The Teen Age Girl report must serve as a clarion call to empower girls

While their aspirations are big, the agency and dignity aspects of their lives leave a lot to be desired, and if these are not addressed urgently, they will not be able to realise their aspirations. With the 2019 general elections around the corner, the fact is that approximately 65 million teenage girls will be first-time voters

India’s Republic Day celebration had, among the main attractions, an all-woman marching contingent. The armed forces showcased the role of women in the force on its tableau. As India marches ahead, it is time that she is led by women. Given that in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years, the aspirations of 80 million teenage girls of India captured in the recently published Teen Age Girls (TAG) Report 2018 needs urgent attention.

The TAG Survey began in early 2016 to understand what it means to be a teenage girl in India. No one had asked this question before, certainly not to a 74000 strong sample of teenage girls, who represented all the 80 million teenage girls of India.

The TAG Survey was designed to move beyond perceiving adolescent girls as prospective mothers, who need to give birth to healthy children, or as vulnerable soft targets who need constant protection.

During the course of a year, 1000 trained women surveyors reached villages in 600 districts equipped with digital tablets to record interviews, and equipment to measure the height, weight and haemoglobin levels of India’s teenage girls. Through this, it was clearly understood that India’s teenage girls are ready to lead the transformation of our economy. Marriage before the age of 21 is not something they would even consider, as economic independence before getting married is non-negotiable for them. Learning how to use a computer and speak English are essential — from Kutch in the west to Changlang in the east, Bandipore in the north to Tirunelveli in the south.

The nation’s report card on teenage girls tell us that:

▪ 80.1% girls are studying;

▪ 95.8% girls are unmarried;

▪ 70% wish to pursue higher education;

▪ 74.4% wish to work towards a specific career;

▪ 74.4% girls want to marry only after they are 21 years old;

▪ 40.4% are forced to defecate in the open;

▪ 45.7% do not have the access to a hygienic menstruation kit;

▪ Every second teenage girl is anaemic with a low Body Mass Index

While their aspirations are big, if these problems are not addressed, they will not be able to realise them. With the 2019 general elections around the corner, the fact is that approximately 65 million teenage girls will be first-time voters. And f the 80 million teenage girls of India were to publish their own manifesto, this is probably what it would look like:

One graduate school for girls in every municipal ward and, say, for every five gram panchayats, where they can: get a degree, have access to computers, a clean set of toilets with sanitary napkins and incinerators to dispose of used ones, and be proficient in English. Affirmative action through scholarships, exclusive buses for mobility, special schemes that empower them to move about freely, sports facilities and campaigns to rid society of the taboos associated with their wellness and health, are imperative.

An exchange between one of our young women investigators for the survey and the sarpanch of a village in Gazipur, Uttar Pradesh, proved that inequality is entrenched in the system. When insisting that the survey requires the direct involvement of the girls (through questionnaires), he was puzzled at our (misplaced, according to him) faith in the girls’ ability to answer our questions.

This TAG report serves as a clarion call for all political parties to include teenage girls in their election manifesto. Let their clamour not fall on deaf ears. Promote the essence of the TAG Report, summarised in their hashtag, #ListenToHer.

Manoj Kumar is the CEO of Naandi Foundation, Hyderabad

Source: Hindustan Times, 3/02/2019

If Humans Disappeared

Biologist E O Wilson, as well as other scientists, have studied the complex interdependence among various species in the biosphere. He found that every species makes a constructive contribution — small or great — to the ecology of the planet. For example, if vegetation decreases, herbivores suffer. And if the number of herbivores decreases, the carnivores are affected. Wilson found that only the human species does not contribute to the ecology. If we became extinct, there would hardly be any problems for other species or for the ecology. In fact, most ecological problems would be solved if humans became extinct. All scriptures say that human potential is fully realised when we contribute to the planet at the spiritual level. When we function only at the material level, our potential is underused and even misused. The Bhagavata Maha Purana offers a mission statement, “Humans should function in the material realm only for maintaining existence, not for seeking enjoyment. For they will find real happiness only in spiritual realisation.” Normally, parents nurture children. Similarly, in the cosmic family, God, the divine father, and Nature, the divine mother, maintain all living beings. And just as children live happily when they follow their parents, we too can flourish if we live in harmony with Nature and God. When children shun the protective embrace of their parents, they are open to risk. When humans reject God’s protection and embrace materialism and consumerism instead, they experience stress, anxiety, violence and ecological disaster.

