India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English
Jiyo Parsi is a Government of India supported scheme to arrest the decline in population of the Parsi Zoroastrian Community in India. Headed by Shernaz Cama, the program launched a major ad blitzkrieg today. The advertisements will run in the print media in the days and weeks to come.
The more things change…the more they remain the same. That seems to be the case of the new govt’s vision for higer education
by Purushottam Agrawal
The minister for human resource development, Smriti Irani, along with her mandarins and the vice-chancellors of all central universities was in a two-day retreat in September in Chandigarh. It is not surprising that the electronic media neither reported nor discussed the event. After all, it has fast ‘evolved’ from infotainment to unabashed comedy and live cockfighting. But, it did come as a surprise that this meeting was not reported adequately even in large sections of the print media.
Well, in defence of our journalistic class, one has to say nothing dramatic or curious happened at this retreat. Given Modi’s ballistic campaigning and general pretence that his government is different from all regimes independent India has seen (after all, ‘nothing’ happened in 60 years), the media was probably looking for some dramatic departures, some important disjunctions from the UPA policy framework on education.
What we got instead was smooth continuity, informed by a mindless technocracy, as far as the higher education policy is concerned.
From the point of view of the future of our higher education, this continuity of perspective is very important. Departures would, of course, have been interesting, but continuity is curious, to say the least. One recalls the great detective who reminded Inspector Gregory, while working on ‘The silver Blaze’ case, that the fact that the dog did nothing in the night-time was in fact the curious incident.
The continuity of UPA and NDA policies in many areas is becoming increasingly clear. In case of education the consensus amongst the ‘forward looking’ ruling elite had become clear decades ago when the nomenclature of the ministry was changed from education to HRD. Now, the state is not looking at educating its citizens, it is not investing in human individuals; rather it is investing in a resource which happens to be human.
The liberal framework gave way to the managerial one even without a whimper in political circles, just as education was sought to be reduced to science, technology and management. In fact, there is little scope in such an approach even for science in its fundamental sense. There is hardly any enthusiastic encouragement from the official side for fundamental and ‘non-pragmatic’ research in science. For the ruling elite, corporate bosses and most of the middle class these days, science is nothing but a euphemism for useful technology.
Another shared trait between the NGO-friendly, ‘inclusive’ UPA government and the ‘no-nonsense’ nationalist one under PM Modi is the obsession with controlling everything and propagating the great ideal of ‘one size fits all’, in the sphere of ‘human resource development’. The present minister, while paying lip service to the idea of autonomy of universities, still got a draft ‘single Act’ for all central universities circulated for ‘suggestions’. This Act is based on the recommendations of the Pathan committee, which was formed in 2013 (when Kapil Sibal was the HRD minister) with the clear mandate of suggesting ways of implementing the ministerial motto of ‘one size fits all’ and had recommended, inter alia, doing away with the office of chancellor, and having in its place a council of vice-chancellors headed by, no prizes for guessing, the minister for HRD! There is not even the veneer of autonomy here: the government must control all aspects of university life.
Another brain wave, ostensibly egalitarian and democratic (and common to UPA and NDA dispensations) is to have common admission and common curriculum for all the central universities in order to facilitate student and faculty mobility. Again, the idea of only technology and management being worthy of any serious consideration is implicit here. In the field of humanities and social sciences, it will be an extremely harmful step. Even in science, technology and management, the inclinations and orientations of various departments do and should influence their research programmes and priorities.
In social sciences and humanities, at any rate, interpretations matter a lot, and institutions of higher learning make their distinct mark by offering different interpretations to the same or similar data. This diversity of views and approaches enlivens the field of knowledge and enriches the collective wisdom of society. In education systems the world over, individual teachers are encouraged to offer new courses and identify new focus areas in the ongoing teaching programmes every semester. In contrast, our political and administrative bosses want 40 central universities to teach the same text, same poets, same set of research questions, same priorities to each and every student. If, by ‘common curriculum’, something else is meant, I would love to be enlightened.
Sibal also has to his credit the great idea of appointing vice-chancellors through advertisements and interviews. There is a world of difference between someone being nominated without having applied, and someone getting through after an interview. The supreme court has categorically stated that notwithstanding the funding from government, the relationship between the government and university professors and vice-chancellors is not that of master and servant. Under the guidance of Sibal, for the newly established central universities, the nomination method was replaced with selection method in order to make the master-servant point in a subtle psychological manner to be followed with legal steps in due course. Once the idea of a single act and a council headed by the minister, governing the matters of all central universities is put to practice, the Sibalian dream of ‘one size fits all’ would be happily realised. The gods of efficiency and good governance would have slain the demons of independent and critical research and teaching.
