Anganwadis..

REPORT BY PLAN PANEL MEMBER

Anganwadis: State does well, but more needs to be done

Madhavi Rajadhyaksha I TNN

Mumbai: In Rajasthan, there was a carcass rotting outside an anganwadi and no women or children were in sight. A childcare centre in Chhattisgarh was closed at 1 pm, though the official timings were from 10 am to 2 pm.
In Andhra Pradesh, anganwadis were either missing or not functioning properly. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, though, presented a more hopeful picture with their “bright and cheerful children’’.
These were some of the observations of Planning Commission member Dr Sayeeda Hameed, who visited 48 anganwadis across 17 states over the last three years and recently sent an “eyewitness account’’ to the Maharashtra government.
Anganwadis are childcare centres in urban, rural and tribal districts, which provide supplementary nutrition to children below six years and are monitored under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).
“The picture that emerges is a grim one,’’ is Dr Hameed’s hard-hitting observation, as her report goes on to detail how anganwadis in most parts are run from ‘kachcha’ premises with no space for children to spend the entire four hours and how personal hygiene is ignored. She
estimates that there are toilets in less than 25% of the centres and referral health services are seriously wanting.
Maharashtra, with its startling malnutrition rates, presented a comparatively encouraging picture in her report. Take the instance of the Abadimandi centre in Aurangabad, which the team visited in May 2007 and found “uniformed children sitting in neat rows’’.
The centre boasted of a child-friendly toilet, a tap for drinking water and was stocked with educational kits, a first-aid toolbox, a mirror and combs. “We learnt that children are given six different recipes in a week and the cooked food is given in take-home-rations to children below three,’’ the report states.
The observations have predictably pleased state officials. “Generally, we receive a lot of criticism. Her account came as a surprise even to us. We have started a lot of new activities under the Integrated Child Development Services and are glad that the efforts are showing,’’ says Dr Vijay Satbir Singh, secretary, women and child development department.
A centre in the Kagazipur area of Aurangabad district was, in fact, cited as a model in “personal hygiene’’ practices. “We were pleasantly surprised to see that all the children got up and went outside to wash their hands. They then dried them and sat down to eat,’’ says the report, adding that the children seemed comfortable with this routine and it didn’t seem like an act for the visitors.
Some of the other centres, however, received brickbats for the shortage of IFA (folic acid) tablets and the lack of drinking water facilities, which highlighted the poor coordination of Integrated Child Development Services with other departments. State officials say more projects are in the pipeline. “We recently sanctioned Rs 38 crore (for this year) for the construction of new buildings for anganwadis,’’ says Dr Singh.
But activists aren’t satisfied with Maharashtra’s high scores. “The observations for a few centres cannot be generalised when it comes to the implementation of Integrated Child Development Services across the state. In Aurangabad itself, there are many tribal and slum pockets, which still do not have Integrated Child Development Services centres,’’ says Amulya Nidhi from Bal Hakk Abhiyaan. He says malnutrition in the state has seen a huge public outcry in the last two years, be it in the heart of Mumbai or the tribal belts of Melghat.
While government records show that 80,00,000 children benefit from Integrated Child Development Services, the malnutrition-related infant deaths (which stand at more than 7,500 annually) suggest that Maharashtra though ahead of other states still needs a lot more to be done.
Apex court order
brings smiles
Demand an anganwadi and get one within three months? A little-known Supreme Court verdict of 2006 has brought a smile to several slumdwellers in Mumbai. The court had ruled that any community with more than 40 children below six years could petition the ICDS authorities for an anganwadi and get it within three months. Voluntary organisations Shahar Vikas Manch (SVM) and YUVA did precisely that.
“The verdict was delivered while hearing a petition, which questioned why government godowns were overflowing with rotting food, while children remained malnourished. We have been holding meetings with the slumdwellers and mobilising women’s groups in slums around Malad,’’ said Mohan Chavan of SVM. Their awareness drives saw 42 new anganwadi centres being inaugurated in P-ward (Malad-Malvani) on Saturday. TNN

HEALING TOUCH: A file picture of a doctor examining a child at an anganwadi

Education Management and Moey matters...