Source: Economic Times, 4/02/2019

What is primitive reflex in biology?

This refers to reflex actions exhibited by newborn babies that involve no conscious thought. These reflex actions usually subside as the frontal lobe of the brain of the infant develops sufficiently during the first few months of its life. In some cases, however, certain primitive reflexes may persist beyond the first year of a child’s life. The sucking reflex, stepping reflex, and the rooting reflex are some of the primitive reflexes exhibited by newborn babies. It is believed that some primitive reflexes may simply be remnants of behaviour from the evolutionary past which may have helped infants to survive in tough conditions.

Source: The Hindu, 1/02/2019

In the Northeast, a David versus Goliath battle

With political protests erupting in the region against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, the BJP has been put on notice

The tiny States in India’s east, the Davids, have put the Goliath of political parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party, on notice with a carefully aimed slingshot that may hurt the giant.

Why the opposition?

The Chief Ministers of Meghalaya and Mizoram, a representative of the Nagaland Chief Minister, and an ally of the BJP government in Tripura declared their unliteral, united and unhesitating opposition to the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill of 2016, which seeks to fast track citizenship to migrants of Hindu and five other non-Muslim groups from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The carefully crafted North-East Democratic Alliance of non-Congress parties in the region has stumbled.

Meghalaya’s Conrad Sangma, who runs a coalition government which includes the BJP, convened the meeting in Guwahati, the region’s political hub, challenging the BJP on its own turf. Interestingly, the Congress, which walked out of the Lok Sabha when the Bill was being passed, was initially muted. Now, it has said it will ask its MPs to vote against the Citizenship Bill in the Rajya Sabha.

Amid the din of street protests across Assam and elsewhere, reference is made time and again to the Assam Accord of 1985, which laid down the criteria, strategy and structure for the deeply troubling ‘foreigners’ issue in the State. The Accord sought to calm a movement against illegal migration that had erupted in bloodshed and confrontation taking thousands of lives between 1979 and 1985. The key concerns that the Accord sought to address, through an agreement of the Centre, the State government and the All Assam Students Union, involved not only illegal migration from Bangladesh but also constitutional safeguards for citizens and economic initiatives for the State’s growth. Such growth would benefit the entire region since Assam, the largest of the eight States, drives the regional economy.

When the BJP came to power at the Centre and in the State, it sought to fast track a key demand of the Accord, the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), to ostensibly clarify the existence of large numbers of non-Indians in the State. This had been stymied by earlier Congress-led governments. However, a July 2018 NRC draft, which left out four million people, was sharply denounced as prejudiced and flawed. A group of senior retired officials wrote a letter to the Prime Minister drawing attention to what they saw as a deeply problematic process.

The Supreme Court, which has been issuing a set of ad hoc directions for a project it is directly supervising, has given NRC organisers more time to fix the problems. This came after nearly 32 lakh persons filed challenges to their non-inclusion. The Citizenship Bill came plumb in the middle of this, with government officials in Delhi asserting that the Centre is committed to it and that the Bill is being misunderstood.

By excluding Muslims from its ambit, thus making citizenship contingent on religion, the provisions in the Bill appear to be contrary to Article 14, which guarantees “equality before the law or equal protection of the law” in any part of India. The Joint Parliamentary Committee, which assessed the views of stakeholders, political and civil society groups across the country, asked the Intelligence Bureau (IB) for a figure of immediate beneficiaries of the Bill. The IB said there were just 31,313 members of these minority groups staying on long-term visas after claiming religious persecution in the three countries of focus in the Bill. But is it the Centre’s case that this small figure is the sum total of persons that it wants to benefit? This does not appear to be so, according to statements of BJP leaders in Assam, where lakhs of illegal migrants are said to have settled since 1971. However, there are no hard figures, only estimates.

