17TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE INDIAN ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE INSTITUTIONS (IASSI) FOR THE YEAR 2016-17.

Dates: 9-10 December 2016.

Venue: Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID), Chandigarh.

Theme: “Education and Development: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities”.

Organisors: Professor Sucha Singh Gill, Professor and Former Director General, CRRID, Chandigarh is the Organising Secretary of the Conference.

Registration: 

Category	Amount (Rs.)	Dates to Remember
IASSI Members Non IASSI Members Spouse/ Accompanying Person	1500 2500 2000	• Dates of the Conference: 9-10 December 2016 • Last Date for Submission of Papers: 7 November 2016 • Communication about Acceptance of Papers: 15 November 2016 (Those who would like to receive early communication of the acceptance of their papers should request for early information in this regard while sending their papers). • Last date of Registration: 30 November 2016

• The registration fee for the conference includes payment towards a conference kit (comprising summaries of all papers presented at the Conference, a CD of the papers presented at the Conference, a Conference bag, stationery etc.) and meals during the conference. Due to financial constraints, it would not be possible for the organisers to meet the travel costs of all the paper presenters but modest accommodation will be arranged for some limited conference participants. For some select participants and resource persons, who are either superannuated or cannot manage their travel costs from their own institutions, the Association will make efforts to meet their travel costs.

CONTACT: Conference Organising Secretary, PROFESSOR SUCHA SINGH GILL
Organising Secretary, IASSI Annual Conference 2016
Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development,
2-A, Madhya Marg, Sector 19, Chandigarh-160019
Phones: 0172-2784133, 2725406
Email: gsuchasingh@gmail.com/sscrrid@hub.nic.in

Meet the EduTubers

Teaching and learning have now taken on a new dimension. Talented educators are reaching out to thousands of students through their YouTube channels.

The era of free education has begun, and access to quality education has never been easier. From Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to IIT Madras, the list of colleges offering free online courses keeps increasing every year. YouTube, one of the most popular video-sharing websites, has proved to be an excellent medium for this purpose. Several talented persons have utilised this platform phenomenally to impart knowledge to students. Dubbed EduTubers, these individuals have created a niche for themselves through creative videos on their YouTube channels that students have become hooked to.

Take the example of Unacademy, founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh and Sachin Gupta. Started around five years ago with the aim of helping students get past various academic hurdles, the quartet began by uploading videos on computer science and java. “Two months later, there were thousands of people watching these videos, which gave us the inspiration to continue working on more,” recalls Gaurav.

Today, Unacademy’s YouTube channel has more than three lakh subscribers, more than 20 million views, and around 729 videos that cater to medical, civil service and computer programming aspirants as well as students planning to become foreign language experts.

“Unacademy has become a platform for other teachers to teach. We are a team of 15 people and have more than 100 educators from all across the country helping us with the content,” says Roman.

Working on similar lines with focus on English language learning is Aakash Kadam, founder and creator of YouTube channel Learnex, Let’s Talk. He also runs an institute in Mumbai that gives training on business English, personality development, IELTS, TOEFL, skill development, and so on. “We train around 11,000 students at our institute every year and we wanted to give them something additional. That’s how the idea of YouTube classes was born. Now we post videos almost every alternate day,” explains Aakash.

Most of the videos on Learnex are related to learning communicative English for situations such as how to introduce oneself at a job interview and answer various questions asked by the interviewer, among several others. “Our videos are presented with a lot of examples, illustrations and props to make them interesting,” he adds.

However, creating videos to capture the interest of the audience comes with its own set of challenges. “Content creation is not easy. Writing the script, editing it and coming up with new strategies to present things differently so that the audience can absorb it faster is a tough process,” says Aakash.

Thankfully, one doesn’t always require a big budget to run a success channel. Navin Khambhala, hailing from a small town in Gujarat, has done exceptionally well through his YouTube channel #crazyNK that focuses on making the “best from waste.”

