Monday, June 24, 2024
Is the Constitution being followed in Manipur?
At the height of the turmoil in Manipur last year, the Chief Justice of India had remarked that “apparently the provisions of the Indian Constitution do not seem to apply in Manipur.”
t the height of the turmoil in Manipur last year, the Chief Justice of India had remarked that “apparently the provisions of the Indian Constitution do not seem to apply in Manipur.” Thereafter, the apex court had appointed a high-level committee to oversee developments and to monitor steps being taken, including the registration of 6,000 plus FIRs. On the court’s directive, the State had been quick to respond at least in two cases – notably those of the parading naked of two tribal girls by Meitei youth, and the abduction and subsequent killings of two Meitei students – a boy and a girl – by Kukis.
The culprits have since been booked; one of them in the latter case from a place as far away as Pune. But in matters relating to 200- plus deaths, thousands of houses burnt and over 60,000 people displaced, those deviating from the Constitutional path are still active. Here one is not talking about the gun-toting youngsters on either side or the odd men in uniform allowing ethnic affinity to override allegiance sworn to the State and the Constitution, but people in high places duly enjoined to safeguard the Constitution of India. To start with, we have the Chief Minister, the head of the government of the State who was duly sworn in by the Governor. He is on record stating that Article 355 of the Constitution of India has been invoked in the State.
This statement is supported by the fact that Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has been stripped from his position as the Chairman of the Unified Command – the apex body comprising the Army, Para-Military Forces and the State Police to oversee the law and order situation in the State – and in his place one Kuldiep Singh was appointed as Security Advisor. Additionally, the Director General of Police was replaced without notice to the Chief Minister. Finding a landing place was Rajeeve Singh, a Tripura cadre IPS officer said to be a favourite of Kuldiep Singh. Then we have the Governor of Manipur, Anusuiya Uikey, who stated that Article 355 of the Constitution of India has not been invoked in Manipur, as the law and order situation in her State had not so completely broken that the Central government had to take charge of law and order.
She did not bother to explain the circumstances leading to the appointment of the Security Advisor as the Chairman of the Unified Command and appointment of the Director General of Police without notice to the State Government. It appears that Article 355 of the Constitution of India had been invoked in Manipur by proxy. Whether the Constitution has such provisions is for the court to examine. Then came the meeting on 17 June convened by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah at New Delhi’s North Block. Present were the Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Director of the Intelligence Bureau Tapan Kumar Deka, Chief Secretary Vineet Joshi, Security Advisor Kuldiep Singh, DGP Rajeeve Singh of Manipur, the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army General Manoj Pande and others dealing with the law and order situation.
And although the meeting was conveyed to discuss the law and order situation in Manipur, conspicuous by their absence was the Chief Minister of Manipur or any elected representative from Manipur. Law and Order is a State subject in the Constitution but the Chief Minister of the state, one belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party, was ignored despite the party having lost both parliamentary seats from the state. These acts suggest that in effect, not just Article 355 but also Article 356 – whereby the elected government is dismissed and President’s Rule imposed – has also been invoked by proxy.
The meeting is said to have deliberated upon the developments in Manipur at length and concluded that more troops would be stationed in the state, with orders to take action against anybody using violence, while initiating steps to commence talks between the two warring sides. But on the surface it appears that steps are planned to be taken to disarm the few thousand Meitei youth who had taken away guns from police armouries last year. Ignored for now seems to be any examination of the role of Assam Rifles, accused of bias for the Kukis. As early as January this year the Chief Minister’s office had notified the DGP about the impending attack by Kukis at Jiribam, the district bordering Assam. The input was kept under wraps.
Earlier this month, suspected militants beheaded a Meitei farmer and began attacking Meitei villages in the fringe area of the district. The Chief Minister was in New Delhi at that time and was scheduled to visit the district upon his return to Imphal. But his advance security team was ambushed by Kuki militants and the convoy had to turn back. CM Biren upon arrival at Imphal then decided not to venture to Jiribam for reasons best known to him. On the peace parleys, there will definitely be hardliners on both sides who would call for complete annihilation of the other as the only solution. But this reminds me of the Track-2 meetings the Meiteis had with the Nagas in 2000. Tension was running high then between the two indigenous communities of Manipur. Present as mediators were Lt.General V K Nayar (Rtd), former Governor of Manipur, Chaman Lal, former DGP of Nagaland and Jayant Madhav, former Chairman of the Assam Finance Corporation.