Director’s ‘luxuries’ force VJTI shutdown

Last week, Bhartiya Kamgar Sena unit of VJTI had lodged a police complaint alleging he was involved in large scale corruption

MUMBAI MIRROR BUREAU

On Wednesday, the Veermata Jeejabai Technical Institute (VJTI) campus was shut after Dr K G Narayankhedkar — the director of the institute — attempted to get inside his office under police protection. Last week, a complaint had been lodged at the Matunga police station by the Bhartiya Kamgar Sena (BKS) unit of VJTI alleging corruption by the director.
The BKS filed a complaint after the minister of technical education Dilip Walse Patil, presented a report before the Assembly last week citing irregularities at VJTI.
The report, probing corruption charges against the director, confirms unauthorised purchase of a luxury car by the director. Since then political parties also have been demanding that the director Narayankhedkar be ousted. (see box)
There was commotion at the campus and police had to intervene to ensure that no law and order problem took place.
“The director went missing after the complaint. He tried to enter his office seeking police protection. The local Sena union leaders requested senior police inspector Azad Modi not to allow him to enter his office as he could tamper with the records,” said S N Nakhare from VJTI. The BKS members allege that the police paid no heed to their request and instead took 16 people in custody.
After this the demonstrators got charged up and immediately geared up to shut the institute.
“The director was nevertheless, escorted to his office by the police,” said a member of the non-teaching staff from the institute. The Sena leaders from Sena Bhavan rushed to the police station. DCP Sunil Ramanand present at Matunga police station heard the group. Later, he released the detained members. However, the agitation at the campus continued but without any disruptive activity.
A couple of days ago, local MLA Jagannath Shetty and Mehernosh Fitter — ward president of the Congress — had promised the staff at VJTI that they would take up the issue with the authorities and demand that the director be ousted.
The police said there was agitation but no law and order problem occurred. “The director has sought police protection and we provided the same as per directions given to us. Even the Sena members extended co-operation and peacefully carried on their protest,” said Modi. Naraynkhedkar was not available for comments despite several attempts.
VIDYARTHI SENA
TAKES DIRECTOR’S CAR KEYS
As per the World Bank assisted Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme,VJTI was allotted Rs 22 crore of the total of Rs 170 crore for the state.
There are allegations that a large part of the money was utilised by the director himself in leasing a Rs 15 lakh Toyota, a digital camera, a mobile phone worth Rs 29,000 and also a camcorder worth Rs 2 lakh, for his own usage.
On Tuesday members of the Shiv Sena’s student wing, Vidyarthi Sena, took away the director’s car keys stating that the car was bought with the World Bank money and he shouldn’t use it.

VJTI staff protest against the director on Wednesday for alleged misuse of a large grant given by the World Bank to the institute.

The world is their oyster...

Two years ago, three teenagers from a village near Pune got a chance to study IB at the Mahindra United World College. Now, they are headed for the US