If she wants to reform education, Irani would do well to break from this Sibalian mould. Participating in a couple of TV debates about her suitability as the minister of HRD, as she does not possess higher degrees, I had made two points. First, in any democracy, ministers are supposed to provide direction and perspective, and this has nothing to do with higher degrees. In fact, the question of formal qualification is more pertinent in the context of high-level bureaucrats, i.e., IAS officers, who having passed one examination in life supposedly acquire expertise on everything from agricultural policy to rocketry to the finer points of pedagogy. Incidentally, in the mid 1950s, the administration in the education ministry was headed by a professor. Maulana Azad, as education minister, had appointed the distinguished academic Prof. Humayun Kabir as education secretary. It would be interesting to know when and how the IAS lobby captured this position. Irani may look at the idea of reviving the practice of having experts run higher education in the country.
The second point was about the standards of education. I believe that no human being can create more drift and confusion in our education system than what has been achieved by US-trained top-class ‘intellectuals’ under the benign guidance of Manmohan Singh. Irani can only take things in a better direction, provided she chooses to act differently and see through the designs of control-freak bureaucrats.
But, given the convergence of thinking on higher education between UPA and NDA as reflected during the Chandigarh retreat, one is probably asking for the moon.
The story appeared in November 1-15, 2014 issue of Governance Now.
JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda, newly appointed party’s state chief H D Kumaraswamy and others at the JD(S) office in Bengaluru on Thursday. Photo: Nagaraja Gadekal, The New Indian Express
Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Thursday announced appointment of his son H D Kumaraswamy as President of the JDS state unit, even as he acknowledged there was a need to dispel the impression that his was a “father-son party.”
Gowda, who has come under constant attack over his family maintaining a stranglehold over JDS, defended the appointment of Kumaraswamy, a former Chief Minister who is under pressure in recent weeks to play a more active role.
It was a “big tragedy” that JDS was being labelled “father-son party” in Karnataka, Gowda said.
“Aren’t father and their children in the same party in other states?, the JDS chief asked.” If Mamata Banerjee (West Bengal Chief Minister) and Mayawati (BSP leader) had children, what would they have done?, he said, hitting back at the detractors who accuse him of promoting dynastic politics.
The state unit president’s post was lying vacant for the past seven months following the death of A Krishnappa due to heart attack on April 23. He was party candidate for Tumkur Lok Sabha seat. The backward classes leader had assumed the charge in September last year.
The decision to appoint Kumaraswamy was taken at a high-level meeting of party state office-bearers, legislators, district unit presidents and former legislators held here in which Gowda took part.
This is not the first time Kumaraswamy is holding the post. He was appointed as the JDS president in 2008 after the death of Meerajuddin Patel.
Kumaraswamy had quit the post following the party’s defeat in last year’s August 21 bypolls to Bengaluru Rural and Mandya Lok Sabha seats, considered the party’s bastion.
Gowda also announced apointments of Mahantesh Patil and Amarnath Shetty as Vice Presidents, Sharada Purya Nayak, Dinakar Shetty (Gneral Secretaries) and Meenakshi Naneesh and Dr Riaz Farooq (Secretaries).
Assuming the charge, Kumraswamy said he would make all efforts to build the party and take up farmers’ issues.
In 2013, he resigned from the Lok Sabha after winning election to the Karnataka Assembly in which his party emerged the second largest in terms of vote share percentage.
Kolkata: Rohit Sharma (264) made history by becoming the highest individual scorer in One-Day International (ODI) cricket and also became the first batsman to score two double hundreds as he powered India to a mammoth 404 for five in their fourth match against Sri Lanka at the Eden Gardens here Thursday.
The 27-year-old smashed nine sixes and 33 fours to register the record score in 173 deliveries against a hapless Sri Lankan bowling attack.
Rohit, who scored 209 against Australia in November 2013, stitched a 202-run partnership for the third wicket with skipper Virat Kohli (66).
Brief Scores:
India: 404 for five in 50 overs (Rohit Sharma 264, Virat Kohli 66; Angelo Mathews 2/44, Nuwan Kulasekara 1/89, Shaminda Eranga 1-77) vs Sri Lanka.
(IANS)
by Al-Akhbar
Turkish authorities arrested police officers on Wednesday in new nationwide raids over an alleged plot to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The operation, which targeted 15 police officers in seven different Turkish provinces, came after an Istanbul prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 17 officers, four of whom are senior police officers.
Apart from wiretapping, the police officers have been accused of forging official documents and violating privacy of individuals.
The sweeps were the sixth such in a sequence of coordinated raids aimed at cracking down on what Erdogan has described as a “parallel state” within the security forces loyal to his former ally turned foe, the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.
The probe is linked to last year’s stunning corruption allegations against Erdogan and his inner circle that were based on wiretapped telephone conversations.
The Erdogan-led authorities have since sacked hundreds of police and prosecutors believed to be linked to Gulen and introducing curbs on the judiciary and the Internet.
(Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama at a press conference following their talks at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 12, 2014. (Photo: Xinhua/Liu Weibing)
In response to the announcement of a negotiated deal between the United States and China on greenhouse gas reductions, Friends of the Earth U.S. President Erich Pica made the following statement:
While the U.S.-China Announcement on climate change creates important political momentum internationally, it falls significantly short of the aggressive reductions needed to prevent climate disruption. The announced U.S. emissions reduction target — 26-28 percent below 2005 levels, by 2025 — is grounded in neither the physical reality of climate science nor the lived reality of hundreds of millions of people in developing countries whose lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy due to drought, flooding, fire and other extreme weather events. Simply put, the non-binding target falls miserably short of what science, justice and equity demand.
Further, the announcement is silent on the U.S. commitment to adaptation, technology transfer and climate finance in regards to the rest of the world. These commitments are fundamental for a meaningful climate agreement in Paris in 2015. The first litmus test of how serious the U.S. is about success in Paris will come during the Green Climate Fund pledging session later this month.
Looking ahead toward the 2016 presidential race, I hope that this pledge becomes a very low floor for presidential aspirants and not a ceiling for what is possible in the United States. Using executive authority, the President can and must go further by denying new fossil fuel leases, rejecting the Keystone pipeline and regulating other forms of greenhouse gas emissions.
by Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
U.S. officials are in for a serious grilling on Wednesday as they get hauled before the U.N. Committee against Torture and questioned about about a multitude of ways in which the U.S. appears to be failing to comply with the anti-torture treaty it ratified 20 years ago.
As Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program noted on Monday:
This marks the first U.N. review of the United States’ torture record since President Obama took office in 2009, and much is at stake. The review will test the pledges President Obama made to reverse disastrous Bush-era policies that led to gross violations of human rights, like torture, secret and incommunicado detention, “extraordinary renditions,” unfair trials, and more. It is also likely to examine practices that emerged or became entrenched during Obama’s time in office, such as indefinite detention at Guantánamo, immigration detention and deportations, and the militarization of the police, as witnessed by the world during this summer’s events in Ferguson.
The ACLU’s “shadow report” to the committee is a profoundly grim indictment of the nation’s failure to live up to its principles.
And although Obama claims to oppose torture, the New York Times recently reported that he could well fail another key test of his sincerity by reaffirming the Bush administration’s position that the international Convention Against Torture imposes no legal obligation on the U.S. to bar cruelty outside its borders.
Obama has already flouted the convention’s requirement that member states hold torturers accountable. I have long argued that his failure there has been particularly profound.
U.S. non-governmental agencies were allowed to address the U.N. committee today, and Murat Kurnaz (pictured above), who was tortured and detained by the U.S. at Kandahar and then Guantanamo over a period of five years, traveled to Geneva with his attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy. He made the following statement:
Good afternoon. My name is Murat Kurnaz. I am a Turkish citizen who was born and raised in Bremen, Germany, where I currently live. I spent five years of my life in detention in Kandahar and Guantanamo Bay from 2001-2006.My story is like many others. In 2001, while traveling in Pakistan, I was arrested by Pakistani police and sold to the U.S. military for a $3,000 bounty. In Kandahar, the U.S. military subjected me to electric shocks, stress positions, simulated drowning, and endless beatings. In Guantanamo, there was also psychological torture—I was stripped of my humanity, treated like an animal, isolated from the rest of the world, and did not know if I would ever be released.
Even though my lawyers proved that the U.S. knew of my innocence by 2002, I was not released until 2006. I lost five years of my life in Guantanamo.
Eight years later, I cannot believe that Guantanamo is still open and that there are almost 150 men detained there indefinitely. My time in Guantanamo was a nightmare, but I sometimes consider myself lucky. I know that part of the reason I am free today is because I am from Germany.
Most of the current prisoners remain in Guantanamo because they are from Yemen and the U.S. refuses to send them home. Many are as innocent as I was. But they are enduring the torture of Guantanamo for over 12 years because of their nationality, not because of anything they have done.
I understand that international human rights laws like the Convention Against Torture were created so that the people who commit torture are punished. Isn’t that how we can end torture in the world? So why has no U.S. official been held responsible for brutal practices and torture at Guantanamo or other U.S. prisons?
I will never get five years of my life back, but for me and others, it is important that the Committee confronts the United States about its actions in Guantanamo and other prisons.
Thank you.
The committee’s proceedings are being livestreamed here. The questioning of the U.S. delegation begins as 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Geneva time — 4 a.m. ET.
ARCHIVE PHOTO: Palestinians look at burnt tires inside a mosque in the West Bank village of Qusra, near Nablus September 5, 2011 (Reuters / Abed Omar Qusini)
by RT
Israeli settlers have overnight set on fire a mosque near the West Bank town of Ramallah, according to Palestinian security officials.
