-The Telegraph How a put-down propelled Minz to helm of Dumka Varsity Sonajharia Minz still remembers the stinging comment: “Tumse na ho payega (You’re not good enough).” These words from her School maths teacher in Ranchi had propelled Minz, an Oraon tribeswoman from Gumla district in present-day Jharkhand, to resolutely pursue higher studies in mathematics. “I couldn’t get into an English-medium School as I was an Adivasi. But I did well at St Margaret’s,...
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Online education must supplement, not replace, physical sites of learning -Satish Deshpande
-The Indian Express We have long ignored the vital role public educational institutions play as exemplary sites of social inclusion and relative equality. In Indian conditions, this role is arguably even more important than the scholastic role. The current craze for online education (OE) reminds me of the wall graffiti advertising sex clinics that are visible across urban north India. These ads promise guaranteed cures — shartiya ilaj — for all kinds...
More »New Research: How lockdown has impacted Indian farmers, their yields -Seema Chishti
-The Indian Express The survey has found a “very strong association between food insecurity & farm size, with landless farmers 10 times more likely to skip a meal in the past month compared to large farmers”. Preliminary findings of a survey of more than 1,000 agricultural households across 12 Indian states show that 60% of those who did harvest reported a yield loss, and 1/10th of them could not harvest their crop...
More »COVID-19: 60% farmers suffered yield loss on their harvest, shows survey -Shagun Kapil
-Down to Earth Survey aimed to evaluate the impact of the nationwide lockdown against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on agricultural production and livelihood More than half the farmers who harvested their crops suffered a lower yield during the nationwide lockdown, compared to the last season of sowing the same crop, revealed a survey of 1,500 farmers in 200 districts across 12 states. The lockdown — to curb the spread of the novel...
More »Thomas Piketty, Professor of Economics at Paris-based School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and expert on inequality, interviewed by Narayan Lakshman (The Hindu)
-The Hindu Nationalism is not going to solve the big problems, says the economist. If the catastrophic human toll of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was the first wave to strike the world this year, its severe economic consequences – including loss of livelihoods of the poor across countries, leading to massive internal displacement and starvation in many cases – have been the second wave. It is in this context that the seminal work...
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