Whispers Forum

Recall the ' Sahitya Akademi's awards waapsi controversy, created by 39 writers in 2015, on the ground of the 'Akademi keeping its lips sealed when the writers' purported " freedom of expression was under attack ".The matter had ever since been under examination by the Parliamentary standing committee of Min of Culture, whose recommendations were recently submitted to Parliament. The report, if implemented, will add salt to writers' injuries.
The Parliamentary panel has recommended the Akademi to get prior undertaking from the shortlisted candidates that they would never return the awards, in future. This would be absurd and would hurt the writers' sensibilities and sensitivities. The awards are intellectual and cannot be treated like land deals or agreements.
It may be noteworthy that the works are judged by a body of independent, eminent persons belonging to all Indian regional languages and English from out of several nominations and entries received by it. The supreme decision maker is a 99-member general council consisting of writers, academicians and apolitical representatives and other literary role models from across the country. The Akademi awards are not State-sponsored honours. These are different from Padma awards bestowed by the Government of India, which, more often than not, are considered discretionary (political)
In view of the above circumstances, accepting recommendation of the Parliamentary Standing committee of the union Min of Culture for getting prior concurrence of the potential recipients, would amount to adding insults to injuries of our compatriots - writers, scholars and literary role models—who have selected their works for awards.
How could the writers be asked to compromise their self-esteem? The candidates should be judged on merits of their works rather than ideological affiliations and liabilities.
Let the law makers take the call and save Indian writers from such indignities.
A K Saxena (A former civil servant)

The problem is that in the race to achieve the glory that probably comes with joining the IITs, parents are not thinking of whether their children will be able to cope up with the academic rigour that the IITs have. Students who are ill equipped to join the IITs will tend to not do well once they join there. While this could be so in any group of students, it could possibly be somewhat more in the students who have been given the benefit of quotas to join IITs. The solution to this issue could probably lie in allowing flexibility to the students to change their streams by opting for less competitive streams at IITs if they are unable to cope in the more competitive streams, or allow transfer to other IITs with less rigorous approach without losing academic years, or allow students to choose to have less academic load every semester and have course work spread through holidays or an extra year even before they have started their coursework. Another solution could be to give some credit through coursework in the fields of sports or leadership or co curricular or extracurricular activities in the grade sheet by allowing students from the very first semester to choose some electives of this nature, if they so desire, which could allow them to achieve a better CGPA on their grade sheet. Students might also be given the flexibility to opt for degrees other than engineering which the IITs confer if they find themselves unable to cope with the academic work load in the degrees they have enrolled for. Some other ways to reduce the ill effects of this phenomenon could be to allow students the flexibility to opt for lateral shift to other central universities based on their performance in the JEE advanced without loss of academic years. One way to reduce loneliness and the sense of helplessness that comes when students are unable to cope with academic rigour could come through some credit given in grade sheets through courses designed to help others. For example, a student whose grades are poor might be allowed to take an elective course with a built-in component of social service like teaching in government schools as guest faculty or working as interns in government schemes for the poor. This will allow students to build their self esteem through helping others and also bolster their grade sheets at the same time. More focus on competitive sports, recreational activities and clubs and cultural events could also be a solution to this problem. Socio cultural organizations with nation building at the core of their activities could be allowed on the campuses also. Guest lectures on Indian philosophy, religion and culture could also be increased manifold.
Vijay Kumar