The Hindu : Front Page : Threats will not work: Achuthanandan

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Tuesday, Jul 24, 2007
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Threats will not work: Achuthanandan

Staff Reporter

The Chief Minister says social justice and merit are prime criteria for admissions in the education sector.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has said that no one should assume that threats and concerted attempts to spread misunderstandings will cover up crass commercialisation of the education sector.

He made the observation while inaugurating ‘Students’ Assembly 1957,’ a programme organised by the Government to recreate the historic events of the maiden session of the first State Assembly, here on Monday.

“The Government’s policy is that social justice and merit should be the prime criteria for admissions in the education sector. The mainstream society also accepts these norms,” the Chief Minister said.

“The contributions of missionaries and the Church in the education sector were unique. None had portrayed them as attempts of commercialisation. The Government will not undermine the services being rendered by the Church in the sector. The Government is prepared to resolve any issue triggered by its decisions taken in accordance with the larger societal interests. But all should recognise that attempts to stir up religious passions would eventually lead to communal polarisation,” Mr Achuthanandan said.

Arguing that the ‘liberation struggle’ [against the first Communist Ministry in the State in the late Fifties] had pushed the State many years backwards, the Chief Minister said it was the land reforms and education Bill which had led to that struggle. It was the agrarian struggles of the 1940s and the first Communist Government formed in Kerala as a sequel to those struggles which had salvaged the State from the pathetic phase which persuaded Swamy Vivekanandan to describe it as a ‘mental asylum.’ But attempts are being made to block the progress of the State and to pull it backward again, by mobilising people along religious and casteist lines. There must be widespread awareness about the ominous dimensions of such moves, Mr. Achuthanandan said.

According to the Chief Minister, Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony who was one of the frontrunners of the liberation struggle has now said that such agitations cannot be repeated now.

The Chief Minister inaugurated a website on the first elected Ministry of Kerala. Law Minister M. Vijayakumar presided over the inaugural programme. An exhibition was arranged on the occasion.

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