“He who praises everybody, praises nobody.”
‐ Samuel Johnson
“जो सबकी प्रशंसा करता है, वह किसी की प्रशंसा नहीं करता।”
‐ सैमुअल जॉनसन
Thursday, October 29, 2020
Quote of the Day October 29, 2020
Search, click, download: Apps and portals to enhance your reading experience
While
the global pandemic has hit many businesses, publishing - especially, ebooks -
has seen a marked rise in sales. Even as hardcover and paperback sales picked
up, the lockdown also saw audiobooks and ebooks make significant gains every
single month.
And bookworms
sure aren’t complaining. Also, which true-blue book lover would not want a free
book or two, or even 20 for that matter? We take a look at some of the top
ebook sites you can visit that would not make any dent in your budget.
Kindle
Owners' Lending Library
You’ll need
to be an Amazon Prime member to enter this magic land of hundreds of thousands
of free Kindle books. Operating on the lines of a library, it only lets you
borrow the book, not keep it. But there’s good news—there is no expiration on
borrowed books.
BookGoodies
Updated
weekly, it’s a haven for fiction and non-fiction lovers. Each page of a
particular book, be it paranormal, humour, or travel, gives a full description
along with information such as for how long is the book available for a free
download. Sometimes a link to the author’s website is also provided.
Project
Gutenberg
With more
than 57,000 free ebooks and no fee, it’s a book lover’s paradise. While the
latest bestsellers may not feature here, there are more than enough classics to
keep you company. The best part is that it supports almost all forms—ePu, HTML,
Kindle and other simple text formats. And, did we say, we love that name?
Overdrive
This is
undoubtedly the fastest way to access millions of ebooks. It has tied up with
30,000 public libraries in over 40 different countries. They also have a
healthy collection of free audiobooks. Our grouse with this site? One needs a
valid and active public library card or has to be a student to access the
treasures.
Library
Genesis
If you want
ebooks, articles, magazines, and more, then this should be your stop. It
indexes close to three million ebooks and 60 million articles. So you can
actually spend a lifetime here and still you will probably not be done half with
it. Word of advice: Know what you want before you venture into this ocean.
Open Library
It is an
open-source project where the library catalogue is editable. It can thus help
create a web page for any book published. With over one million free ebooks, the
platform tries to keep up to its motto of ‘one web page for every book ever
published’. To say that it is Alice’s Wonderland, would be an understatement.
Google
eBookstore
If you have
an Android device, you are in luck. On the Google eBookstore, all you need to
do is go to the ‘Books’ section and select the ‘Free’ option. The huge
collection features hundreds of classics, contemporary bestsellers and more.
They are accompanied with reader reviews and ratings.
ManyBooks
Established
in 2004, the books here are mostly classic literature. Self-publishing authors
also find a place. In case you don’t want to download a book, just read it
online. Books are available in PDF, ePUB, Mobi and similar other formats. They
also have an article section with book reviews.
BookBoon
Searching for
a particular educational textbook or business book? Look no further. Easy to
navigate, the site claims to have over 75 million downloads every year. With
low-cost education as their calling card, they work with industry experts to create
high-quality reading material.
Source: Indian Express, 25/10/20
Conformity and inequality are wired into our education system
It’s time that we reflect on the kind of world we are creating through our system of “formal education, assessment and rewards” and its implications on young students.
What is actually frightening has now turned into a joke — “It is probably easier to gain entry into heaven than admission into a prestigious Delhi University college.” Lady Shri Ram (LSR), a popular women’s college in New Delhi, this year announced a cut-off of 100 per cent for three of its courses, evoking awe, surprise and even cynicism. It led to questions like: Is it possible to get such scores? Is it even desirable to numerically quantify “learning” in this manner? In a one-correct-answer format, what is the scope for valuing diverse responses or perspectives? Who are these students and where do they come from? Are these marks a fair indicator of one’s ability, competence and merit? How do they gauge competence or aptitude of a student to study a particular subject in a specific college? What is the role of tuitions in escalating exam scores?
Rather than seeking answers to these questions, it’s important to recognise that board exams bring together students belonging to diverse family backgrounds, with unequal social and cultural capital and those studying in starkly different schools in terms of resources, quality of teaching, etc., on the same platform, to judge, rank and award them. Ignoring fundamental differences among students in terms of their social locations, it treats everyone uniformly, giving a false impression of impartiality, thereby legitimising both success and failure while individualising structural limitations. So, a student with 99 per cent marks on being turned away by LSR may feel sad, but not enraged or cheated because she regards the system as being essentially just. In a situation where aspirants far exceed opportunities available, board exam marks are used to eliminate some students from accessing certain educational degrees and spaces, such that students themselves ungrudgingly accept their failure as a result of their own inadequacy or incompetence.
