“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.”
Vance Havner
“कल्पना के उपरांत उद्यम अवश्य किया जाना चाहिए। सीढ़ियों को देखते रहना पर्याप्त नहीं है - हमें सीढ़ियों पर अवश्य चढ़ना चाहिए।”
वैन्स हैवनेर
What do you think is the motivation of a civil services aspirant when he/she embarks on the journey of one of the toughest examinations in the world? The answers could vary from social status, stable career, charm of civil services with respect to variety of roles one gets to play, etc. But these were not the quest of Ms. Pooja Jha, who has cracked the Civil Services Exam 2021 in her very first attempt and become an IFS officer.
Her motivation was very different as she was fighting a battle to assert her existence – to achieve gender equality at home. She wanted to give a better future to herself and showcase to her family that even a girl child could be the strength of a family.
The son meta-preference: In Indian society, there is a preference for a male child as a son is seen as support of the old age and girl child is considered as part of someone else’s family. Unfortunately, Pooja’s family also had this deeply engrained in their minds and she was born into this family due to the desire to have a son. So, she is the fifth girl child of the family and all of us can imagine what kind of love was showered on her when she was born. It won’t be wrong to say that she was part of a family which was desperately looking for a boy child. Thankfully their quest ended soon, and the family had a boy the very next time.
She wanted equality: Pooja realized that her brother’s birthday was celebrated with lots of fun and zest but her and her sisters’ birthday was not celebrated. She found a way to solve this inequality. She observed that every year when she performed well in her school’s annual exams, she was loved and respected by everyone. So, she started to celebrate her success every year and started to believe that the day of result is her birthday which everyone is celebrating and making her feel special. This approach of hers paved the foundation of life she was going to pursue and standing first in the class became her habit.
She challenged the norm: Pooja is the only girl in the family who has studied beyond intermediate, and all her sisters were married off by the age of 18-19 only. Her father works as a peon and the family income is meagre at best. She studied in the schools run by the MCD and completed her intermediate with flying colours. She worked very hard and cleared a seat in Dentistry for the prestigious Maulana Azad Institute of Medical Sciences of Delhi. She knew that she had the potential to clear the seat for MBBS as well but driven by the need to pursue education at the earliest, she put her heart and soul in the course and stood first in all the four years of the course.
She dared to dream: When Pooja was growing up, she read about the civil services exam and how this exam can be a tool of social mobility that she wanted for herself and her family. However, her father and mother had no idea what civil services exam is and how to prepare for that. After completing her course in dentistry, when she revealed her desire to take the civil services exam then the family was not supportive. She was expected to take up work as a dentist and start contributing financially towards the family. This was a very tough situation, but she is no stranger to troubles. She started to prepare for the exam in 2019 and everyone in her social group started to point at her that why she is not working and contributing to family income.
She overcame fear of failure: Pooja wanted to become a civil servant, but she had very little idea about how to prepare for the exam. She explored it further and she understood that this exam is tough and may require more than one attempt to clear which she may not afford to take. She qualified Rau’s IAS Scholarship program for Main Revision, Test Series and Mentorship Program and reached out to the mentor. Mr. Mangal Singh, who is a Senior faculty, was there to guide her. The first question that she had was, “Can this exam be cleared in one attempt?” Mr. Singh helped her by assuring that she can do it and connected her to Ms. Divya Mishra (AIR-28 in UPSC CSE-2020) for helping her in essay and with other subject matter experts in Rau’s ecosystem to help her in every single aspect of examination.
She wrote her destiny: Working harder than what she has ever done in the past and being systematic in her approach, she conquered all odds to become an IFS officer that she always wanted to become. This dream of becoming a civil servant is almost a decade old but it took her just one honest and sincere attempt to crack the UPSC exam in first attempt. She now feels most loved one in the family and her family is getting loads of attention and respect which they have not witnessed in the past. She shared that her father is a peon in an organization and has never met the company’s owner in last 38 years of his service. But when she achieved the top rank, the owner of the company called his father to congratulate him for the grand success of his daughter. He also promised that he will visit their house and felicitate the girl.
She has overcome all odds: There are many who want to prepare for the UPSC exam and become civil servants and they all face different kind of challenges. What we can learn from Pooja’s journey is that nothing is impossible if you put your heart and soul into it. One more thing that we would like to highlight that Pooja always surpassed the expectations by a big margin. On one occasion when she was given a task to write one essay, she wrote two. This shows the greatness of her effort. We are fortunate that she will be part of the Steel Frame of India and she will be part of policies and decision making which will make India more equal, more accommodative, and more respecting towards women. She is actually the face of confident women of new India, and she will soon be representing India at all the major international platforms.
Source: Indian Express, 9/06/22
Rising 31 places in a year, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru has emerged as the highest ranked Indian institute in the 2023 edition of the QS World University rankings, pushing IIT-Bombay to the second position, followed by IIT-Delhi.
