India development Alternatives

Friday, August 15, 2008

Happy independence day: enjoy the ten National anthems

First things first

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Have been the browsing online for the independence day stuff and stumbled upon this wonderful music blog from Gaurdian newspapers UK. It was surprisng and wonderful as well as shocking that My Indian National Anthem was not in the top 10 (Quite naturally everybody loves to see their National anthem in at the Top). Don't miss the Comments section of the blog.

Indian Independence 2007

Uruguay: National anthem

One of the most euphoric pieces of classical music I've ever heard. Banks of trumpets play crescendos to false endings - for five minutes. But somehow it works.

Bangladesh: My Golden Bengal

A wonderful anthem that sounds like it was written for a stroll along the Seine. It really needs Jacques Brel. Which is probably not what composer Rabindranath Tagore had in mind.

Tajikistan: National anthem

Written when the country was part of the USSR, it sounds like the music that plays in James Bond films when a Russian spy is about to cut off Bond's manhood. It doesn't try to soar, but frighten, and it's all the better for it.

Mauritania: National anthem

A trip into the heart of the souk, albeit a menacing one. The melody is so unusual that most Mauritanian's can't sing along to it, so pretend it doesn't have any words.

Dominica: Isle of Beauty, Isle of Splendour

A simple, spiralling melody stuck on repeat for 47 seconds, but there's such movement and elegance to it. Don't confuse with the Dominican Republic's, which is wretched.

US Virgin Isles: Virgin Islands March

It's Mary Poppins! One of the few anthems to literally pull out all the bells and whistles. This should be a soundtrack to a kid's film.

Senegal: Strum Your Koras, Strike Your Balafons

How can an anthem that name checks two local instruments in its title - a harp and a xylophone - be any less than brilliant? It's really two tunes - the first twinkles, the second strolls. But both are amazing.

Nigeria: Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria's Call Obey

Written in 1978 by the Nigerian Police Band, this should be an awful march. Fortunately it features relentless afrobeat percussion, which makes any tune outstanding.

Nepal: Hundreds of Flowers

Adopted last year, when Nepal's House of Representatives threw out the old, western-style anthem. This folk melody on strings and hand drums sounds like slowed-down bhangra. Shame it's probably unplayable by brass, so unlikely to be heard outside Nepal.

Japan: May Your Reign Last Forever

Solemn. So much so, it'll have you thinking of everyone you've lost for its duration. Rarely does an anthem carry such weight.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

India rubbishes Unesco's global report on education

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TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005 12:41:23 AM]

DELHI: UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report ’06 may hold countries like India responsible for failure to meet the ’15 goal of universal primary education and gender parity, but the government isn’t buying the story. Instead, the government finds the report to be based on outdated information. The ’06 report states that India, despite improvement (the EFA Development Index has increased from 0.696 in ’01 to 0.741 in ’02), seems to have found its way into the league of nations presenting an obstacle to the fulfilment of the millennium development goals.

“Three-fourth of the world’s illiterates live in 12 countries — India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Egypt, Brazil, Iran, Morocco and Congo.” The government feels the report is based on outdated information, and thus, does not present a true picture of the improvements made. Speaking at a function organised by the Unesco to release the fourth edition of the report, Kumud Bansal, secretary, elementary education & literacy said, “The EDI rankings are on the basis of data for ’01-02. Several important initiatives have been taken in the country since then including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the revised Mid-Day Meal programme, Kasturba Gandhi Ballika Vidyalaya scheme, etc that would have a positive impact on progress towards achieving EFA goals. The EFA development index calculated by the ’06 report takes into account an adult literacy rate of around 60% for India, although this is lower than the rate reported by Census ’01 and the subsequent statistics.”

Interestingly, although India is enumerated as a country that would fail to achieve the Dakar goal of achieving 50% literacy by ’15, as far as prospects for meeting universal primary education targets by ’15 goes, India is not included in any category that is likely to meet any target or not. Mr Bansal said that this was a “major omission” in the report. Other omissions in the report related to gender in curriculum. Mr Bansal said, “The report refers to studies that were carried out in 1984 and 1987 — before the launch of the National Literacy Mission. Reference to outdated material that is more than 20 years old in a report that seeks to measure progress made over the last one year is perhaps not completely relevant.” Mr Bansal said important decisions have been taken in recent years that are likely to impact achievement of EFA goals. These include the imposition of a 2% education cess to provide funds for elementary education, the commitment of the Centre to increase resources up to 6% of GDP and the proposed legislation on free and compulsory.

Marginal attention paid to literacy- UNESCO

The Reports and Statistics are all that the Govt boasts off.... Come what may theres no change for the millions of young and the old, Education esp., the Elementary edu is the worst affected in India...

Voluntary Organisations are better in their efforts www.sevabharathi.org

A UNESCO sponsored study suggests that by paying marginal attention to adults living without basic literacy skills, governments and donor countries are actually curtailing progress towards Education for All (EFA).

The fourth edition of the EFA Global Monitoring Report ‘Literacy for life’ released on Wednesday says, that governments and donor countries are curtailing progress towards EFA by according only marginal attention to the 771 million adults living without basic literacy skills.

“Literacy is the right and is foundation for further learning that must be tackled through quality schooling,” said Nicholas Burnett, the report’s director. According to EFA Global Monitoring Report, three-quarters of the world’s adult illiterates live in 12 countries. South and West Asia has the lowest adult literacy rate of these regions (58.6 per cent), followed by sub-Saharan Africa (59.7 per cent) and the Arab states (62.7 per cent). Countries with the lowest adult literacy rates in the world are Burkina Faso (12.8 per cent), Niger (14.4 per cent) and Mali (19 per cent).

The illiteracy rate among women is higher than men. Women account for 64 per cent of the adults worldwide, who cannot read or write. This figure is virtually unchanged since 1990 when it was 63 per cent.

Thursday, February 03, 2005