It can be safely assumed that most high-scorers are from families equipped with social and cultural capital, are highly motivated, and proactively supported (or arranged for) in their studies. Most of them study in schools with good infrastructure and qualified teachers who also recognise the importance of marks in these exams, and, most importantly, they have acquired the “smart” way of “learning and writing” exams. Debating over whether these students are academically brilliant or not is not important. But the one thing which is certain is that in an education system where all knowledge is quantified, subject to being memorised, evaluated and ranked, these students know how to learn and present their answers. Even among the socially-culturally disadvantaged groups, the better-off ones make it to this privileged category of high scorers.
Schools in our country are either affiliated to central, regional or international boards of examination. There are variations in the socio-economic backgrounds of students studying in these schools. In addition, there are discrepancies in marks allotted to students among these boards due to policies adopted by them, impacting the future trajectories available for students. For example, even the UP board topper this year, with a score as high as 97 per cent, will not be considered eligible by LSR for some of its courses.
So, a relatively homogenous group of students gets into a particular college. Differences in caste, religion and ethnicity often get submerged under the umbrella of academic excellence.The college further ensures its exclusive status, highlights its differences from others, exerts pressure on students to secure positions in university exams, hankers after awards in inter-college competitions, aspires for top rank in college ratings and abhors weakness/limitation/failure of any kind on part of either the student or college. This leads to: Blocking a heterogenous group of students from studying together; mitigating differences, if any, and ensuring commonality; promoting a tendency among students to hide their identities; commodification of education as a brand; celebrating elitism among a select few and alienation among most others. By the time these students complete their education, most of them not just think but act alike. It won’t be an exaggeration to state that even from a distance, one can actually identify the college that a group of students belong to.
It’s time that we reflect on the kind of world we are creating through our system of “formal education, assessment and rewards” and its implications on young students. A pandemic like COVID-19 should have been a good opportunity to do that. Instead, we have preoccupied ourselves with adopting more exclusionary devices to teach students, ignoring the larger aims of education and its relationship with society.
This article first appeared in the print edition on October 29, 2020 under the title “Another brick in the wall”. Nawani is professor and dean, school of education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Source: Indian Express, 29/10/20
The Precarity of Dalit Lives in India
Atrocities on Dalits are never a singular instance, they are part of a larger narrative of caste vengeance and a reflection of a hurt savarna pride.
On September 30, in the dark of night, a young Dalit girl was cremated in an undignified manner by the Uttar Pradesh police. The police did not allow the family and relatives of the girl to attend the funeral. In the development of the case up to now, the focus has primarily remained on the perpetrators of violence. We contend that in addition to the four alleged perpetrators, the investigation agencies must not ignore the complicity of the police and the state administration in the process. The UP administration, it is becoming clear, is an accomplice to the crime and has openly violated due process, both legal and moral.
The 19-year-old girl from Valmiki community, it is alleged, died of rape and torture at the hands of four upper-caste men who belonged to the Thakur community. She went to cut grass in the fields in Boolagarhi village of Hathras, when the upper caste men found her and allegedly raped her on September 14.
The narrative of savagery that appeared in the reports following the incident highlights that the assault did not merely exhibit the desire for a feminine body but used to display caste dominance. According to the latest Crime in India Report, six Scheduled Caste women are raped in India every day. The Haters case is distinct because of the vulgar display of state collusion with the perpetrators of caste violence.
The brutal assault on the girl in Hathras indicates that though the punishments have got harsher for caste atrocities and sexual assault, the perpetrators now not only rape and assault but aim to kill or maim the victim to avoid any indictment later. The condition in which the girl was found in the fields by her mother points out that the assaulters had left her for dead. Second, had the girl not been brought and later died in a top medical institute in the national capital, the case would not have become common knowledge and remained just another case of forgotten caste and sexual violence. Third, despite parallel narratives created to discredit the allegation of rape on the accused, the victim had made a video statement before her death which was widely circulated on the internet. Fourth, a midnight cremation of the victim’s body raised new questions and exposed various loopholes in the entire story.
