Is Degree Fiasco worth the hype?

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are leading a relentless attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the controversy surrounding his academic degrees. The allegations have shifted from Modi making false statement on oath about his qualifications in the electoral affidavit to now forging of documents with the emergence of ‘fake’ degrees in a section of the media.

Modi’s election affidavit in 2014 claimed he received a BA degree from Delhi University in 1978 and an MA degree from Gujarat University in 1983. Even after a sheer public revelation of his degree by the senior party leaders themselves, Aam Admi Party's doubts about Modi's degree are refusing to die out. And now the latest play of the drama king Kejriwal on the Modi degrees has turned this ongoing comedy into a real travesty.

Just to make him believe i guess one should take Kejriwal aside to school him in the common law around names. It is quite legal and legitimate to use any names or aliases whatsoever unless one does so for an illegal purpose. If Modi’s name is spelt as Mody or Modi, written as Narendra Kumar Damodardas Modi or Narendra Damodardas Modi is of no consequence and some quite plausible explanations have been offered by Arun Jaitley and others.

And beyond that in the election of 2014 that resulted in him becoming the Prime Minister, Modi didn’t campaign on the basis of his degrees. While he and his supporters sloganeered about economic development a zillion times I don’t remember even one of them crowing about his academic prowess. If the degrees are genuine, and so far they appear to be, forget the names or the spellings Modi has used.

Now lets take a look at what Modi the political juggler or the conjuror, madari in the Indian parlance, has done recently. Campaigning in Kerala he publicly alluded to Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin more than once. The thinly veiled references to her being born an Italian are the worst form of dog whistle politics to mine the imagined xenophobic impulses of Indians. That is far more sinister than the names he may have used in the past or on his degrees. It ill behoves the Prime Minister of India.

For the current predicament of the country and its people including the latest Augusta Westland revelations, the Congress has a lot of questions to answer but the Indian citizen Sonia Gandhi’s Italian origin isn’t one of them: an Indian citizen, in this case Sonia Gandhi, is an Indian like all others no matter where she was born. Why doesn’t Modi talk about his record on economic development or his plans for it rather than wallowing in the gutter of racism and xenophobia?

An irony of immense proportions is unfolding in India. There are water shortages. Under the weight of crippling debts and drought the brutally impoverished Indians are killing themselves. There is unrest in the country’s universities. There aren’t enough jobs being created for the millions of youth joining the job market every year. Corruption, poverty, violence and injustice are on a rampage in the country.

In the midst of all this misery all right thinking Indians need to be discussing, debating and engaged in the most urgent national challenge of building a prosperous, harmonious, just, egalitarian and compassionate — corruption free– India. For its past sins of allowing corruption, communalism and sycophancy to flourish the Congress is on life support and irrelevant, at least for the time being. The drama King Kejriwal is obsessing about Modi’s degrees and Modi the great orator about Sonia’s Italian origin. God help the country!

A deal that 'staked' National Security

The political tsunami of AgustaWestland is hitting all levels of Indian politicians and the bureaucrats. A $450-million dollar deal involving the purchase of Italian helicopters for Indian government use, which made news in 2013 after Italian authorities arrested the CEO of the helicopter company over charges of bribery and money laundering, has assumed centre stage again after a recent Italian court judgement identified the role of former Indian Air Force chief S.P. Tyagi forh being bribed to ensure that the deal went through.

Now inevitably, the ruling BJP is gearing up to target Congress leader Sonia Gandhi in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in order to raise discussions over the Italian court order which has noted that the UPA government at the time was reluctant to “share critical documents with investigators”.

Actually the matter dates back to 2010, when the UPA government and the Indian Air Force agreed to purchase twelve helicopters from Italian company AgustaWestland. These helicopters were to be used primarily to transport the president, the prime minister and any other VVIP.

Likewise the most public scams in India, the controversy around the deal revolves around with whether Indian government and air force officials received bribes in order to give the contract to AgustaWestland. In 2013, Italian authorities arrested AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini and Finmeccanica (the parent company of AugutaWestland) Chairman Guiseppe Orsi over charges that they engaged middlemen to bribe Indian politicians and Indian Air Force officials in order to secure the deal.

Thereafter, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started their own investigations and the helicopter contract was put on hold. A majority of the money paid out to AgustaWestland has been recovered, mostly in the UPA years.

