Typically, far-right political parties represent facism – an ugly scar on a multicultural, democratic, civilized country and how much impact a country allows its facist parties to have, gives an indication of how democratic, civilized and developed that country and its people are. Given the recent furore out here in the UK over the appearance of the BNP leader Nick Griffin on the popular BBC Question Time programme, I couldn’t help but compare the far-right political parties in India (Shiv Sena, MNS) and the UK(BNP).

Where were these bloody “sons of the soil” Sena blokes when terrorists held seige to Bombay on 26/11? They didn’t have the cojones to even show their faces in public. And commandos from outside Maharashtra played a key role in wiping out the terrorists.

The corruption and vote-bank politics in India have allowed the far-right Sena parties to take law into their hands and commit various atrocities.

Ironically, the very “divide-and-rule” policy that enabled the British to rule India is now followed by the far-right Sena parties in Independent India. What’s that “Unity in Diversity” I studied about, when I was a kid?

If India cannot tackle these fundamental issues and protect the democratic rights of its citizens, then you can flush all talk about India becoming a developed nation, let alone a super-power, down the drain.

Polymer banknotes were developed by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and The University of Melbourne and are made from the polymer biaxially-oriented polypropylene (BOPP) which enhances both durability (non-porous, more resistant to dirt and liquid and not easily torn) and security (makes counterfeiting much more difficult). In 1996, Australia became the first country with a full set of circulating polymer banknotes in each denomination, from 5 to 100 dollars.

So, with polymer banknotes, you don’t have to worry about washing your trousers with banknotes in your pockets, as doing so will only return your banknotes to mint condition!

Well, this was the dialogue between Minister Shashi Tharoor and the veteran journalist Kanchan Gupta on Twitter, that caused a storm in a teacup:

Kanchan Gupta: Tell us minister, next time you travel to Kerala, will it be cattle class?

Shashi Tharoor: Absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows.

I love wit and especially when it comes from an Indian politician, which is seldom. But then, of course, Shashi Tharoor isn’t your run-of-the-mill Indian politician. He’s a very well educated, accomplished author and journalist and has served as the UN Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information at the United Nations.

Shashi’s reply to Kanchan was just a witty remark, but what is even funnier or actually farcical is the Congress party’s recent gimmick on “Operation go austere to attain political nirvana”, causing it to take umbrage at Shashi’s remark. Such a gimmick will soon come undone as it cannot mask rising prices and make up for lack of good governance. The Congress criticized the term “cattle class” and the BJP criticized the term “holy cows”. How narrow-minded these mainstream political parties are! And to make matters worse, NDTV (which is on the way to becoming News, Difficult To Vindicate) ran a program (“The Buck stops here” hosted by Bharka Dutt) for an hour discussing Shashi Tharoor’s remarks and twittering by politicians, without even once mentioning the context in which Shashi made the remark. After watching the program, I had no idea that Shashi passed the remark in reply to a journalist’s question on travelling in cattle class.

Now, let’s consider the language of the offensive [sic] dialogue. For those of you (like me) who have travelled in economy class, you wouldn’t hesitate to find similarities between a herd of cattle and passengers cramped up in the economy class. Actually, cattle don’t have to excuse themselves and squeeze past other cattle for a comfort break and so perhaps they’re even more comfortable than us.

No wonder the five-year revision of the Oxford English Dictionary lists "cattle class” as a term to describe economy seats on an aircraft.

Also, the term “cattle class” is used quite commonly, like in this article describing how UK troops return to the UK from Afghanistan. Here again, I’d say that the troops have it better (more leg room) than Les Misérables in the economy class (by no means am I envying the troops as I know they aren’t guaranteed to have legs to fill that ample leg room).

The Congress folks are simply getting their knickers in a twist over a funny, inoffensive remark and shouting “Language, Mr. Tharoor!”

Kapil Sibal’s mantra of “expansion, inclusion and excellence” along with his announcement of a few reforms such as optional Class 10 board exams, accreditation agencies for schools, free education and private sector involvement in primary learning is certainly a step in the right direction and if such reforms are implemented with passion and perseverance, then they will contribute towards giant strides along the road to India’s development.

You may wonder “Does India really need to overhaul its education system? After all, aren’t most of the IT jobs being offshored to India? Isn’t the gruelling Indian education system getting the best out of kids?”. Well, I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. Kapil Sibal on the dire need to reform India’s education system as I believe the current Indian education system has several inadequacies, some of which are listed below:

