Azim Premji Foundation offers fellowships

The Azim Premji Foundation of Wipro czar Azim Premji on Monday announced its annual fellowship programme in education for the 2017-18 academic year.

Post-graduates in any discipline, with 3-10 years of work experience, will be offered monthly stipend of Rs 28,800. The candidates should be proficient in local language and should be willing to relocate to the districts where the foundation operates.

“The two-year programme offers ground experience in educational and social space, with teaching in state-run schools and participation in our field institutes in the first year and capacity building and preparation for teaching roles in the second year,” the foundation said in a statement.

After two-week induction in Bengaluru, the fellows will be posted in districts of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttarakhand, where the foundation works through its field institutes.

The selection is based on an online assessment followed by personal interviews.

“We know there are people working in organisations with a heart and mind for social change. This is an opportunity for them to know first-hand about the working environment, challenges and the satisfaction one can get while working to improve the quality and equity in school education in India,” said the foundation’s Chief People Officer Sudheesh Venkatesh in the statement.

The decade-old not-for-profit organisation has been working for domino impact on the quality and equity of education in 350,000 schools in eight states across the country.

Source: Hindustan Times, 15-11-2016

Pass the Citizenship Bill in Assam as soon as possible

The BJP government in Assam has not even completed six months in office but agitations have started against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, which was introduced by the Centre in July. Keeping its promise to provide succour to refugees from neighbouring countries, the Bill seeks to amend the Citizenship Act so that Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities from these nations could be granted citizenship even if they do not provide the required documents.

This Bill did not come as a surprise since the BJP had been talking for a long while about the need to give persecuted minorities from those three countries and six communities Indian citizenship subject to certain conditions.

The protests that have started in Assam against the Bill are premised on the fact that Hindu Bangladeshis will overshadow the Assamese identity. But protesters such as former chief minister Prafulla Mahanta and activist Akhil Gogoi are giving the wrong figures of migrants: Post-March 1971, the number of Hindu Bengalis who came in is hardly about 1.5 lakh as compared to the 55 lakh Muslim illegal migrants.

Even former Congress chief minister Tarun Gogoi who ruled the state for 15 years is seeing this as an opportunity to gain political limelight and has changed his stance to oppose the Bill.

Additionally, the opposition is hiding the fact that the Bill applies to the country and is not Assam specific.While the Bill proposes to reduce the number of years from 11 to six, which a person is required to live in India out of 14 years, to obtain citizenship by naturalisation, this could be further relaxed as the persecuted people from the six religions and three countries would have nowhere to go.

Thirty years have passed since the signing of the Assam accord in 1985 and the AGP and the Congress have failed to implement the accord while in power and the illegal migrant issue.

These are the same people that have remained indifferent to the corrupt network in the state administration that issued identity documents like ration cards to illegal settlers for paltry bribes and also sold land to these illegal settlers and employed many of them for labour or domestic help.

For Assam to grow economically, social and ethnic harmony have to be maintained. The state has lost years to movements, bandhs and militancy and these have affected the economy badly.

The government needs to deal maturely and sternly with protests against the Bill and ensure that the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is passed by Parliament.

Subimal Bhattacharjee is a defence and cyber policy analyst

Source: Hindustan Times, 17-11-2016

Why Hoard? Like Blood, Money Should Circulate

Osho





A society that condemns wealth will invariably become dishonest. Why the businessman of India is not productive? India has been condemning wealth for thousands of years. It has been saying that money is useless, money is dirt. But money is very meaningful, very useful. In life, money is a great medium of change, exchange, usage. Interestingly, saints who oppose wealth are nurtured by the wealthy businessmen of India. And remember, the businessman will respect that very saint who opposes wealth.Being creative asks for hard work; it asks for long term thinking, genius, lifelong perseverance. Then, in the end, wealth can be produced.
Wealth should be coveted, but coveting it means being creative: how we can produce wealth? But no one talks about producing because who will toil over a long period of time? Actually a society has to be such in which being honest should not seem to be an austere discipline, instead being dishonest and corrupt should seem to be an austere discipline.
The rich people of India, accumulate, they hoard wealth, they don't enjoy it.Why? Because we are taught: Simple living, high thinking. This is nonsense. The truth is: High living, high thinking.
And let me tell you that the society that produces hoarders, becomes rotten.People who can enjoy the wealth are needed: who spend the money, spread it, not hoard it. But India accumulates wealth. An Indian makes money so that it can be locked in the vaults. And the rich man lives like a pauper.People praise him that he is a great man. This kind of man is a danger to society because the money that is stored in the vault becomes useless for society. It is exactly like the blood circulating in the hands or feet getting blocked somewhere. As long as the blood is circulating in the body...the more it circulates the more the person remains young; the more easily, without any obstacles does it flow, the more the person will be strong. The body becomes paralysed wherever the blood circulation is blocked. The Indian businessman earns money and locks it in the safe. It becomes paralysed.
Money is like blood, it should circulate. The rupee is alive when it is moving, running. That society becomes richer and richer in which money circulates faster.
Right now we don't store air in our vaults but in the ture if air is in short supply we near future if air is in short supply we will start storing it in our vaults. I say to you that the world will become non-possessive if there is as much wealth in the world as there is air. And there can be more wealth than air.Technology has made it easy for us.And there is no need for any society to be poor except for unintelligent societies.
The day wealth will be available in plenty, the world will be free of the desire for wealth ­ a great revolution for spirituality! The moment man is liberated from money his mind will start moving towards religiousness.
I want to tell you the last thing.Produce so much wealth that the society becomes free of wealth.Produce so much wealth that for wealth no one has to be dishonest ­ no theft, black marketing and corruption.Produce so much wealth that wealth loses meaning. Abridged from an unpublished talk. Courtesy Osho International Foundation.