During initial investigations and immediately after the controversy broke, most attention was centred on Tyagi whose cousins allegedly received kick-backs through various north Indian shell companies. Tyagi also was in the limelight after the Italian authorities alleged that he used his position as air force chief to favour AgustaWestland by tweaking the minimum technical specifications required for the purchased helicopters.

Moreover, moment an enquiry is launched against party bosses, congress party goes to town claiming vendetta politics. They adopted the same tactics when court summoned Mrs. Sonia Gandhi and Mr. Rahul Gandhi along with others on National Herald case. When ED raided house of chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, Mr. Birbhadra Singh, on charge of cookingis tax return, congress cried vengeance and stalled parliament function. I guess things niever change. Irrespective of the side they occupy in parliament, ruling or opposition, some parties try to shield the corrupt  sidelining national interest.

Indeed, the scam which is being called India’s biggest defence scam after Bofors has put the congress Supremo Sonia Gandhi in a spot of bother and deep trouble with her name appearing in the conversation between three middlemen — Carlos Gerosa, Christian Michel, and Guildo Haschke. The three are believed to have mentioned the name of a ‘Mrs. Gandhi’ in their conversation.  The Milan Court of Appeals, in its judgment, noted the conversations between the above mentioned, who mention ‘Mrs. Gandhi’ as being the ‘driving force behind the VIP’ and her close aides Ahmed Patel and Pranab Mukherjee. However  Pranab Mukherjee  is referred to as being the ‘British High Commissioner’. In a letter dated 15 March 2008, Christian Michel wrote to Peter Hulet, the then head of India region sales and liaison for AugustaWestland, saying “Dear Peter, since Mrs. Gandhi is the driving force behind the VIP, she will no longer fly with MI8 . Mrs. Gandhi and her closest advisers are the aids of the High Commissioner, senior adviser Prime Minister Manmohan Singh obviously the main figure, then there’s Ahmed Patel Secretary”.

While being the matter of national security, the issue is making a lot of noise in the Rajya sabha lately. Irrespective of the case and the popularity of the names involved in the case, justice has to prevail and the guilty are to be punished. But the alleged involvement  of Mrs. Gandhi in  the case is making the case a political battle, where the ruling NDA and the opposition UPA are fighting to embarrass each other. This case, however, is going to shadow the path of Smt. Sonia Gandhi the way Bofors shadowed the political path of Late. Rajiv Gandhi. The party which is apparently fighting for its political existence is on a back foot with this case tightening its hold on the party president. But keeping the political flavor of the case aside, we strongly hope and urge that the guilty are tried and brought to justice. Let the flame of truth flash bright and burn all traces of corruption and false play.

No Teachers, No Teaching, Whom To Blame?

“School without teachers", this used to be the dream of every student going to a strict, disciplined school, during his/her lower classes. None to scold you for wrong doing, no lessons will be taught and one can have many P.T. hours. But little do we realize the deep implications of the seemingly harmless dream.

Many students all over India live with this dream daily and suffer way more than we can imagine. Today one of the issues faced by the Indian education is Teacher absenteeism. Based on the study by International Institute of Educational Planning study on corruption in education, India has a total rate of 2 5% teacher
absenteeism this implies that one out of four students turn up in schools without teachers. The global average of teacher absenteeism is 20% only. This is definitely not a good signal. Teacher absenteeism visibly affects time the students waste in the classroom, but it also impacts the school's capital spent on making other preparations, replacement teachers, and having existing teachers split their attention on twice as many students. According to a report, the exhaust of funds could sum up to as much as 22.5% of the total education resources in India.

This is high time that this situation should be delt with in a mature manner. To begin with teachers in India are paid very low salaries. They are forced to supplement their income with paid tuitions. The tuition system has spread throughout the country.

The situation has become so grim that teachers openly advertise their private tuitions and do not turn up for regular classes. Thus they get the monthly salary and their private tuition fee which sums up to a high amount. Student who take tuitions from the same teacher who teaches in class definitely get more marks and teachers show favoritism to promote their tuition classes.


There are no established systems for teacher recruitment. The teachers are not recruited based on any standard tests or interview. Many times people with influence are recruited directly even without application. This reduces the standard of teachers and indirectly the standard of students as well. Even though a B.Ed. degree is made compulsory, it is not strict. In many schools you will still find a good number of teachers teaching without B.Ed. cases of fake certificates and false claims are also common.

