First time after 1947 planned, time-bound education strategy for poor, backward minorities

By Firoz Bakht Ahmed*
How an efficacious idea is proposed, acted upon and finally accomplished in lime and brick structure, has exemplarily been shown by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the Minister for Minorities Affairs after he launched the report of the establishment of educational institutions for educationally backward minorities. Truly, for the first time, it was seen after 1947 that such a planned and time-bound educational strategy for the poor and backward minorities took a practical shape sans 70 years of mere lip service by the previous governments.
Naqvi stated that under the aegis of Maulana Azad Education Foundation as part of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of uplifting the backward minorities with any tag of appeasement with a view to empowering them, an 11 member committee joined the heads together in January 2017 and after a thorough research and interaction with a large number of academicians decided that among the minorities, it was the Muslim community that was found to be most backward and hence needed the state attention and intervention. Disparity was highest in rural areas for both boys and girls. The comparative difference of educational enrollment in all disciplines was alarmingly low.
The members of the committee included Afzal Amanullah, Prof S Iqbal Hasnain, Lt Gen Zameeruddin Shah, Shahid Siddiqui, Prof Talat Ahmad, Sirajuddin Qureshi, Firoz Bakht Ahmed Prof SN Pathan, Qamar Agha, Kulsoom Noor Saifullah and D Madhukar Naik. According to Madhukar Naik, joint secretary, Ministry of Minority Affairs, he 147-page report records the surveys conducted in the country’s densely populated minorities areas to prepare an action plan aimed at the strengthening of the school base of the minorities, to provide skill development courses and avenues of completing graduation to the minority students and to create opportunities for higher education for them. It also contains a detailed demography of the minority concentration areas to the minutest pocket anywhere in India.
According to the recommendation of the committee, christened as, “High Level Committee”, setting up of 211 Central Schools across the country (167 in minority dominant rural areas and 44 in cities ) is on cards. Incidentally, the first school under this plan will be inaugurated in Hyderabad tomorrow. From class 1 to 12, the schools will follow the CBSE curriculum with 30 students in each section. The states like UP and Rajasthan have already offered readymade designer and congenial buildings for these institutions.
Setting up of 25 Community Colleges all over India in tune with the 2012 UGC guidelines has also been started whose clientele will be the drop out students to train them in skills. Besides, those interested in continuing the education will have the option to credit/ non-credit courses in addition to the special option for higher education for degree courses.
Besides, 5 National Institutes of Excellence in the fields of Science and Technology, Health and Allied Sciences, Architecture, Planning and Design, Climate Change and Disaster Management, Renewable Energy and Food Security, will be the model seminaries in the days to come. These will be different from the usual IITs or IIMs based on the university system as excellence will be their watchword. These institutes, to be set up under the act of Parliament, will also offer programs of masters, doctoral and post doctoral levels. These will attract the best talent from within the country and abroad.
Naqvi also felicitated the civil Services toppers coached with the assistance of the Minority Ministry. While speaking about the Maulana Azad Foundation scholarships, Naqvi said that these scholarships will be for students of class 9 onward Apart from the usual scholarships, the girls enrolled under the scheme will also be offered an amount of fifty thousand rupees for their wedding, known as “Shadi Shagun” (wedding stipend). He also said that toilets in madrasas and the schools in the densely populated minority areas too will be built. lll
---

Commentator on social, heritage and religious issues, grandnephew of Maulana Azad

Comments

Arrest of Fr Stan Swamy: UN makes public letter seeking explanation from Govt of India

Counterview Desk In a letter to the Government of India (GoI), three senior United Nations (UN) officials – Elina Steinerte, vice-chair of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; Mary Lawlor, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; and Fernand de Varennes, special rapporteur on minority issues – have said that the arrest of veteran activist Father Stan Swamy in October 2020 marks “the escalation of harassment the human rights defender has been subjected to since 2018.”

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Farm laws 'precursor' to free trade deal envisaged by US corporates to allow GMO

By Rajiv Shah Did the Government of India come up with the three farm laws, first rushed by promulgating ordinances in June 2020, to not just open the country’s agricultural sector to the corporate sector but also as a precursor to comply with the requirements of the United States for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), as envisaged by the outgoing US president Donald Trump?

Modi govt 'implementing' IMF-envisaged corporate takeover of Indian agriculture

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* The surge of wealth of Indian billionaires and the Modi-led BJP government’s onslaught on poor, marginalised and farmers continue to grow simultaneously as masses face annihilating pandemic of coronavirus. There is 90 % rise of Indian billionaire’s wealth over last one decade. It is not accidental.

A new fad in India, coding-for-toddlers culture needs to be 'nipped' in the bud

By Aditya Pandey* We are all aware of the dire consequences of subjecting young kids to intense academic pressure from an early age. In India, we have coaching institutes like FIITJEE and Resonance offering programmes for 6th standard kids to prepare them for “NTSE, IJSO, PRMO and other Olympiads”. The duration of these programmes is around 175 hours – hours that could've been spent playing games and making friends instead.

New trend? Riots 'expanded' to new rural areas post-2002 Gujarat carnage: Report

A VHP poster declaring a Gujarat village part of Hindu Rashtra By Rajiv Shah Buniyaad, a Gujarat-based civil society organization, engaged in monitoring of communal violence in the state, in a new report, “Peaceful Gujarat: An Illusion or Truth?” has said that a “new trend” has come about in communal violence in the state, where the parts of Gujarat which didn't see communal riots in 2002 are experiencing “regular bouts” of communal violence.

Differing from Ambedkar, Kancha Ilaiah holds a 'different' theory of caste system

By Banavath Aravind* I was introduced to Kancha Ilaiah’s work when I was about 20 years old. He was then in the midst of a controversy for a chapter in his book "Post-Hindu India: A Discourse in Dalit-Bahujan, Socio-Spiritual and Scientific Revolution", which termed the Baniya community as social smugglers. During many of his debates, I had come to notice his undeterred fighting spirit in trying to bring up certain fundamental social issues that were hitherto undiscussed. I eventually came across some of his works and started reading them silently. I’m deliberately stressing upon the word ‘silently’ here, as this was the kind of silence particularly associated with sensitive social issues like caste, religion, etc. But, as I write this essay, I feel silences on sensitive issues should be broken. Ilaiah opened up an entirely new debate that had the vigour and strength to counter the systemic Brahmanism. His methods of research were also novel in terms of going back to the roo

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

More than 5,200 Gujarat schools to be closed down, merged, says govt document

RTE Forum, Gujarat, releasing fact-sheet on education By Our Representative A Gujarat government document has revealed that it is planning to close down 5,223 schools in the name of school merger. The document, dated July 20, 201 was released by the Right to Education (RTE) Forum, Gujarat. It shows that the worst-affected districts because of this merger are those which are populated by marginalized communities – especially tribals, Dalits and minorities, said RTE Forum’s Gujarat convener Mujahid Nafees.

Consumption pattern, not economic shock behind 'poor' child health indicators

By Neeraj Kumar, Arup Mitra* The findings of the latest round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) conducted in 2019-20 covering 22 States/UTs under Phase-I present a somewhat disappointing picture of children’s health in India. Majority of the experts, based on prima facie evidence, just highlighted the deteriorating sign of child health in terms of increase in proportion of stunted and underweight children in most of the phase-I states/UTs over last two rounds of NFHS (2015-16 to 2019-20).

Search This Blog