This Week Madhya Pradesh: Lecture on unlearning

Jairam Ramesh last week advised young professional selected as the Prime Ministers Rural Development Fellows to assist collectors in backward districts to unlearn all the garbage that has been put into you in professional schools

Lecture on unlearning

Jairam Ramesh last week advised young professional selected as the Prime Ministers Rural Development Fellows to assist collectors in backward districts to unlearn all the garbage that has been put into you in professional schools. He advised them against using expressions like developmental paradigm,and added that long hair and a long beard dont necessarily make one a genius. He had once discarded the convocation gown,calling it a colonial relic,and at the same institute later described himself as a Raavan of development while he was the environment minister.

The Other side of quick service legislation

The public services delivery guarantee legislation,first enacted by the state and later picked up by other states as well as the Centre,seems to have got on the nerves of tehsildars,the important revenue functionaries. They have announced that they will stop abiding by the landmark legislation if their own demands are not fulfilled,such as better infrastructure to enable them to guarantee delivery of services in time,and time-bound promotions. Nearly 150 tehsildars have been fined for delayed execution of works. They want the government to roll back the fines,a key provision in the act that forces government employees to execute works in time or pay a fine that ranges from Rs 250 to Rs 5,000.

When not to subject a woman to a search

In a recommendation sparked by the recent humiliation of a woman,the states commission for women has asked private security personnel employed at malls to check bags of visitors only when the metal detector beeps. The commission said security personnel should never use hands; if a personal search is unavoidable,it should be done only after calling in the police. The recommendation came in the wake of an incident in Indore where a young girl was strip-searched by female guards and was then found not to be carrying anything objectionable. It led to a public outcry. The womens commission has also recommended a ban on film songs in school buses.