Crisis in schooling
India prides itself in being one of the leading software hubs of the world, but it is clear that it has failed the vast multitude of our school-going children during the pandemic crisis — by depriving them access to online education (Page 1, “In last academic year, only 22% schools had Internet”, July 2). With the present and abysmal levels of these tech facilities, it would be futile to plan for “hybrid teaching and learning” during the academic year 2021-22, as the time and resources required to ramp up such facilities quickly may be too short. As many schoolchildren have already lost a full academic year without learning anything, — it is even worse in rural India — plans for 2021-22 should be realistic and aimed at providing some solid education. Plans should be made for physical classes only. If necessary, the syllabus for the academic year should be reduced by 40% to 50% so that the rest of the syllabus could be covered during the limited number of physical classes held in a staggered manner.
Kosaraju Chandramouli,
Hyderabad
It is not only school but even college students too who face problems. Many have semi-functional phones, poor or no Internet. There is also the issue of them having poor knowledge to use the net/computers.
Kirti Wadhawan,
Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
China watch
A letter (“Letters to the Editor”, July 2), presented a negative picture of the Communist Party of China. If so, how did China make rapid strides on the economic front and become a dominant global power challenging the supremacy and hegemony of the U.S.? Whether one likes it or not, one has to admit that China is now, strongly, shrewdly and strategically, making moves to further expand its sway across the world. The role played by the U.S. pertaining to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the Iran nuclear deal make the rhetoric and sermons of America on democracy sound hollow. There are dictatorial tendencies in quite a number of democracies, making them no better than China as far as liberties, and the freedoms and the rights of people are concerned.
N. Raveendra Babu,
Hyderabad
The letter writer is right to remind us of the Communist Party of China’s crimes in response to Alka Acharya’s leader article (Editorial page, July 1). The letter writer seems, however, to conflate these crimes with weakness. This is a dangerous mistake — particularly in India, where the “toolkit’ to watch is the work of the CPC. When Amitabh Kant of NITI Aayog complains of ‘too much democracy’, the Chinese inspiration is only thinly disguised. Attacks on Twitter (“FIR filed in U.P. against Twitter officials…”, June 29) are not really about maps: the BJP wants to establish China-like controls on online discourse — hence ministerial endorsement of the ‘AatmaNirbhar’ social network Koo.
I, therefore, despaired on finding Sitaram Yechury amongst those congratulating the CPC in Xinhua (June 30). The CPI(M)’s stance on China is not just wrong: it endangers resistance to India’s top leader by hobbling understanding of his régime. More generally, Indian democrats — if they ever regain power — can only prevent longing for dictatorship by improving on the Congress’s dismal record on development: they must show the world the virtues of ‘too much democracy’. That would be a service to the world.
J.P. Loo,
Oxford, U.K.
New wasp species
A group of us researchers affiliated to the University of Calicut have recently identified a new species of bizzare chalcid wasp of the genus Smicromorpha from South India. Only seven species of these are known to exist till date and we found an eighth species, from Kerala. The findings are published in Zootaxa . In admiration of Sir David Attenborough’s immense and profound journey to make the natural world accessible to common people, we named the species after him as Smicromorpha attenboroughi .
Binoy C.,
Thenhipalam, Kerala
