AI my Brain !!

I must confess here, I am (still!) one of the nay-sayers of AI and self-styled Don Quixote who with his pen and penchant for nature wishes to ride towards the windmills of data-centres that power AI and big tech and claim a chivalrous, romantic fight (or flight). 

I have, on certain occasions, used AI to correct, edit what I write and generate some images for me. I might learn some new AI tools as I see my colleagues use them and finish the work that used to take us a few days or weeks in minutes. However, my Quixotic refusal to get swayed away by AI as the panacea for all troubles, including the even more quixotic claims that they can solve some of the most pressing global problems such as hunger, extreme poverty and climate change puts me in a small minority. 

In particular, when it comes to my own sector, education and learning of young children, I am not too sure if it’s helping or hindering or transforming the already fragile process of learning! Sometime back I wrote and presented a paper on how digital technologies (including AI) are needed for an outcome-oriented education system, where I discussed their need and use-cases (a favorite term of all tech-enthusiasts!) for at least four areas - tech4governance, tech4teaching, tech4assessments and tech4learning. I stand by my view that the potential of technology is largely under-utilised in our country and it could certainly improve things. I see tons and tons of data collected on paper (registers, forms), (whatever sounds big) bytes and bytes of data collected but scarcely used well. We can keep blaming capacity, capability, scale or anything till the cows come back home but, the problem is we invest huge sums of money and thousands of hours of human effort to collect & store the data - it’s comes at an opportunity cost, of spending that in teaching-learning process for teachers & school leaders. If AI, new digital technologies can solve that: I will be a big cheerleader and welcome the same. 

But, when it comes to the process of young minds interacting with technology without, I have some discomfort with that. Mostly for three reasons,

1. Most of these products are designed in a way that they are addictive 

2. The child does not have the full understanding of the nature of the engagement, pros-cons and consequences of the engagement with the product/technology 

3. Even we do not know the adverse impacts fully well or we do not know them yet 

I will share some news and briefs that I came across recently about all these three concerns. 

Recently, there was a case in an US court where the parents of a child sued the company meta saying that their daughter was using the app(s) for 16+ hours a day. While meta argued (as one can imagine) that there is a consent, age etc. etc. one of the major reasons that the parents cited was that the algorithms and product were designed in a manner that they increase the engagement time almost to the point of addiction. All of us know this from personal experience too. Take a look at your screen time data and it reflects nothing but helpless succumbing to a habit of doomscrolling, digital engagement, notifications and alerts. The courts actually gave a verdict in favour of the family. 

Children are different from adults. Hence, while sale of cigarettes, tobacco, alcohol etc. is allowed after a certain age, they are prohibited for children. I am not comparing these “substances” with technology which has many wonderful uses but I am making the case for guided supervision and use. 

Finally, even medical science is realising through evidence and data the impact of recent technologies such as AI on our mind. Particularly on our memory and other cognitive functions. In many ways, AI uses some of the key characteristics of our brain against the brain itself. We are creatures of habit and our brains love grooves of patterns so that we take less and less effort to do something. So, making a good prompt for AI and getting the answer will almost be natural after repeated use. It could do the long-boring stuff, it could do the hard-stuff, it could do the creative stuff and it could talk and almost impersonate a human. So why not! 

Well, all of it comes at cost, more than just the subscription fees we pay. It’s our own mind and us. We have all been listening to how in social media and other platforms, the product is our time, and our attention, which is milked by the big tech companies. Similarly, the more and more we share prompts, feed data, “train the models” - the AI will get smarter, which could be good but the risk is are we getting dumber? 

Any muscle not used gets weaker and weaker, the same is true of mind and even more so. Like Short to long-term memory loss and even dementia. 

Many researchers believe that to be the case, calling it almost a “cognitive surrender”. Please check this out. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260417-ai-chatbots-could-be-making-you-stupider

Finally to end this, sharing a small real incident. The other day I was on a call with one of my colleagues, when I heard his young son, all of two come and make some demand or complaint. I was keen to know what the commotion was all about. My colleague explained that apparently the ipad that he was using wasn’t working and his way of explaining the situation was “ mera dimaag kharap ho gaya!”. (brain isn’t working) My colleague then added, that his son refers to laptops, ipads as “dimaag” !

