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 protestors at Palliakkara, kerala (http://notollonroads.blogspot.com/) Two bench judges in the Supreme Court of India, D.K.Jain and A.R. Dave took exception, on May 1o 2012, to the government’s decision to allow the BOT (Toll) contractors to collect toll on under-construted national highways.
“The under-construction highways are not money making machines. The government says infrastructure is for common man and for development but the common man pays for it. We will examine it.” the bench said while expanding on a Public Interest Litigation filed questioning the toll collection along Gurgaon-Delhi highway.
Earlier there was a parliamentary panel’s criticism against the motorists being made to pay toll on roads that are still constructed or widened. On those highways it was pointed out that the motorists are made to take time consuming and painful diversions .
Continue reading Is Toll ollection on under-constructed road sanctioned by Policy? Asks Supreme Court
 Protest march by the public
When I was in India two months ago, I witnessed on the TV screen, the Kerala Police on order from the government brutally removing the protesters against an impending BOT toll collection at Palliakkara, a place on the Mannuthy -Idappally national highway.
The protest in the context of India’s neo-liberal market projects, noted for non-participation and support by trade unions or major political parties including the C.P.M (Communist Party of India, Marxixst) noted for its interest in socialist causes, is dubbed as a new social phenomenon. So it showcases the Kerala publics’ direct answer to toll collection on their roads. A hunger strike, started as part of the protest, since 19 February 2012 is still on, as per my knowledge.
Continue reading Hunger Strike Against BOT (Toll) Model at Palliakkara, Kerala
Seemingly, it is difficult for Indians in power to think straight. And if they are pinpointed for wrong-doing they do not hesitate to take law and order on to their own hands as though they are some toys to play with.
Continue reading Anna Hazare -the government needs to be pro-active
My previous post, I concluded that by the time we were done with the orientation we were confused about our initial proposals. We felt those ideas inadequate, but no new idea forth came.
Continue reading My research in maths education Vygotsky-3
 Shri padmanabha temple trivandrum, Kerala Shripadmnabha Swami temple in Trivandrum, Kerala has become the richest temple in the world by a single stroke of news that queer treasures are uncovered from its underground vaults as ordered by the supreme court of India. The deity in the temple is shri Padmanabhan lying flat on the mythical snake Ananatha. Uncovering of the treasure has started on the 2nd of July.
As reported in the newspapers there are six chambers named A to F underneath the deity. Treasures from all except chamber F have been uncovered so far. The opening of the B chamber is stayed by the Supreme Court on account of the fears raised by the six member team appointed by the court to oversee the uncovering of the treasures as well as the believers. The fears are that the vault might contain poisonous snakes or it might be opening straight to the nearby Arabian sea so that once opened the sea waters might rush inside the temple. Many do not consider them as valid reasons for the stay.
Continue reading Padmanabhaswami Treasure-the questions it raises
In my last post I explained the motivation to join the M.Ed course at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.
I told there that my plan was to research on the learning difficulties that my learners, Black learners, experienced in the field of geometry. Initially I was very upbeat about my topic. Let me tell you I had no idea what a research study entailed. It was not a learning practice I was exposed to at any stage of my studies in Kerala, where I studied. I am talking about the seventies. Now I hear it is slowly entering the school and university level. At the same time I hear that the learners either purchase or copy research work from others. How true that is I do not know.
Continue reading My research into mathematics education (Vygotsky)_2
Vygotsky- I will be making a series of posting on the topics from now on. In those posts I would be telling how I came across his revolutionary theories in education during my MEd course at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. This is my first post in this series.
I decided to do my MEd at Rhodes University, Grahams town, South Africa
Teachers ask that retrospective questions, some constantly when they realise that their learners make huge deviation from the appropriate achievement levels. Their retrospection may take the form of guilt if her learners have come from extremely poor socio-economic background. If the learners have not attained the intellectual maturity appropriate to the previous levels then they cannot cope with the content in the present level. Then the teachers’ guilt may reach depression point if such learners performance is taken as an indication of their proficiency.
I was undergoing such a depression in the South African classrooms. When I reached there the country was just recovering from the wicked, wacky apartheid. Nelson Mandela the anti-apartheid struggle icon was just released from his 27 years imprisonment in the notorious Robin Island prison. ‘Liberation first and education second’ was their liberation slogan. By 1976 Soweto uprising, the student community had joined the national liberation struggle and there after they were virtually on the street. That was especially true for the Black learners for their communities were the most affected by the apartheid. In the White schools there were no disturbances and no tuition was lost to the learners.
Continue reading Vygotsky-How he revolutionalized global education_1
This is my article published in the ‘THE VIEWSPAPER’
A few days before, I watched on national TV here in South Africa, contestants of the Amazing Race in tears after seeing emaciated people, children and animals crouched around waste heaps dumped in front of dilapidated buildings alongside the street they raced on to Jaipur, Rajastan, India. Amazing Race is seemingly one of the most expensive Reality Contests in the world bringing to the winner team 1 million U.S Dollar price money. I wondered if it was not using India’s third world impoverishment, to tame its first world contestants turning them tender-hearted and if India taking any pride in that? It brings in income, but not definitely to the sufferers. That the slum tourism in Mumbai fetches millions of dollars to the business owners is not a secret. Turning the life of its hell-hole-dwellers into a visual feast for the delicate global viewers, the producers and the artists of the Slum Dog Millionaire clinched many millions and many Oscars.
Continue reading Make Cleaning a personal habbit
India is now poised, in the opinion of world economists, to be a world economic super power in the coming decades. Education is key to this economic growth. And the whole credit to it goes to missionary education introduced into India during the time of the British Raj. This post looks briefly into the true impact of the missionary education in India since its introduction till now.
Continue reading Post Colonial India and the impact of Missionary Education
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