Today’s blog happens to be first blog of March 2020, which also is the beginning of the first week of the month. In this blog I would like to share with you some interesting news/developments happening in the country.
1 Recently I came across a Face book post, and after reading the same I was shocked. It was a news item which, which was quoting some survey done by BBC Hindi news in West Bengal. What the survey said that there have been increased in Hindu students who are studying in Madarsas (Islamic schools) During the upcoming Madrasa’s Board exam in 1st week of March 2020, there are total about 70,000 students appearing for this exam and out of this 18% students are Hindu. This Madarsa board exam is equivalent to other 10 the class board exams. As per Madarsa’s Board chief the curriculum of this Board is based on the Secondary School Board exam. The Madarsa Board chief is quite thrilled in admitting that “not only in India but through out the world our is only Madarsa Board where non Muslim students are studying.
Although the Madarsa Board claims that due to better atmosphere and better teachers we are attracting Hindu students in our Madarsas. The main reason for Hindu students attending this Madarsas is that in many small town/villages where ever theses Madarsas are located, the standard of Govt/Municipal schools are so pathetic that these schools have no proper teachers, and on top of that there is shortage of teachers. Secondly the teachers who are employed in these schools have no proper training to teach the particular subject, for example a teacher pro efficient in teaching History will be asked to teach Mathmatics, or teacher pro efficient in Bengali will be asked to teach History etc etc. So parents are getting disgusted by the education parted in these schools are forced to send their children to Madrasas.
On details investigation, it has been found that the State govt is encouraging these Madarsas, and where ever these Madarsas are located the standards of other state govt schools are not properly maintained, so that children who are interested in some form of proper coaching turned to these Madarsas. Some Hindu parents on conditions that their identity will not be revealed said that it looks like State Govt is purposely backing this Madrasa education. There is one more reason because there are less number of seats in govt school, and private funded schools are asking for donation for admitting the students, which an ordinary parent can not afford.
There is one more thing, the study of Arabic language is compulsory in these Madarsas, but presently during Madarsa Board exam of Arabic language, students are at liberty to reply the answer in any other language for the questions asked totalling to 65% of total marks of the question paper. This may be initial sops given to non Islamic students, no idea what will happen in the future.
Many people are in doubt about the intention of State govt/Madarsa Board regarding this type of education, as in back of their mind there is a still doubt whether this might lead to student turning Islamic in future. Alternatively, if intention is correct then these type of Madarsas will behave like Missionary run convent school.
2 Cricket- So India’s tour of New Zealand ended on disastrous note with India losing last test match by 7 wickets today. During this tour India played T20 I, One Day Internationals (ODI) and Test matches. In T20I, India won 5-0, but they lost both ODI and Test series 3-0 and 2-0 respectively, this could be India’s most unsuccessful tour in recent times.
In T20 I , bowlers and batsmen performed wonderfully but in both ODIs and Tests it was our batsmen who failed miserably while the bowlers stuck to their task and performed well. One of the main reason for our batting collapse was Skipper Virat Kohli’s form, his form was not there in any form except for one 50+ score in T20 I , his performance while batting was very poor. With Rohit Sharma getting injured in earlier part of tour, this resulted in India being short of the batsman who was in best of the form Secondly during test matches the test specialist batsmen like Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanumanta Vihari also failed miserably. It has so happened that after the exit of Sachin Tendulkar, Indian team depends upon Virat Kohli, but during this tour Virat Kohli let down his fans. In NZ tour Virat played 9 matches with 11 innings, but he could score only 218 runs with highest of 51, and at average of 19.81. This lull of runs have come again after 2014 in his career, when during the tour of England he scored in 10 matches (15 innings) just 254 runs at an average of 18.14. I hope he soon recovers his form as Indian team needs him badly as batsman.
Waiting for your comments/views/feed backs.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
2nd Mar 2020.
R. N. Mungale.
It is a matter of serious concern that Madarassas have Hindu students..
One can not depend only on Virat. Others must also contribute