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NEET gets messy

A deep dive into what went wrong with entrance exams like NEET this year and how it affected the ambitions of millions of studentsA protest by students’ organisations in Hyderabad, Jun. 18; (Photo: ANI) There seems to be no end to the troubles at the National Testing Agency (NTA), which conducts major entrance examinations in the country and holds the fate of millions of students in its hands. Over three million have been left hanging with the controver­sies surrounding two big examinations—the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) or NEET-UG, the gateway for admissions to medical courses in India, and the University Grants Commission-National Eligibility Test (UGC-NET), the key qualification for those hoping to find teaching jobs in colleges or to get ...
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The age of influencers

Until last year, Dhruv Rathee was content being an “educator” on YouTube, sharing videos on a variety of subjects that served as “explainers that inspire”. Then came an episode that Rathee, much like the Supreme Court of India, saw as a “murder of democracy”. It was the widely-circulated video clip of Anil Masih, returning officer for the January 30 Chandigarh mayoral poll, defacing eight ballot papers, resulting in the win of the BJP candidate over his AAP counterpart. Since then, the 29-year-old engineering postgraduate’s team, comprising 10-15 researchers and editors, has been rigorously scouring articles and videos for credible data and help Rathee prepare a script that can serve as “explainers that alarm”.Source link
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MF Husain goes immersive | Return of the Husain saga

"I don’t think Husain took me seriously,” says Kiran Nadar, recounting a favourite anecdote about how hard she had to pursue India’s most famous artist back in the day. He did eventually produce some paintings for her new house in Delhi, in the late 1980s, but Nadar, now arguably the most prominent collector and patron of Indian modernist art, was speaking at the vernissage (or preview), last month, of a new exhibition, in the front hall of a heritage building—an old salt warehouse in Venice, the Magazzini del Sale—surrounded by a compact and priceless array of (mostly) early works by Husain. In the cavernous main hall behind the paintings is a newly commissioned ‘immersive’ installation, a 40-minute-long experience based on the artist’s life and work, produced by Visioni, the Italian crea...
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Aam Aadmi Party | Kejriwal at a crossroads

It was during the India Against Corruption (IAC) agitation in 2011 that Arvind Kejriwal shot to national fame. The movement, allegedly backed by the RSS-BJP, gave voice to the public anger against graft at a time when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre was fighting allegations of several scams. Social activist Anna Hazare had been the face of the campaign but, by the next year, Kejriwal had shaped the public antipathy towards the political class into a creation of his making—the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Its election symbol, the broom, was an apt representation of its intent to clean up Indian polity, resonating widely with the capital’s disillusioned electorate.Source link
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Interview with Power minister R.K. Singh | ‘No one is exempt. You can’t game the system as it’s rule-based’

As India’s economy expands, providing uninterrupted power is paramount. Besides enhancing capacity and augmenting infrastructure, it’s essential to minimise losses and make discoms fiscally responsible. Union minister of power and new & renewable energy R.K. Singh discusses the government’s roadmap for a robust power sector with Deputy Editor Anilesh S. Mahajan. Excerpts:Source link
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Disciplining the discoms

Sometime in the middle of January, Hiralal Nagar, the energy minister in the newly sworn-in BJP government in Rajasthan, visited Union power minister R.K. Singh’s office in New Delhi with a request. He wondered if his state could get additional electricity along with some relaxations in lending norms. Distribution companies, or discoms, in Rajasthan have a cumulative debt of Rs 79,370 crore, according to the latest filings with the state’s regulator. It’s a nightmare for the new government, which has to honour electricity subsidies committed by its predecessors. Singh’s response to Nagar was a polite “sorry”. Nagar is not the only one; many of his counterparts and chief ministers from other states have been approaching the Union minister with similar requests for either more electricity or...
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Kavach | Preventing train collisions

It was sometime in March last year, when two trains, travelling at 100 kilometres per hour, were racing towards each other from opposite sides, somewhere between Hyderabad and Lingampalli in Telangana. Just when you thought a head-on collision was inevitable, the two locomotives screeched to a halt, barely a hundred metres away from each other, as if guided by an invisible force. “Kavach,” the Union railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who was travelling in one of the trains, had declared, “is successful.” He was referring to India’s very own automatic train protection (ATP) system.Source link
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TMC’s football pitch | Politics of the beautiful game

Bengal’s all-consuming and undiluted love for football has an early milestone. In 1911, Mohun Bagan became the first Indian side to win the IFA Shield after defeating the East Yorkshire regiment. Footballing success thereafter generated fierce nationalistic pride, serving as a sporting adjunct of the freedom movement. In recent decades, the passion for football has come in useful for political purposes, too. Khela Hobe (the game’s on) became Mamata’s rallying cry in the 2021 assembly election, as broken foot and all, she led the Trinamool Congress to a magnificent win. She was certainly not the first to realise the demotic pull of the beautiful game, especially among the youth. Veteran leaders Jatin Chakraborty and Kshiti Goswami of the Revolutionary Socialist Party have had long associati...
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Governor troubles | The Centre’s proxy war

Former governor of Gujarat and Jammu & Kashmir B.K. Nehru once described the constitutional position as one reserved for a “burnt-out superannuated member of the ruling party for whom a governorship was a kind of luxurious retirement”. A former governor defined her role as a “super hostess”, while another claimed to have read 200 novels during his tenure. Tamil Nadu governor Ravindra Narayana Ravi may not be guilty of many of these but the former Intelligence Bureau officer is accused of sitting on bills passed by the state assembly for months on end (some of them for years). On November 20, when the Supreme Court censured him, it ignited a heated debate on not just his actions but also the governor’s role in India’s federal structure.Source link
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West Bengal tea industry | Cup of woes

The medicinal value of tea, and the best way to drink it, is something that has exercised aficionados of the beverage for long. However, now it’s the very fate of the Rs 20,000 crore tea industry in India that is in need of some of that attention. Sixteen tea gardens in West Bengal have had to close since September on account of depressed prices in the domestic market and sluggish exports. Eight of these gardens—Ambotia, Moondakotee, Rongmook Cedar, Chongtong, Mullootar, Nagari, Pandom and Peshok—are situated in Darjeeling district, while another three—Kathalguri, Bamandanga-Tondu, Samsing—are in Jalpaiguri district. The remaining five—Kalchini, Raimatang, Dalsingpara, Dalmore and Ramjhora—fall in Alipurduar district. The closure of these gardens has impacted the lives of over 10,000 tea l...
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