Ban the Blackboard

Blackboards may soon be history in Kerala schools

Looks like Kerala's schoolchildren will no longer have to stare at a blackboard. A PTI report, which appeared in The Hindu, talks of an experiment by Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan in Kozhikode to replace the traditional blackboards with digital boards.

The Bhavan is implementing what it calls the 'smart class' technology in all its three schools in the district in a bid to make education more interesting and also to enable the teachers to dedicate more time for teaching.

Bhavan's Kozhikode Kendra has entered into a five-year contract with Educomp Solutions, which provides a variety of digital teaching aids, including graphics and working models that promises to herald a new era in the field of education.

"We first introduced the technology in our schools in Kochi last year and the overwhelming response from the parents to the scheme has prompted us to bring it to Kozhikode now," Bhavan's Kendra Secretary, Col (retd) M P Gopinath was quoted in the report. According to him, parents feel that the system has helped to better the overall education process in the schools. "Apart from improving the effectiveness of teaching, the technology is also expected to boost the performance of the students," says the Bhavan's principal Lalitha Nair.

The system is so designed that a single server will cater to plasma television sets in all the class rooms which the teachers can operate with a remote from any corner of the room. Besides graphics, animation and video clippings, diagrams and 3D images will also be processed by the server to make available all information as sought in the syllabus.

Read the full report at

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/004200806141222.htm

Reviving the Nila river

A group of locals, led by Gopinath Parayil, launch a pioneering responsible travel company to try and save Kerala's Ganga, the Nila.

"In its own sphere, the Nila is as significant as any of the great rivers of our country: On its banks thrived the ancient astrologer Vararuchi and the mathematician Aryabhatta. In more recent years, the river has imbued the work of littérateurs such as Jnanpith awardee M.T. Vasudevan Nair and O.V. Vijayan. The river has watered paddy fields, sustained rural livelihoods of farmers and traditional healers.

"All that now stands threatened by the pressures of modernity. The state’s remittance economy has fostered a building boom; the source of sand—essential construction material—is the river. Forests in the catchment area, responsible for rainfall, are disappearing. Many of the Nila’s tributaries have been thoughtlessly dammed. But all is not lost yet..."

Read Gopi's account at
http://www.livemint.com/2008/06/14000317/Alternate-Life--River-of-drea.html

Sabarimala: A man-made myth?

In a stunning revelation the Sabarimala authorities admit that the mysterious fire, which gives the festival its name, and which flashes thrice in the forests of the Ponnambalamedu hill, across from the ancient Ayyappa temple, during the Makaravilakku festival, is a work of human hands.

Read K A Shaji's report in Tehelka at http://www.tehelka.com/story_main39.asp?filename=Ne210608allhumantoohuman.asp

Not halcyon days any more

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the etymology of the word `halcyon' to a bird, usually identified with a species of kingfisher, which the wise elders in the ancient West believed to have bred about the time of the winter solstice in a nest floating on the sea. The ancients thought that it charmed the wind and waves so that the sea was calm during the period.

By extension, the term `halcyon days' refers to 14 days of calm weather, believed to occur about the winter solstice when the halcyon was brooding.

From those fabled roots come the contemporary usage of `halcyon' to allude to a calm, quiet, peaceful and undisturbed period or time.

The need for such an atmosphere must have been the lure behind the move of Regent Maharani Sethulakshmi Bhai to construct in 1930 an imposing palace atop a hill overlooking the Kovalam bay near Thiruvananthapuram as a summer leisure retreat for the family members of the Travancore royalty.

That beautiful piece of property is now in the midst of a controversy over ownership. The Oman-based M Far Hotels of the M Far group, which purchased the Kovalam Ashok Hotel from the public-sector India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) for Rs 44 crore in July 2002, insists that the Halcyon Castle forms an integral part of the hotel complex.

However, local activists, egged on by leaders of the Opposition front, dispute the claim and maintain that it belongs to the State Government. Tourism Secretary T. Balakrishnan was quoted as saying that there were no records to show that the Halcyon Castle belonged to the State Government.

It is easy to see why the grand sea-facing granite castle has suddenly become everybody's interest. For the hotel industry, it is a rare property that will attract dozens of pricey customers. Already, the 188-room Le Meridien Kovalam Beach Resort & Spa, which is what the erstwhile Kovalam Ashok is now called, boasts that its "four royal suites in the castle are in the category of the most luxurious accommodation available in the handful of five-star hotels in the entire State." And their tariff ranges from $350 to $500 a day.

For politicians, it is an opportunity to shine in the limelight. For the Government, it is an embarrassment, another sign of ineffectiveness in policing prime property.

However, every one of these interested parties seems to be barking up the wrong tree. The government, while it does have a moral obligation to protect and preserve architectural and cultural monuments, has often failed to do so, not for want of intent but for sheer inefficiency and ineptness.

One has to only look at the dilapidated condition of most of Kerala's architectural heritage to realize this. Recently, the government looked on as a portion of the historic West Fort in the capital was destroyed.

