ANOU’S BLOG

To be poor in India you need, according to the Planning Commission to spend less than 32 Rs a day or 965 Rs a month if you live in a city! The Planning Commission (PC) suggests that spending Rs 5.5 on cereals per day is good enough to keep people healthy. Similarly, a...

Ever since I received a mail about the house of the richest Indian, I have been plagued by the facts and figures of this unthinkable mansion: three helipads, parking space for the owners 200 odd cars, a floor for maintenance of the same, two floor health centre, a...

Every time Radha breaks one of her fragile bones, my heart misses a beat and my blood runs cold. Radha had a fall last week and once again broke her leg. It must have been the evil eye as she was doing so well and on the day the mishap happened had won the prize of...

When we launched our focus on quality programme in 2010 I did not quite know what results it would yield! But to my mind getting the primary kids to learn spoken English was something I intuitively felt would bear fruits. Quite frankly I was thinking far ahead to...

Yesterday was a blessed day! It was PTM day at the boarding school but a very special one as little Agastya my grandson was with us. Agastya and Utpal share a very special bond. What makes it unique is that in normal circumstances the twain should not have met as they...

In Parliament last week the Minister for Health admitted that 1,74 million children under five die every year in India. I do not know how many of us reacted when the news was aired. I do not know how many of us realised the enormity of the statement. 1,74 million is...

I do not want pwhy to be a tuition centre are words I have oft repeated. From the very outset we had been adept followers of Delors 4 pillars of of Education: - learning to know, to do, to live together and to be - and tried to incorporate them in our programmes. We...

For the past two weeks a silent revolution has taken place in front of our eyes culminating with a day long debate in Parliament that resulted in a victory for the people of India, the very people who are embodied in the opening sentence of our Constitution. For the...

I went to the Ramlila grounds on Tuesday to be part of the protest against corruption let me Anna Hazare. I have already blogged about my what I felt that day but there are some other aspects of the agitation that I feel need to be highlighted. I was impressed by the...

This picture was taken by one of our students during the recent workshop on photography held at our women centre. The picture speaks for itself: the broom a silent but eloquent reminder of the fate of girls in India.Let us look at some statistics: India has the...

I went to the Ramlila ground yesterday to be part of the anti corruption agitation led by Anna Hazare. I had of course been watching the agitation on telly and doing my bit by spreading the message but had shied away from actually going there in person. The reasons...

Don't lose faith in India were the last words of a dying man almost 2o years ago. It was at a time when India was burning over the Babri Masjid issue and everything seemed dark and bleak. Yet the man would not let go and repeated his dying mantra. The man was Ram my...