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Editorial

LONG ROAD TO PREVARICATION tives in the Lok Sabha is based on the
principle of one-man-one-vote, states
whose population has increased since
Census 2011 will be awarded greater
he constitution (one hundred years because it not only records pop- representation in this apex legislative
and Twenty Eighth Amend- ulation growth (or decline) in several body. Conversely, representation of
Tment) Bill, 2023, introduced constituencies, but it’s also “an attrac- states with better governance and ed-
in Lok Sabha in the new Parliament tive source of data for scholars and ucation which results in falling birth
building on September 19, and almost researchers in demography, econom- rates will be reduced. This is certain to
unanimously legislated into an Act of ics, anthropology, sociology, statistics lead to long discussion and arguments
Parliament on September 20, reserves and many other disciplines. The rich which will delay the delimitation pro-
one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha, diversity of India’s people is indeed re- cess. The southern states which have
state legislative assembles and the as- vealed by the decadal census, which directly or indirectly practiced family
sembly of Delhi NCR state, for women. has become a tool for understanding planning will suffer reduced repre-
However this historic legislation ap- and studying India,” says the website sentation in the Lok Sabha. This is
proved by all major political parties is of the Office of the Registrar General unlikely to be acceptable to them.
an elaborate exercise in prevarication. and Census Commissioner under the Instead of these prolonged pro-
Under s. 5 of the Amendment Union ministry of home affairs. But cesses, surely it makes more sense
Act, the Union government has to for mysterious reasons, it has not been for political parties to issue tickets to
first decree a Census of India pend- conducted for the past two years. a larger proportion of women? That’s
ing since 2011. After that there has Moreover delimitation, i.e, redraw- the route taken by most European
to be delimitation, i.e, redrawing of ing electoral constituency lines sched- countries to eliminate gender dispari-
Lok Sabha constituency lines on the uled to be completed after the next ties in their parliaments. Since all par-
basis of population data disclosed by census, is likely to prove even more ties except one voted in favour of the
the new census. These are elaborate, time consuming. A Delimitation Com- Women’s Reservation Act, they could
time-consuming exercises stretching mission needs to be constituted under pass resolutions to mandate that one-
into years, if not decades. a special Act of Parliament to redraw third of their Lok Sabha and state
Under the Census Act, 1948, a boundary lines based upon the popu- assembly party candidates should
nationwide census is obliged to be lation data provided by the census. be women. That they prefer the long
conducted after interregnums of ten And since the number of representa- route indicates prevarication intent.

HOSTILE COUNTRY FOR CHILDREN lack of drinking water and toilets,
multi-grade classrooms (because 1.25
million government school teachers
are absent every day) and rock-bottom
here is a dangerous sickness of degree to which anti-minorities hate, learning outcomes.
selfishness and indifference, if fanned by vote-bank politicians, has Despite this, the annual outlay for
Tnot hostility, towards children permeated the teachers’ community, education (Centre plus states) has
spreading far and wide within Indian once the noblest and most honourable averaged 3 percent of GDP since in-
society. Two glaring examples of cal- profession. dependence against the global aver-
lous cruelty towards youngest citizens The second atrocity which prompt- age of 5 percent, and 7-10 percent
highlight this malaise which is becom- ed a lead edit in the Times of India in advanced OECD countries. Even
ing endemic in this benighted repub- (September 29) which seldom edito- of this meagre outlay, 40 percent is
lic, whose leaders are given to making rializes on such quotidian matters, expended on heavy subsidisation of
loud proclamations about India’s in- is a measure of the erosion of values higher (mainly middle class) educa-
evitable emergence as a global super- of compassion and empathy within tion. Moreover since the child-friend-
power. the self-centred, materialistic middle ly EducationWorld was launched 23
In August, the promoter-principal class, for the multiplying poor and dis- years ago, none of the education min-
of a budget private school in Muzaffar- advantaged. isters at the Centre or in the states
nagar, Uttar Pradesh, annoyed that a The daily atrocities visited upon has consented to grant interviews for
child of the minority Muslim commu- youngest children at the micro-level intelligent questions about education
nity had not completed his homework, countrywide — employment of child policy and related matters. Ditto rep-
directed all classmates to slap him, labour, widespread under-reported resentative organisations of Indian
even as she openly threw communal child trafficking and child porn, sub- industry (FICCI, CII, Assocham).
slurs at the seven-year-old child. More stance abuse and the burden of com- From public platforms, ignorant
recently, not one citizen came to the petitive exams — apart, our voiceless and ill-educated leaders proclaim
aid of a 15-year-old girl child who was children suffer pervasive institutional their intent to harvest the country’s
found half naked, bleeding in the and policy neglect. The majority of the demographic dividend. But the grass-
streets of the holy city of Ujjain after country’s 1.10 million state govern- roots reality is that India’s human re-
she had been brutally raped by a per- ment primary schools avoided like the source is being shamefully neglected
vert, until she fell down unconscious. plague by middle class households, and under-developed. The conse-
The first incident is indicative of the are notorious for crumbling buildings, quences will be severe.

12 EDUCATIONWORLD OCTOBER 2023