It is not as if the government cannot be a good caretaker of heritage. Consider the impeccable and elegant manner in which the Department of Archaeology has maintained the Padmanabhapuram Palace, near Thuckalay in neighbouring Tamil Nadu. Perhaps the fact that it is in another State - and thus not so attractive to the local media - prevents government officialdom and sundry politicians from interfering in its functioning.

The fact is that private entrepreneurs can - and are often encouraged to - maintain heritage property in a responsible manner, especially today when the well-heeled traveller is in search of authentic historical and cultural experiences. Consider the many heritage hotels run by the Taj group, especially in Rajasthan.

The Halycon Castle deserves a caring and benevolent guardian. But whether that ought to be the State Government alone is a moot point.

Drop everything and read

Kerala can lay proud claim to being India's First State, as far as the fine art of reading is concerned. Naturally, therefore, observation of June 19 as Reading Day and the entire week as Reading Week was in keeping with the State's longstanding tradition of reverence for the written word.

The P.N.Panicker Foundation, in association with the State Government, Education Department and Public Relations Department, decided to observe June 19, the 9th death anniversary of P.N. Panicker, as `Reading Day'.

Panicker was the driving spirit behind Kerala's Adult and Non-formal Education activities, which began in organised manner with the setting up of Kerala Grandha Sala Sangham in 1945 with 47 rural libraries.

Panicker was able to bring 6,000 libraries into this network, transforming the libraries into community centres that were soon abuzz with impassioned discussions, seminars and symposia, all accessible to the public.

Fittingly enough, the Central Government decided to issue the P.N. Panicker commemoration stamp on the occasion of Reading Day.

Continuing the initiative, the current week - from June 19 to 25 - will be observed as `Reading Week' in the State, with special school assemblies to promote the reading habit among children.

Reading Clubs and P.N. Panicker Corners will be formed in the schools. There will also be exhibitions of books during the week.

It is heart-warming that Kerala is taking some pains in this direction, for, all over the world, respect and adulation for reading and the written word is under increasing threat, as critics of television soap operas and matinee cinemas never tire of reminding us. Closer home, witness the near-anaesthetic grip of prime-time soaps on Malayalam television channels.

Worldwide, initiatives are under way to stem the rot. In Malaysia, for instance, property developer Island and Peninsular Berhad (I&P) has come out with an exciting way to help students make reading an indispensable part of life. The company recently donated 300 books worth 8,000 Malaysian ringgitts (approx. Rs 92,000) to a secondary school in Selangor, for excelling in its campaign, DEAR (Drop Everything and Read).

I&P Corporate Communications Manager Izan Hussain told a Malaysian newspaper that the three-month-long campaign was aimed at helping to improve the standard of English among pupils by encouraging them to read.

"Our primary objective of starting the DEAR campaign was mainly to address the lack of interest in reading amongst the young. This vacuum in reading comes from the perception that there are more interesting electronic media such as the Internet and television," Hussain added.

Catching them young was also the motive behind Unesco's General Conference establishing, in 1995, April 23 as World

Book and Copyright Day. Each year, Unesco organises a string of events encouraging everyone, particularly young people, to discover the joy of reading.

Since 1948, Unesco has carried out an ambitious programme to translate and publish more than 1,000 representative works from the widest range of cultures. R.E. Asher's celebrated 1980 translation of Vaikom Muhammed Basheer's Me Grandad 'ad an Elephant was part of the Unesco collection.

Unesco is also backing regional co-publication programmes in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, with an emphasis on books for children, women and those who have only recently acquired reading skills.

"Books and reading are as important today as ever," according to Milagros del Corral, director of Unesco's Division of Creativity, Cultural Industries and Copyright. "Reading means establishing an interactive dialogue with the virtual universe created by the author of a text - a universe of intellectual representations that differ according to the imagination of each reader," she said.

Ms del Corral - who is also in charge of Unesco's Publications - highlighted persistent inequalities in reading: "There are books on all subjects, for all public and for all times. But we must make sure that books be accessible to everybody everywhere."

That is the challenge ahead - more books for more people, more easily available.

The grey digital divide

Many Keralites readers will recall, perhaps some sense of pride, the news and photographs that appeared some years ago in local dailies of senior citizens - many of them functionally illiterate - in Malappuram district staring at computer monitors to read e-mails from relatives abroad.

Once written off as Kerala's most backward district, Malappuram soon became the symbol of what a determined Government and bureaucracy could do to use information technology to transform ordinary lives.

Through a network of Internet kiosks, called Akshaya centres, the State Government claims to have brought 100 per cent e-literacy to Malappuram, creating a growing appetite for value-added services like Internet browsing, voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) and videoconferencing. However well-intentioned the State Government may be, that claim is a bit too tall.

Even internationally, while many countries have met success in overcoming the `first level' digital divide - that is problems of access - few claim to have jumped over the `second-level digital divide' - the exclusion of elders in reaping the fruits of the digital revolution. This `generational difference' is a key feature of adaptation to the Internet, with older portions of the population taking up use at a much slower rate.