The Nagas of Nagaland were represented by Church leader Wati Aier, Gandhian Niketu Iralu, Rev. Shishak, Principal of Patkai College, while the Nagas from Manipur were represented by PA Thekho, then Editor of Horn Bill Express from Senapati and Naga academic Dr Jina Singkham. Representing the Meiteis were writer and author Pradip Phanjoubam, noted social commentator Dhanabir Laishram, Arun Irengbam, former Media Advisor to the Chief Minister, this writer and a former editor, now the current Chief Minister of Manipur, N. Biren Singh. The move initiated by former Consultant Editor of the Statesman, Sanjoy Hazarika, had three rounds of meetings – first at Shillong, then at Barapani and finally at Kaziranga. Both sides spoke their hearts out and a lot of goodwill was earned. We did not agree on anything but we were able to have a friendly football match at Senapati between the Meiteis and the Nagas. But the process broke the tension between the two sides. The rest is history but we broke the tension between the two sides. I am making this point to show that a start has to be made somewhere, sometime by somebody.
Source: The Statesman, 23/06/24
Goals for Education~I
Under the NEP-2000, the name of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) was changed to Ministry of Education (MoE). There was a serious dimension to this change in nomenclature.
nder the NEP-2000, the name of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) was changed to Ministry of Education (MoE). There was a serious dimension to this change in nomenclature. The term “human resource” induced the person in charge to look at teachers and academics as part of a labour force and therefore not worthy of too much respect. The renaming of the department could well initiate the process of refashioning the government’s attitude to educational institutions and to those who teach in them.
The attitude, as articulated by present Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s predecessors, had been for the government to curtail the autonomy of academic institutions as much as possible on the ground that most universities were fully or partially funded by the government. The presence of the government ~ often bordering on interference ~ tended to stifle the pursuit of excellence in bodies of higher learning. It was expected of Mr Pradhan to step back and allow the heads of universities to run the institutions. Admittedly, this would be one of the first steps in the government’s gradual withdrawal from the sphere of higher education and to opening it up for private players. So the task before Mr Pradhan as the minister of education for a second time is to cut the Gordian knot. While the policies of successive governments have failed to live up to the country’s much-trumpeted goals in the sector ~ inclusion, expansion and excellence ~ electoral politics have always prevented our planners from thinking creatively. Drawing the border between populism and pro-people policies is often forgotten. Our country’s Constitution cannot be faulted.
The directive principles of state policy offer great promise. Article 41 says: “The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.” However, there is a rider: the State will perform such tasks “within the limits of its economic capacity”. The ground reality is daunting though. There has been an unmistakable imbalance in the allocations for the different facets of the social sector in the union budgets for decades. One can easily plead that the economics of learning is yet to be calibrated in our country.
A notable trend, particularly in the past three decades, is that private expenditure on education is growing faster than that of the public, which reflects increasing privatization of education in India, and has far-reaching policy implications. Growing demand for education coupled with inadequacy of public expenditure on education has resulted in growing private expenditure. The nonfulfillment of the public education system due to inadequate state funding strained the private pockets in meeting the growing demands. NEP-2020 intends to curb the commercialization, but not privatization. According to All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) report estimates, Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education in India was 28.5 per cent in 2021-22.
Private educational institutions account for nearly 46 per cent of the total school enrolment and 70 per cent of higher education enrolment. Most of the studies on private expenditure on education infer that education being a public good, public investment in education is a must. Unfortunately such expenditure is found to be insufficient in achieving the educational goals of our country. Whereas the private expenditure on education (PFCE) increased from Rs 86.5 crore in 1951-52 to Rs. 509961.6 crore in 2018-19 and to Rs 728197.6 crore by 2022-23, public expenditure increased from Rs 64.5 crore to Rs 736581 crore and further to Rs 1098589.4 crore for the same periods.
It goes without saying that the government’s intent on faster digital Integration and creating a high-quality and equitable public education system needs to be supported by adequate fund allocation. Though NEP-2000 notes the criticality of enhancing public funding, it is discouraging that the budgetary allocation does not provide proper support to make a convenient roadmap for achieving the target. While it was expected that some specific allocation would be announced keeping in view the objectives of NEP-2000, much to our dismay a sum of Rs 1.206 lakh crore was allocated to the ministry of education in the interim budget (2024-25) which is a mere 6.8 per cent increase in comparison to FY 2023-24. Of this, Rs 47619.77 crore has been set aside for higher education departments. However, the budgetary allocation for education as a percentage of total expenditure has dropped over the last seven years from 10.4 per cent to 9.5 per cent, according to the Economic Survey 2022-24.