At the heart of the matter is a very simple issue. The 1985 Accord, by which everyone swears, is specific and unique. It is specific to a State (hence the Assam Accord) and an issue (illegal migration), and defines the effort to settle an issue which was swamped by discord. It cannot be undone by legislation that seeks to supersede it. The Accord was sanctioned by Parliament and has acceptance in the State across party lines.

Shifting goalposts

That is why arbitrary efforts and manufactured consent are meeting such resistance. The goalposts are being changed without adequate dialogue. Lack of discussion and transparency are reasons why parts of this sensitive region erupt repeatedly. Delhi does not learn from the past. How could it expect the shifting of political goalposts to be accepted quietly? The Accord placed the cutoff year for deportation of illegals at 1971, when Bangladesh was created. The Bill changes that to 2014. Constitutional rights must be upheld. While the Bharat Ratna to Bhupen Hazarika is overdue and welcome, it cannot detract from the core questions that are being asked.

The words of Mahatma Gandhi to the emissaries of Gopinath Bordoloi, later Assam’s first Chief Minister in Independent India, on December 15, 1946 ring true today. That was when the British Cabinet Mission, through constitutional trickery, sought to impose Bengal majority control over Assam. “If Assam keeps quiet, it is finished. No one can force Assam to do what it does not want to do. It must stand independently as an autonomous unit,” he said.

Assam is speaking as are the peripheries. But is Delhi listening? The act of dialogue presupposes compromise by either side, especially the more powerful.

Sanjoy Hazarika is the International Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Views are personal

Source: The Hindu, 1/02/2019

Technology can’t replace teachers in classrooms

To improve learning levels in schools, develop and enable quality teachers to perform their professional roles.

The 2018 ASER report released earlier this month is a yet another annual reminder that the education system is not equipped to deliver quality education to children across states in rural India. Poor performance in schools impedes children’s ability to carry out basic tasks. This in turn reduces the chance of gaining meaningful employment as they enter the labour market. Two-thirds of the surveyed students in the age group of 14 to 16 years were unable to solve simple mathematical problems.

Developing and enabling quality teachers for their professional role is the missing link in India’s educational system. Of the 6 million teaching positions in government schools nationwide, approximately 1 million positions were vacant in 2016. Among all states and UTs, teacher vacancies as a proportion of total sanctioned posts was highest in Jharkhand (38%), followed by Bihar (34%) and Delhi (25%).

The short supply of qualified teachers also exacerbates this problem. Of the 1.7 million candidates who appeared for the 2018 Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET), a recruitment exam for aspiring teachers, only 178,273 (17%) candidates qualified for the primary school teachers test and 126,968 (15%) candidates qualified for middle school teacher tests.

The Tata Trusts has been working with the National Council on Teacher Education (NCTE) to develop a model curriculum for teacher training programmes. Additionally, a Centre of Excellence in teacher education is being developed by the Trusts, which will have the capacity to undertake curriculum development, project implementation, publication and research, management of teacher data, and monitoring and evaluation.

Technology can indeed be a significant enabler for achieving quality education with the objectives of access, quality and equity. However, technology should not replace teachers; rather, it should serve to empower them.

There is a need to look beyond the phrase, Information and Communication Technology and use the term technology more holistically. For this to happen, substantial investment will need to be made across infrastructure, teacher education, and content and curriculum. It is necessary for technology to be incorporated into curriculum delivery and teacher capacity building.

According to a cost-benefit analysis conducted by India Consensus, a partnership between Tata Trusts and the Copenhagen Consensus Center, an investment of Rs1,333 ($21) per student per year, would create a multiplier effect of generating benefits to society worth Rs 74 for every rupee spent. Further, research from Andhra Pradesh estimated that implementing computer-based learning would lead to a wage boost of 5.1% and lifetime benefits worth Rs 83,000 ($1,313).

