Daily Hindu Editorials

👉The national medical entrance test is here to stay; States must prepare their students better👈 There was no uncertainty over the medical admission process this year in Tamil Nadu. There were no attempts to get an exemption from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET). And, willy-nilly, as many as 1.14 lakh aspirants took the examination that has been made mandatory by the Supreme Court as the sole admission window for medical colleges. Yet, the poor performance of students from Tamil Nadu in the entrance test has demonstrated that the State is still far from being ‘NEET-ready’. It is true that a well-intentioned beginning has been made to upgrade the syllabus and to make students more competitive. However, only 45,336 candidates, or 39.6% of those who took the test, qualified for admission. Along with Maharashtra, this is the lowest ratio in the country. What is important is that these candidates are merely eligible for admission, and far fewer students are actually li...

👉The government’s proposal for the allocation of services and cadres is legally and administratively unsound👈 India’s Civil Services Examination (CSE) is said to be one of the toughest of its kind in the world, so much so that Professor Lant Pritchett, from Harvard University, said in 2010: “The Indian Administrative Service is full of officers who have passed an entrance examination and selection process that makes getting into Harvard look like a walk in the park.” The CSE for recruitments to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and about 20 other services of the government is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). It is conducted every year in two stages: a preliminary examination and then the main examination. The UPSC has been doing a commendable job by insulating recruitments from political patronage and selecting the best candidates through transparent procedures. At present, succes...

👉India must be careful in picking up best practices from elsewhere in drafting a data protection law While the Americans and Europeans both call a sport football, they play a very different game. This difference is rooted not only in culture but in the rules of the game that provide rewards for goals, and penalties for breaching allowances. In the case of privacy regulations too, such a marked distinction is visible. With the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into effect on May 25, 2018, the absence of a comparable regulation across the Atlantic poses a question for India: What path should it take? Should it follow the U.S. or Europe? Or, in fact, should India take the lead in this regard? 👉American exceptionalism Last year, in November, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Carpenter v. United States, which many commentators termed as one of the most critical electronic surveillance case in decades. Among other finely threaded legal arguments ...

👉The autonomy of the teacher has been cramped, and it reflects in the state of higher education👈 Some months ago, a global leader of the IT industry set sections of India’s corporate-sector elite aflutter with the comment that Indians are not creative. It is possible to disagree with the criterion Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple Computer, had adopted while at the same time agreeing with some of his observations. He had predicted that Indians are unlikely to create world-leading IT companies because they lack the creativity to do so and argued that this has to do with the education system. While building global IT giants may have more to do with an appetite for growing a business rather than anything else, Mr. Wozniak’s assessment of India’s education system is sharp. He traced the lack of creativity to an education system that rewarded studiousness over independent thought. He also managed an anthropological take when he identified the ‘MBA and the Merc’ as the mark of s...

👉On the stakes involved in cracking the civil services examination👈 Every year nearly a million Indians prepare for the civil services examination. The enormous appetite for this examination has refused to fade, even since colonial times. A probable reason could be that it is not an ordinary exam and it throws the common man directly into the country’s power structure. Few other exams bestow such power and opportunities to successful aspirants. Government data for last year’s exam reflect this reality. In 2017, 9,57,590 candidates applied, out of whom 4,56,625 actually “appeared”. Also 13,366 candidates qualified for appearance in the written (main) examination held; 2,568 qualified for the personality test. Finally, only 990 candidates were selected. The story doesn’t end here because only a minute percentage of those selected get into services such as the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). For instance, for the 2017 exam, only 180 and 4...

👉Social movements in Kerala built a strong civil society. Their absence now is hurting the State👈 In April 2017, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front government celebrated the 60th anniversary of the State’s Legislative Assembly. The centrality of the first communist government in the celebration was very important, for it was the first democratically elected communist government anywhere, and it was this government which laid the foundation for modern Kerala. In its turbulent existence of nearly 28 months, that government tried to reshape Kerala’s social patterns, centering on land and society, among other things. 👉Gains of social movements The rise of the Communist Party of India to power in 1957 was the culmination of a number of social movements that caused a churning in society. Central to this was the formation of the Communist Party itself in Kerala in December 1939. The party took upon itself the task of liberating peasants and workers from their caste-...

👉Why are there not more Nobels from India and what does that say about the state of science education?👈 The modest glass doors of the Nobel Museum in Gamla Stan in Stockholm, Sweden, give little hint of the wondrous troves of human knowledge within the building. Yet, as they swing open, you see a world of scientific endeavours, taken to the pinnacle of analytical and abstract thought. In one corner hangs Amartya Sen’s bicycle, and the plaque besides his photo reads, “Amartya went to a school in India that encouraged curiosity and didn’t focus too much on grades.” This, according to Nobel Media CEO Mattias Fyrenius, captures the very spirit of the Nobel Prize. “What we are trying to do is really reach out with Nobel and what Nobel stands for... to get people around the world to be more interested in science, research, education, literature and peace-related topics,” he said. In that sense the Nobel “mission” began when the Prizes themselves did, in 1901. Yet, over the past fiv...

👉 Despite a rigorous process, are we able to choose the right candidate for the job? 👈 About 1,000 young men and women got the nod a few days ago from the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) for induction into the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service, and other services. This was at the end of a tough three-stage selection process, in which more than 4,50,000 candidates appeared at the first stage, a written test called the Prelims. Only about 13,000 made it to the written main examination, and 2,500 to the final interview stage. 👉Selection process We should be grateful that we have such a rigorous process to choose those who’ll occupy vital positions in the higher echelons of the bureaucracy. Some five decades ago, when I took the examination, only about 10,000 competed for a little less than 1,000 openings. Interestingly, a candidate can now take the examination in his or her native language. Surprisingly, this facility is availed of only by a fe...

👉The Centre must review the lack of implementation of the Right to Education Act across the country Although the recent Budget session of Parliament was appallingly disrupted by the ruling party’s surrogates and Question Hour did not function most of the time, some things did work, almost on autopilot. Written questions submitted by MPs were indeed answered in writing – I got 26 of my questions admitted and answered — and while the more prestigious “starred questions” could not get asked, these “unstarred” ones have given us an instructive insight into some crucial aspects of government policy. 👉On education My questions to the Minister of Human Resource Development in the Lok Sabha on the implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE), almost a decade after its enactment, are a case in point. The answers I received are alarming, and definitely warrant an emergency review of the implementation of the Act. It emerges from the Minister’s replies to me that five ...

This refers to the process by which the frequency of a particular gene in an environment may be affected due to chance events. So, a particular genetic trait may be annihilated by, say, a catastrophe that wipes out a species. Meanwhile, other genes may be favoured by such random events. This is in contrast to natural selection wherein genes are gradually favoured or discarded by the natural environment in which they exist. Genetic drift is generally attributed to American geneticist Sewall Wright although it can be traced to earlier works of other scientists like Charles Darwin. To Download this editorial in PDF version CLICK HERE

💥The stage is set for a long overdue overhaul of higher education in India The Prime Minister’s vision to create 20 institutions of eminence and the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s reforms push have set the stage for an overhaul of higher education in India that is long overdue. The HRD Ministry first saw the passage of the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017, which will extend greater autonomy to the IIMs. It followed this up with reforms in the rules and regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC), giving autonomy to India’s best-ranked universities and colleges. Subsequently, the Union Cabinet approved the continuation of the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan, which has been working quietly to improve the quality of higher educational institutions in the States through outcome-based grants. The time is now ripe for another change: to replace the UGC Act, 1956, with a new law that should respond to the current needs of higher education. Such...

💥Making original research mandatory in medical institutions without building research infrastructure is unrealistic In June 2017, the Medical Council of India (MCI) made publishing original research in indexed journals a prerequisite for appointments and promotions of teaching faculty in medical colleges. Recruitment, tenure and promotions are often linked to research publications in the developed world but making this mandatory in India is a bad idea. Research advances scientific knowledge and saves lives. The pressure to publish motivates clinicians in academic institutions to prioritise research over other professional roles. Research productivity enhances careers and confers scientific recognition and prestige. It provides scientific capital to institutions and reinforces the pressure on faculty to publish or perish. 👉The consequences Many commentators have noted that the emphasis on quantity over quality has led to a flood of poor quality research. In 2005,...

💥 Filling in the gaps in B.R Ambedkar’s educational journey 💥 B.R. Ambedkar’s educational journey began in impossibly challenging conditions. With the help of a modest scholarship granted by the Maharaja of Baroda, he joined Columbia University, New York, in July 1913. After completing his M.A., he went on to write a thesis that ultimately led to the conferment of a PhD degree. In mid-1916, he was admitted to Grays’ Inn in London to appear for the bar. When his scholarship ended in 1917, he was forced to return to India. 👉Some answers All this has been well documented by his biographer Dhananjay Keer. But several details remain incomplete. What was the exact date on which he left India? When did he arrive in America? How did he travel to London? Based on documents newly accessed in the British Library, we can now fill in the gaps. The First World War which was raging at the time forms the backdrop for the paper trail. On May 17, 1916, Ambedkar addressed two letters...

💥With limited resources and time, it is crucial for States to assess which skills policies will make the biggest impact When India found itself at the 103rd position in the recent World Economic Forum ranking of 130 nations on the preparedness of talent, it was just another indication of the skills challenge. In just five years, the government’s skill gap analysis report estimates that an extra 40 crore workers need to be skilled, reskilled or upskilled. The current official estimate is that slightly more than half a crore people are being trained annually. 👉Measuring policy impact Policymakers are responding swiftly. But with limited resources and time, which skills policies will make the biggest impact? New research commissioned by Tata Trusts and the Copenhagen Consensus Center for the India Consensus projects, ‘Andhra Pradesh Priorities’ and ‘Rajasthan Priorities’, helps answer that question for the two States. No State has the resources to do everything. It is ...

💥Ranking educational institutions is useful, but the HRD Ministry’s effort needs fine-tuning The “who’s who” of universities and research institutions published by the Human Resource Development Ministry, as the National Institutional Ranking Framework, 2018, should be viewed mainly as a proposition that data make it possible to assign objective credentials to some aspects of education. Its assessment of some of the top institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the IITs and the IIMs is unsurprising, given their record of research, peer-reviewed publications and outcomes for graduates. Even among the 3,954 institutions that participated, there is a clear skew towards southern, southeastern and western India. Participation levels are inadequate: there were 40,026 colleges and 11,669 standalone institutions according to the HRD Ministry’s All India Survey on Higher Education for 2016-17. To the faculty and students in many colleges, what m...

💥Seeking full disclosure on how patents are working locally through Form 27 will help promote innovation A new chapter on the access to medication debate in India began when Shamnad Basheer filed a public interest litigation before the Delhi High Court. The petition pointed out the importance of “working requirements” in the Patents Act, 1970; the need to amend Form 27; and the lapses by patentees in furnishing information. The importance of Form 27 on the question of access to health cannot be underestimated. In essence, Form 27 seeks information to ensure that the patented material is adequately supplied in India. If the supply of the patented invention does not cater to the demands, statutorily the reasonable requirement of the public with regard to the patented invention is deemed as not met. This will be a ground to seek compulsory licensing of the product within India. The underlying rationale is to protect public health. 👉Working requirement Patent law grants t...