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mulshi (Pune): Asde is a tiny village plagued by power cuts in Pune’s Mulshi taluka where children playing in rocky courtyards shriek with joy when the lights come on after dusk. Not quite the sort of village which sends its girls to America for higher studies.
But then, life can be full of surprises, like it was for Ashwini Bharam and Pramod Nikalje from Asde and Milind Jori from Bhadas, a neighbouring village. These three teenagers, who had never spoken English or seen the outside of their village two years ago, are now headed to the US for undergraduate studies.
Two years ago, the trio’s world changed completely when they were selected to study at the Mahindra United World College, India (MUWCI). MUWCI, spread out on a sprawling campus in Mulshi, is one of the 12 United World Colleges across the globe where students from around the world study together on a single campus.
It all began with Akshara, a social outreach program run in collaboration with MUWCI, which is involved in teaching children from neighbouring villages on the MUWCI campus. Mudit Tyagi, a student from a poor family in UP, who studied at the United World College in the US, was the brain behind Akshara.
Two years ago, the Akshara team suggested getting a few meritorious village kids to study the International Baccalaureate at MUWCI, an idea that the college principal, David Wilkinson, agreed to. And so, Ashwini, Pramod and Milind, who had studied in a Marathi-medium school till Std X, were suddenly catapulted into a world of cultural diversity, on a campus populated by a whole range of skin colours with myriad accents.
The transition wasn’t easy. “I was rather apprehensive for the first few months. The students had to cope with so many changes, not the least of which was to switch from the Marathi medium to the English medium,’’ says Wilkinson.
“At first I couldn’t understand a thing. Everyone spoke in English. All the classes were in English. It just didn’t make sense to me,’’ says Pramod, adding that in the village, students simply studied English to pass the SSC exams. But gradually, they learnt the language by hearing it around them.
It helped to have classmates from countries like Mongolia and Japan, who weren’t too fluent with English, either. “We would point to objects when we didn’t know what they were called,’’ grins Pramod.
And the staff, too, went out of its way to ensure that the trio fitted in. Harsha Joshi, executive director at Akshara, not only worked with the students on campus and drove them to study harder and practise their English, but also frequented their villages to convince their parents of the importance of the programme they were studying.
During the first few months, Pramod, Milind and Ashwini were practically non-resident students; they’d run back home at every opportunity. “The cultural shock was overwhelming,’’ says Nitin Padte, the only Maharashtrian faculty on campus, in whom the students often confided their fears. It was also difficult for them to digest the friendships between boys and girls on campus. “I’d barely spoken to a boy in school,’’ says Ashwini.
But then, after the initial hiccups, the three got caught up in the whirlwind of activity that’s part of life on campus, and began to love the environment they were in. After coming from a school where they simply crammed their texts, they suddenly found themselves participating in classroom discussions and doing their own research. “Out here, examinations aren’t based on textbook answers. We learnt to find the answers for ourselves,’’ says Milind.
“During the first term, they found it so tough to cope with the change in medium that they’d fail in practically every subject,’’ says Padte. Now, however, they have not only mastered the language but made close friends from around the world. “There’s Toshi and Nozomi from Japan, Ada from Hungary, JJ from Mongolia...’’ counts Pramod. Ashwini was “adopted’’ by a gang of Scandinavian girls whom she’s very close to. The village kids now deftly switch from speaking in English with their foreign classmates to talking in Marathi with each other.
“Beneath the skin colour, I’ve learnt that everyone is the same,’’ adds Milind wisely. His Spanish roommate, Pablo Cancelo, says he’s impressed that while the other teens on campus paste posters of their favourite movie stars on the walls, Milind’s wall has a chart on poverty alleviation. “It’s to MUWCI’s credit that it not only has students from European countries studying on campus but also underprivileged students from India,’’ adds Pablo.
The youngsters aren’t ashamed of their background, and have often taken their classmates over to the village. There have been some rather dramatic changes in their appearance, too. For instance, when Joshi first took the three students to Pune to shop for clothes, Ashwini refused to step out of the trial room in jeans, something she’d never worn before. Today, she struts around campus in her bright pink capris, and even sports her new look back home. Pramod, too, now has a floppy hairstyle that his parents in the village aren’t terribly pleased about.
All three of them are now nearing the end of the two-year IB diploma course and have got admission to American universities. Ashwini plans to study economics, while Pramod will study bio-technology. Milind, who’s keen on studying agriculture, says he will return to his village once he is back from the US. “Everyone in my village feels there’s nothing here for them. They want to migrate to cities like Pune. I want to return home and show people how much one can do in a village,’’ he says.
anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com

A CULTURAL LEAP: Pramod Nikalje (left), Ashwini Bharam and Milind Jori (right) with Milind’s roommates Pablo Cancelo and Morshed Mannan at the MUWCI campus. (Below) Power cuts are a frequent occurrence in Ashwini’s village Asde near Pune

The Art of the Start!

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

After completed my engineering I landed up with a job in Aakar Knowledge Solutions - a startup by three IITians - my dream job and bosses who were friends and never bosses. I wished to work with them forever.... its dangerous when you are in love with your job. It still feels like a dream - I quit my job on march 15th 2008, to start up a firm with my college mates Vishal and Sonia. we named the firm - The Magic Tree [ www.themagictree.in ] after nearly three days of name hunting.