The police administration of the state, particularly the ADGP, peddled a misinformed narrative that the victim was not even raped because there was no semen found in the medical report. However, later it came to light that the sample sent for examination was eleven days old and the victim had told the doctor that complete penetration had taken place during the sexual assault. The ADGP wilfully ignored that in 2013 after the horrific Nirbhaya case, IPC section 375 had ruled out ‘no sperm-no rape’ argument and stated that penetration is sufficient to constitute the sexual intercourse necessary to the offence of rape. The initial report of gang rape that caused multiple life-threatening injuries to the victim is also now being questioned. However, the ‘burden of proof’ in the cases related to the absence of consent in rape now lies upon the accused and not the victim.
The force of Brahmanical patriarchy appears to be more powerful than that of the state. It is the parallel rules and laws of caste that decide the fate of the marginalised Scheduled Castes. As per various news reports, Thakurs of nearby villages had held a caste panchayat vowing protection to the accused and threats to the Dalit community in the village. Brahmanical patriarchy emerges as a counter-sovereign that neither recognises nor respects the rule of law or constitutional rights. It only concerns itself with the predatory power of caste dharma. In this case, the state government supplemented the dominant upper castes with the power of the state machinery.
Rape is used as an instrument of stamping the authority of men over women. If patriarchy operates through various socio-cultural norms, then rape is a weapon of the humiliation of the body and self. Dalit women, due to their caste and gender identity, witness a frequent violation of their sammaan (dignity) by the Brahmanical patriarchy. Rape and other forms of sexual violence reproduce upper-caste male privilege where upper-caste men do not conceive rape as a crime but rather as their right to make exemplary punishment. According to Crime in India data published by National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), there were 45,935 crimes committed against Scheduled Castes in India and Uttar Pradesh has the highest atrocities cases against Scheduled Castes with 11,829 followed by Rajasthan (6,794) and Bihar (6,544). There were 13,449 sexual assault-related crimes committed on Scheduled Caste women under assault on women, assault on women with the intention to outrage her modesty (IPC 354), sexual harassment (IPC 354A), assault or use of criminal force to disrobe (IPC 354B), voyeurism (IPC 354 C), Stalking (IPC 354D), insult to the modesty of women (IPC 509), rape (IPC 376) and attempt to rape (IPC 376/511). In 2019, around 3,486 Scheduled Caste women were raped. Rajasthan (554) has the highest reported rape cases against SC women followed by Uttar Pradesh (537). Many such cases are not registered due to social stigma, the issue of “honour” attached to women, distrust in the investigation and judicial process, and also fear of revenge from the upper castes who often enjoy support from administration.
According to the most recent India Justice Report published in 2019, 68 per cent police officer level posts in the reserved category are lying vacant in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Furthermore, UP also received the worst police ranking in a Tata Trusts Study with a score of 2.98 out of 10. The data points out some serious gaps in the issues of representation of marginalised castes within the police department. Hence, it also raises concerns about the nature of the investigation by the police.
In Uttar Pradesh, the formation of state government by BSP in the past provided an opportunity to Dalits to assert equality and dignity in the society. However, a counter-assertion of the upper castes also followed. Savarna Hindus, in parallel, began asserting themselves to maintain their traditional position. While the Dalit assertion is for upward mobility from the “historically lowly placed position”, the upper caste assertion is to secure and maintain “historically highly placed position”. Furthermore, there is an effort to maintain existing the social order where atrocities against Dalits are used as a means of control, a symbolic tool of threat and act of coercion against Dalit assertion.
If we look at the broader narrative of caste violence on the bodies of Dalits, the four accused are merely a symptomatic expression of the broader Brahmanical mentality that legitimises and defends such barbaric acts. It is no secret that caste panchayats often intervene between the accused and the perpetrator and favours negotiation. This is one of the major reason for the lower conviction rate of atrocity cases under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. The conviction rate in caste atrocity cases was 25.7 per cent in 2016, 23.2 per cent in 2017, 29.8 per cent in 2018 and 32.6 per cent in 2019. Upper caste men compel the victim and its family to compromise rather than witnessing court proceedings.
