Schools for Tribal Kids or for Horror?





The death of nearly 900 children, between 2010 and 2015, in state-run residential schools for tribal children is a matter of deep sorrow and shame. Their parents sent these children, belonging to the most marginalised segment of Indian society , to these schools in the hope that education would liberate them from poverty and want. Instead, lack of basic facilities -drinking water, sanitation, healthcare, poor nutrition -and an excess of administrative callousness killed that hope. Those responsible must be punished. More to the point, institutions must be put in place to prevent recurrence of such tragedy .Accountability is clearly missing. The residential schools in question, the Eklavya Model Residential Schools, patterned on the Navodaya Vidyalayas catering to children in class VI to XII, and ashram schools set up as part of a centrally spon sored scheme under the tribal sub-plan, are under the ministry of tribal affairs, unlike other state-run schools, which are overseen by the ministry of human reso urce development and state education departments. The tribal affairs ministry and its outposts in the states are ill-equipped to run these schools properly . As a result, tribal residential schools are monitored and held to account far less effectively than other state-run schools. Improved administrative oversight must be complemented with increased community participation through school committees comprising parents, district officials and school administrators. Community participation in states like Nagaland has resulted in substantial reduction in teacher absenteeism.
There are no easy answers to how and how fast tribal communities join the mainstream. Taking their brightest children out of their homes and away from their culture, only to maim or kill them, is certainly not one of them.

Source: Economic Times, 19-04-2016

Pranayama & Creativity

ANAGHA HUNNURKAR





Pranayama means taking control of `life' and it includes not just physiological but also the internal aspects, the intellect and beyond. It is food for all our five physiological systems.Prana is responsible for the beating of the heart and breathing; it enters the body through breath and is sent to every cell through the circulatory system. Prana is also responsible for the system that controls all sense perceptions of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.
Apana means `eject', respons ible for the elimination of waste products from the body through the lungs and excretory systems. Vyana is the power by which nourishment received through digestive forces is circulated to all parts of the body through the blood stream.
Samana is for the expansion and contraction processes of the body , the voluntary muscular system. It regulates digestion. It is responsible for digestion and the repair and manufacture of new cells and growth.Samana includes the heat-regulating processes of the body .Auras are projections of this current. With meditation, one can see auras of light around every being. Yogis who do special practice on samana can produce a blazing aura at will.
Udana stimulates the internal functions of the body including the escape of prana (death). It represents the conscious energy required to produce vocal sounds corresponding to the intent of the being. Hence, control on udana gives the higher centres total control over the body. This prana helps one progress to higher realms.

e-UGshala: An X’mas gift to graduates

Come Christmas, and the Santa will bring in goodies for aspiring graduate students this year, as per the Union Minister of Human Resource Develoment, Smriti Irani.

A technological tool called as e-UGshala initiative, which will help enable access to the digitised contents to the higher education institutions will be launcehd during the merrier time of the year, December 25th. “We have 29 undergraduate texts, visuals self-assessment sheets and books in social science, science and languages. I will dedicate e-UGshala to the nation on December 25,” informed Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani.

After digitisation of the undergraduate level content, the next step is a e-PGshala for post graduate education, she said.

The minister also talked about making the e-pathshala available on mobile phones to enable access to children in remote areas.

Talking about ‘Swayam’, India’s maiden indigenous massive online open courseware (MOOCs) for students, Irani said that after students attain certificates in the chosen virtual course, they will be eligible to enroll in physical universities and institutes.

