On the eve

 It is a customary practice that the President would deliver a speech on the eve of the Independence Day, the Republic Day, that is, occasions that matter in the national context, the "fetes nationales" as the Frenchies would put it. The Prime Minister would address the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the Independence Day. The President's and the Prime Minister's addresses behove larger issues. 

For a nation (a concept currently contested, both in theory and in praxis at many levels) to progress, very much necessary are the "on the eve" and "on the D-Day" ideas, notions, thoughts of citizens as well, right? Hence this "on the eve" attempt on our blog.

Whatever be our profession, we must pursue it genuinely, not merely for the namesake nor merely for monetary gains, right? If you are a lecturer, you should try and make your students like the subject, relate its relevance to contemporary contexts, put it in a larger perspective beyond grades and degrees, right?

Instead if you teach as little as is possible (with the autonomy of institutes, such an educational practice is easier as you design and teach the 'syllabus', you set the question paper and you correct the answer sheets! Sure, even in the centrally, that is, at the University level, created question paper setting, the professorial cliques with the back-scratching 'camaraderie' have their own ways to 'in-form'), leak the paper but oh-so-indirectly, give ten marks on five, correct thousand answer sheets in a day, generally freely distribute marks/grades as if they were the birdseed so as to remain in the good books of students, colleagues, authorities, whom are you deceiving except your own self, right?

Do students respect such teachers? Even if they cared the least, should not there be, instead of groupism and petty politicking, professional integrity as well as personal ethics?It is such loose, lax loss that ruins institutes and disciplines, right? And in the wake creates obsessively self-ish  Sonam's and Muskan's!

Much worse is casteism, a concept crafted and continued by the colonisers, currently carrying much weightage. Identity wars are so fierce now as religion, region, race, language, class, caste and gender are its parameters. 

In an era when science  n technology are  constantly re-organising realities, the AI being the most obvious current example, is not it necessary that you, too, are genuine in the 'progress-ing'  scenario, right?

In brief, the citizens'  to-do-list has to be large(-hearted) for a truly vibrant india!

Pratima@ Can a nation progess if its citizens could not care less!?!