RTE - Boon or Bane?

 The RTE Act, 2009 has been passed with the intent of benefitting economically weaker Sections (EWS) and enabling their children to be at par with the “privileged” society kids. Their intent is extremely positive as it would not only provide quality education to under privileged children, but might also eradicate discrimination and try to bring them to a common platform.

      But the foremost problem with this is its interference with another constitutional right of free trade or business as per article 19(1)(g). With 25% of reservation of seats for EWS, private schools would have to incur the additional cost for EWS students as Government will compensate as per the Govt. fee structure only. This means school management can become apathetic towards those kids, though it’s just an assumption; it can’t be ignored. Also due to substantial increase in standard of education, lot of middle class and upper middle class people are forced to send their children to tuitions or use other resources to keep up the pace with other classmates; for EWS students, it cannot be considered as an option at all. If not tuitions, those parents are themselves helping their kids in their education but for EWS students, even this option doesn’t seem to be feasible. Now, if they are not able to compete with other kids, it can further de-motivate them which in turn can increase the drop out ratio of these kids.

       I think it’s better to put these efforts in the right direction. Either they can pay the compensation as per school standards which can solve few of the above problems or invest in Govt. schools, giving quality education to these kids but with a proper check on schools. Otherwise in current scenario, the interests of these private schools have been totally overlooked.  

Compulsory Voting

Reason for low voter-turnout from urban areas is quite obvious – “DISSATISFACTION”. Educated people think that it’s of no use, putting their efforts, for people who might make promises but not deliver them. There have been so many cases of corruption coming up and thanks to media for showing this facet of Govt or any bureaucrat, urban people have lost faith in democracy. On the other side, rural people are relatively less educated than the urban. But the strong voter turnout is might be due to cash or any tangible incentives given to them and their blind belief in politician’s promises.

     Compulsory voting, like in Australia, can be a good option in a developing country like India because it will increase the voter count to a great extent. When people know that lot of people are going to vote, they might understand the value of their vote which was earlier thought to be of no worth as everyone felt his/her vote would always turn out to be in a “minority” voters and his/her preferred party would lose. Another good aspect of this would be that it would make people do lot of ground work and think broadly before casting their vote.

      I think it can also reduce vote rigging to a certain extent. When people turn out in large no. to polling booths, it becomes difficult to manipulate with them, otherwise small crowd of people can always be threatened or intimidated, which can impact the results. Vote buying can also be reduced because it would be difficult to buy votes from all interest groups.

     Though it seems to be going against democracy, but at times, State has to intervene for the welfare of the people and this intervention is an example of “Welfarism”.

Paid News

Paid news has become a very popular means of conveying manipulated truth (at times truth), to the public, making it harder for them to understand its authenticity.

        Concentration of media ownership across different segments like TV, Printing media, Internet etc. has triggered more paid news. It also becomes a very strong and easy source of financial help for small scale media houses, competing against bigger players in the market. But the problem which it can create is that people might get very wrong perception of someone mistakenly or might get an ultra positive notion about someone, and any such false article, if circulated among citizens, especially during elections, can turn around results dramatically. It becomes even more difficult to identify the correctness of the news when there is same news everywhere and user eventually tends to start believing it as a fact.

       There has to be strong regulations on this. PCI should pitch in, whenever they find a case of false information supplied by media houses and impose heavy penalties on them. In case of repetition of such case by same authority, it should suspend its activity temporarily, sending a strong message to other media players. Individual reader or viewer can go to court for any such wrong doings, but it’s generally ignored unless his interest has been affected. Many a times the common man gets hesitant, seeing the enormous power of the media company.

       There has to be a check on concentration of ownership across different segments which otherwise creates monopoly, which is not so good for democracy. Although it questions Right to speech and expression, and to an extent, Right to free trade and business, but in the broader perspective of the welfare of the state, it needs to curtail such powers of dominance by bigger players.

Give me some sunshine, give me some rain..

Schools once had a playground. That statement is not so far away from becoming a fact with rising problems of land and more focus on studies than sports. Now a days, schools and colleges are turned into pure profit making organizations with sole motto of earning profits. How to earn is no more a problem for them. Make students struggle like donkeys, make them get one of the top ranks in states and there we go.Parents become ready to spend lot of bucks on their wards to get into those best schools with top ranks.

                  However every one is missing the fact that "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy". People need to understand that by sending our kids to such schools we are playing with their childhood.We are depriving them of their innocence.We can understand the difference by comparing our childhood to their childhood.We had outdoor games, they have mobile games. We felt good by making new friends, they just want new facebook friends.Due to technological advancements, relations are already getting least priority in this fast paced life, and without sports, we are making it even more difficult for them to understand team work. Above all, their health itself is at big risk without any physical exercise.

          I hope parents start realizing the importance of sports which unfortunately is given low priority in developing countries like India where studies matter the most. I hope our future generation is not forced to sing this song " I tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter"