debt is not limited to my predecessors only. I am forever indebted to the deprived, ordinary people who give this world everything they have and yet receive nothing in return, to the weak and oppressed people whose tears nobody bothers to notice. They inspired me to take up their cause and plead for them. I have witnessed endless injustices to these people, unfair, intolerable injustices. It is true that springs do come to this world for some –full of beauty and wealth ---- with its sweet smelling breeze perfumed with newly bloomed flowers and spiced with cuckoo’s songs, but such good things remained well outside the sphere where my sight remained imprisoned”.
These words are strikingly relevant even today when 80% of our people are living in horrible poverty, when on an average 47 farmers have been committing suicide every day for the last 15 years, when there are massive problems of unemployment, health care, housing, education, etc.
How many people in our country have read Ghalib and Sharat Chandra? People are talking of giving Bharat Ratna to cricketers and film stars. This is the low cultural level to which we have sunk. We ignore our real heroes, and hail superficial ones. I regret to say that the present generation of Indians has been almost entirely deculturized, and all they care for is money, film stars, cricket, and superficialities.
Today our country is standing at a cross road. We need persons who can give direction to the country and take it forward. It is such people who should be given Bharat Ratna, even if they are dead. Giving it to people who have no social relevance like cricketers and film stars is making a mockery of the award.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Defend the Bill of Rights for All of Us.
Source: http://occupywallst.org/article/defend-bill-rights-all-us/
On Bill of Rights Day, Thursday, Dec 15 there will be a Press Conference on Federal Court Steps, 40 Centre St., Manhattan, 11am. A coffin of the Bill of Rights will be brought to Federal Court Foley Square, NY, NY
The Bill of rights was ratified 220 years ago, on December 15, 1791. It is shameful that today, in the United States, we are forced to come together in defense of the Bill of Rights and our civil liberties, as the representatives of the 1% who rule this country continue to take our rights away.
Congress is attempting to bury the Bill of Rights. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) includes language proposed by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and Republican Sen. John McCain that allows for the arrest and indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the military, on U.S. soil and without the right of trial. This is an egregious violation of our first amendment rights and comes at a time when we are witnessing unprecedented attacks on our civil liberties.
Some of these attacks include:
Massive spying on the Muslim community, including the recent revelations of the spying by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the CIA on mosques, Muslim businesses, and Muslim student groups;
The continuation of the policy of sending agents into mosques with phony plots designed to entrap Muslims for so called “preemptive prosecution”;
The recent raids on homes of antiwar activists by federal agents, who have carted away personal computers, cell phones, books, and other possessions and handed the activists subpoenas to appear before federal grand juries;
The recent, often violent evictions of anti-Wall Street occupations around the country; The refusal of the Chicago city government and the federal government to allow for peaceful protests when NATO and the G8 countries come to Chicago in May, 2012 to hold summit meetings.
The potential impact of the NDAA's provisions to expand military detention without trial could render the other issues we all address seemingly trivial; any activist stands at risk of designation as a potential terrorist, especially if their interests include either foreign policy or enterprises that impact the environment.
On December 15, Bill of Rights Day actions and press conferences are planned in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco and other areas of the country. Several national coalitions -- including the Muslim Peace Coalition, United National Antiwar Coalition, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Committee to Stop FBI Repression and others are co-promoting this call to action.
In New York, representatives from civil liberties, religious, social justice, and peace organizations will come together to voice opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act and other recent attacks on our civil liberties. We will discuss our plans to fight for the rights of all people and to defeat this repressive legislation.
For information on actions around the country, go to: http://bordc.org/.
Initial list of participants in NYC (List in formation)
The Muslim Peace Coalition
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Center for Constitutional Rights - CCR,
Islamic Leadership Council of Metro NY
Islamic Circle of North America – ICNA
United National Antiwar Coalition - UNAC,
Council on American Islamic Relations - CAIR-NY
International Action Center - IAC
BAYAN USA Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines,
National Alliance for Philippine Concerns,
Pakistan USA Freedom Forum
Activists of Occupy Wall Street – OWS
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Muslim Ummah of North America –MUNA
Islamic Center of Long Island
On Bill of Rights Day, Thursday, Dec 15 there will be a Press Conference on Federal Court Steps, 40 Centre St., Manhattan, 11am. A coffin of the Bill of Rights will be brought to Federal Court Foley Square, NY, NY
The Bill of rights was ratified 220 years ago, on December 15, 1791. It is shameful that today, in the United States, we are forced to come together in defense of the Bill of Rights and our civil liberties, as the representatives of the 1% who rule this country continue to take our rights away.
Congress is attempting to bury the Bill of Rights. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA) includes language proposed by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and Republican Sen. John McCain that allows for the arrest and indefinite detention of U.S. citizens by the military, on U.S. soil and without the right of trial. This is an egregious violation of our first amendment rights and comes at a time when we are witnessing unprecedented attacks on our civil liberties.