If you understand people, you find stories: Ruskin





Ruskin Bond, one of In dia's most loved writers, will be speaking about his life and writing and also holding a special interaction with children at Times Lit Fest Delhi on November 26-27.He spoke to Tulika Rattan on what inspires him to keep writing and his new projects.ExcerptsYou are a novelist, a poet, a short story writer: which form of writing comes most easily to you?
I enjoy all kinds. I don't suppose one can put me in a particular slot. Sometimes people refer to me as a children's writer -but I am not only a children's writer, I also write stories for the general or adult reader; it's just that some of them turn out to be suitable for the young reader or children. I like to write short stories, poems, essays, short novels -nothing too long because I am quite a lazy fellow.
But writing for children is not easy.
No, it is not easy .
Children want a good story -one in which the reader can easily identify with the protagonist.You have to cut short the long descriptions and start with the story immediately .
Does one need to be driven by an obsession in order to be as prolific as you are?
I am a compulsive writer.As a boy I would scribble away even when you don't expect those things to get published. I would often keep a notebook and jot things that might help me in my writing.But I am lucky , because for the greater part of my life I was able to make a living out of my writing -that is doing something I enjoy and earn a living out of it.
Where do you find your stories?
What motivates you to write?
And how do you develop your plots and characters?
Well, I guess people are stories. If you understand people you find stories. Then I love the natural world -nature, wildlife, animals, birds. I write a lot out of my own life too. And the older I have got the more there is to look back upon: people I have known, friends, incidents, adventures. You don't run out of inspiration.
Your first book was published in 1956. How has the Indian literary scene changed since? What is the future of writing in India?
Yes, it has changed a lot. Back in the 50s and 60s writers would try and get published abroad. We had a lot of magazines and newspapers though, so I would make a living by freelancing with them and I would keep bombarding them with stories and essays, that's why I have so many short stories. And then in the 80s the publishing sort of came awake, Penguin India came into India. So, now I think writers have quite a lot of publishers to choose from.
You have written so much about nature, I am sure it is all the more painful for you to see the hills being trashed with mindless construction.
It's become much commercialised now. I remember when I first came to live in Mussoorie about 40 years back, there were only threefour cars were in the town, and now there are more than three thousand to four thousand cars.
What are your future projects?
I am working on a book about other forgotten writers from the 30s and 40s.Then, there is a book about my childhood in Delhi -before Independence, during World War II, 1942-43, when as a small boy I lived with my father in a part of New Delhi, Connaught Place as it was back then, and streets of India Gate and what we did together. It is quite nostalgic. Also, there's an autobiography in the offing.
Times Litfest Delhi, presented by Rajnigandha Silver Pearls, is on Nov 26 & 27 at India Habitat Center, Lodhi Road. Entry is free.
All welcome. For schedule & details, visit TOI.inTLFD

Source: Times of India, 17-11-2016

Complete issue will be online next month  symposium participants THE PROBLEM Posed by Rakesh Pandey, Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi FREEDOM SPEAK Peter Ronald deSouza, Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies; holds the Dr S. Radhakrishnan Chair of the Rajya Sabha (2015-17), Delhi PERFORMING DISSENT Rustom Bharucha, Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi RESISTING HINDUTVA Vasudha Dalmia, Professor Emerita, Modern South Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley THE PEDAGOGY OF NATIONALISM Shahid Amin, former Professor of History, University of Delhi CONSCIENCE, THE SOURCE OF DISSENT Tridip Suhrud, Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, Ahmedabad	#686 October 2016 PEDAGOGY OF DISSENT a symposium on the cultures of freedom and dissent in the world of learning  cover design by www.designosis.innext month: The Tech Promise	EDUCATION FOR DEMOCRACY M. Madhava Prasad, Department of Cultural Studies, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad  ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND THE HUMANITIES Aniket Jaaware, Department of English, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shiv Nadar University, U.P. META-VERBAL HARASSMENT AND THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY Probal Dasgupta, Linguistic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata QUIET PEDAGOGY V. Geetha, historian and editor, Chennai LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE T.M. Krishna, Carnatic vocalist, thinker and writer on contemporary issues, Chennai BOOKS Reviewed by Louise Tillin REPORT  On Democratic Dynasties BACKPAGE

Assam boy gets National Child Award for exceptional achievement

Assam boy Abhisekh Saharia received the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement from President Pranab Mukherjee on the occasion of Chidren’s Day at Rahtrapati Bhawan on Monday.