So here we are; two weeks [day 12 counting Sundays] into entrepreneurship - the world of uncertainties. We are still unclear about the perfect product. However we a re sure about one thing, we are gonna do our part towards improving education. Entertainment will be the next stop - the three of us being passionate about it.

When you are on your own, accomplishing small things too feels great. During the first two weeks we are ready with a product, marketing plan, brochures, flyers, b-cards, website - everything done by the three of us - zero outsourcing. The only cost incurred has been for 3 lappys and a net connection.

More updates later...

Co-founder n Director,
Sandeep Raj Sharma.

Young Minds - HT article

Claim to fame: Have invented an ecofriendly way of controlling mosquitoes and have won the Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science (IRIS) award 2007. Their story: It was not the first time that Divya Venkataraman and Neha Kulkarni, students of Std IX of Modern English School, Chembur, dabbled in science projects. But since it was a chance to participate with IRIS, the duo thought they might take it a bit seriously Fed up with mosquitoes in . their area, 14-year-olds Venkataraman and Kulkarni decided to come up with an ecofriendly solution. "Since this was an environmental science project, we thought we could tackle the issue of mosquitoes by not resorting to chemicals which are detrimental to health and the environment," says Venkataraman. Since both the girls are neighbours and batch-mates, it was easier for them to put in long hours of experiment and research. "It was quite exciting to brainstorm and come up with crazy solutions," says Kulkarni. While trying out various techniques, they decided to fill trays with water and leave it at the base of different trees. Surprisingly, after a couple of days they found out that except the papaya tree, mosquitoes had laid eggs on all the other trays. "We screamed ‘Eureka' in unison - much like Archimedes," the girls giggle. The conclusion was that mosquitoes do not lay eggs on papaya trees and the young inventors made a mosquito repellant with the extracts of papaya. "It was not as easy as it sounds. We had to struggle and conduct various experiments to come up with this solu tion," they say.

And this is not all. Not only have the girls won an award with IRIS, they are selected to present their project at the International Science and Engineer ing Fair (ISEF) at Atlanta in May this year. "No one from my family has ever gone abroad and this is the first time that the youngest member of the family will take a flight," smiles Kulkarni.

Sitalakshmi Parmeshwaran, the geography and environment science teacher, "It is a proud moment for our school. Our principal has always been encouraging and we ensure that we help young students who have the will to learn and create. I am sure they will excel in Atlanta." The girls who love outdoor sports as much as they enjoy being close to nature say, "We are excited and hope we can do our country proud." As Venkataraman, signs off by saying that she wants to be an aeronautical engineer, Kulkarni admits that she is still on cloud nine with the success of this experiment and will take each day as it comes. As the duo continues up dating their project for Atlanta, they have also sent their invention for patenting. WHAT IS IRIS? IRIS is an effort by CII, DST and Intel to provide a platform for students to participate in research based science projects. IRIS reaches to the grass root level and contacts students and teachers and educates them on how to make the projects by conducting workshops across India. This year IRIS has reached 26 states and has conducted 68 workshops for students. LAST YEAR MUMBAI WINNERS (ISEF) Vaishnavi Viswanathan Modern English High School (Second prize of $500 U.S. Savings Bond) Invention: Anti-termite properties of Desmostachya bipinnata. Rehan Netarwala Sarvesh Nevatia Jai Hind College Invention: Spherical Wheels – A New Revolution.

BEYOND CONVENTION

THE TEACHING-LEARNING EQUATION, WHETHER WITHIN THE CLASSROOM OR OUTSIDE IT, NOW ENCOMPASSES INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES SUCH AS GETTING INTO THE SKIN OF CHARACTERS AND USING ART, MUSIC, DANCE AND TRAVEL TO LEARN CONCEPTS BETTER, AMONGST NUMEROUS OTHER CREATIVE APPROACHES. GEETHA RAO LISTS SOME UNIQUE EXAMPLES
FROM ACROSS THE WORLD