There has been a decline in education expenditure as a share of total approved budget. According to the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), the budgetary allocation for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the national programme for elementary education, fell to 29% in 2018 from 31%in 2016; the allocation for Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, the integrated national programme for secondary school education, declined from 78% in 2015 to 54% in 2017.

The first decade after the implementation of the Right to Education Act has seen remarkable achievements, especially in school attendance. It is now time for us to concurrently focus on strengthening the systems for teachers and leverage technology to improve learning outcomes if we are to build human capital in the country.

Shireen Vakil heads the Policy and Advocacy unit of the Tata Trusts

Source: Hindustan Times, 1/02/2019

Centipede & His Walk

If you become too self-conscious, spontaneity is lost. There is a famous Aesop parable about a centipede: a crab saw a centipede and could not believe his eyes. One hundred legs! How can one manage! Which one to put first and which one next, and next, and next? You have to continuously remember; otherwise, they will get intertwined, entangled in each other, knotted into each other and you will fall. The crab must have been a great philosopher. He asked the centipede, “Sir, can I ask a question? How do you manage? One hundred legs! It must be a constant trouble and puzzle for you. I have been watching you. Just looking at you walking I became so puzzled: which one to put first and which one to follow?” But the centipede had never thought about it. He said, “I have never thought about it and nobody has asked me about it. I will think about it and then I will tell you.” He started thinking, but then he could not take a single step. He wavered and fell. He was very angry at the crab and he said, “You fool! Now I will never be able to walk, I will be worried which leg to put down first. It has never been a worry: things were being managed somehow, nature was doing the trick. Now you have made me self-conscious, you have destroyed my harmony!” If you become too self-conscious, the whole spontaneity is lost. You start manipulating, controlling and the natural flow of things is stopped. Relax, and things happen beautifully.

Source: Economic Times, 1/02/2019 

Number of women voters is surging across the country

For a country that suffers from low sex ratios and female literacy rates, the 2019 general elections will herald a level of gender parity giving women voters a greater say. The latest enrolment data from two large states — Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu — shows the gap between the male and female voter base has narrowed considerably in one state, while in the other, the number of women voters has overtaken that of registered men. The increase in enrolment of female voters in both states is in keeping with the broader national trend of improved voter sex ratios (number of women voters for every 1,000 male voters). In the 2014 polls, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram & Puducherry already had more women in the electorate than men. Tamil Nadu has now joined the club: of its 5.91 crore voters, as per the final revised rolls released on Thursday, 2.98 crore are women and 2.92 crore are men. The number of women voters in the state has increased by 11% against a rise of 8.5% for men in the last five years. Women voters in Maha have increased by 13L Maharashtra, where the voter sex ratio was traditionally skewed towards men, has shown an increase in women voters by 13 lakh in the latest round of enrolments. As per final rolls, there are a total of 8.73 crore voters in Maharashtra, of which 4.57 crore are male and 4.16 crore are females. The voter sex ratio this year is thus 911 against 905 in 2014. “The voter sex ratio before 2014 was 875 or 880. It was then that we undertook a special drive to enrol more women to increase their representation,” said a senior official in Maharashtra. The drive in the states has involved door-to-door verification, contact programmes using educational institutions, and outreach through women self-help groups and networks such as those established by welfare schemes like the aanganwadis. Over the past decade, there has been increasing emphasis at the national level to increase electoral participation of women in all states. The all-India sex ratio of voters had, from 715 female voters for every 1,000 male voters in the 1960s, improved to 883 female voters in the 2000s. It was 940 in 2011, the highest since 1971. By 2014, all the southern states had voter parity or near parity between women and their male counterparts. Kerala, of course, had more women voters—a reflection of its overall sex ratio-—while TN, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka had nearly the same number of voters of both sexes. The increased participation of women — who have made up for 47-48% of the electorate in Lok Sabha elections dating back to 1971— and improved voter sex ratios also denote the success of the Election Commission in countering the impact of migration on electoral rolls. As highlighted by TOI through its Lost Votes Campaign, a large chunk of the potential electorate is unable to exercise its franchise because of changes in address. In the case of women, this is a crucial factor as many move house after marriage.

Source: Times of India, 1/02/2019