Some of these attacks include:
Massive spying on the Muslim community, including the recent revelations of the spying by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the CIA on mosques, Muslim businesses, and Muslim student groups;
The continuation of the policy of sending agents into mosques with phony plots designed to entrap Muslims for so called “preemptive prosecution”;
The recent raids on homes of antiwar activists by federal agents, who have carted away personal computers, cell phones, books, and other possessions and handed the activists subpoenas to appear before federal grand juries;
The recent, often violent evictions of anti-Wall Street occupations around the country; The refusal of the Chicago city government and the federal government to allow for peaceful protests when NATO and the G8 countries come to Chicago in May, 2012 to hold summit meetings.
The potential impact of the NDAA's provisions to expand military detention without trial could render the other issues we all address seemingly trivial; any activist stands at risk of designation as a potential terrorist, especially if their interests include either foreign policy or enterprises that impact the environment.
On December 15, Bill of Rights Day actions and press conferences are planned in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco and other areas of the country. Several national coalitions -- including the Muslim Peace Coalition, United National Antiwar Coalition, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Committee to Stop FBI Repression and others are co-promoting this call to action.
In New York, representatives from civil liberties, religious, social justice, and peace organizations will come together to voice opposition to the National Defense Authorization Act and other recent attacks on our civil liberties. We will discuss our plans to fight for the rights of all people and to defeat this repressive legislation.
For information on actions around the country, go to: http://bordc.org/.
Initial list of participants in NYC (List in formation)
The Muslim Peace Coalition
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Center for Constitutional Rights - CCR,
Islamic Leadership Council of Metro NY
Islamic Circle of North America – ICNA
United National Antiwar Coalition - UNAC,
Council on American Islamic Relations - CAIR-NY
International Action Center - IAC
BAYAN USA Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines,
National Alliance for Philippine Concerns,
Pakistan USA Freedom Forum
Activists of Occupy Wall Street – OWS
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Muslim Ummah of North America –MUNA
Islamic Center of Long Island
CHARAS Holiday Party and Community Potluck
Source: http://occupywallst.org/article/charas-holiday-party-and-community-potluck/
CHARAS served the low-income, activist, and artist communities of lower east side for over 20 years, providing artist's space, performance and gallery space, after school programs, workshops, English classes and meeting space for countless neighborhood organizations. In 1999, despite a community use restriction & widespread opposition, the building that housed CHARAS was auctioned off to private developer Gregg Singer, who immediately moved to evict them. After a hard fought battle, CHARAS was evicted on December 27, 2001. The building, still zoned for community use, has sat vacant and derelict ever since. This Sunday, it's time CHARAS gets their community center back! Event Page
CHARAS/El Bohio Cultural and Community Center was founded in 1965 by Latino youth leaders of notorious New York City gangs who resolved to organize to improve the Lower East Side. CHARAS was born from the awareness of the need for change, namely by addressing the broader issues impacting the community such as racism, police brutality, the lack of economic resources, services, quality education and housing.
Please join us to mark the Ten Year Anniversary of the Eviction of Charas Community Center with music, food, friends and a community speak out! Dance, speak out, and help us to create a community center in the street. One day the developer's blue wall will come down, and that community center will be back inside where it belongs. With a General Assembly and performances by Great Small Works, Hungry March Band, Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Stopping, the Peoples Mic and kid friendly activities including face painting, dance, and art making! Its a Potluck! Bring a dish to share!
CHARAS/ El Bohio Holiday Party and Community Potluck! Sunday, December 18 12pm - Rally at Tompkins Square Park 12:30pm - Process to CHARAS 605 East 9th Street (bet. aves. B & C)
CHARAS served the low-income, activist, and artist communities of lower east side for over 20 years, providing artist's space, performance and gallery space, after school programs, workshops, English classes and meeting space for countless neighborhood organizations. In 1999, despite a community use restriction & widespread opposition, the building that housed CHARAS was auctioned off to private developer Gregg Singer, who immediately moved to evict them. After a hard fought battle, CHARAS was evicted on December 27, 2001. The building, still zoned for community use, has sat vacant and derelict ever since. This Sunday, it's time CHARAS gets their community center back! Event Page
CHARAS/El Bohio Cultural and Community Center was founded in 1965 by Latino youth leaders of notorious New York City gangs who resolved to organize to improve the Lower East Side. CHARAS was born from the awareness of the need for change, namely by addressing the broader issues impacting the community such as racism, police brutality, the lack of economic resources, services, quality education and housing.
Please join us to mark the Ten Year Anniversary of the Eviction of Charas Community Center with music, food, friends and a community speak out! Dance, speak out, and help us to create a community center in the street. One day the developer's blue wall will come down, and that community center will be back inside where it belongs. With a General Assembly and performances by Great Small Works, Hungry March Band, Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Stopping, the Peoples Mic and kid friendly activities including face painting, dance, and art making! Its a Potluck! Bring a dish to share!
CHARAS/ El Bohio Holiday Party and Community Potluck! Sunday, December 18 12pm - Rally at Tompkins Square Park 12:30pm - Process to CHARAS 605 East 9th Street (bet. aves. B & C)
In Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street (OWS)
Arkitect India Supports OWS campaign for 99 %.
OSW March on
Long live people’s movement
Shaheen Ansari
Arkitect India
New Delhi
OSW March on
Long live people’s movement
Shaheen Ansari
Arkitect India
New Delhi
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