Unfair rollback
THE decision to roll back the fare hike for Mumbai’s suburban railways is definitely not a welcome one. By giving in to the pressures of coalition politics, the BJP has set the wrong precedent. It has prioritised the appeasement of political parties over taking bold decisions to boost the economy. With the railways suffering daily losses running into crores of rupees in Mumbai alone, the fare hike would have gone a long way in raising much-needed capital for developing the infrastructure, currently in a dismal state, of the suburban railways. The funds would have been handy for solving the platform height issue, cleaning the rakes and railway stations. It is time we start supporting bold measures for the sake of our economy and a better future.
— Karthik Ganesh
Mumbai
A principal’s job
THIS refers to ‘For standing up to education minister, Kerala Dalit principal is shunted out’ (IE, June 27). It is quite nauseating that a pompous minister had the audacity to punish a well-respected school principal just because she put a mirror up to him. What political signal does it send out when the government transfers the first Dalit headmistress of a school for not personally receiving a minister, who was three hours late, at the school gates?
— V. Chandramohan
Mumbai
Weak roots
Calling for urgent systemic reform to improve the abysmal state of higher education in India, rather than foolishly ranting against the “unfairness” of global university ranking systems, S. Giridhar rightly emphasised that this requires a 10-year or even 20-year strategy (‘The futility of ranking’, IE, June 27). As pointed out before, the root of the problem is at the school-level, where the majority of children find themselves in uninspiring, joyless environments that encourage rote-learning rather than creative explorations and the assimilation of knowledge. An environment that crams young minds with disjointed, meaningless heaps of information and destroys creativity. When the majority of school teachers as well as college lecturers are a product of this dreadful, self-perpetuating system, is it any wonder that Indian universities are churning out graduates who lack not only subject knowledge but even the most basic life skills? A strong tree cannot grow from weak roots.
— R.P. Subramanian
Delhi
I HAIL from the Class I town of Bhuj, Gujarat. I found that I had to go that extra mile to compete with students from metropolitan cities, especially at the post-graduate level. What is the reason for this? It is the habit, in S. Giridhar’s words, “of rote learning devoid of the spirit of enquiry and critical thinking”. We, the children of Macaulay, are brought up on “learning by heart”. If at all one is naturally endowed with a curious mind, it is smothered by an oppressive learning environment. This is also why an idea like the FYUP seems very good to me. It should be seen as compensation for the vast majority that was tyrannised by rote learning. The FYUP would give students the time to think through their future path.
— Rajan D. Morbia
Anand