Further there are no policies to award promotions. If there were well laid policies on promotions and other awards for excellence, the teacher would at least turn up to achieve these promotions or awards. Then there are no laws for fair and timely pay.

A teacher from a local school in Kerala says, “I have not received my pay for the past six months. We teachers have made several complaints regarding this. But there is no one to listen to our grievances. I have started taking private classes to meet my day to day needs. Many of my colleagues have done the same. We are helpless. "

“Things get worse after elections. Since the existing government does not care once elected and try to retrieve all the money channelized towards elections, salaries are often not taken care of”, notes another teacher.

The question is what happens when teachers don't turn up to do their duty?

Without teachers you can’t call a school ‘school’. When they do not turn up the students have no means to learn. The school has to recruit more teachers to fill in the positions and the workload on the existing teachers increase. There are cases when there are no teachers specialized in one field.


There are many such schools which lack teachers in English. Thus the students have very poor control over the English language. Similar cases are seen with other subjects. The already low Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) is further reduced with teacher absenteeism. This decrease is not reflected on paper but the individual attention and care cannot be given to students with so less taking care of classes exceeding 60 students. Definitely, students who take time to grasp the concepts fall back. The quality of the educated crowd thus is reduced.

This issue should be taken care of at the earliest. Some of the possible remedies would be, increasing wages. Monitoring the teachers by taking daily attendance and reducing pay in case of absence. Awards and promotions for teachers who do well is a good way to attract teachers. Strict and standard recruitment policies would also increase the level and quality of teachers.

Seniority Tantamount Responsibility, Not Ragging

College life is very important in every student's life because it not only determines the future of a student but also is a time when most students understand the realities of life. But, do all students enjoy their campus life? Behind the façade of welcoming new students to college, ragging, in actuality, is notorious practices wherein the senior students get an excuse harass their counterparts, and more often than not, make them easy targets to satiate their own perverse sadistic pleasures. Ragging is basically a damaging form of communication between seniors and newcomers or first year students in a college or university. It can be from doing small works that seniors demand to harass in public. Due to the severe history of ragging in local colleges to top ranked universities including medical colleges, engineering, arts & science, commerce and literature colleges, the Indian government has taken steps combat this issue.

The Supreme Court directed the Ministry of Human Resource (MHRD) in 2007 to set up a committee headed by former CBI director Dr. R. K. Raghavan to recommend anti-ragging measures. The Raghavan committee submitted its report in May 2007, thereafter ragging is akin to a serious offence. Following the Supreme Court orders National-Anti Ragging Helpline was launched by the Indian government. Students, who get ragged, can send 'their e-mails to help1ine@antiragging.in to register a complaint. If they are not comfortable they need not disclose their name and other details and they can send mails from anonymous e-mail ids. They can also call to the helpline numbers which are available at all times. Effective actions are always taken, in case of any complains.

These measures have been quite effective in curbing ragging. But a new problem has now risen that the misuse of the Anti-Ragging a recent trend is seen across all colleges that the newcomers are exploiting the Anti-Ragging measures that were meant to protect them.

Had RK Raghavan (the man behind the Anti-Ragging drive in the country) visited Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), he would have been amazed to know how some juniors are supposedly using it against their seniors.

This is obvious from an incident, in which a junior protested of ragging, but further examination revealed that he was allegedly spanked by his seniors for using provoking speech and making racial remarks in an intoxicated condition. To the relief of the senior students the police promised to take suitable action against the person, who complained, after finding the complaint to be false.

But this is not the only case of false complaints. Such hoaxes are likely to affect the studies of senior students who are innocent. The seniors now feel obliged to listen to the demands put forward by the freshers and dare not scold them even for their wrong doing. The has deteriorated the senior junior relationship in many colleges.


Discussing on this, one parent states that “During my time, the seniors used to be like the elders in s family. Any problem arises, be it personal or academic we used to take their help and guidance. After all college and hostel were homes away from homes. But today things have changed. I feel the difference in my child's college.”The Anti Ragging Law has helped many lives that would have been ruined by ragging as in the past. The rates of ragging have surely come down, and today parents can send their children to colleges without any worry or anxiety. But the extent to which it blindly supports the freshers needs to be checked.