“I have always been interested in building gadgets and have been playing with wires and batteries since my childhood. I used to watch DIY YouTube videos which made me realise that I could do this too,” says Navin. With this in mind, he began his YouTube channel in March last year and has come a long way. With more than 5,90,000 subscribers and 8 million views, #crazyNK’s popularity is evident. Some of the popular videos on his channel include making a hover-board, a vacuum cleaner using a plastic bottle and a speaker using an old CD. He makes it look so simple that by the end of the video, you would burst out laughing, marvelling at its simplicity. “The videos can help students get ideas for their projects. They also learn the real time application of various things that they come across everyday,” says Navin.

Another successful EduTuber is Roshni Mukherjee who runs the channel Exam Fear. Her journey as an EduTuber began more than five years back when she was working in an IT company. “I have always been passionate about teaching and used to keep thinking of ways to get into it,” she says. Her resolve was strengthened when she came to know of her domestic help’s plight. “She was from a small village in Tamil Nadu and often used to complain that her kids were studying in a government school and could never clear the exams because the quality of education was not good. Sometimes, people staying in metro cities face problems as well as they cannot afford expensive schools for their kids. This is why I decided to upload video lessons on physics, maths, chemistry and biology for class VIII to XII,” she explains.

At a time when everyone has access to Internet and a smartphone, YouTube proved to be an apt medium for Roshni to impart knowledge. “I uploaded the first few videos as a trial. What motivated me to continue was the constant flow of comments and feedback from people requesting for videos on different topics and subjects,” she recalls.

Online learning has its own advantages. “It gives students their own personal space to study and enables them to take as much time as they want to grasp the concept,” says Roshni. The fact that it is free and can be accessed by everyone adds to its appeal. With the help of animations and real life examples, students are able to understand concepts better than ever.

Keywords: Teaching and learning, new media, youtube lessons, online teaching, edutubers, Aakash Kadam, Navin Khambhala, Roshni Mukherjee

Source: The Hindu, 22-10-2016

Double-talk on free speech

The colonial government imposed harsh punishment for sedition, but when it came to non-political speech like art and literature, British India and England, Briton and Indian, were treated alike

It is intuitive to think that Indians did not enjoy the right to free speech in British India. After all, the law of sedition heavily discriminated against us. In 19th century England, for example, sedition was a mere “misdemeanour” or lesser offence which attracted a maximum sentence of only two years in prison, but a person convicted of sedition under the Indian Penal Code could be sent off or “transported” to an overseas prison for life. However, not all speech-related laws in British India were repressive. The colonial law of obscenity, for instance, was very similar to its counterpart in the metropole. While subversive speech was heavily restrained in British India, non-political art and literature were assessed through the same legal lens as they would have been in England at the time.

The Hicklin test

In 19th century England, obscenity was punishable with a maximum sentence of three months in prison. What was obscene there was authoritatively defined in a case decided in 1868, Regina v. Hicklin. The question in this case was whether a pamphlet called “The confessional unmasked” was obscene. The pamphlet attacked Roman Catholicism and contained extracts of instructions given to Roman Catholic priests. About half of it dealt with subjects which were sexually explicit, for example: “How women may commit adultery with impunity”, “How they may afterwards deceive their husbands”. While finding the pamphlet to be obscene, Chief Justice Cockburn laid down the classic test that something would be considered obscene if its tendency was “to deprave and corrupt” or excite “thoughts of a most impure and libidinous character” in “those whose minds are open to such immoral influences”.

The ‘Hicklin test’ of obscenity, as it came to be known, was particularly regressive for two reasons. First, while judging whether a work was obscene or not, a court did not have to consider the work as a whole, but it could look merely at isolated passages within it. As one commentator later wrote, the Hicklin test made four words count for more than four hundred pages. Second, to decide whether something was obscene, a court had to place itself in the shoes of the most immature adolescent, or the most hypersensitive or perverted adult. Unlike other legal tests, the Hicklin test did not look at art or literature from the standpoint of the “reasonable person”.

In England, the Hicklin test underwent modification in the 1950s. In R v. Warburg (1954), for example, Justice Stable informed the jury that a work could not be considered obscene merely because it dealt with acts of sexual passion. Had it not been for sex, he said, “the human race would have ceased to exist thousands of years ago.”

