Page 92 - EW May 2020 for Flipbuilder

Postscript

Pyrrhic victory of India’s globally comparable private independent
The consensus within the small minority of monitors
schools is that Dr. Singh, a former vice principal of the
CONOCLASTIC REPUBLIC TV ANCHOR ARNAB blue-chip Mayo College, Ajmer who after being appointed
Goswami is the man every well-mannered or aspira- principal of PPS, Nabha, in 2011 rapidly transformed it
Itionally genteel middle class individual, deplores. But into an EW India Top 10 and #1 co-ed boarding school of
the meteoric rise in the viewership of this relatively new Punjab, is a great improvement on his expat predecessors.
(2017) English news channel tells another story. Meanwhile sheepish members of the TDS governing
A b initio Goswami transformed Republic TV’s 9 board have advised your inquisitive correspondent
0’clock news hour into a nightly slugfest in which that the short-lived return of the British Raj to India’s
prominent public figures are let loose to rage, rant and most admired boarding school is an interregnum best
outshout each other with Goswami who controls the main forgotten.
microphone (and mute button) at the head of the pack.
Although an ill-advised reaction of Congress party
chief Sonia Gandhi to file a dozen criminal defamation Caution & cowardice
and other charges in multiple cities — a clear case of
vexatious litigation — prompted the Supreme Court to 2 TRILLION (Rs.151 LAKH CRORE). THAT’S THE
dismiss all except one has been interpreted by Goswami sum that the much-maligned (and not without
as a triumph, it’s likely to prove a pyrrhic victory. $cause) President Donald Trump has budgeted to
Without any proof, Goswami has accused Sonia compensate ruined small businesses and citizens ren-
Gandhi of commissioning a violent criminal attack on dered unemployed in the US following the national eco-
him by two Congress party workers on the night of April nomic lockdown in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. This
22. This unsubstantiated accusation made on Republic staggering figure is equivalent to two-thirds of India’s
TV’s national peak hour broadcast of April 23 was 2020-21 GDP and aggregates 10 percent of America’s
supplemented with references to Sonia Gandhi’s Italian GDP.
roots and innuendos of Mafia connections. Against this, the total provision made by the BJP
Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Gandhi has initiated legal government at the Centre for compensating industry,
proceedings against him under several sections of the agriculture and service sectors and hundreds of million
Indian Penal Code which is likely to cost Goswami dear. jobless who have suffered during the drastic eight week
This reckless self-styled journalist seems quite clueless countrywide lockdown on account of the pandemic,
about the laws of civil and criminal defamation, the aggregates a mere Rs.3.2 lakh crore, equivalent to 1.4
basics of which every self-respecting journalist should be percent of GDP. Appeals made by respected public
cognizant. This rumbustious newscaster with a tinge of intellectuals to raise the relief amount to at least 5 percent
megalomania, has shot himself in the foot.
of GDP have been ignored. Ditto your editor’s detailed
inflation-proof proposal to make immediate direct
Forgettable interregnum transfer of Rs.4,444 per month for the next 12 months
into the bank accounts of 150 million poorest households
countrywide, which requires an outlay equivalent to 3.52
T’S OFFICIAL. RESURGENT BRITISH RAJ AT THE percent of GDP (Rs.8 lakh crore).
Doon School (TDS estb.1935), routinely ranked India’s The country’s supine citizens and the media in
I#1 boys boarding school in the annual EducationWorld particular, need to question the Central government’s
India School Rankings (EWISR), is over. After two expat excessively cautious response to the Coronavirus
Britons of no special distinction were successively ap- pandemic. The US which has suffered 77,000 fatalities,
pointed headmasters of this vintage boys boarding school and Italy 30,200 have relaxed their lockdown restrictions
promoted in pre-independence India by Calcutta barrister to restart the engines of their economies.
Satish Ranjan Das — because the best boarding schools It’s also noteworthy that Sweden didn’t lockdown at
promoted by our erstwhile masters were squeamish about all, budgeting 4,000 deaths (double the number in annual
native boys sharing dorms with their progeny — this time influenza outbreaks).
round native-born Dr. Jagpreet Singh, principal of the In a nation where 90 percent of the population is
Punjab Public School, Nabha, will take charge as the new employed in the informal low-income and daily wage
headmaster of TDS on July 5. economy, a prolonged eight-week nationwide lockdown
As reported by your editor on this page (https://www. defies all common sense. The US has a population of 300
educationworld.in/unlamented-exit) two months ago, million and Italy 40 million, yet despite huge fatalities,
the chance of another expat being appointed headmaster these countries are back at work. India has a population
was negligible after the previous incumbent of the well- of 1.3 billion and 2,000 Covid-19 fatalities.
furbished Headmaster’s Lodge, Mathew Raggett was fired Yet several state governments have extended the
by the TDS board of governors in February before the end lockdown period. In a country where 9 million people
of his contractual term. Raggett’s initiative to transform die annually from environmental pollution, tuberculosis,
TDS into a wholly international school affiliated with the chronic malnutrition and diahorrea, how justifiable is it
offshore Cambridge International (UK) and International immiserise over 1 billion citizens to save a few thousand?
Baccalaureate (Geneva) examination boards, reportedly There is a thin line between commendable official
shook up the somnolent board of this institution born out caution and cowardice. This line has been crossed.
of nationalist impulses.

92 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2020