The misuse of the power of Anti-Ragging Bill for selfish motives, taking personal revenge or blackmailing is a serious issue that needs to be handled. By serious investigations, on each complaint and making sure of _the legitimacy of the complaints is a task that has to be carefully taken up. The failure of which, innocent people might tend to lose their education in the name of an invalid and false complaint.

This is a tender subject that has to be handled with care. Ragging is a problem of the students and by the students and therefore, the solution to it also lies with the students. With ragging becoming rampant in colleges, it is about time that the student community awakens its conscience to this inhuman practice before more and more innocent students become victims of it and before more and more educational institutes are degraded by it.

Odd-even: Major success or Massive failure?

Aiming to control alarming level of air pollution in Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal's government came out with the highly controversial or as being opined as politically motivated formula of odd-even, which allowed only odd-numbered vehicles to ply on odd dates and even-numbered vehicles on even dates. The first phase of the formula was implemented from January 1 to January 15. The second phase of 15 days recently concluded on April 30.

There has been a huge debate over the success or failure of the second phase in political as well as non-political arena. Some reports like one by IndiaSpend claimed that pollution level rose by 23 per cent during the days when odd-even was in effect.

Apparently destroying the claims of massive success of much hyped odd-even scheme the reports claimed that the average PM 2.5 concentration in Delhi’s air was 68.98 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m³) during the odd-even period, from April 15 to April 29, indicating “moderate” conditions, which increased from 56.17µg/m³, indicating “average” air quality between April 1 and April 14. Similarly, average PM 10 concentration before the odd-even period was 110.04 µg/m³ (April 1 to April 15), rising 22% into the odd-even phase to 134.39µg/m³ (April 15 to April 29), indicating ‘moderate’ air quality.

It is also claimed that during the odd-even period, 7 am was the worst hour in Delhi, based on hourly averages between April 15 and April 29, with PM 2.5 levels indicating “poor” air-quality levels of 124.3μg/m3, a 31% increase (94.67μg/m3) in the hourly average recorded at the same time before the rule was implemented from April 1 to April 14. Evening 5 pm was the best hour for Delhi during the odd-even phase, with PM 2.5 levels at 21μg/m3, indicating “good” air quality.

In the meantime, a study conducted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) showed that for every 10 microgram per cubic meter (µg/m3) of increased exposure to PM2.5, the risk of dying from any cancer rose by 22 percent. Increases of 10 µg/m3 of PM2.5 were associated with a 42 percent increased risk of mortality from cancer in the upper digestive tract and a 35 percent increased risk of mortality from accessory digestive organs, which include the liver, bile ducts, gall bladder, and pancreas.

It doesn't end here, for the women, every 10 µg/m3 increase in exposure to PM2.5 was associated with an 80 percent increased risk of mortality from breast cancer, and men experienced a 36 percent increased risk of dying of lung cancer for every 10 µg/m3 increased exposure to PM2.5.

But countering these pollution rising reports a New Delhi-based NGO, CSE also released its analysis of air quality data during the second phase of odd and even scheme. The analysis surprisingly showed that air pollution took a downward dip during the first 10 days of the scheme, but, registered a sudden spike from April 22 onwards.

CSE further said that the sudden spike could be due to massive crop fires in Punjab and Haryana that started around April 19.

Odd-even scheme has not been experimented for the first time. It was also utilized in other cities across the world. Mexico City started this rule as Hoy no Circula scheme (No Circulating Day) in 1989. The trial implementation during the winter months of 1989 resulted in a 20 percent reduction in daily vehicles in circulation within the target area, an increase in vehicle speeds, drop in fuel consumption and 6.6 percent increase in subway ridership.

Initially, the scheme reduced pollution 11 percent. But, once the rule became permanent, peoplepurchased more vehicles with alternate plates. There was no improvement in long-term air quality levels during any hour of the day or the week. Pollutions levels increased during the weekends and hours of the day when the rule did not apply.

In Paris, similar restrictions were imposed for one day in 1997 and in March 2014. The experiment reduced pollution levels. Beijing implemented a temporary scheme before the 2008 Summer Olympics, cleaning the air and relieving traffic congestion.

In Sao Paulo, the scheme was initially implemented in 1995, as an emergency measure to curb air pollution. An experimental trial of six month showed two percent (morning) and five percent (evening) reduction in peak-period vehicular volumes. The initial experiment was successful in reducing pollution levels, especially carbon monoxide. The odd-even scheme known as Rodizio, was made permanent in 1997.