Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan struggling in Varanasi....

Banaras…the city of burning ghats, temples, handicrafts and desi cuisines. Apart from this identity Varanasi holds another distinct separate identity. As said by the founder of Banaras Hindu University, late Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya, Varanasi is, “sarv vidya ki rajdhani”, i.e. the capital of education. Banaras Hindu University was formed with a view to develop education not only in the region but also in the country.

Speaking of education, hundred years after the inception of this university, not much has changed in the region. Just a few kilometres away from this magnificent university are a couple of primary and middle high government schools in the villages of Tikri and Tarapur. These schools are struggling with the minimum infrastructure that the government has provided. Some changes to the extent of expansion of classrooms and newly painted walls have come but they are not significant.

These schools lack basic infrastructure like electricity, books, teachers, uniform and even classrooms. In this digital age where France has declared access to internet to be the birth right of every citizen, our country fails to provide even books.

Local constraints are also hampering the development of these schools. Midday meals provided here is as everywhere, not up to the edible standards. Even newly constructed rooms for the schools are used by the principals to store their household scraps. To my surprise, the principal of Tarapur primary school had put a lock on the newly build toilet especially for the girl students. On enquiring the reason, the school principal says, “students make it dirty, so we keep it locked”.

Education system has to develop in India atleast to secure its future, but for development both the sides of the coin i.e., the government and society have to work together, failing which India fails as a nation.

Sri Lankan Tamils after LTTE....

"It is a day very, very significant - not only to us Sri Lankans but to the entire world, we have been able to defeat one of the most heinous terrorist groups in the world", said the Srilankan President after their self-proclaimed victory over the Tamil tigers. Amongst all these victory speeches, sweets and fire-crackers, the pain and plead of thousands of Tamil citizens entrapped between the two forces remain unnoticed. On one hand the LTTE used them as human shields and on the other hand Srilankan forces made no discrimination between LTTE terrorists and Tamil citizens during war.

Over 3,00,000 people are living in camps in northern Srilanka, where situations are worst than it were in the Nazi camps. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was the first international figure to get the first hand experience of war affected areas. Moon during his visit to Sri Lanka accepted that the situation in most camps were unhygienic and unlivable, with possibility of epidemics. The world community have jumped into the relief work including India, which played a silent spectator while this genocide took place.

Prabhakaran is dead, LTTE has been beheaded and probably a lost entity now. The 25 years of terror and fierce existence of LTTE has come to an end, but the basic problem remains the same. Without a pressure group will the Tamils get justice in Sri Lanka. Inorder to please the international community Rajpakse has also promised to provide Tamils with equal status in Sri Lanka. On the other hand the UN has accused Sri Lankan Govt. of war crimes. Time will tell if the Sri Lankan President will get an opportunity to keep his promise or not, but as of now the bruises are deep and it needs lots of care and affection to cure so that another Prabhakaran doesn't take birth.

Another Coalition Government ?

Congress has allied with Mamta Banerjee’s TCP in Bengal. Bhartiya Janta Party is in ally with Nitish’s party in Bihar. Indian politics today is experiencing a strange situation, where the national parties are coming on the backfoot and regional parties are emerging. Today, national political parties can not think of making their government without support from the regional parties. This paradigm shift in politics has transcended BJP to National Democratic Alliance and Congress to United Progressive Alliance.

This form of government first came in India in 1989 with the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi and emergence of BJP along with the left parties. Later in the year 1998, Atal Bihari Bajpayi led Government came to power in the form of NDA and since then we have continued with similar coalition government.

Today, the criteria for coalition is not ideological match, its more of personal interest of politicians in lead roles. Last year the Left parties put up a bad show within UPA during the nuclear deal between India and America. Several such withdrawal and coming together cases have lessened the faith in such government formation.

Amidst, the tussle between the two national allied parties, another such coalition the Third Front has jumped into the tug of war. The front consists of people who have been either rejected or in a position of conflict with the national alliances. This condition of Indian politics is a cause for concern. The more fragmented the alliance will be, the more corruption will increase.