Source: Digital Elearning, 15-04-2016

The Essence of Rama

GIRISH BHANDARI





Rama is a symbol of sacrifice, a model of brotherhood, an ideal administrator, a warrior unparalleled. The term Rama Rajya stands for the mostexalted concept of a welfare state. Rama was not only divine, he was invested with the highest values of an enriched tradition started by Raghu. The essence of Rama is, therefore, the essence of excellence in every pursuit.As an avatara, Rama had to enact his `leela' in human form. As a child he let Kaushalya enjoy the divine pleasure of treating him as a child. But he wanted her to share a cosmic vision of his real self. Goswami Tulsidas describes that once Kaushalya bathed and fed Rama and placed him in his cradle. Then she prepared prasad and offered it to the Kuldevata in the puja room.She went and checked if the child was sleeping. He was. She went to complete the puja and found Rama there, eating the prasad. Kaushalya ran back to the cradle to find the child asleep. But when she returned to the puja room, he was there, eating the prasad. She was dumbfounded.
Then Rama revealed to her his swarupa, the universe itself, where birth and death, time and space, causality and effect were a seamless one. A bewildered Kaushalya, like Arjuna, was given a glimpse of the infinite.Rama's reign in Ayodhya, it is said, “...was such that no suffering of mental, bodily or physical nature afflicts its citizens.There is no animus and everyone is conscious of his duty . The forests are lush and the ecosystem healthy“.

Soon, get blood tests done without the needle prick

Four engineering students from Zakir Hussain College of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, have developed a unique prototype using electrical properties of the blood cells that will help count the red blood cells (RBC) and white blood cells (WBC) without a needle prick.

The innovative model will give the blood cell count using a laser when placed on superficial veins, especially the lower lip. The students also claimed that it is the first time that such a blood test will be conducted without a needle prick.

B Tech students Rohan Maheshwari, Simran Kaur, Somya Agarwal and Vani Dayal Sharma took around four months to build the device. While Rohan and Simran are from electrical engineering, Somya and Vani are pursuing computer engineering.

Their digital solution for domestic health check-up also won these students Rs 10 lakh prize money at the GE Edison Challenge 2016, an open innovation challenge for the university student community in India.

The event organised by the GE India Technology Centre (GEITC) was held recently wherein they received an award of Rs 2 lakh and incubation grant of Rs 8 lakh for their university.

Talking about the significance of their innovation city gynaecologist Dr Jyotsna Mehta said, “Increase in the WBC count is indicative of acute bacterial infection. The prototype can be of great help in detecting such infections.”

“Once the data is collected it will be transferred to a software that analyses and compares the blood cell count with the standard data. Using the concept of cloud computing, the software will send a text message to the patient’s phone. If it detects some considerable deviation, the doctor concerned will receive the acquired data. The doctor will be able to treat the patient from home and notify the pharmacy about the prescribed medicines that have to be delivered to the patient’s home,” explained Rohan Maheshwari, a second year student of electronic engineering.

According to these engineering students the physical, chemical, structural and other properties of the blood have been studied in detail but not the electrical properties. “So we tried to explore this particular property,” said Simran.

During their research they visited paediatricians and pathology labs to which they referred their patients for blood tests. Simran said, “We found that only few patients actually go to the laboratories recommended by doctors to get these tests done. We decided to solve this problem. It took us four months to complete the research.”

After winning GE Edison, the students are now working on the execution of their concept.

Read more: Make in India could hold key to innovation of immunisation technologies

“The competition was tough because the second engineering students competed with India’s finest technical minds. We also got the opportunity to prove our mettle before senior scientists and engineers from GE, as well as innovation leaders from the industry,” said Somya.

Shukla Chandra, MD, Global Research Centre said: “The team from Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh, UP impressed the judges through their digital solution for Domestic Health Check Up. The innovation involves counting blood cells, using only their electrical properties. We are extremely proud of what these young minds have come up with; it has the potential to create a revolution in the healthcare sector. This bears testimony to the kind of talent, platforms like GE – Edison Challenge is able to reap”.

The winners also got an opportunity to visit GE John F Welch Technology Centre in Bengaluru and see the R&D laboratory. They also interacted with GE experts and attended a Predix platform workshop during their visit.

Source: Hindustan Times, 15-04-2016

Evaluation of faculties would check right boxes of education system

The ministry of human resource development (MHRD) is reportedly keen on instituting an evaluation system for college and university faculty linking their promotion to the quality of teaching. Apart from current academic performance indicators (API) such as published work in books and journals, participation in seminars and conferences, and professional development activities, the ministry wants to make faculty members accountable to the ‘ultimate stakeholders’, the students, who will get to assess teachers’ performance. The idea is to include teaching performance as an element of API and the ministry is assessing the weight it ought to be accorded.

