Some of the most fascinating topics covered this week are: Philanthropy (An IPS officer becomes the savior for the marginalized students), Parenting (It was never meant to be this isolating), Business (Inside the airline industry's meltdown; Marico's Harsh Mariwala on FMCG start-ups), and Investments (Mark Hawtin on Digital 4.0 and post-Covid beneficiaries)
Image: Shutterstock
1. How an IPS officer is changing the fortunes of students from marginalised communities in Telangana [Source: Economic Times] One of the ways to eradicate poverty is through providing good education to the poor. And this is what Mr. RS Praveen Kumar, an IPS officer. He heads the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) and its sister organisation, the tribal welfare residential educational institutes (TTWREIS) as its secretary. He is widely credited for leading the remarkable turnaround of the institutes, with what he says has been unstinting support from the state government. Over the last five years, these residential schools — which provide free education, boarding, food and other facilities to Class V-XII children from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in straitened circumstances — have been churning out a string of success stories. Last month, the institutes saw a record of sorts with 706 students clearing the intensely competitive Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Mains (qualifying rate of less than 2%), for which parents typically spend lakhs of rupees on private coaching. “This is just a humble beginning. I expect close to 100 seats in the NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, a common qualifying exam for medical colleges) exams. Imagine, 100 of the poorest of the poor, going to medical colleges,” says Mr. Kumar. A 1995-batch IPS officer, credited with two mass surrenders of Maoists, among other milestones, Mr. Kumar took the unusual step in 2012 of requesting then chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy that he be posted as secretary of the social welfare residential schools’ society. It wasn’t easy for Mr. Kumar as there was stiff resistance from the school teachers, who went on strike. This had been a post held by IAS officers and not a coveted one at that, with terms often lasting just a few months. Mr. Kumar had to assure them that he was not there to police them. “I went to the hostels and told them, I belong to a Scheduled Caste, both my parents were teachers and I studied in social welfare hostels. I said I wanted to repay my debt to the institute which is responsible for whatever I am today. They reluctantly withdrew their protest,” he says. Mr. Kumar has overhauled the education system in Telangana and this is what India needs in every state to empower the poor to study and in return serve the nation. 2. Parenting was never meant to be this isolating [Source: NY Times] Until early 2020, family and community members would help with holding, grooming and sometimes even feeding your baby. Basically, in all of human history, parents have never, ever raised children in isolated nuclear units the way they have been doing for much of 2020, with little to no hands-on family or community support. Individual families being completely responsible for children “is absolutely unheard of except in total emergencies,” said Stephanie Coontz, an emeritus professor of history and family at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and the author of “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap.” We’ve always had someone looking after children. From colonial America through the early 20th century, there were almost no parents whose days were dedicated to just child care without support. Poorer parents worked alongside their children as young as 5 in crowded tenement sweatshops, textile mills and in the fields, while older children and other family helped care for children too young to work. And wealthier white families were not doing the child care without household workers. “Middle-class women were able to shift more time into child rearing in the 1800s only by hiring domestic help,” Coontz noted. But, things are changing now, with pandemic forcing everyone to stay indoors. Even before the pandemic, modern mothers and fathers were spending more time with their children than they did 45 years ago. Mothers were spending five hours a week doing things like reading to children, ferrying them to activities and helping them with homework, compared with 1 hour and 45 minutes in 1975, and they have less solo leisure time than their midcentury counterparts. Those parents “complaining” about caring for their children are possibly doing so because this is not sustainable. At this point, many parents who remain employed are scared to lose their jobs or be pushed out of them to care for children. 3. Citizens’ assemblies are increasingly popular [Source: The Economist]