Like England, the offence of obscenity in British India attracted a maximum sentence of three months’ imprisonment. The Hicklin test was also readily followed by the High Courts here. For example, inPublic Prosecutor v. Mantripragada (1916), the Madras High Court found a Telugu booklet called “Vidi Natakam”, originally written by the 15th century writer Srinadha, obscene. The 37th stanza of this booklet was found “calculated to excite lust and to instil improper ideas into the minds of the reader.”

However, not all obscenity cases in British India resulted in convictions. For example, in Emperor v. Harnam Das (1947), the Lahore High Court was concerned with an Urdu book which provided sexual advice for married couples. The High Court held that the book was not obscene. It was found to be “undoubtedly a serious work intended to give advice to married people, and particularly husbands, on how to regulate the sexual side of their lives to the best advantage”. Crudeness, the court said, was not the same as obscenity.

In Kherode v. Emperor (1912), the Calcutta High Court was considering whether a book containing a story on the lives of Radha and Krishna was obscene. While applying the Hicklin test, Justice Chatterjea held that Hindus generally did not think of Krishna and Radha as human beings, and did not “judge their doings by the standard of human conduct”. For this reason, the book did not “raise immoral thoughts in people”, and was not obscene.

The Hicklin test was at times also sensibly modified by courts in British India. For example, in one of the first cases to deal with obscenity, the Allahabad High Court in Empress v. Indarman (1881) held that obscenity must be judged from the standpoint of “ordinary and decent-minded persons”. In other words, contrary to the Hicklin test, it was the reasonable person, not the perverted adult or immature adolescent, from whose eyes the obscenity of a work was to be assessed. Eventually, most of the Hicklin test has been discarded by the Supreme Court of independent India.

Non-political speech

Sedition was subversive. It called into question the legitimacy of the British Empire and threatened the foundations of the colonial state. It was therefore natural for the colonial government to heavily crack down on seditious speech. Political writings were heavily penalised in “vernacular” or Indian language newspapers, newspapers like Lokmanya Tilak’s Kesari, because colonial courts unfairly presumed that those who read them were ignorant and unintelligent, and therefore more susceptible to seditious influences. However, when it came to non-political speech like art and literature, British India and England, Briton and Indian, were surprisingly treated alike.

Abhinav Chandrachud is an advocate at the Bombay High Court.

Keywords: speech-related laws, sedition, Hicklin test

Source: The Hindu, 25-10-2016

Existentialism Is Living In The Present Moment

Sumit Paul





Intellectuals as well as sciolists (pretenders to knowledge) all over the world are familiar with two words: Existentialism and Kafka.Whether or not they've understood existentialism is inconsequential. The same can be said about Franz Kafka and his Kafkasque philosophy .The very concept of existentialism evokes negative feelings and some even term it as cynical philosophy and equate it with negativism or nihilism. But this perception is totally flawed.
Says Bimal Krishna Matilal of Oxford University ­ where he was the Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics ­ “Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jaspers ... is perhaps the only philosophical and ideological assertion of positive individuality.“
No other philosophy has put so much emphasis on man and his actions. Sartre states in his `Being and Nothingness' that, “We need an idea that's not fatalistic“ and that way , existentialism makes a man directly responsible for his actions. He has no room or excuse to ascribe his failures and misfortune to an imaginative higher agency , force or fate.
The 20th century had been very significant in the sense that it witnessed contradictory belief systems and philosophies grow simultaneously . Nietzsche's audacious proclamation, `God is dead' engendered existentialism.And the two World Wars made people, especially philosophers, question the very existence and purpose of human beings and their life on earth. It is in such hard and confounding times, that both faith and agnosticism grow. And agnosticism culminated in existentialism.
Camus wrote in the prelude to his novel `The Rebel', “Until an individual rebels against the established notions of fatalism and creates his own destiny , his existence on earth will be like that of a crawling worm, likely to be trampled over any moment.“ From this perspective, existentialism is a celebration of individuality and a reminder in the words of Robert Browning's Andrea del Sarto', “Ah, but a ` man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?“ Existentialism exhorts human beings to examine and re-examine the rigid patterns and ossified ideas of life.Existentialism is the reassessment of life and its purpose. To go against all that's viewed as sacrosanct or an established truth, is the key to existentialism. Existentialism believes that there're no facts, only interpretations. It's an open-end philosophy .
When Anais Nin wrote, “I must be a mermaid, Rango. I've no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living,“ the essence of existentialism made its presence felt. Because existentialism is delving into life and human issues like a pragmatic seer and not as an indolent, lotuseating saint or a priest. The very moment you live in, is the moment that exists for you. This is the crux of existentialism. All other things don't exist or matter.
American poet and T S Eliot's friend Ezra Pound emphatically said, “Just this moment is for you ... the past is lost and the future is unknown.“ Some readers and scholars may feel and find the echoes of the Bhagwad Gita's Karma Siddhanta and Purushartha in existentialism: Kshanam Vadanti ­ Just this moment, nothing else. This is the philosophy of pragmatism and sagacity because it urges man to own up the responsibility of his success and failure and it precludes him from imputing his highs and lows to his fate and a fabricated god.

