http://desicritics.org/ Superior South Asian bloggers on Culture, Media, Politics, Sport, Business, and Technology. en Copyright 2006 by the authors Mon, 1 May 2006 02:17:36 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss BC custom software http://desicritics.org/2006/04/24/142458.php#comment-9824 The education policy needs to be guided by professional educationists rather than the extremist positions adopted among the so called meritocrats and the political class. with bits and pieces of the education policy it is hardly surprising that the brightest talent goes outside south asia with very little inflow of talent from other parts of the world coming in given the strong suspicion we seem to have built over time. 9824@desicritics.org Mon, 1 May 2006 02:17:36 EDT http://desicritics.org/2006/04/24/142458.php#comment-9033 Thank you Anouradha for the first real balanced post I have read on any of the blogs on the issue of reservations. Sure reservations are anti-merit by the very definition but so was (and is) the caste system for hundreds if not thousands of years. People who are clamoring for means based reservations would not have agreed to even that if they would not have been threatened so much by the caste based reservations. They obviously cannot denounce caste based reservations outright because doing that would portray them as being callous towards centuries of caste suppression so they shrewdly espouse the cause of means based reservations because from their point of view, it is smaller of the two evils and it lets them portray themselves as a reasonable person. 9033@desicritics.org Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:26:58 EDT http://desicritics.org/2006/04/24/142458.php#comment-9032 the difference between India and other countries is that not only are the gov schools abysmal but there is a proliferation of teching shops whohc go by the name of public schools and where poor parents send their kids at great cost sometimes the only criteria is the - english medium - label io agree that the rich shouls send their kids to exclusive schools if they so wish but we are talking about the large populations spanning from poor to middle class and they shouls have an option: the good state run gov school.. let us not forget that education is a constitutional right and let us try and at least treat our children as children and not as kids with a label! maybe teh first step has to be radical and then we may evolve to a more rational one 9032@desicritics.org Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:56:09 EDT http://desicritics.org/2006/04/24/142458.php#comment-9031 Have you read the book "A Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry? It has made tough Englishmen cry several times. It is the most accurate picture of India rendered in exquisite depiction of the every day happenings and the tumultuous events in different classes of people at different periods in time. The author is so sensitive to the various cadences of the characters, you marvel at every page. I have never read a better written book since Pearl Buck's novels. 9031@desicritics.org Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:38:49 EDT http://desicritics.org/2006/04/24/142458.php#comment-9027 I agree. Underprivileged children and their parents are bullied callously. However, children from rich upperclass families in the West go to expensive exclusive schools, called Public Schools in the U.K. and Private Schools in the U.S.A. It is human nature to want the best for your children, and if people can afford it, an exclusive school it will be. There is bullying etc. going on in these schools as well. In the U.S.A. the teachers are mainly better paid than the teachers in private schools, so Public schools get better qualified teachers. However, the private schools may offer a greater choice of subjects, and better surroundings, and smaller classes. Teaching the parents of underprivileged children would be more like it. Singapore gives free education, and many free benefits to the first child. But after that each succeeding child that is born gets few benefits or none at all. There should be a law that a couple may have a second or further child only if they can prove they can support it financially for food, clothing, rood, education and career training. How can you give birth to a child knowing you cannot feed it, and throw it on the streets? This is happening all the time in India. The beggar system also kidnaps children, blinds or maims them so as to arouse pity in passers-by and get money, which is then collected from them by the racketeers. 9027@desicritics.org Mon, 24 Apr 2006 20:01:49 EDT http://desicritics.org/2006/04/24/142458.php#comment-9015 SC/ST members will be treated as criminals by society...they will face boycott and social exclusion. 9015@desicritics.org Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:54:05 EDT