Archive for the ‘India’ Category

School With No Teachers - School at Tuggalwala

To sir with love
A girls’ college in Punjab where there are
no teachers and where the students pay
no tuition fees and are taught to abhor
cheating in exams

Yesterday on Dateline Punjab they had a story of a school that had no teachers! At first I couldn’t bellieve it but they had a good 15 minutes coverage [...]

September 16, 2006   Posted in: Education, India  7 Comments

What’s up with Vande Mataram?

Vande Mataram is a great song. It arouses patriotic feelings amongst most Indians but singing it or not is in no way an indication of patriotism or lack of it.
One can argue that if in a country singing Vande Mataram is regarded as a symbol of patriotism, what’s wrong in singing it and showing your [...]

September 12, 2006   Posted in: India  29 Comments

Should we identify ourselves with our caste?

There is a discussion at The Other India that I have been a part of and some interesting points stand out from the whole discussion.
I wish to ponder about one point made by suresh about losing your identity based on caste. While I agree that it is nobody’s business to tell anybody how to [...]

August 29, 2006   Posted in: Caste, Caste System, India  8 Comments

Kashmir

The Kashmir problem in India is a very old problem and can be considered the cause of terrorism in India. Sujai Karampuri has written a series of posts about his solution to Kashmir. Here are his posts I II III and IV. He also reasons why the Indians have somehow silently turned towards supporting Israel [...]

August 28, 2006   Posted in: India, Kashmir  5 Comments

Myth Of the “Myth Of Merit” - Reservation Context

A lot of emminent bloggers have blogged about the “myth of merit”. This attitude towards meritrocracy has emerged after the announcement of 27% reservations for OBCs in the “elite institutions” by HRD minister Arjun Singh.
The current criterion of merit has been ridiculed over and over to emphasize that “merit” as we see it is not [...]

August 21, 2006   Posted in: India, Quota Reservations, Reservations  2 Comments

Reservation Issue Summarised in Pratab Bhanu Mehta’s Resignation

I came accross this at Zoo Station. This is the letter of resignation from Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the member-convener of the National Knowledge Commission.
I write to resign as Member-Convener of the National Knowledge Commission. I believe the Commission’s mandate is extremely important, and I am deeply grateful that you gave me the opportunity to serve [...]

August 12, 2006   Posted in: India, Quota Reservations, Reservations  One Comment

The Flip Side Of Creamy Layer

There are lot of people out there screaming to implement the creamy layer for the proposed quota bill. What that means that the OBCs belonging to creamy layer should not be considered eligible for quota benefits.
There are an equal number of people who claim that the creamy layer criteria should not be implemented. In fact [...]

August 9, 2006   Posted in: India, Quota Reservations, Reservations  8 Comments

Caste System - Ambedkar and Annihilation of Caste

Over the last couple of days I have been looking to see if there are/were any social movements to abolish the caste system. I started surfing the net and came accross a very interesting document and that is Ambedkar’s Annihilation Of Caste (AOC). This was a speech that Ambedkar had prepared when asked to [...]

July 20, 2006   Posted in: Caste, Caste System, India  16 Comments

Caste Sytem - Why is no one talking about abolishing it?

What does abolishing the caste system mean?
What does abolishing the caste system means? To some it means raising the level of backward caste to the same level of other castes so that they are all equal. To me that is not correct. That is a soceity were caste system exists and all castes are treated [...]

July 18, 2006   Posted in: Caste, Caste System, India  4 Comments

Caste Sytem - Can we really abolish it?

Caste System has been prevalent in the hindu society for thousands of years. In most parts of the country your caste can be identified just by your name and if that is not obvious you are expicitly asked what your caste is?
Why does that happen? It happens because people make implicit assumptions about your personality/character [...]

July 17, 2006   Posted in: Caste, Caste System, India  8 Comments