Few would dispute the need to address the problem of quality in higher education. A large swathe of the sector is the source of despair for students and policymakers. The challenge is to unravel the effects of mismanagement over the decades. There are too many in faculty positions who are incapable of publishing peer-reviewed work and who owe their positions to networks or rank venality. Protected by tenure and social networks, teachers are known to neglect teaching or make little effort to keep in step with innovation. From that vantage, getting students to evaluate teachers is on the face of it a reasonable intervention — one that has proved to be fairly effective in Western universities and elsewhere. Students, particularly in badly-run remote government colleges, hardly have a say in academic affairs. Handing them a tool to exert pressure on faculty sounds sensible in theory. But this is also fraught with risk. In these intensely political times in campuses, teachers conveying contrarian ideas can be subject to intimidation. In the case of bad teachers, this tool can be an incentive to pander to students.

Read | Govt must tackle India’s low position in higher education rankings

The fact is innovations work best amid systems that have a degree of pre-existing functionality. An institution which is modestly committed to improvements responds to incentives. By contrast an individual in badly-governed institutions where working conditions are poor will find newer layers of evaluations coercive. Academic faculty need to be accountable for the quality of their service delivery but much thought needs to be given to the institutional environment and the quality of leadership in our public universities.

Source: Hindustan Times, 15-04-2016

Reviving a good idea

It was a good idea in the first place, but unfortunately it did not survive judicial scrutiny. By recalling a three-judge Bench’s 2013 order striking down the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and agreeing to hold a fresh hearing on a review petition by the Medical Council of India, the Supreme Court has now revived the idea of holding a national test to ascertain the aptitude and suitability of those seeking to study medicine anywhere in the country. Introduced in 2010 through amendments to existing regulations relating to medical and dental admissions, NEET had a few laudable objectives: saving students the trouble of writing multiple entrance examinations to medical courses in State-run and private institutions, curbing the increasing commercialisation of higher education in medicine, and ensuring a transparent admission process in private, unaided institutions which thrive on selling MBBS and postgraduate medical specialty seats to the highest bidder. However, it encountered opposition from two influential quarters. One, State governments were upset with the implicit centralisation of medical education in the idea of a national test. They feared that NEET would undermine their reservation policy. Some like Tamil Nadu see all entrance tests as elitist and against the interests of poor and rural students. And two, private institutions, especially those established by minorities, were against any interference in their admission process, arguing that their unfettered right to regulate their own admissions had been upheld by an 11-judge Supreme Court Bench in T.M.A. Pai Foundation (2002). When the institutions approached the Supreme Court, a three-judge Bench, by a two-one majority, agreed with them that the regulations introducing NEET violated their constitutional rights.

The dissenting voice of Mr. Justice A.R. Dave, who ruled that NEET could be conducted to regulate admissions without impinging on minority rights or breaching the reservation norms of various States, was in a lost cause then. His reasoning had great force: NEET merely creates a national pool of eligible candidates from among whom colleges and institutions were free to select those belonging to any preferred minority group or any reserved category. In a curious turn of events, Mr. Justice Dave now heads the Constitution Bench that will revisit the entire case. The Bench has said the majority in the earlier verdict had not followed binding precedents and pronounced a hasty order without internal discussion among the judges. The recall of the earlier judgment even before the review has been fully heard has created some confusion. NEET may be back in place, and it is possible that it could be held at least for postgraduate medical admissions this year. However, NEET’s validity has not yet been upheld. States which had obtained the interim stay against NEET may believe that they are still entitled to go ahead with the present admission process. The legal position in such States requires clarification. An early disposal of the review petition is needed both to put in place a free and transparent admission process and to eliminate any confusion.

Source: The Hindu, 15-04-2015