The words 'teaching' and 'learning' project different images to different people. Conventionally, these actions were perceived as dull and tedious tasks, but that is far from the truth, especially now. The world over, there are academicians, who thrive on making the whole procedure of teaching and learning, a stimulating and inspiring experience. To them, innovation is the name of the game and they strive to bring excitement into the everyday classroom with their novel methods.
Tina Seelig, Executive Director, Stanford University Technology Ventures, is one such pioneer, who employs several out-of-the box teaching methods.“Most of my techniques involve getting students engaged with the entrepreneurial process. This means taking risks, challenging assumptions, identifying opportunities, leveraging limited resources, and creating value,” says Tina.
An exciting project Tina ran around the world, including India, Thailand, Ecuador and the US, dealt with making students add vaue to an everyday object, which culminated in to a film, Imagine It.“Students were given a packet of post-it notes and five days to create as much value with them as possible,”explains Tina. So, one team created a musical piece by asking people to write musical notes on the post-its, and put them together. Another team created awareness on wellness of the heart, by getting people to agree to take care of their hearts by signing the post-its etc.
In another method used in Mumbai and Bangalore,Tina asked students to visit the local bazaar and speak to coffee shop personnel or cobblers to find out all about their businesses as well as to observe how many customers they drew and what the turnover was.Thus the participants were made to get out of their comfort zones, since many were hesitant to approach strangers and ask them these insightful questions.
Another exercise involved asking participants to make two lists, one filled with good ideas, the other with bad ones (to start a business in). The papers with the good ideas were then torn up, and the participants were asked to convert all the bad ideas into good ones.The lesson? There is an opportunity in every 'fuzzy' idea.
Further, pairs of students are given paper and colour pencils, and each has to design a wallet for the other based on his/ her personality. It could be fancy or simple, loud or understated. Also, the person could be a spendthrift or tight-fisted. So, each individual must consider whether their partner needs many or few pockets for credit cards and the like.The lesson: understand your customer.
In the UK, at Oxford Brookes University Business School, Richard Beresford, Director, Centre for Creativity and Enterprise Development, uses innovative teaching practices, which are fun too. One of his exercises deals with placing Brookes' students on a boat off the Swedish coastline with students from seven other European countries.This exercise forms the basis for networking and opens many business opportunities.
Brian Morgan, Director, Cardiff School of Management, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, gives an example of how the physical environment can be linked to teaching and learning. Students visit local underground caves, go white water rafting or abseiling.“All these activities have a purpose attached, such as getting somewhere and coming back safe, and these form part of the students' learning experiences,”says Morgan.
At the SP Jain Center of Management, in Singapore and Dubai, Dean Debashis Chatterjee, formerly with IIM Lucknow, uses unusual methods such as SMILO or Self Mastery in Life and Organisation. Learning, he believes, happens not so much through lectures, but through total immersion in the learning process. So SMILO encourages students to work on projects such as nurturing a plant for six months or making a drab bus stop in Singapore look interesting.“I would like my students to learn how to use power without holding on to it, as this is the essence of leadership presence,” explains Chatterjee.
Chatterjee who offers seminar courses at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on wisdom leadership has now developed a course in Singapore, based on two war classics: the Gita, and China's ancient military treatise, The Art of War.Here, students learn how to use ‘soft power’ in winning corporate wars. The seminars cover such topics as wise decisionmaking, strategic mindset, managing in response to time and stress and so on.
At the Singapore Institute of Management and Tamasek Polytechnic, students take pushcarts on rent, source items like wallets, handbags, music albums and others that students would like to buy, and sell them at a profit.This helps them to learn sourcing, display, supply, customer service, costing and general business sense.
At Singapore Polytechnic, professors guide students to create robots that play soccer, cashing in on the appeal of sport to youngsters.Through this, they learn about movements of the human body and artificial intelligence.
Trilochan Sastry, Professor, IIM, Bangalore, speaks of the ‘Independent Activities Period’ at MIT, which is a week devoted to things outside the curriculum when students do ‘crazy stuff’. “Once they hoisted a car on top of a dome on campus. While this may seem bizarre, it tests their ability to balance the car on such a surface, which is an engineering feat,”enthuses Sastry.
An innovative method Sastry has observed at MIT is team teaching. He explains, “Two experts in different areas, like marketing and production, teach the same class so students can gain a multidisciplinary perspective.”
Closer to home, at Women's Institute for Studies in Development Oriented Management (WISDOM), Rajasthan, students were given an open-ended poem by Prof Subhash Sharma of Indian Business Academy, to which they added their lines. This became the WISDOM college song. Sharma explains,“Poetry develops the right brain and unfolds creativity. I use poetry to expand the students' mental horizons, because management goes beyond technical know-how.”
Sharma has penned another ‘corporate rhyme’ called Churning of the Ocean by the Quantum Rope, and set it to a tune which students sing. He believes it gets students charged up.“Goals that earlier appeared tough now seem easy.The group chanting energises them and fights negative emotions,” reveals Sharma.
In another instance, Ramnath Narayanswamy, Professor, IIM, Bangalore, uses epics like the Mahabharatha and interprets the roles by the Pandavas and Kauravas in lieu of today's managers. According to this exercise, Yuddhishtira is a mentor, Bhima an executor manager, Nakul an enabler, Sahadeva the visionary without action, Arjuna is the manager in search of his meaning in life, and Karna is loyalty personified- the manager who'd probably buy vegetables for his boss, while Krishna is the CEO!
Narayanswamy uses culture in his classes for IIM students where he exposes them to craftsmen and artists. Students understand what makes them tick, how they cope with failure, what inspires them, and how their love for art supercedes everything, including money.
Another course for businesswomen offered by Kalyani Gandhi, Professor, IIM, Bangalore, uses dance as a confidence-building tool. “Students have used Yakshagaana and fusion dance forms for themes like empowerment,”says Kalyani.
While the field of management lends itself to creative learning and teaching, there have been innovative methods emplpyed in engineering and mathematics too.
At IIIT, Bangalore, students and Professor GNS Prasanna, have developed a novel way of playing chess, called inverse chess or i-chess. Players play the game backwards: they start with a few pieces and get all the pieces back. Explains Prasanna,“You play backwards instead of forwards.The game is constructive, not destructive, because your end result involves getting as many pieces back as possible.” While the game is fun, it involves math, programming, reasoning, logic and analytical thinking.
Similarly, Rajendra Joshi from International Academy for Creative Teaching speaks of a snakes and ladders game that was created for computer engineering students, and how students of civil engineering in Chennai have devised a board game that helps them in the revision of hydroelectric projects.
As you can see from the examples above, while the US and UK are forerunners in innovative teaching methods, India is not lagging behind either. So, the question of whether teaching and learning should still be considered boring, is purely rhetorical not to mention, obsolete.
geetha.rao@timesgroup.com