Apart from IISc at 155, IIT-Bombay (IIT-B) and IIT-Delhi (IIT-D), which have risen five and 11 places to rank 172 and 174 respectively, are the only other Indian institutes in the global league of top 200, in continuation of a trend since 2017. The total number of Indian institutes among the top 1,000 globally has risen to 27 from 22.
Speaking to The Indian Express, QS spokesperson William Barbieri attributed the remarkable rise of IISc, which is one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence (IoE), to improvement across four out of six parameters based on which the rankings are prepared.
These parameters are — academic reputation (AR), employer reputation (ER), faculty-student ratio (FSR), citations per faculty (CpF), international faculty ratio and international students ratio.
Barbieri said: “IISc has had an exceptional year across QS indicators. Remarkably, its strongest performing metric, Citations per Faculty, in which it is the world leader, has not changed year-on-year and it remains at the top of the table. It is the improvements across QS’s other criteria to which it owes its impressive performance. IISc achieves gains in 4/6 metrics, most notably, it has drastically expanded its number of International Faculty. However, significant improvements in Academic and Employer Reputation alongside teaching capacity have all combined to propel IISc to the peak of India’s educational hierarchy.
According to the CpF indicator of Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), which is a London-based higher education analytics firm, when universities are adjusted for faculty size, IISc Bengaluru is the world’s top research university, achieving a perfect score of 100/100 for this metric. “Furthermore, IISc Bengaluru is the fastest rising South Asian university among the QS World University Rankings top-200,” said a QS statement.
Overall, Indian education institutes, 41 of which made it to the rankings, have performed poorly across many key metrics. For instance, 30 out of 41 ranked universities have suffered declines in the FSR indicator, with only four recording improvements.
“However, on an encouraging note, now two Indian universities rank among the top 250 for Faculty/Student Ratio, compared to none in previous editions. The highest performing in this metric is Savitribai Phule Pune University (225 th for FSR) and O.P. Jindal Global University (235 th for FSR), followed by IISc Bengaluru (276 th for FSR),” QS noted.
Globally, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was declared the best university for the 11th straight year. The second place went to the University of Cambridge, followed by Stanford University. China has 28 universities among the top 500, including six in the top 100 with Peking University getting rank 12 and Tsinghua University placed 14th.
Notably, all the IITs, barring one, which feature in the rankings have improved their standing. In fact, IIT-Indore made the highest-ranking debut in the list, securing the 396th slot globally, while IIT-BHU made its maiden appearance in the 651-700 band.
The report shows that India’s presence in the top 500 category is also IIT-driven. Apart from IISc, eight IITs (Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati, Indore) are ranked among the top 500 globally. No other Indian university, public or private, has found a place in this category, five years into the launch of the Institute of Eminence scheme.
One of the objectives of the IoE scheme was to help ten public and as many private Indian higher education institutions break into the top 500 of reputed rankings such as QS within a decade, and in the top 100 “over time”. The scheme continues to languish in the absence of an empowered expert committee which is meant to drive it.
Among the eight public IoEs, five (IISc, IIT-B, IIT-D, IIT-Madras and IIT-Kharagpur) improved their rankings, while the University of Delhi and University of Hyderabad slipped from band 501-510 to 521-530 and 651-700 to 751-800, respectively.
Banaras Hindu University, the only other public IoE, has been ranked outside the top 1,000, in the 1,001-1,200 band.
Also, one of the three private IoEs, OP Jindal Global University, with a rank in the 651-700 band, is the highest-ranked private university in the country, according to QS. The other two private IoEs — Manipal Academy of Higher Education and BITS-Pilani — were placed in the 751-800 and 1,001-1,200 bands, respectively, same as last year.
The report was prepared on the basis of responses from 1,51,000 academics and 99,000 employers across the world.
Ben Sowter, QS Senior Vice President, said: “This edition of the QS World University Rankings reflects the excellent work that several Indian universities are doing to improve their research footprint, with positive consequences for their reputation on the global stage. Conversely, our dataset also suggests that the Indian higher education sector still struggles to provide adequate teaching capacity.”
Written by Sourav Roy Barman
Source: Indian Express, 9/06/22
If India is to be a ‘Hindu nation’ the only course would arguably be to take advantage of the fact that there is little agreement among Hindus as to what its essential beliefs are
The notion of India as a Hindu nation is gradually gaining ground across the social spectrum. As instances, a judge from the Meghalaya High Court recently declared that India should have been declared a Hindu country. Ex-IPS officer from Gujarat DG Vanzara demanded that “India be declared a Hindu rashtra by establishing dharma satta (reign of religion)”.
