'Carnage' of India's public education system must end: Sonia
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Monday slammed the Modi government's education policy, charging its core agenda is centralisation of power, commercialisation and outsourcing of investments to the private sector, and communalisation of textbooks.
Noting that these three Cs haunt Indian education today, the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson said in an article that this "carnage" of India's public education system must end.
In the article "The '3Cs' that haunt Indian education today" in The Hindu, Gandhi said the introduction of the high-profile National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, has hidden the reality of a government that is profoundly indifferent to the education of India's children and youth.
"The Union Government's track record over the last decade has convincingly demonstrated that in education, it is concerned only with the successful implementation of three core agenda items -- the centralisation of power with the Union Government; the commercialisation and outsourcing of investments in education to the private sector, and the communalisation of textbooks, curriculum, and institutions," she said.
Gandhi charged that "unchecked centralisation" has been the hallmark of this government's functioning over the last 11 years, but its most damaging consequences have been in the domain of education.
She noted that the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), comprising ministers for education in both the Union and state governments, has not been convened since September 2019.
Even while adopting and implementing a paradigm shift in education through the NEP 2020, the government has not seen it fit to consult state governments on the implementation of these policies even once, she noted.
"It is a testament to the Government's singular determination not to heed any voice other than its own, even on a subject that is squarely in the Concurrent List of the Indian Constitution," she claimed in the article.
"The lack of dialogue is accompanied by a 'bullying tendency'. Among the most disgraceful acts committed by this government is the coercion of state governments to implement the PM-SHRI (or PM Schools for Rising India) scheme of model schools by withholding the grants due to them under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) as leverage," she said.
She also referred to the draft University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines of 2025 as "draconian", claiming they have fully written out state governments from the appointment of Vice-Chancellors in universities established, funded, and operated by them.
She charged that the Union government has given itself-- through the governors who are typically designated as chancellor of the University -- near-monopoly power in the selection of vice chancellors in state universities.
"This is a back door attempt to convert a subject in the Concurrent List into the sole preserve of the Union government and represents one of the gravest threats to federalism in today's times," she charged.
The former Congress president also alleged that the Narendra Modi government's commercialisation of the education system has been happening in plain sight, in full compliance with the NEP.
She claimed the country's poor have been forced out of public education, and into the hands of a prohibitively expensive and under-regulated private school system.
In higher education, the government has introduced the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) as a replacement to the University Grants Commission's erstwhile system of block-grants, she said.
"The Union government's third thrust is on communalisation, the fulfilment of the long-standing ideological project of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party, of indoctrinating and cultivating hatred through the education system," the Rajya Sabha MP said.
She alleged that textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the backbone of the school curriculum, have been revised with the intention of sanitising Indian history.
"Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and the sections on Mughal India have been dropped from curricula. In addition, the Preamble to the Indian Constitution was dropped from textbooks, until public backlash forced the Government to commit to mandatory inclusion once again," she said.
"In our universities, we have seen the large-scale hiring of professors from regime-friendly ideologically backgrounds, no matter the comically poor quality of their teaching and scholarships," she said, claiming that leadership positions in key institutions even in IITs and IIMs have been reserved for "pliant ideologues".
Over the last decade, she said, the education systems have been systematically cleansed of the spirit of public service and education policy has been sanitised of any concerns about access to and the quality of education.
"The consequences of this single-minded push for centralisation, commercialisation, and communalisation have fallen squarely on our students. This carnage of India's public education system must end," Gandhi said in the article.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Ex-Army officer assaulted, robbed at gunpoint by woman he met through matrimonial website
Mathura(UP), Apr 5 (PTI): A retired Army colonel from Haryana has filed a police complaint here, alleging that he was held hostage, assaulted, looted and forced to participate in an "obscene video" at gunpoint with a woman he met through a matrimonial website, police said on Saturday.
The woman from Mathura, who was allegedly in on the plan to rob him, was working with other accomplices, the ex-armyman said in his complaint filed on Thursday.
According to Barsana Station House Officer (SHO) Raj Kamal Singh, Colonel Rajneesh Soni (retired), a resident of Gurugram, reported that he was contacted by a woman from Barsana on a matrimonial website in January. The woman allegedly agreed to marry him, and they began communicating.
The woman allegedly persuaded the colonel to visit Barsana on January 25, requesting that he visit the Radharani temple. When he arrived, she arranged for his stay at a guest house and took him on a tour of the area, including a visit to the temple, the complainant said.
After returning to the guest house, the woman and her accomplices allegedly told the colonel that her brother had been involved in an accident and they needed to leave immediately. They then led him to a waiting car.
"Once outside the town limits, the colonel alleges that he was attacked by the occupants of the car. They seized his phone, physically assaulted him, and forced him to contact relatives and friends to transfer money," the SHO said.
"He was then taken back to the guest house, where he was allegedly forced to participate in obscene videos and photographs at gunpoint. He was threatened that the videos would be made public if he reported the incident," the officer said.
The colonel has alleged that his purse, bag, gold chain, debit card and Rs. 12,000 in cash were stolen from the guest house.
After an unsuccessful attempt at locating the perpetrators himself, the colonel finally reported the incident to the Barsana police two days ago, he said.
"A case has been registered under relevant sections of the BNS and all facts are being investigated. Further action will be taken as per facts found in the investigation," the SHO said.