Saharia, a Class 12 student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Khanapara here, was awarded the Inspire Award Certificate for innovation in Science Pursuit by the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development for his innovative project of designing and preparing an infrared blind aid kit, an official release said in Guwahati on Monday.

Saharia received a silver medal, a cash prize of Rs 10,000 and book voucher worth Rs 3,000 for his exceptional achievement in the field of innovation.

The President gave away the awards to children for their outstanding achievements and to individuals and institutions for contributing to child development and child welfare.

The National Child Awards for Exceptional Achievement gives recognition to children with exceptional abilities in fields such as academics, culture, arts, sports, music etc, the release added.

Source: Hindustan Times, 15-11-2016

Artificially created distress

To prevent further damage to the economy and to relieve distress, demonetisation should be revoked immediately

Without adequate preparation or thought, the monetary authorities and the government have taken a drastic step declaring as worthless over 86 per cent by value of the currency notes in circulation with the public. A prior large increase of lower denomination notes should have been ensured through banks and ATMs, so that overall money supply did not reduce and a normal level of activity could be maintained. This was not done, so effectively a very severe monetary contraction has been imposed, the purchasing power of the population has been suddenly taken away, reducing the level of economic activity and causing distress to people, which is getting worse as time passes.

The denomination puzzle

The government’s rationale for the extreme measure of demonetisation is not clear. There is talk of targeting black money, but the denomination of notes has nothing to do with the existence of black money, which is not held in hoards of notes but is a circulation of unrecorded and undeclared incomes. Those larger-scale activities where income is declared produce white taxable money, while large incomes generated in legal or illegal activities where these incomes are not declared in order to evade tax constitute black money. There is a constant parallel flow of black money in the economy. Clearly the monetary authorities or the government itself do/does not naively believe that black money somehow is connected to Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes which they call ‘high denomination’ — if they did, they would not have chosen to issue a new note of Rs.2,000 which is of even higher denomination. So what is the point of the measure? Investigation of and raids on suspected tax evaders do not require such an extreme step as almost complete demonetisation, which in present conditions of lack of preparedness, amounts to economically disenfranchising the entire population.

The adverse impact on the economy of sharp monetary contraction (to the extent of around Rs.14 lakh crore) is already evident, and the greatest sufferers are the rural population, and the urban poor and middle class. The first impact is on the supply chain of goods and services which is disrupted, and this is then feeding back to impact production. Traders and retailers have been deprived overnight of the funds to carry on their business, and the former can neither source goods after using up their existing stocks, nor can they pay for the transport of the goods to the market. Retailers cannot sell the goods since customers do not have money to buy them, and they can provide goods on credit to customers only up to a point since they need to pay their suppliers and cannot obtain enough new notes to do so. The entire chain of supply and distribution has been thoroughly disrupted.

In villages the kharif harvest is not yet fully marketed in many regions, but producers are unable to sell their crops owing to the shortage of the new money. Many are being offered drastically lower prices for their produce which runs the risk of damage in coming days. Farmers who have already marketed their kharif crop and have existing notes in hand now cannot buy seed and fertilisers for sowing rabi since there is no lower denomination or substitute money available in their nearest banks. Delayed rabi sowing is bound to affect future output. The majority of farmers are net purchasers of food, and rural labourers and artisans are entirely dependent on purchase from the market. They are in the greatest distress since they cannot purchase basic necessities for their families with their existing money, and their attempts to change it for new money is fruitless since the latter is simply not available to the required extent in banks. Even in a relatively organised sector like tea plantations, daily wages in the new money have not been paid to workers who are unable to meet their subsistence needs.

Hitting the most vulnerable

The worsening situation in urban areas is well known — not only the wage-earning poor but the middle class too is adversely affected by the overnight artificial and extreme loss of purchasing power involved in the demonetisation exercise. Millions of hours during working days are being wasted by people in standing in long queues at banks, and many are turned away eventually with the new cash running out. For the physically frail and senior citizens, it is a risky and indeed impossible exercise to obtain the new notes. A number of deaths have taken place already owing to the inability to purchase medicines or obtain timely medical care. The government has admitted that it will take many weeks to fill the gap in money supply.

With the severe loss of purchasing power, the country is being driven into an artificially created recession and the level of economic activity is declining. To prevent further damage to the economy and to relieve distress among the people, the measure of demonetisation should be revoked immediately. The government can replace existing currency notes with new notes, but in a more planned, orderly and phased manner and over a longer period, bearing in mind that the bulk of our population needs humble money to carry on myriad small daily transactions, and Rs.2,000 notes which cannot be changed are of no use to them. Citizens and leaders of all political parties, including the ruling party, should unite to demand immediate revocation of the demonetisation measure before the situation worsens any further. There is nothing to prevent the government from continuing to investigate or raid suspected tax evaders.

Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emeritus, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi

Keywords: Demonetisation, RBI, BJP, bank notes

Source: The Hindu, 16-11-2016