The allocation is not encouraging in view of the NEP 2000 schemes that aim at improving infrastructure and teaching in educational institutions post-Covid 19. While the government is and should be intent on an overall implementation of the NEP 2000, which aims at universalisation of education from preschool to the secondary level, the budget for Samagra Shiksha Scheme, the main vehicle for implementing the Right to Education Act is at Rs 37500 crore, slightly higher than Rs 37435.47 crore allocated for 2023-24. The NEP launched in the second half of 2020 aimed at overhauling India’s education system, but the pandemic situation turned the academic calendar topsy-turvy. It is time to review how far the NEP can be made relevant to the new normal in education. A UNESCO report explained the scenario: “Education systems responded with distance learning solutions, all of which offered less or more imperfect substitutes for classroom instruction”.
Since the beginning of the lockdown, campuses across the country were shut down and all academic institutions switched to virtual classrooms. However, most institutions lacked the infrastructure to take digital classes while only a few had previous experience on the platform. Most of the teachers struggled to learn how to use the digital platform for the teaching-learning process. As for the learners, the digital divide became a matter of great concern. A Delhi High Court judgment called for the responsibility of the government to directly address the digital divide. It mandated in its judgement and order of 18 September 2020 in Justice for All versus Government of NCT Delhi & Ors that the government has a responsibility and legal obligation to enable online education for EWS students ensuring free laptop/iPad/mobile phone and high speed internet etc. for online classes through video conferencing to be provided free of cost to children defined under Section 2 (c) of the RTE Act.
Encouragingly, the NEP has plans to set up and develop a National Education Technical Forum to oversee capacity building, develop e-content and provide a platform for educational institutions and stakeholders to share best practices leveraging technology. Setting up more virtual labs to give students remote access to experimentbased learning and virtual field trips strongly suggests that the policy promises a lot in focusing on experimental learning. It also aims at providing learning apps, satellite based TV channels and teacher’s training to strengthen online learning.
NEP is set to include more online and e-learning platforms at both school and college levels to make it more technologyoriented. It also seeks to encourage research across a higher perspective of education by setting up a National Research Foundation. It is very likely that remote learning and technology-based education delivery are going to become the norm and are sure to attract huge investments. The digital divide may only be bridged with the availability of requisite hardware, software and networking facilities.
A.K.Ghosh
Source: The Statesman, 23/06/24
Goals for Education~II
R ealizing the desired emphasis on digitisation and virtual teachinglearning process, higher spending on education is desirable to upgrade digital infrastructure. Getting private sector spending may be a plausible solution. Instead of building new infrastructure in the domain of higher education institutions, the existing government structures could be rebuilt in modern mode. Public-Private-Partnerships could be reinvented in a better way so that equitable education opportunities to all through EdTech platforms can be extended. Our immediate attention is caught by EdTech in the new normal situation in education which holds the promise of a more effective and equitable education experience.
This commitment holds sway of late with advanced technology at the forefront. Augmentation of quality of teaching goes hand in hand with these initiatives to prepare a pool of trained manpower for post-Covid campuses. In this respect, the government may collaborate with the private industry to ensure continuous skill enhancement of educators. EdTech rose to the occasion during the prolonged lockdown periods. It was feared that prolonged out-of-school learning might lead to children staying away from school systems. But later years saw improvement in Gross Enrollment Ratio in schools. In FY22, enrollment in India’s nearly 1489115 schools stood at 26.5 crore children with 19.4 lakh additional children enrolled in primary to higher secondary levels. Schemes such as Samagra Shiksha, RTE Act, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya and the POSHAN Scheme play an important role in enhancing enrollment and retention of children in schools.
The education infrastructure in the form of schools, amenities and digitisation has to be steadily promoted along with a focus on pedagogy. Under the ICT component of the Samagra Shiksha Scheme, the government is bound to support classrooms and ICT labs in schools, including support for hardware, educational software and e-content for teaching. The availability of teachers measured by a pupil-teacher ratio ~ an indicator which is inversely related to improvement in the quality of education ~ has to be improved at all levels. Under the PM SHRI scheme 2022, there is provision for setting up more than 14500 PM SHRI schools, over a period from FY23 to FY27 by strengthening the existing infrastructure in all the schools. These schools will be equipped with modern infrastructure and showcase the implementation of the NEP.
With a focus on developing cognitive, effective and psychomotor abilities and also early literacy and numeracy for students in the age groups of 3+, 4+ and 5+, Project Balvatika was launched in 49 Kendriya Vidyalayas. The Samagra Shiksha Scheme has been aligned with the recommendations of the NEP and extended from FY22 to FY26. In spite of an increase in awareness to get children educated and their enrolment, India’s learning crisis remains critical. NEP-2000, which suggested a huge restructuring of the school curriculum, envisages learners through the school and higher education system being exposed to vocational education.
