Articles by Vijaya Pushkarna

With the presentation of the Delhi budget due any day now, stakeholding citizens crystal gaze at every word, comma and fullstop in the finance minister's statements. But Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds the finance portfolio besides education, left little scope for guesses on what the Kejriwal government's priorities will be for the upcoming 2022-23 state budget. For one, the Delhi government came out with full page newspaper advertisement inviting suggestions from citizens to send their ideas on what the focus and specifics of the budget should be. Normally, pre-budget public consultations around policy and allocations generally…

On February 25th, a meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority chaired by Lt Governor Anil Baijal decided to lift all COVID related restrictions, and announced that schools will be fully offline from April 1st. In less than 24 hours, Baijal received a representation from the National Progressive Schools' Conference — an association of senior secondary schools across the country — welcoming the reopening of schools, but wanted him to advance the opening date. Open the schools fully by March 2nd, they said, as they had observed a “huge learning gap in children from nursery to class 8”. In the letter,…

Manoj Kumar, who was handling loans for a private sector bank before COVID struck, has seen it all. He lost his Rs 35,000 a month job and sold vegetables as livelihood and to pay the EMI for his housing loan. The NOIDA resident says that he even considered going to a village and trying for a MNREGA job during the lockdown days. Manoj is emphatic that Budget 2022 has ignored the whole segment comprised of the urban unemployed. “I have not met anyone who feels things will improve by way of jobs for the young, educated, unemployed. No one is…

Residents of the NCR town of Ghaziabad, which is part of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, have learnt one important lesson in recent years. That public health is an issue that residents have to solve for themselves through their RWAs, or other people’s associations. There was a distant hope, in vain as it turned out, that the new budget would at least mention public health, especially in the poll bound states. Not surprisingly, even though polling in this assembly segment is on February 10th, no poll manifesto as yet has promised anything that will improve the environment for better health. Administered by…

This is the second of a two part story on the Delhi government’s initiative in introducing Entrepreneurship Mindset Classes for school students of classes 11-12. You can read the first part here. Students are clearly smitten by what is expected of them in this programme seeking to encourage and nurture entrepreneurial mindset.  “People study, work hard and pass exams, yet very few get jobs, and fewer of them get decent jobs,” says Khushi, a student of the government-run School of Excellence in Kalkaji. “If this curriculum and the Business Blasters makes me a business woman, I will know where I…

This is the first of a two part story on the Delhi government’s initiative in introducing Entrepreneurship Mindset Classes for school students of classes 11-12 Between June and December, when a satellite TV channel first aired its promo for the Indian version of the popular American entrepreneur reality show Shark Tank,  scores of class 11 and 12 students from Delhi government schools had pitched to “sharks” business ideas they had executed and discussed investments needed to scale up their enterprises. Many came out with flying colours in interviews that were no less gruelling than those faced by candidates who made it…

Ever since its launch in 2018, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been trying to include his “revolutionary step” of doorstep delivery of rations in Delhi to the list of 100 services presently available under this scheme. Presently, people pick up their rations from Fair Price Shops (FPS) under the Public Distribution Scheme (PDS).  The state government was all set to roll out the scheme initially on March 25th, and again in mid-June. Both times, Lt Governor Anil Baijal ensured it did not happen. Baijal represents the BJP-led Central government that has constantly been at loggerheads with the AAP government. The…

Reforming Indian agriculture in a way that would match the country’s food needs with ensuring farmers’ security has been debated for decades now. But a reform package, that would be welcomed by farmers and consumers from Punjab to Kanyakumari was never going to be easy or simple.  This Central government’s version of bringing about much-needed agriculture reform were three new farm laws that overrode all the other laws that came before it. Unfortunately, the new laws addressed the various issues that farmers faced in much the same way that the blind men of the fable saw the elephant. No wonder…

It did not last long. 10 days after the reopening of schools in Delhi for Classes 1 to 5, they had to be closed again because of severe air pollution in the national capital region. According to the latest, schools will remain closed till November 21st, but if they do reopen after that, the experiences and observations reported here from early November may well continue to present the true scenario among schools, teachers and students. Sagar and Sonali were overjoyed when they learnt that they would be going back to their school in Ghazipur from November 1st. Their mother Kriti…

Susheela Kumari was a quiet, average class 5 student studying in a school run by one of Delhi’s three municipal corporations. Now, authorities in two schools are looking for her. Susheela has not violated any law. And she is not the only student for whom there is such a close — almost police-like — hunt! This scenario playing out in the national capital could be described as bizarre — teachers in both municipal corporations schools and schools run by Delhi government are in a race to locate students like Susheela who have passed the 5th class. The reason given is that these…