India slips on press & academic freedom
Editor,
The editorial, “Institutions under pressure” (ST, October 20, 2023), rightly describes the Safina Nabi incident as “one amongst many where media freedom is sought to be curtailed”. The cancellation of Kashmiri journalist, Safina Nabi’s journalism award by a University in Pune at the eleventh hour allegedly due to political pressure is yet another example of gagging press and academic institutions. It is little wonder that India’s ranking in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index has alarmingly slipped to 161 out of 180 countries. Even Pakistan has gone ahead of us by moving up to 150th rank.
Just like press freedom the freedom for scholars to express their viewpoints is also under threat. According to the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) report 2023, India scored 0.38 on a scale of 0 (low) to 1 (high). The report says that India is among 22 countries (out of 179) where institutions and scholars enjoy ‘significantly less freedom today than 10 years ago’. Among our neighbours Nepal (0.86), Pakistan (0.45) and Bhutan (0.46) scored higher whereas Bangladesh (0.25) and Myanmar (0.01) scored lower than India. India performed poorly in that report in campus integrity because of political interference. The situation has been deteriorating further since the publication of the report in February this year.
Sabyasachi Das, an assistant professor at Ashoka University, resigned as a result of the controversy over his research paper on India’s democratic backsliding. Pulapre Balakrishnan, professor of economics, resigned in solidarity asking the administration to invite his colleague back. Recently, Unacademy, an online education platform, fired an instructor, Karan Sangwan, after a video of him talking to students about voting for educated candidates went viral. All these incidents will be evaluated in the next report of Academic Freedom Index which already described the autonomy of Indian institutions to express views on political issues as very poor.
But freedom will not come as manna from heaven. The people should strive for it and use all available peaceful means to protect it. For this we need to follow the advice of BR Ambedkar, “Be educated, be agitated, be organized, be confident, never give up, these are the five principles of our life.”
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata
Advocating for lower price of sanitary pads
Editor,
I am writing to express my concern and advocate for a crucial issue that affects the well-being of female individuals- the high cost of sanitary pads. Menstruation is a natural and inevitable part of life for many people, and access to affordable menstrual hygiene products is a matter of basic human rights.
It has come to my attention that the rising prices of sanitary pads are placing a significant financial burden on some individuals and families. Sanitary pads, an essential hygiene product primarily used by menstruating individuals, have been a subject of concern due to their cost and affordability. Sanitary pads are not a luxury; they are a basic necessity for those who menstruate. Yet, in many parts of the world, they are subject to taxation as luxury items, making them more expensive. In some regions, there is limited access to affordable sanitary pads, forcing individuals to opt for cheaper, less hygienic alternatives or even resort to unhygienic practices due to economic constraints.
We keep on hearing of dumping of trucks and trucks loads of expired medicines. Procurement of such unprescribed medicines should have been diverted to procuring sanitary napkins of both washable and one time use variety to be distributed at every government health centre across the state.
I urge the Meghalaya Health Department in particular the Women and Girl Child Welfare Department, to consider implementing measures such as tax reductions or subsidies on menstrual hygiene products. This will help lower the prices and ensure that sanitary pads are within reach of all women.
Yours etc.,
Linnette V’ Mawrie
Via email
For the sake of creating employment
Editor,
I have been in the teaching profession for every thirty years and in all those years there has never been any intervention from the Education Department to improve teaching-learning. We did it our way with the only supreme guide and monitoring body being the once-in-a-year matriculation results, and the syllabus. And the majority of schools have done well.
It was only in the last three years that we met the ‘expert;’ experts in every sense of the word. But this year was different since the government tried to leave its mark in the field of education. But whether it was done intelligently, or just to employ the unemployed, is a matter that entails serious analysis.
The following are a list of compulsory to-do things. It was even mentioned that non-completion would result in non-payment of salary to us teachers. One is – the self-assessment process. Of course, some of the questions in the columns are meaningful, but is it necessarily and justifiably meritorious? Isn’t it too naïve to believe that a teacher is not underrating, overrating themselves, or outsourcing the task to someone else? If the experts really wanted an objective evaluation they can go to the schools; meet the teachers, give them one hour’s time to write on how they think effective teaching and learning should be done. This is one of the plethora of means available to the experts if the idea is to improve our educational scenario.
Second, teachers are to submit their passport size photos to be pasted on one board. Will this guarantee any efficacy in teaching? It’s simple logic. The third one is about assessment of learning outcomes. The format provided has only three columns- 1-Neat and tidy. 2. Completes the work positively and 3. Can organize knowledge; That’s all! Let’s examine this neatness in writing. Being neat reeks of sheer rote learning; else how can a child not make mistakes while writing in a clockwork fashion in the exams. Now what if the child dirties his writing by crossing the wrong word or sentence and rewriting the answer. Does this not mean that the students are aware of the mistakes they have made and, in the process, tried to correct them? Isn’t this consciousness the higher level of learning and should education not cater to such a state of being critical to the point of criticizing and correcting oneself?
The last thing is the Teachers’ Information Management Systems (TIMS) which is to gather information about teachers in state run schools. In this we have to share our personal attendance on the Government’s Internet platform. Some colleagues who complied said that after having gone through the process, which is very long, it failed as their phones have RAMs below 7GB.
Improvement and innovations in the sector are a must and we have already been lagging behind other states in the country. We are at the crossroads now and can no longer afford to waste time, energy, and resources on redundancy. So we need a better formula to play catch-up in the race.
Yours etc.,
Iasaid Khongjee (A Teacher)
Via email