British journalist Hasan Suroor has also drawn attention by saying that just as Britain is a Christian country but has government practices that are secular, India could legitimately become a Hindu country but remain secular in practice by treating all citizens as equal and making sure that their religious and civil rights are protected by law.
The act of conflating Hindu-Muslim relations with secularism and suggesting that minorities can be safe only in a constitutionally secular state was a mistake as it led to branding anyone who didn’t buy into the liberals’ definition of secularism as ‘communal’.
Since India has not been wanting for believing Hindus, Nehruvian secularism and especially its opportunistic use in later years — as under Rajiv Gandhi — strengthened Hindutva and made it more aggressive than it might have been. The Congress had accommodated people across the political spectrum – including both leftists and Hindu traditionalists – and it is on record that in 1947-48 there was actually a move through Sardar Vallabhai Patel to merge the Hindu Mahasabha with the Congress since the Hindu right ‘should not imagine that they had a monopoly over Hindu culture and religion.’
But Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination and Patel’s death put an end to such a move.
How to define Hindu nation?
With the religious gulf widening in India and a resurgence of Nehruvian values unlikely, Suroor’s viewpoint looks the sanest. But what engages me is a different issue and pertains to the difficulties in defining a ‘Hindu nation’ with Hindu belief as its basis.
There are several theocratic Islamic countries and the Vatican City is also theocratic, with an absolute theocratic elective monarchy guided by the principles of a Christian religious school of thought. All these are theocratic countries and they have laws based on religious belief. The issue is whether Hindu belief can similarly serve as a way of building a nation through appropriate laws. Vanzara’s pronouncements imply that there are Hindus who dream of that eventuality.
The appropriate place to look for ways to constitute a Hindu nation would be through the writings of Hindutva’s political theorists. Of the three principal ones, the earliest, VD Savarkar, was primarily concerned with the Hindu identity and saw Hindus as being “People who live as children of a common motherland” and to whom loyalty towards it was natural; he did not envisage a moment when the constitution of a Hindu nation according to beliefs might be needed.
MS Golwalkar, who tried to propagate dharmic teachings, believed that all the elements required to develop as a great nation were present in Hindu society in their entirety and saw Manu as the lawgiver.
Deendayal’s ‘Integral Humanism’
Deendayal Upadhyaya authored a concept called ‘Integral Humanism’, according to which humankind had four hierarchically organized attributes that corresponded to the four human objectives of dharma (moral duties), artha (wealth), kama (desire) and moksha (salvation). While all of them were pertinent, dharma was the most basic and moksha the ultimate objective.
‘Integral humanism’ uses the word ‘human’ and the natural question here is whether ‘human’ pertains to individual aims or those of society as a whole; and the two are certainly not identical. If one listens to the religious discourses offered by seers and religious leaders, they similarly discuss the way one should lead one’s life but hardly ever do they offer guidance on how humans should deal with each other in social situations. Two ardent followers of the same seer, who understand his/her teaching differently from each other, could come into personal conflict and that might never be resolved.
Religious precepts could lead one to ‘moksha’, but would society as a whole even pursue that? This is where the notion of ‘Paramatma’ in Hinduism is different from the God of the Judaeo-Christian religions. Paramatma is a mystical concept that does not dictate ethics and can therefore not punish in the way that God does. A nation is primarily interested in a just society and free individuals are a corollary to that.
Dharmic principles differ from law in a theocracy
My proposition here is that this ‘inward looking’ tendency of Hinduism, its valorisation of personal salvation as the ultimate goal, makes it difficult for it to become the basis for the constitution of a fair society and a modern nation founded on its precepts. It is the strictness of God and His capability to inflict punishment equally for wrongdoing that is the basis of law in a theocracy, but dharmic principles do not offer us anything like that — since they are relative to one’s station, something that cannot be determined accurately to be acceptable to everyone involved in any conflict.
Swadharma’ (acting according to one’s nature) is hardly reliable and a fair arbiter is evidently needed. The dependency of dharma on station resulted in law like the Manusmriti, which is often grotesque; it can, if followed, break up Hindus into warring caste groups. Here, for instance, is 8: 417: “A Brahmana may confidently seize the goods of (his) Sudra (slave); for, as that (slave) can have no property, his master may take his possessions.”
If India is to be a ‘Hindu nation’ the only course would arguably be to take advantage of the fact that there is little agreement among Hindus as to what its essential beliefs are. This means that the nation would be free to be a modern one that was secular in the actual sense of the term rather than the way it was understood. Its (common) laws could not depend on religious beliefs but on the notions of justice, tolerance and egalitarianism as are understood in the modern world.
Source; The federal, 5/06/22
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
T.S. Eliot
“केवल वही व्यक्ति जो बहुत दूर तक जाने का जोखिम उठाते हैं, संभवत वही व्यक्ति ही यह जान पाते हैं कि वह कितनी दूर तक जा सकते हैं।”
टी.एस. एलियट