• All read, all forget: A famous proverb “When you read, you forget; when you see, you remember; when you do, you understand” explains why the current education system churns out theoreticians, rather than students with practical know-how. India’s schools (especially state schools) focus almost entirely on theory. Students will read pages and pages about an electric motor without even seeing one. Students typically read, learn by rote and purge out everything during an exam with the primary aim of securing the highest rank they can. No wonder then, that India is the world’s largest IT back office with loads of hard-working (not necessarily smart-working) software professionals.
• Unhealthy competition: Obtaining the first rank in class is more important to a student’s parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and even the family dog than it is to the student. A huge amount of pressure is placed on the young shoulders of a student to cope and this is where many parents tend to be unreasonable (perhaps because they feel that if their kid cannot become a doctor or an engineer, the kid is a failure). This leads to stiff competition for every mark squeezed out of an exam. Students and their parents tend to believe that a student who scores 100% in a one-off Math exam is better in Math than a student who scores 99%.
• Quality of teaching: While there are good teachers in many Indian schools, I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar that a majority of teachers in Indian schools are simply not good enough to impart education. Private schools are run like capitalist businesses wherein the primary focus is on huge revenues from school fees and donations, rather than on providing an excellent education to its students. As a matter of fact, several schools employ young men/women who’ve just graduated from an Arts/Sciences college, as teachers without any formal training in teaching. They do this so that they can pay such teachers small salaries and maximize profits. In the end, it’s the students that suffer with a poor quality of education. And that’s why tutorials are thriving businesses in India!
• Corruption: Corrupt practices such as teachers accepting bribes to pass students, leaking of question papers, subjective evaluation, etc. are quite rampant in many schools.
• Poor Infrastructure: When some schools (especially outside cities) don’t have enough money to buy adequate furniture for classrooms, computers would be a dream for them. In order to provide all kids with an equal opportunity to good education, all schools must be provided with at least the minimum required infrastructure to impart a good education.
• Sporadic evaluation: Most Indian schools have 3 periods of examination in an academic year – quarterly, half-yearly and final. This method of evaluation means that students are given only 3 opportunities to prove themselves in an academic year. Also, all the cramming for exams is concentrated in those 3 periods.

Now, for some suggestions (apart from Kapil Sibal’s reforms):

• Lab Classes and Projects: The structure of the subjects being taught in most Indian schools must be radically changed. Rather than pertaining all evaluation to a text book, I believe certain percentage of evaluation (~ 25%) must be assigned to projects/lab classes. Given the ubiquitous www and the wealth of easily accessible information, students must be encouraged from an early age to do some research on their own, present their views on a topic, debate with others, provide a critical review, etc. Schools need to provide a well-rounded knowledge to students. Also, students must be encouraged to be innovative and creative.
• Continuous evaluation and Grading: Mr. Kapil Sibal mentioned the need for “continuous, comprehensive evaluation” and I’m glad he realizes that need. I have great admiration for the evaluation mechanism followed in my alma mater. In every academic semester, we had no evaluation in the first month, perhaps to cool off, go dating and prepare to get screwed (I mean by the evaluation to follow). After the cool off period, we would have 3 tests, 1 quiz and 1 comprehensive examination (sum total of 100 marks) for every course such that we would have a couple of evaluations every week (given that we typically had 5-7 courses a semester). This form on continuous evaluation ensured that every evaluation counted and there wasn’t much time to fool around (no idea how some of us found time!). At the end of the semester, every student would be graded (not ranked) for a course based on his/her performance relative to the others who took that course and based on the grades in all courses, a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) would be calculated. This evaluation system used by my alma mater was modelled on the system widely used in American colleges. Such an evaluation system would greatly benefit the Indian schools.
• Education Boards: For any education reforms to work, there cannot be too many education standards out there. Currently, there are several education boards such as ICSE, CBSE, State, Matriculation, Anglo-Indian, SSLC, etc. Education boards must be consolidated to enable the reforms have a far-reaching effect.

Of course, India has some of the best brains in the world making significant contributions to Science, Technology and other disciplines, but then most of these brains have left India for better education and more opportunities in developed nations like the USA. A better education system, better facilities and more opportunities can stem this brain drain.

Revamping the education system in India is, by no stretch of the imagination, an easy task. However, Kapil Sibal has made a promising start and is heading in the correct direction.

Not long after the book’s launch, the pro-Hindutva State government of Gujarat banned the sale, publication and distribution of the book in Gujarat. Consequently, Jaswant Singh filed a petition against the ban with the Supreme Court and the court has issued a notice to the Gujarat government for clarification.

Well, it’s good to see the Supreme court take up the cause of democracy and freedom of speech, but what’s more alarming is the state of affairs in India. Indians do not hesitate to boast about India being the world’s largest democracy, but the truth is that events over the last decade have quite often shown India in poor light with respect to democracy. If India wants to join the developed nations of the world, it needs to ensure that the democratic rights of all its citizens are protected.

What is the need to ban a book? If the book distorts facts or is rubbish, then bin it or don’t even buy it. If the book is indeed historically inaccurate, then surely another dozen books correcting the mistakes will be published soon and historical events may be debated. But why ban a book? Why ban somebody’s freedom of expression?

Narendra Modi (chief minister of Gujarat) is seen as both a hero and a villain, a hero by people of Gujarat for his rapid development and industrialization of the state and a villain by pretty much the rest of India for his pro-Hindutva stance and role (or lack of role) in the Gujarat carnage of 2002. Recently, at the inauguration of a new plant for Hitachi Home and Life Solutions India,  Narendra Modi said “It’s my dream to make Gujarat a great financial power. A day will come when Gujarat, along with Japan and Singapore, will dominate the Asian economy”. That’s a nice dream Mr. Modi and I appreciate it, but first and foremost, please dream of ensuring that your state is truly democratic and secular [and perhaps also lift prohibition! ] and fulfil that dream. Otherwise, should there be another carnage in Gujurat, you may scare off investors and your dream of making Gujurat a great financial power won’t be easy to achieve.

Update (05/09/2009) : On 03/09/2009, the Gujarat High Court revoked the ban imposed on the book by the Gujarat Government and within 24 hours, the book’s publishers rushed 5000 copies of the book to Gujarat. Well done Gujarat High Court!!