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Urban Schooling
Letters The total landmass of West Bengal amounts to 88,752 square kilometres. If the entire state is put up for sale to foreigners, the realisation, at the quoted price of Rs 1,20,000 per acre, should be, in case my arithmetic is correct, in the neighbourhood of 1,500 billion rupees. If kept in banks, with an interest rate of 8 per cent per annum, the people of West Bengal would then have an annual income of 120 billion rupees. Would they agree to such a transaction? AM Kolkata There could be an element of opportunism (“procuring of bogus caste certificates”) in instances of marriage between non-tribal males and tribal women, though there are also numerous instances of such unions inspired by genuine love and loyalty. Rather more problematic is the extension of a similar cautionary limitation, in respect of the rights and entitlements available to scheduled tribes, to children born to a non-tribal father and a tribal mother, in effect denying the very tribal identity of children born of such unions. The ruling, as reported in The Hindu (February 17) explicitly lays down that the “offshoots of the wedlock of a tribal woman married to a non-tribal husband (forward class) cannot claim scheduled tribe status”, the reason being that children out of such unions were brought up “in the atmosphere of forward class”. In other words, since the non-tribal father was not subjected to any disability, the child born of the union of such a father with a tribal mother too should be considered as not suffering from any such disability. Apart from not being true, such a distinction and the prescription that follows will certainly not work in matrilineal tribal societies, as for instance among the Garos and the Khasis of Meghalaya, where what has historically determined and in current practice continues to define a child’s identity and informs the course of the child’s whole life unto death is the mother’s identity, not the father’s. (Continued on p 836) Correction In the article ‘ ‘Million Revolts’ in the Making’ (February 18, p 571), under the sub-heading ‘Background and Process’, the sentence should read “This introductory article and the 18 case studies (see the figure for the listing of the cases and their locations) that follow have their roots in a process initiated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) project, ‘Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment’ ”. WWF was wrongly rendered as World Wildlife Fund for Nature. Inland (Rs) Six One Two Three months year years years Institutions – 1250 2300 3300 Individuals 500 935 1750 2500 Concessional Rates Teachers/Researchers – 685 – 1800 Students – 450 – – Concessional rates are available only in India. To avail of concessional rates, certificate from relevant institution is essential. Remittance by money order/bank draft preferred. Please add Rs 35 to outstation cheques towards bank collection charges. Nepal and Bhutan Institutions – 1500 – 4150 Individuals – 1250 – 3500 (US $) Air Mail Surface Mail Institutions 1yr 2yrs 3yrs 1yr 2yrs 3yrs Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh 80 150 200 65 120 175 Other countries 150 275 375 90 170 240 Individuals Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh 50 90 125 30 50 75 Other countries 100 175 240 65 120 170 All remittances to: Economic and Political Weekly Hitkari House, 284 Shahid Bhagatsingh Road,
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Director : S L Shetty Economic and Political Weekly March 4, 2006 Attempts to “reform” such practices have not made any progress because of the involvement of too many disputatious material issues, like inheritance rights, organically linked to the very structure of such societies. Perhaps someone with legal expertise and understanding of tribal societies should clarify the judgment. M S PRABHAKARA Guwahati My experience with the schools in Delhi shows that such activities might have a negative effect on learning levels of children, in the concrete context of our municipal schools. Whether to participate in the science fairs or scholarship exams, what happens is that teachers choose a few children, naturally the best ones and spend time with them to prepare them. Meanwhile, the rest of the class is left to its own devices. In effect this means that the learning opportunities for the class as a whole and for the ones who need it the most, are actually reduced. Perhaps we could consider random assessment exercises of children’s learning levels by an independent agency and prizes for the teachers of the classes which perform better. Maybe the teachers need more incentives than children, who as has been mentioned, are already very eager to learn. The class character of teachers is not easy to change, but an immediate step, which could be taken, is the holding of special sensitisation workshops for the teachers of first generation learners. These workshops would have to be specially designed keeping in mind the real belief systems that teachers may hold. USHA MENON New Delhi Here are some guidelines fortake up to six to eight months from the address, day-time phone numbers andauthors who wish to make date of acceptance to appear in the email address. submissions to the journal. EPW. Every effort will, however, be made (The email address of writers in the Special to ensure early publication. Papers with Article, Commentary and Discussion immediate relevance for policy would be sections will be published at the end ofEPW welcomes original research papers in considered for early publication. Please the article.) any of the social sciences. note that this is a matter of editorial * Authors are requested to prepare their * Articles must be no more than 8,000 judgment. soft copy versions in text formats. PDF words, including notes, references versions are not accepted by the EPW. and tables. Longer articles will not be Commentaries Authors are encouraged to use UK Englishprocessed. EPW invites short contributions to the spellings (Writers using MS Word or paper has appeared earlier in a different on occasion considered for publication. changes/additions, deletions of version, we would appreciate a copy of references, minor changes, etc, as this this along with the submitted paper. poses challenges in processing. * Graphs and charts prepared in MS Readers of EPW are encouraged to send * All submissions will be acknowledgedcomments and suggestions (300-400 words) Office (Word/Excel) or equivalent software immediately on receipt with a reference on published articles to the Letters column. number. Quoting the reference numberare preferable to material prepared in All letters should have the writer’s full name in inquiries will help. jpeg or other formats. * Every effort is taken to complete early and postal address. * EPW posts all published articles on its web processing of the papers we receive. site and may reproduce them on CDs. Since we receive more than 35 articles Address for communication: EPW encourages researchers to comment every week and adequate time has to be Economic and Political Weekly, on Special Articles. Submissions should be provided for internal reading and external Hitkari House, 1,000 to 2,000 words. refereeing. It can take up to four 284 Shahid Bhagatsingh Road,
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