Take the case of the UK. In spite an overall increase in the use of the Internet to 62 per cent of the British populace, according to the most recent National Statistics survey (2003), the over-55 age group remains low, with only 30 per cent using the Internet.

Although "technological diffusion" has increased Internet use in many sections of society, a relatively small percentage of those over 55 use the Internet, compared to younger age groups.According to one study, in both developed and developing countries, the Internet penetration rate among younger people is substantially higher than that among older people.

In developing countries, students who can get online via school connections make up a big share of Internet users. In general, the life stage divide is declining in most countries, except for Korea.

The European Union is taking a good, hard look at the situation. Accepting the reality of a "social digital divide" or "informational black hole," the leaders of the 15 EU member States met in Lisbon at a summit in 2000.

It was agreed then that the boundaries defining relative poverty were fluid, so that those without Internet access were not only "informational poor" but were also socially excluded from other activities.

The members agreed that by public and subsidized private access, all citizens of the EU should expect to have some sort of Internet access by 2005. This was based on a Finnish programme that had adopted a notion of free and subsidised Internet access as a citizen's right by 2005.

And last fortnight, Britons over 50 who go online regularly celebrated `Silver Surfers Day', with 69-year-old Dennis Rogers scooping the `Silver Surfer of the Year 2004' award. The organisers said they wanted to combat digital exclusion by showing how technology is relevant to people's lives.

To mark the occasion, they fitted the York-to-London express train with Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) connectivity - something Indian Railways is also currently trying out.

The average life expectancy in Kerala is 72 years. From a demographic point of view, Kerala is about 25 years ahead of the rest of the country. A child born in the State today can expect to live over 70 years. A girl child fares even better - she can hope to live to 76.

What is disturbing is that Kerala's aged population is projected to touch 72 lakh by 2021 and 119 lakh by 2051. Kerala can expect to see more and more people in their 80s, and many of them are likely to be women. Worse, most of them will have children residing beyond the State's shores.

As an aspiring information and knowledge-based economy, Kerala owes it to these senior citizens to try and bridge the existing grey digital divide.

K.N. Raj: Kerala's finest economist

Kerala's finest economist


At a conference in Thrissur, organised in 2004 by the Department of Economics, St Thomas College, several of the best minds in the country came together to pay glowing tributes to a son of Kerala who can be called - without fear of contradiction - the greatest economist this State has produced. That the conference was held at Thrissur was even more appropriate, for that sleepy little town was where this distinguished person was born 80 years ago.

Kakkadan Nandanath Raj or plain K.N. Raj, as he is universally known, is that rare combination of teacher, researcher and builder of institutions, all rolled up in a backdrop of progressive libertarianism that stopped short of radical Marxism but always embraced a deep humanism and concern for the disadvantaged, the underprivileged and, above all, the nation.

`Planning, Institutions, Markets and Development' - the theme of the Thrissur conference - sums up the key areas in which Raj has been active. As the Assistant Chief of the Economic Division of the Planning Commission, he played a pivotal role in India's planned development, drafting sections of India's first Five Year Plan, specifically the introductory chapter. Raj was then merely 26 years old.

Subsequently, he moved to Delhi University, where he was Professor of Economics and also Vice-Chancellor (from October 1969 to December 1970), spending a total of 18 years there. During that time, he was instrumental in setting up the Delhi School of Economics (DSE).

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen recalls "several stimulating and instructive conversations with him in the DSE in the early 1960s, in those heady days when many of us were privileged to participate, under Raj's superb leadership, in the building of a great graduate school of economics."

After the Delhi stint, Raj returned to Kerala in 1971 to set up the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) at Thiruvananthapuram, an institution that soon acquired an international reputation for applied economics and social science research. The work that Raj and his colleagues did for the United Nations in the early days of the CDS, and published in 1976, helped shape the contours of what later came to be called the "Kerala model" of development - the co-existence of low per capita income and very high physical quality of life indicators.

As for markets, Raj, like his friend Amartya Sen (who calls him "a remarkable applied economist"), does not have the automatic aversion for markets that most Left-leaning economists display. In 1970, Raj recommended that all controls on the steel industry be removed, and the industry be exposed to the effects of market forces. That was seen as almost heretical at a time when the command economy was in full rule and the public sector was a holy cow.

Raj once wrote: "I think that most of the things that welfare economists talk about are those that are obvious to all of us, especially the common people. In fact, even a pure philosopher and religious thinker like Sree Narayana Guru, who achieved a social transformation in Kerala, spoke about the very same things that welfare economists speak about today: education, health care facilities, even small-scale industries... Many people like me practised welfare economics without knowing that it was welfare economics, because we were anxious that economics should help the poor. But people who take economic theory literally would say that this is not our problem."

For Raj, development has always been the central problem. For that unstinting concern, we, as citizens of India, ought to be grateful and, as residents of Kerala, perhaps even more so, for K.N. Raj's contribution to his home State will long outlive conferences, seminars and tributes.