What is happening in education?
Or for that matter in his new assignment, telecom?
We need a healthy debate in education!
Why, even on sports, culture and media etc.!
There is a hell of a noise and much on the coming cricket cup series and already much money and much hype are made of the world cup.
The entire media space is consumed by this game which has now turned out to be the biggest speculative trade. The print media is thriving on the game. The TV channels give more viewership to this game than to other news. The mainstream news is now no news, it seems.
Where are the big names in the cricketing game? Already Kapil Dev has criticised Sharad Pawar, the big daddy of the game for his politics here too!
It seems that there is more money in the cricketing game than even in other enterprises. As per one account(India Today)13 lakh fake bank accounts used to receive betting money and Rs. 15,000 cr has already been placed in bets on the World Cup 2011 matches, says ED. Indian corporates would spend Rs.700 crore on advertising.
Such is the frenzy created over this particular game and other sports are neglected. All politicians are in into this game and for that matter every sport is dominated and even ruined in many cases the chances for a healthy growth of sports in the country.
What is India’s strengths and in what particular sports. After all, we haven’t yet become known for any one sport where we are masters, as the Argentines, Brazilians in football, and other countries known for their uniqueness.
Now as for the sports there is much to debate and draw up some genuine guidelines and that would make India a great cricketing or sporting nation.
Now, sports should ideally be part of an education programme and it must be equitably distributed all over the country and to all sections of the youngsters.
Much more, importantly, it should be in education and education should be the fundamental base of all else.
What is happening in education?
Kapil Sibal, the HRD minister, is a great disappointment. In fact, he is a disaster and that to he is in fact a double disaster! He is given the twin important portfolio of RD and telecom.
Sibal is given to smart talk and that too he is too much of an empty talker.
See what he had done with his new assignment.
Two of the country’s much respected media experts, namely, M.J.Akbar and Arun Shourie have called all sorts of names when they took on Sibal.
Shourie, he too was a one-time telecom minister and he also faced the CBI questions and even before that, Shourie gave out his opinions and explanations called Sibal names and said the one report, the Shivraj Patil, the ex-judge of the Supreme Court, who was selected by Sibal and Shourie openly said the judge was favoured because the minister wants to defend the tainted Raja and that is why, says Shourie, he chose the judge who, untypical of any judge, the judge didn’t meet anybody or talk to anybody and without checking out the findings with any other cross verification, just gave a report that helped Sibal to continue to talk as he did and that invited the Supreme Court’s wrath to the extent of warning his, the Cabinet minister to “behave with responsibility”. Responsibility to the high ministerial office he holds! In any other time or country, this snub by the highest court would have entailed the minister’s resignation! But not here. Not certainly under Dr.Singh.
Now, the minister tried to hide the entire 2-G spectrum scandal with an emphatic denial by the incumbent minister. This is court room tactics by any clever lawyer.
This brazen denial and stonewalling that proceeded to the minister’s arrest and detention. Sibal than toned down his denial and that is why M.J.Akbar called him, the minister, writes Akbar(India Today Feb 21,2011)”the foremost Kuch Nahi minister of this government is surely the former-and-future lawyer Kapil Sibal”. Months after the country had become convinced that there was Kuch Hai, in the original Raja spectrum scam amounting to more than Rs.1.76 lakh crore, as distinct from circa Rs.2 lakh crore in the ISRO deal, Sibal tried to change the national perception with one dramatic press conference. He took, says Akbar further in the same write-up, more than an hour to say there was “Absolutely Kuch Nahi” in the Raja case! Says the veteran journalist: the voter simply cowered under the massive legal artillery bombardment. The government of course, one should take it to mean, those who were already suffered from a sense of paralysis, expected to recover by the artillery fire provided by Sibal. May be such a legal defence by one of the country’s top legal brains, with of course other lineup of legal brains in the Congress party as well as in the government ,they all imagined their smiles would last but alas, it was not to be.
That was not to last. Raja and the CBI investigations and the Supreme Court’s next hearing urged the CBI to go for the “big guns and all those who might be in the Forbes list of the rich and those who consider themselves “law unto themselves” as the top court put it.
So, there is now tremour and much fear and even suspicion that some of the top corporates might fall prey to the CBI net!
Yes, everyday, the names come tumbling. It is now only the 63rd in the rich list. Who else are there in the list?
It looks Mr.Sibal himself has to run for cover. How he will extricate himself from this biggest lie of the decade from the legal luminaries. Other luminaries too are ruing their fate after the Supreme Court is now taking up some of the legal riddles dished out by the AG and the SC!
Now, as for Kapil Sibal contribution to his other portfolio, how many know that many of his pet education reform agendas haven’t taken off at all.
UPA government has shot down more than 50 per cent of proposals made by the various parliamentary committees. Of the more important proposals(3,977 accepted out of 7,927 proposals made)the HRD standing committee recommended changes in the Educational Tribunals Bill,(drafted in haste by the HRD dept),Kapil Sibal wanted to the Cabinet to turn down the recommendations and the Cabinet did so and yet the Rajya Sabha rejected the Bill and even the Congress members opposed it, the Bill was to give much guidance for the private sector to play a role in the higher education and it was so important considering the priorities in higher education growth and yet, the minister did a bad job and he had to withdraw the Bill!
Is this a sign of the wisdom and judgement of the HRD minister?
Readers must ponder over!
The point is that portfolio like education calls for a more sagacious minister. Clever lawyers who can talk one thing in the morning, another in the evening don’t make for sagacious leaders of the people!
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