From plate to plough: A clear trend towards non-vegetarianism in India

But per capita meat consumption remains relatively low. This has implications for nutritional and food security.

In the eyes of the world, India is seen as a vegetarian country. Presumably, this impression has been created by our best brand ambassadors from political, spiritual and yoga circles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a strict vegetarian. The popular yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, and many other Hindu religious leaders too, are vegetarians and preach vegetarianism.

But what is the reality? To know this, we dig into India’s largest household consumption surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). They were conducted in 1993-94, 2004-05 and 2011-12, each time with a sample size of over one lakh households, with a one-month recall period. We define non-vegetarians as those consuming either eggs or fish or meat or any combination of these. By this definition, 62.3 per cent of Indian households consumed non-vegetarian food in 2011-12, up from 56.7 per cent in 1993-94, and 58.2 per cent in 2004-05. So the trend is quite clear — non-vegetarianism is on the rise. The Sample Registration System Baseline Survey 2014, however, states that 71 per cent of Indians were non-vegetarians as on January 1, 2014. But this study covers only that segment of the population which is above 15 years of age; the NSSO survey includes individuals of all age groups. Hence the two are not comparable.

Which state has the most vegetarians? If you are thinking of Gujarat, the home of Gandhi and Narendra Modi, think again. While 28 per cent of Gujarat’s population eats non-vegetarian food, Punjab has an even lower percentage (23 per cent) of non-vegetarians. Haryana, however, has the lowest non-vegetarian population in the country with just 19 per cent non-vegetarian households, and has remained so since 1993-94 (see map).

A state-wide analysis shows that seven states in the Northeast had the highest proportion (97 per cent) of non-vegetarians in 2011-12, followed by West Bengal (95 per cent) and Kerala (92 per cent). At the other end, Haryana is followed by Rajasthan (20 per cent), Punjab (23 per cent) and Gujarat (28 per cent). There has been a sharp increase in the proportion of non-vegetarians in Jammu and Kashmir — from 35 per cent in 1993-94 to 71 per cent in 2004-05.

The percentage of non-vegetarians in the state increased to 74 per cent in 2011-12. The sharp increase is, presumably, due to the exodus of Hindus from the state during this period.

While the trend toward non-vegetarianism is clear, what is interesting to note is that it has been marked by a “chicken revolution”. The proportion of households consuming chicken shot up from eight per cent in 1993-94 to 38 per cent in 2011-12, while that of the fish-eating households increased marginally from 30 per cent to 32 per cent over the same period. The proportion of goat-meat/mutton-eaters has fallen significantly — from 30 per cent in 1993-94 to 15 per cent in 2011-12. The population of beef and buffalo meat-eaters has remained more or less constant at about six per cent over this period. Interestingly, the proportion of so-called “eggetarians” (those consuming only eggs) has fallen drastically from about 24 per cent in 1993-94 to merely 3.5 per cent in 2011-12.