Take that in ! 

Data for Democracy

We shall delve into the matter of collection, storage and use of data or information in a democratic manner or in a democratic society. We shall limit that into data in the world of school education and the development sector. 

I was reading a book by Yuval Noah Harrari where he refers to certain fundamental principles of democracies that must be respected and followed in the digital age for democracies to survive and flourish! Even a small ray of optimism in these trying times is welcome.

I could not find the source of these principles, and even Yuval refers to them as universal, open, known for millenia kind of principles. He articulates these simple and almost spiritual sounding principles and juxtaposes them against AI (what else you expect in these times in a book called Nexus!). He details how these principles must be honoured and offers a few solutions as well.  

Now, let’s talk about them in the context of school education in general and that of India in particular.  

Benovolence: The first principle has to be that the data or information, so painstakingly collected, managed, analysed, visualised and presented has to help the person from (or about) whom the data is being collected. Yuval gives a simple example of our physician collecting information from us with the primary motive of healing us. Schools are almost invariably the primary source of all data that we later see analysed and presented at different levels related to access and quality of school education. School information systems such as the U-DISE+ collect information on almost all aspects of schools - enrollment, teachers, physical resources, funds and other details. The principle of benevolence is met only when the information collected is not just for reporting and statistical publication but also as a planning and resourcing tool. So, when use of U-DISE data was mandated for SSA, RMSA and later SmSA planning and budgeting exercise, the schools understood that reporting of accurate data ensures that  adequate resources in form of additional classrooms, toilets, drinking water facility, boundary walls, labs, assistive devices for CwSN etc. could be provisioned for the school subject to availability of budget. While the planning, budgeting and resourcing is a long process from school to block to district and further to state and centre, it starts from the schools providing timely and accurate data with an expectation that it will benefit from the process.  

Extending the argument to learning data, we must keep this in mind that all information collected on learning of children must come back to benefit & help the child ultimately! 

Decentalisation: There is a great temptation of centralised systems and structures. The design is usually neat, efficient, has to be understood once, allows for control and correction at one place etc. The cons predictably are extreme dependence on the central system and architecture and privacy concerns. But, the larger concern is that of the central system being the only source of data or truth and then it being subject to manipulation. No information system is infallible and each would have its own incentives and disincentives to report data in a way that suits their narrative. 

I loved this line “for the survival of democracy, some inefficiency is a feature, not a bug”. Having multiple databases and information channels (government, courts, media, academia, private, NGOs) are essential to have self-correcting mechanisms where they balance each other out and act as almost fact-checks. 

Starting from a child, who often asks his elder sibling to sign the report card if not happy with the results to private schools and their ways of reporting fees and expenses to the government schools, under and over-reporting resources and performance respectively, each have their own reasons to report data that suits them. Hence, multiple reporting of the same data, say learning levels of children is not a bad thing! We must welcome government, private and community assessing and reporting data about their children. 

Mutuality or mutual accountability: This principle is easy to understand but hard to implement in the hierarchical world that we live in. Put simply, there should be flow of information both ways and not just bottom to top. Accountability, similarly, should also be a two way street. 

In our context, if a school has provided information on the number of children accurately it has the right to demand that the basic entitlements such as textbooks, uniforms and mid-day-meals it receives are adequate and timely. 

To extend this to learning, the “long route of accountability” that RISE study refers to starts with the citizen electing a government and holding them accountable for quality education of their children, the government then has an extensive system of ministry, education department and frontline workers such as teachers who are engaged by the government to ensure this promise of learning is met back to the parent-citizen. 

