Fixing accountability
Invigilation in the exams is getting tougher for teachers in Telangana as the government has now decided to take an undertaking from them that they would be responsible for any malpractice in their examination halls or centres.
Apparently, the government decided to target the teachers with rumours that lot of private institutes knowingly encourage malpractice while government teachers are bit relaxed in their approach.
Teachers unions have reacted strongly stating that they were unfairly being targeted and only those encouraging it should be punished.
Their contention is that no teacher will wilfully encourage copying and this could be used to target teachers by the higher officials. Interestingly, the mandal education officers and district educational officers too have been made responsible for any malpractice incidents in their respective jurisdiction.
All for the love of Telugu
Will Telugu reach Jawaharlal Nehru University at New Delhi? If Vice President Venkaiah Naidu were to take suggestions of Telugu professors of Telangana seriously, the classical language will get a School of Study dedicated to it in JNU.
In a meeting held the previous week the Vice President had asked Telugu faculty members of Telangana to come up with suggestions for the promotion of the language.
A popular opinion that came up was to promote Telugu in JNU.
While Mr. Naidu promised to take up the matter with Union Human Resource Development Minister, it’s left to anyone’s guess what a School dedicated to a regional language in the national capital would come to mean.
Grassroots democracy in jeopardy
The State Government has announced its resolve to enact a new panchayat raj legislation empowering sarpanches with more funds and functions.
But the delay in finalisation of the draft legislation and its introduction in the legislature appears to have become a cause of concern for the MLAs.
Few MLAs are openly airing their concern over the delay in the enactment of the new law coupled with the uncertainty on the dates of conduct of elections to the panchayat raj bodies that has hit the ongoing works.
The MLAs who raised the issue in the Assembly a couple of days ago said the tentative schedule of the State Election Commission for conduct of polls in April/May might not be possible as the enumeration of voters’ lists was far from complete and there was no clarity on the proposed new panchayats.
One can only hope that the party at the helm of affairs in the State will take time to address the concerns of the elected representatives before conclusion of the ongoing budget session.
Saree through the eye of a needle!
A devotee recently donated a saree that could pass through the eye of a needle meant to sew gunny bags to the Rajarajeswaraswamy temple at Vemulawada. The thinness of the saree stunned the temple authorities.
This is not the only instance of fine sarees produced by artisans as some of them had earlier come up with products that fitted into matchboxes.
(R. Ravikanth Reddy, Nikhila Henry, M. Rajeev and N. Rahul)