“The settlers set fire to the whole of the first floor of the mosque” in the village of Al-Mughayir, near the Shilo Jewish settlement, the officials said, as cited by AFP.
A group of Palestinian worshippers who came to the mosque for their morning prayer found the building in flames, Ma’an news agency reports, as cited by the Jerusalem Post.
The worshippers reportedly managed to extinguish the fire. The first floor of the mosque has been severely damaged.
“A call was received in the morning hours about an act of arson against a mosque in the village of Al-Maghir,” Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, according to Ynetnews. “Police forces…together with the IDF have yet to enter the village in order to open the investigation due to riots in the area.”
Palestinian Mayor Faraj al-Naasan said he had no doubt that Jewish settlers were responsible for the attack, citing a previous settler raid against another mosque in the village two years ago and frequent settler attacks against vehicles and olive groves, AP reported.
“Only Jewish settlers would do this,” al-Naasan said.
Senior security official claims #Gaza might start firing rockets at #Israel, as a response to the ongoing unrest in the #WestBank.
— Paula Slier (@PaulaSlier_RT) November 12, 2014
Palestinians have filed a complaint with the West Bank’s IDF civil authority, the Times of Israel reports.
Palestinians accuse Israeli extremists of torching the western mosque in Mougher town east Ramallah pic.twitter.com/f5u3KAXtTq
— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) November 12, 2014
Another mosque was torched in the same village two years ago.
The arson attacks by hardline Jewish settlers are often accompanied by a graffiti reading “price tag,” but this was not the case in the latest incident, according to AFP citing Palestinian officials.
An ancient synagogue was also attacked overnight Wednesday, the Haaretz reports. It says the incident happened in Shfaram, an Arab community in northern Israel, where a fire bomb was thrown at the Jewish temple. No one was hurt in the incident, but some damage was done to the building, according to police.
Tensions have lately been high between the Israelis and the Palestinians over disrupted access to another place of worship – the landmark Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
An Israeli border policeman runs during clashes with Palestinian stone throwers following a protest against what organizers say are recent visits by Jewish activists to al-Aqsa mosque, at Qalandia checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah November 7, 2014 (Reuters / Ammar Awad)
Israeli police have recently repeatedly closed the mosque, triggering an angry outcry from Palestinians.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has warned Israeli to stay away from Al-Aqsa and said has accused Israel of “leading the region and the world to a destructive religious war.”
On Tuesday, a Palestinian man was shot dead by the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank, trying to disperse a rioting Palestinian crowd.
On Monday, an Israeli woman and an IDF soldier were stabbed, allegedly by Palestinians, in two separate attacks.
by SOHR
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) documented the death of 865 people since the U.S led coalition started its strikes on Syria in 23/Sep until last night, including 50 civilians (8 children, 5 women), killed by coalition air strikes on oil fields and refineries in al-Hasakah and Der-Ezzor countrysides, al-Raqqa, Around Menbej northeast of Aleppo, and Idlib countryside.
68 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra were killed by coalition air strikes on their HQs in the western countryside of Aleppo and the northern countryside of Idlib 746 fighters from the IS most of them were Non-Syrian fighters, were killed by coalition airstrikes on their HQs and groupings in Homs, Hama, al-Hasakah, al-Raqqa, Der-Ezzor, and Aleppo.
A fighter from Islamic battalions killed by coalition air strikes on ISIS HQ in Ma’dan in al-Raqqa countryside.
We, in SOHR, believed that the real number of casualties in ISIS is more than 746, because there is absolute secrecy on casualties and due to the difficulty of access to many areas and villages that have witnessed violent clashes and bombardment.
Worth to mention that the coalition air strikes targeted oil refineries and oil fields in Der-Ezzor, al-Hasakah and al-Raqqa, what led to material damages in these refineries and oil fields.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights expresses its strong condemnation, to the fall of the civilians, as a result of the coalition air strikes, and Calls neutralize civilians areas from the military operations from any party, because the the Syrian people who have lost hundreds of thousands and been displaced in millions, is looking forward to a decent safe life away from Humiliation, detention, and destruction, a life of democracy, justice, freedom and equality.
New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) chairperson Justice (retd.) K.G. Balakrishnan Thursday said overcrowding in Indian prisons can be reduced if the number of undertrials is brought down.
“If a charge sheet is being filed and there is no indication that the accused may influence witnesses or the evidence, what is the reason of keeping him behind bars,” Balakrishnan told IANS at a two-day national seminar on prison reforms.
He also said steps should be taken to decrease problems in jails. “State governments should invest to build more jails and improve infrastructure,” he said.
Many prision and government officials attended the seminar and informed the participants on the status of the prisons in their respective states.
The seminar will conclude Friday.
(IANS)