A structural change in the poultry industry by organised large hatcheries like Venkateshwara and Suguna — who have mainstreamed small holders — seems to have ushered in the “chicken revolution”. As a result, broiler meat production rose from less than 0.2 million metric tonnes (mmt) in 1991 to about 2.47 mmt in 2011-12, and egg production from about 24 billion to 66 billion by 2011-12.

Normally, rising non-vegetarianism is attributed to increasing incomes and resulting diversification of diets for better and higher protein intake. However, the Indian story may not be that simple. Religious beliefs have played an important role in keeping meat consumption low in some states. For example, Kerala and Punjab are both prosperous states with comparable per capita incomes, but Kerala has 92 per cent non-vegetarians and Punjab only 23 per cent. Across states, correlation between per-capita incomes and non-vegetarianism does not
yield positive results.

Religious movements in Punjab — Arya Samaj, Radhasoami and Namdharis — seem to have played an influential role in restricting meat consumption in the state. It is likely that vegetarians consume more milk to meet their protein requirements. The proportion of milk-consuming households increased from 70 per cent in 1993-94 to 81 per cent in 2011-12. India is the largest producer of milk (146 mmt in 2014-15), although per capita availability (322 g/day) still remains low. Internationally too, among countries with comparable or even lower per capita incomes, India has the lowest level of per capita meat consumption — 2.9 kg in 2015, of which 1.7kg/ capita is poultry meat (see graph: Total annual per capita meat consumption). Pakistan’s annual per capita meat consumption is about four times that of India; the country has a lower per capita income than India.

What do these numbers indicate for food and nutritional security? Indians draw only about one per cent calorie-intake and three per cent protein-intake from eggs, fish and meat. Given the high incidence of malnutrition in India, especially among children, this is somewhat worrisome for nutritionists. Will government policy promote egg or meat consumption for better nutrition? The chances are dim. But the government can give a fillip to poultry consumption by reducing import duty on chicken legs from 100 per cent to say 20 per cent. Meat consumption will increase primarily through private sector initiatives such as of KFC and McDonald’s, which can ensure food safety requirements are met. Modernised, well-equipped abattoirs will also help as they have in making India one of the largest exporters of buffalo meat. Milk and milk-products can be promoted by cooperatives with support from the government.

Further, since chicken rules the roost, not pork or beef, the feed pressure will be much less in India, as chicken is a comparatively more efficient convertor of energy with feed-to-meat ratio of 1.6:1 compared to 5:1 for pork and 7:1 for beef. This, coupled with low levels of meat consumption, will keep demand for feed food subdued. While the trend towards non-vegetarianism is increasing, vegetarians are certainly more benign to the planet’s environmental health.

Gulati is Infosys Chair Professor for Agriculture and Verma is a consultant at ICRIER. This column first appeared in the print edition under the title 'Not chicken anymore'.

Source: Indian Express, 24-10-2016

Top varsities may get more autonomy

Universities performing poorly likely to face funding cuts

New Delhi: The human resource development ministry is introducing a carrot and stick approach under which the performing universities will get greater autonomy and poor performers will get their funding cut. To implement the initiative, the ministry will divide the universities into three categories based on their performance on several parameters including the teaching-learning environment, research and industry income. “We are looking to classify universities into three categories and this is not based on NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) grades,” HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said.

India has currently 759 universities including 47 central universities, 350 state-run universities, 239 private universities and 123 deemed-to-be universities. At least 37,000 colleges are affiliated to these institutions and it is believed that the performance of a university impacts the education outcome of a majority of the affiliated collages. Most of these universities are far from being well run and none of them make it to the top 200 universities list in global rankings. “What we are trying is to improve the quality and will do what is required to improve the education outcome,” Javadekar said. 

Source | http://www.livemint.com/Education/kMcEJcap0lDONyJBsXmpYK/Top-varsities-may-get-more-autonomy.html

How to get the right education loan

 

How to get the right education loan

The Indian Government has framed a Comprehensive Educational Loan Scheme which covers all types of courses including foreign education 

One would always want to be educated in the 'best' institution, studying the 'best' course. But 'best' is will no longer be restricted by geography. With education loans becoming easily accessible, you can pursue the 'best' degree from anywhere in the world.

