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Showing posts from November, 2012

Sitting on the Offence: Sunday Mid-day column Nov. 25

Outrage might not have been an inappropriate response to the discovery that a Class VI CBSE text book published by S.Chand and Sons and titled New Healthway: Health, Hygiene, Physiology, Safety, Sex Education, Games and Exercises says that non-vegetarians "easily cheat, tell lies, they forget promises, they are dishonest and tell bad words, steal, fight and turn to violence and commit sex crimes." But perhaps we should be more concerned that while the book has been in circulation, no one thought it fit to point out its problematic content, which also included pronouncements like “to get married without earning a bad name is every girl’s dream.” Did no one point it out because these prejudices more or less synced with the average school teacher’s world view or because no one is actually reading any text books in schools? Who cares? Not the educational establishment apparently. On TV, one school principal declared they would discontinue the book because “This