Friday, August 22, 2014

DOES OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM BENEFIT THE TRIBES OF INDIA?


The late Dr Ramdayal Munda had coined his trademark slogan ‘Nachi se Banchi’ (Dance to Survive) as an injunction to adivasis all over India not to let go of their core traditions and values, which were being eroded and even ridiculed by the mainstream educational systems. 
The most distinguished and erudite Indian Adivasi, or aboriginal inhabitant, of modern times, a proud son of the indigenous Munda tribe that for centuries dominated large tracts of central India and put up fierce resistance to British rule, Ram Dayal Munda never forgot where he came from: tribal dance and music remained his first love.
 After gaining his Master's in Anthropology at Ranchi University, he moved to Chicago University, where he was awarded his PhD. He subsequently joined the staff of the university's Department of South Asian Studies and pioneered the teaching of tribal and regional Languages. He also taught South-East Asian languages at Minnesota University.

There are more than 600 Adivasi/tribal communities in India and most of them are among the most disadvantaged social groups.

A study conducted by the National Institute of Advanced Studies and backed by the UNICEF published two years ago has revealed Adivasis in India receive the "lowest-cost, poorest-quality and indifferently administered education". 
Not only are the Adivasis marginalised, even affirmative action/reservation programmes for Adivasis (as Scheduled Tribes) in higher educational institutions have not had the desired effect, the report suggests. The study found that mainstream education has failed to recognise the aspirations, needs and predicament of Adivasis. 

The Naxal violence has made it worse, leading to "widespread destruction of Adivasi homes, livelihoods and larger support structure, including healthcare, schools and spaces for civic action". Indigenous adivasi culture, knowledge forms and language find no place in the dominant education system, it notes. The report cites the example of tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh where a significant proportion of the schools are by the roadside or highways, though most tribals live in forests and hilly tracts.

Reviewing a number of educational programmes for tribals in institutes and schools in educationally backward blocks to fully residential Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas and ashramshalas, apart from fellowships for ST students, the report points to how the many tribal specific schemes run by the government are mostly poorly implemented, go un-monitored, and are often parallel and inadequate.

“Government schools teachers in Jharkhand or Odisha hardly bother to learn the local tribal language, even if they have been posted for years on end,” says Rajesh Tirkey a 24 year old studying in Magadh University. So in or order for an Adivasi to be educated, we are forced to forget our own language and pick up an alien one, be it English or Hindi.”

“Several Adivasi youngsters are doing extremely well in vocational and other courses. Education is to broaden one’s mind,” says a Patna boy who's an advertising professional currently in Australia, “but one cannot be insular forever.”

The Right to Education Act also states that as far as possible the language of instruction at the primary school stage should be in the mother-tongue. It is imperative that schools in Adivasi areas should have primary school teachers conversant in Ho, Munda, Santhali, Oraon, Sadri, and other tribal languages. But when will this be implemented? That’s a question that needs to be addressed if our Education System is to have any real relevance for Tribals.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Goodbye Mr Williams!


Actor and comedian Robin Williams, who died Monday at age 63, will always be remembered.


He was Mork, the alien from planet Ork, in the 1978-82 ABC sitcom, Mork & Mindy, for which he received a 1979 Golden Globe Award for Best TV Actor in a Musical/Comedy.

He also won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for Carol, Carl, Whoopi and Robin (1987) and ABC Presents: A Royal Gala (1988). His final television appearance was in the 2013-14 CBS sitcom, The Crazy Ones, which was canceled after only one season.

Williams won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in the 1997 drama, Good Will Hunting.

He also received three other Academy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Fisher King (1991).

 His other film credits include Popeye (1980), The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), The Best of Times (1986), Awakenings (1990), Hook (1991), Toys (1992), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Deconstructing Harry (1997), Patch Adams (1998), What Dreams May Come (1998), Death to Smoochy (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), Night at the Museum (2006) and its two sequels, Happy Feet (2006), The Night Listener (2006), Old Dogs (2009) and The Butler (2013).


Williams also appeared on Broadway in his own one-man show, Robin Williams: Live on Broadway, in 2002, and he made his Broadway acting debut in the play, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, in 2011.

Some links

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Inner Voices and Autobiographies!

You know what? I think I'm gonna listen to my inner voice and avoid autobiographies ( penned by Indian politicians) like the Ebola virus!

Well, well, well...  this person called Natwar Singh, a so-called Nehru Gandhi 'loyalist', hung up his boots and then dashed off an 'autobiography', which he uses to hit back at Sonia Gandhi for not saving his skin in the wake of the Volkar report on the oil-for-food scam.


Sonia G, he says declined the Prime Ministerial Chair way back in the UPA one day because Rahul Gandhi, her son urged her not to become prime minister or she would in all likelihood be assassinated. It had nothing to do with any 'inner voice' that dictated a moral high road, the man says. It was self-interest, pure and simple.

Washing dirty linen, you may call it. And of course, I for one would expect the BJP and its spin doctors to throw some mud into  the washing machine, and they did , hogging media space and time on a non-issue.