In a bid to ensure that no student in the country is deprived of higher education for want of finances, the Indian Government has framed a Comprehensive Educational Loan Scheme which covers all types of courses including foreign education. In consultation with the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banker's Association (IBA), this scheme allows up to INR 15 lakhs for studies abroad, no collateral or margin required for loans up to INR 4 lakhs, with interest rates not to exceed prime lending rates and repayment period defined between 5-7 years, with a grace period of one year after completion of studies. Tax benefits include deductions of upto INR 40,000 under section 80E of the Income Tax Act for upto eight years. While this has formed the base indicator, banks today offer upto INR 30 lakhs in education loan with varying collateral, documentation and interest rates applicable.

The past decade has also seen private companies enter the education loan market, thus simplifying the process and making it highly efficient and user-friendly. Companies offer up to 100 per cent finance with no margin money required; no ceiling on the loan amounts; repayment periods of upto 10 years, loans for pre-admission expenses and even doorstep services. Loans through private providers can be processed within a week if documentation is in place.

To facilitate education loans further, with effect from 2013-2014, the government announced 'Padho Pardesh', a scheme of interest subsidy on education loans for students belonging to minority communities who seek an overseas education. This includes students from communities like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Parsis who seek to pursue a Masters degree and above, abroad. Under this scheme, the Ministry will reimburse 100 per cent interest component of the education loan availed by a student from a bank upto moratorium period (i.e. course period + one year after completion of the course or six months after getting employment, whichever happens earlier) where the student's overall family income is not more than INR 6 lakhs per annum. This scheme is monitored by the Indian Banks Association.

Additional interest rate benefits are also provided to female students and students from OBCs making education loans huge enablers for the growing middle class.

Here's a look at some FAQs to taking an education loan:

How do I calculate my education loan ability?

You need to know how much surplus income you have and measure it against your rate of interest and tenure of the loan. There are several online education loan calculators that allow you to key in this information providing you with the eligibility amount and your EMI.

Does education loan limit depend on the degree applied for?

Education loan limits are usually determined by your financial eligibility of repayment and the sector from where the loan is being taken. For example, a scheduled bank may offer a maximum of INR 30 lakhs (where an undergraduate degree can cost upto INR 150 lakhs), but a private financial institution like Credila can provide a loan to cover the entire expense as long as other requirements are met.

What documents do I submit, to get an education loan?

Education loan is divided into three stages – Eligibility (do you qualify), Sanction (how much will you get based on the information you have provided and post verifications) and Disbursement (releasing the education loan). Once you have the following documentation, you should be set to make your application through any of these processes:

Deciding on the co-applicant (it is recommended that parent/s become the co-applicant) and guarantor (if required)

Completed application form

Photograph, ID, address proof

Academic documents to the highest qualification

Admission-related documents

6 months bank statements

Proof of Income (IT returns of co-applicant and/or guarantor)

Collateral documentation

The paper work between banks can vary based on collateral, guarantors and other internal requirements. It is best to get this clarified from your financial institution.

What is the collateral I need to pay?

Education loans upto Rs 4 lakhs are usually collateral-free as stipulated by the government. For higher education loans, applicants/co-applicants will need to provide collateral either in the form of fixed deposits or property mortgaged with their respective institutions.

What is the repayment time?

About 5-7 years with scheduled banks and up to 10 years in private financial institutions. This excludes the moratorium period which usually refers to the course period and one year after completion of course or six months after getting employment whichever happens earlier.

Can you suggest a few banks or schemes from where I can secure my education loan?

It is best to approach a bank where you, or your family already have an existing relationship. Alternatively, nationalised banks under the IBA can provide competitive interest rates and applicable government schemes can be availed through these banks. Financial institutions dedicated to the provision and service of education loans can process loans across various income brackets very quickly.

Can I avail an education loan for any country?

In most cases, yes. However, some banks/financial institutions may have a reference list of universities from that country which they recognise, or they may ask you to furnish information authenticating the university institution of study.

Source | Daily News Analysis | 23 October 2016