Vocational courses through distance mode would also be encouraged. Skill-based training is being prioritized with greater implementation of modern technology. But there are challenges that the government must address in order to expedite the implementation process. In the absence of unequivocal operational guidelines regarding curriculum priorities, the education sector came up with different approaches recently to keep the show going. Some priorities concerned the academic skills and knowledge that students needed to maintain in subjects such as language, mathematics, science and history, considering the rest of the curriculum, say the arts, as non-existential.
Keeping the pandemic situation in mind, the idea already in vogue is that students were hardly able to transfer the knowledge and skill acquired in school to everyday situations. The narrative could accelerate the idea that school is boring and less worthy in the making of an individual.
It is worth mentioning that the OPEC called for an effort to make education more ‘meaningful’ through revamped curricula that are more challenging and interesting for students. The Council of Ministers of Education in Canada stressed the importance of giving priority to global competencies within curricula that could be leveraged in different situations. The Covid situation in our country raised questions about the usefulness of certain curriculum content. The NEP can draw on the UN’s 2030 “Sustainable Development Goals” as a source of framing contextualized and authentic learning situations relating to the challenges facing mankind.
The NEP might require certain revisions in the areas of strengthening the normative framework of the RTE Act instead of restricting it. It will need to situate equity, inclusion and diversity accordingly. The one nation, one channel or one digital framework thereby may not be able to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. While NEP-2020 lays emphasis on foundational literacy and numeracy, our youths are led to believe that those are not the only components that could lead them to build their careers. A lot remains to be done in order to improve the state of foundational literacy in the country, which includes increased investment in and strengthening of public education, a reduction in student-teacher ratios, a comprehensive revamp of teacher education, greater decentralization of decision-making and a focus on conceptualizing curriculum, textbooks, pedagogy and assessments.
NEP-2000 endorsing the 6 per cent norm certainly intends to curb commercialization of education, especially tertiary education. However, certain other provisions made therein may encourage private sector participation which may further lead to commercialization of private education. Research shows that public expenditure on education is a key factor fostering growth and reducing inequalities. In the US, school education is more or less public funded as higher education is left to the private sector, but still the economically poor are supported with public funding through scholarships.
In our country, the private sector continues to occupy the majority space in school and higher education as well. A country with nearly 50 per cent of its population below 25, India needs extra emphasis on education. Education, that happens to be on the Concurrent List, has seldom been a priority of either the Centre or state governments. The allocation for education in the current budget reflects the same trend and, like the previous budgetary exercises, lacks the components that can help the Indian education sector take a giant leap forward, especially when the NEP is allembracing. The task before the education minister is, of course, a challenging one.
A K GHOSH
Source: The Statesman, 24/06/24
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Quote of the Day June 18, 2024
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
Dalai Lama
“खुशी कोई बनी बनाई वस्तु नहीं है। यह तो आपके कर्मों के परिणाम में निहित है।”
दलाई लामा
Is India Making Progress in Environmental Performance Index?
According to the 2024 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), India was ranked 176th out of 180 nations. Compared to 2022, when it was at the bottom of the index, this shows a small gain. Different external factors are used by Yale and Columbia universities to make the EPI. Historically, India’s rank has gone up and down, but since 2014, it has gone down a lot.
Historical Context and Recent Trends
India’s rank changed from 122 to 127 between 2000 and 2012. In contrast, a steady drop was seen starting in 2014. The country was ranked 177th in 2018, 168th in 2020, 180th in 2022, and 176th in 2024. The drop is because other countries are doing better and India isn’t doing enough to fix its pollution problems.
Areas of Improvement and Continuing Challenges
Even though it is ranked low, things have gotten better. India got better grades on things like pollution from solid fuels used in homes, cleanliness, the quality of drinking water, acid rain precursors, and climate change. Even so, India is still having trouble with “air quality,” “ecosystem vitality,” “biodiversity and habitat,” and “species protection index.”
Comparative Global Performance
Myanmar, Laos, Pakistan, and Vietnam were the only countries that did worse than India on the 2024 EPI. Estonia was at the top of the score because it had made the most progress in protecting the environment, especially by cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, major countries like the USA, China, and Russia have either not cut their emissions at all or have seen them rise.
About Environmental Performance Index (EPI)
- Overview and Purpose: The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a biennial ranking developed by Yale and Columbia Universities to assess countries’ environmental performance in achieving policy goals. Launched in 2006, it incorporates 32 performance indicators across 11 issue categories related to environmental health and ecosystem vitality.
- High-Performing Countries: Denmark, Luxembourg, and Switzerland usually do well on the EPI because they use energy efficiently and have strict rules about the climate. These countries set examples for other countries that want to improve their environmental standards.
- Importance for Policymakers: The EPI helps lawmakers figure out what their country is doing well in terms of the environment and what needs to be fixed. The EPI gives a full picture of how much environmental care people in each country are taking by using information from global expert reviews and satellite sources.
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