As cartoons, like all other images, are constantly subject to fresh interpretation, there is a need to set boundaries within which dissent must be tolerated; or else we run the risk of damaging the task of knowledge building Like many books, works of art, and articles that have been summarily withdrawn from public circulation, for different political reasons, and due to public pressure, the controversial 1949 cartoon by Shankar has been...
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Where are the teachers?
-The Financial Express Lots of work ahead to make RTE work The reasons behind the poor performance of schools students in India are slowly being whittled down from a whole range of reasons (low attendance, high drop-out rate, lack of teachers, lack of adequate number of schools, etc) to just a few key areas that need a lot of work. The most pressing need seems to be the paucity of trained and...
More »Girls scrub loos in Karnataka government school-K Ranganath
-The Times of India SIDLAGHATTA: That the girl child is stereotyped is nothing new. But this school in Sidlaghatta, 60 km from Kolar, took it to another level with its girl students. The school does not have a group D employee to do the regular cleaning. So the girls in the school clean the toilets, among other things, after their classes. Ironically, the Higher Primary School at Ammaganahalli won the 'Best School...
More »Tendentious arguments against Right to Education Act-A Srinivas
RTE marks a welcome return to common schooling; the objections lack substance. It's the strangest of debates. Private schools are up in arms against the Supreme Court order upholding the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009. What are their objections? First, non-minority private unaided schools feel they have got a raw deal. They will have to provide free education to 25 per cent of their students, admitted from economically...
More »Estimating poverty properly
-The Business Standard How to take hot air out of the poverty debate Once again, poverty estimations are creating a needless debate over what is a modest measurement problem. For many years since 1973, the government had followed a simple formula: if a household could not afford to buy a minimal number of calories and clothing for its members, it was deemed as a household below the Planning Commission poverty line....
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