From struggling to register the case by the police to the filing of the charge-sheet, from the arrest of the perpetrator to a long drawn trial in the court, the process torments the spirit of the victim and their family. As a result, the process becomes another punishment. Witnesses are threatened, communities are forced to withdraw the cases or to give a false statement. On average, in 80 per cent of the cases, charge-sheets are filed each year. As per available NCRB data, there is 89.6 per cent pendency of such cases in 2016, 97.2 in 2017, 92.7 in 2018 and 91.4 in 2019. It raises questions about the speedy justice mentioned in the Act and rules of SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. Even the creation of special courts has not helped the cause. A high pendency rate in court induces the Scheduled Caste families to compromise. Compromise is expected to be the “normal” behaviour of the dispossessed and marginalised.
Challenging the status quo often results in a cycle of atrocities that go beyond the initial incident. Atrocities on Dalits are never a singular instance, they are part of a larger narrative of caste vengeance and a reflection of a hurt savarna pride. We contend that the nature of civil society in India is primarily casteist. The manner in which an upper-caste narrative blaming the victim and her family are peddled points out that caste affinity is stronger than civic sense or a principle of equal dignified citizenship.
With the recent Dalit assertion in the public sphere and the availability of social media to voice their opinions, Brahmanical patriarchy is easily rattled. The existence of caste panchayats reminds us that constitutional equality will remain a distant dream as long as caste inequality thrives in various forms. As a result, caste pride overrides justice in an unequal society like India.
Written by Javed Iqbal Wani and L David Lal
Wani is Assistant Professor at Ambedkar University, Delhi and Lal is Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Information Technology-Guwahati
Source: Indian Express, 27/10/20
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
Quote of the Day October 27, 2020
“A ship in harbor is safe . . . but that is not what ships are for.”
‐ Thomas Aquinas
“बंदरगाह में खड़ा जलयान सुरक्षित होता है। जलयान वहां खड़े रहने के लिए नहीं बने होते हैं।”
‐ थामस एक्किनास
India ranks 6th most positive about teachers in 35-country survey
India was sixth when it comes to people's implicit, unconscious and automatic views on the status of teachers in the country. India's expenditure on education as a percentage of government spending is 14 per cent.
India ranks among the world’s top 10 countries when it comes to valuing its teaching workforce, according to a new 35-country global survey-based report.
Reading Between The Lines: What The World Really Thinks of Teachers’, released by the UK-based Varkey Foundation last week, found that India was sixth when it comes to people’s implicit, unconscious and automatic views on the status of teachers in the country.
The Implicit Teacher Status analysis, which finds China, Ghana, Singapore, Canada, and Malaysia ahead of India, ranks countries by respondents’ automatic impressions of teachers when asked to indicate as quickly as possible whether, for example, they think teachers are trusted or untrusted, inspiring or uninspiring, caring or uncaring, intelligent or unintelligent, among other word associations.
This report proves that respecting teachers isn’t only an important moral duty it’s essential for a country’s educational outcomes, said Sunny Varkey, Founder of the Varkey Foundation and the Global Teacher Prize.
Since the coronavirus pandemic first emerged, we have seen 1.5 billion learners across the world impacted by school and university closures. In these unprecedented times, now more than ever it is necessary to do all we can to ensure young people throughout the world have access to a good teacher, he said.
The report, which builds on the data gathered by the Global Teacher Status Index (GTSI) 2018 a 35-country survey conducted from 1,000 representative respondents in each of the countries confirms the link between teacher status and pupil attainment.
The new report seeks to explain for the first time why Implicit Teacher Status varies between countries.
It finds that teachers generally enjoy higher status in richer countries, and in countries which allot a greater fraction of public funds to education.
For instance, India’s expenditure on education as a percentage of government spending is 14 per cent. In Italy, which ranks 24th for Implicit Teacher Status, by comparison, it is only 8.1 per cent, whereas in Ghana, which ranks second, it is 22.1 per cent.
The report coincides with the announcement of the finalists for the 2020 Global Teacher Prize, which includes Ranjitsinh Disale a teacher from a village in Maharashtra who is in the running for the USD 1-million annual prize, to be unveiled later this year.
We created the Global Teacher Prize, which shines a light on the extraordinary work that teachers do around the world, to inspire people to talk about the great work of teachers. We have seen teachers go above and beyond to keep young people learning all over the world amid the Covid pandemic, added Varkey.As part of the new report’s analysis, Professor Peter Dolton of the University of Sussex and Doctor Robert De Vries of the University of Kent reassessed the GTSI data to find a remarkably strong positive correlation between Implicit Teacher Status and the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results. PISA scores are significantly higher in countries where people implicitly view teachers more positively.
Source: Indian Express, 26/10/20
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