Participants in the management game Chankaya 2008 organised by LMA and AIMA in Amity University

TOI Article

Gauging precise age of universe

Kenneth Chang

The universe is 13.73 billion years old, give or take 120 million years, astronomers said last week. That age, based on precision measurements of the oldest light in the universe, agrees with results announced in 2006. Two additional years of data from a Nasa satellite known as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have narrowed the uncertainty by tens of millions of years.
“Everything is tightening up and giving us better and better precision all the time,” said Charles L Bennett, a professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and the leader of the group analyzing the data. “It’s actually significantly better than previous results. There is all kinds of richness in the data.”
About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough for protons and electrons to combine into hydrogen atoms. That released a burst of light, which over the billions of years since has cooled to a bath of microwaves pervading the cosmos.
Yet there are slight variations in the background, which the Nasa satellite has been measuring since 2001. Those variations have given evidence supporting an idea known as cosmic inflation, a rapid expansion of the universe in the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second of its existence.
The new set of data is precise enough to differentiate between various proposed models of inflation. “Some of them are now completely ruled out, some of them are hanging at the edge and some of them are perfectly fine,” Dr Bennett said. “We are sorting between these things.”
Astronomers can also now see strong evidence for the universe being awash in almost massless subatomic particles known as neutrinos. This sea of primordial neutrinos created in the Big Bang was expected.
“The new result is that it’s not consistent with zero anymore,” said Edward L Wright, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles. As more years of data are gathered, Dr Bennett said, astronomers may even be able to deduce new unusual types of neutrinos that have so far not been detected in particle accelerators. NYT NEWS SERVICE