Mrs G is nobody's fool. She didn't need Rahul's advice anyway. After the results were announced and Sonia Gandhi's party having the most seats at the time, would anyway be asked to form the government, and that got a number of 'nationalists' riled. Sushma Swaraj threatened to do a Sinead O'Connor. Purno Sangma and others clearly didn't want a foreign born prime minister and so on. It made brilliant political sense for Mrs G not to step into that particular hornet's nest. And in a brilliant move, she gave India its first Sikh Prime Minister. No doubt she listened to her 'inner voice', which astutely told her that if she wanted the Congress to remain in charge of the rather unwieldy coalition, she needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat. Which she did, brilliantly!

Natwar Singh - he's credibility challenged!

Monday, August 11, 2014

AIR FM Rainbow :Playing it Uncool

I have always been partial to National Radio Stations, or the State Broadcasters if you will. The content of the programming and the presentation is usually good, and one isn't bombarded with tons of advertisements.

I am particularly fond of English language music and therefore tune in to The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, Radio Australia, and of course the western music services of All India Radio.

For me, Radio has always been a source of learning and experience. There's always a wealth of information weaving through the airwaves.  Radio presenters [or Radio jockeys] from national broadcasters usually do their jobs well, knowing that out there, they are the voice of their country.

It is particularly distressing to note that certain presenters of Western Music Programmes on All India Radio's  'National' channel AIR FM Rainbow appear to have no understanding whatsoever of their job. The chap who comperes the Matchless Music Hour on Sundays [9 am]prattles on about stuff totally unrelated to the music he plays, like trips to Ladakh or sports or whatever. He should get down and research the music. Sunday Mornings could be turned into a request show for Western Music. The guy should open up the programme for messages and such , instead of boring us with drivel.


As for some of the part time announcers on 'Play it cool' on the noon-time slot: they murder the English language, their mispronounce words, stutter, and hem and haw through the show.

It's a pleasure to listen to MMH on Monday and Tuesday mornings though, and the Saturday presenter is not bad at all.  Weekday evenings 6pm -7pm are usually fine on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. The phone in programmes are not so hot though, the RJs have to understand that all their listeners aren't in class 10 or 11!


Anyhow, thank God for BBC 2 on Sunday mornings!


 

Friday, August 01, 2014

John Travolta's 6 year same sex affair?


Did Heart-throb of the 80’s John Travolta have a six-year same sex relationship with a pilot? And if he did what’s the big deal. Really!?!

Travolta and Gotterba: the good old gay times....
Okay, the Italian actor’s camp may want to stress that he’s actually a staunch, Italian, hetero, Catholic boy, but apart from that it’s just another cat that’s crawled out of the bag. 

In a National Enquirer story labelled “ridiculous” by Travolta’s camp, pilot Doug Gotterba said he first met the “Grease” star in February 1981 when he interviewed for a pilot job – and by September they were lovers.

 “I know the date (the affair began) because I still have the log book and records,” Gotterba, 62, told the Enquirer.”

 He said they flew to Monterey, California, together and shared a “fantastic” bottle of merlot wine over dinner at the Highlands resort in Carmel. “I got the sense I was being courted,” Gotterba said. “As we walked from the restaurant back to the room, John suddenly said, “Hey, would you like a massage?’”

Gotterba said he'd expected the invitation, and the massage quickly led to sex. “John was gentle but very passionate. The next day he told me with a big smile on his face, ‘I really enjoyed last night,’” Gotterba told the Enquirer. He said Travolta, 58, took him on more romantic trips to Hawaii, Amsterdam and Kenya.

 “Sometimes he’d bring women along as beards, but he would ask me to join him in his suite and we’d spend the nights together. It was our little secret,” Gotterba claimed.The pilot said he encouraged Travolta to get a girlfriend as cover, and that’s when the actor started dating Brooke Shields.

“There was no chemistry between them. They’d smile for the cameras and everyone assumed they were a couple,” he said.The affair ended in 1986 after growing tensions, Gotterba said.

 “He’d show up on my door many times, unannounced, to check up on me,” the pilot told the Enquirer. “He’d disappear into my bedroom and go through my drawers. He always tried to catch me cheating on him.”

He said Travolta would ignore him for days if he didn’t drop everything to be with him on a moment’s notice.Their last meeting was years later in 1992, after Travolta married actress Kelly Preston.

 “We were making small talk when suddenly, I blurted out, ‘So, John, tell me. Now that you’re married, do you still prefer men – or women?’” Gotterba said he asked. “Well, Doug, I still prefer men,” Travolta replied, according to Gotterba.

 The Enquirer report follows three months after two anonymous masseurs – John Does 1 and 2 – filed and later dropped federal lawsuits claiming Travolta groped them during massages. The first Doe withdrew his legal claim after Travolta proved he was in New York on the day of the alleged Beverly Hills attack. Travolta's camp immediately dismissed the Enquirer's interview with Gotterba.

 “This ridiculous so-called ‘new’ story is a re-tread of a story published a few weeks ago by the same desperate supermarket tabloid – the same tabloid that impossibly claimed that John Travolta had an encounter with ‘Doe #1’ in Beverly Hills when he was actually on the east coast working on a movie,” Travolta’s rep said in a statement Wednesday.


So that’s the story… and let’s see how it unravels…. another myth bites the dust?