Change and rest: Yuval goes on to articulate that any  democratic data system or government for that matter should allow both - the opportunity to change and the option of rest. He elucidates the necessity of the first concept by taking an example of a system that doesn’t allow humans the option to change by any means - of action or opportunity such as the Hindu caste system. While several hundred years ago, the caste system was tightly coupled to the occupation and was even more binding, even today, the caste of the Hindu person can not change. Any democratic society must allow the citizens the opportunity to change and for that provide data, information and if needed, appropriate resources to do so. That is the basis of the social and political contract that defines a democratic rule.

At the other end of the spectrum, there have been sovereigns and heads of government that consider their citizens as mere clay toys that they can mould and change as they wish and as many times as they wish. Such absolute denial of the agency of the individual and participation has been met with strong individual and collective protest leading to violent revolutions across geographies and at different points of time in history. 

There has to be a balance between the amount of data and information needed for the basic (and the first here) principle of benevolence which the state and the citizen agree using principles of mutuality (second principle here) to bring about the desired change. Democracies and systems evolve and there might be a need to change the existing norms and practices but yet again the same principles should be applied. 

There is another beautiful line from the book that would sum this write up and my feelings “human life is a balance act between endeavouring to improve ourselves and accepting who we are”. 

Kumaon Chronicles - the day of the leopard

S and I arrived just before her birthday at Peora village, near Satkhol of the Mukteshwar district in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand as we have been doing now for a couple of years. Kumaon has been an ideal escape for us for from the heat, dust and lust of Delhi during the summers and over the visits we have made small connections with the small community of locals, regular visitors and people of the region including our wonderful host and home stay manager Yashwant and his family.

After allowing the restless thoughts of work and impulses of mind to settle down briefly in the evening with the nice cup of warm tea, soaking in the breathtaking views of Himalayas from our place and tuning in to the music of the birds, crickets and animals of the jungle we went to sleep with a plan to go on one of our familiar trails for a walk the next morning. The delicious parathas made over traditional chulha, the fresh curd and the finger-licking apricot aachar made from the fruits from the orchard of our host, briefly challenged the plans of the small trek with a temptation to lie down in the cozy bed and enjoy a morning siesta. We headed off, only because of another temptation - the sumptuous lunch that we would not have appetite for if we don’t walk off at least few of the parathas. 

S and I started a conversation about consistency and experimentation. I called it the choice between security of familiarity versus the thrill of exploring the unfamiliar territory, quite literally in this case. We know this about ourselves - Yin and Yang. S would always prefer the comfort of the known and I would always go for the anticipated variety that the unknown offers. Even on our way up from the Kathgodam station, we talked about taking the familiar route we had taken last time and having our food at the same restaurant on the way or choosing a different path and a different option to eat. I prevailed this time. The route was much more picturesque with the unusually calm Bhimtal lake almost wearing a deserted look, again unusual for this time of the year where tourists from Delhi and nearby areas flock the hills and recreate the same crowd, cacophony and chaos that one tries to escape from. The restaurant was nice as well and just as I was revealing in my small victory in favour of experimentation and ‘trying the new’; the food undid us. No, not right away! It was nice when we tasted and ate it but signs of it not being fresh started showing up midway of the two hour drive to our place and that part of the choice didn’t augur well for us. 

So, when it came to deciding which trail to take, we clearly tilted towards the familiar route we had taken quite a few times last year. S was quick to point out the virtues of consistency, treading carefully with a stick in her hand and quipping how the route is almost the same even after a year with no noise of new construction or no signs of destruction of trees and habitat. I was nodding my head and trying to walk past her when I realised that S has either stopped or suddenly disappeared into the thin mountain air. I could neither hear her soft voice, or footsteps or the prodding of stones with her stick. I then heard a loud voice, almost a roar ! I turned back to see S almost frozen, mid-way of her next step, mouth wide open and face red and eyes almost protruding out. It was clearly the reaction to the loud roar of an animal or a machine. I quickly told S with a shrugg of head that it must be a machine. There are no animals here so close to the main road, certainly not a leopard and definitely not at this time of the day. I wasn’t so scared myself though but I knew even if I concurred slightly with a ‘maybe’, we would have to immediately retreat and the next trails and walks would be in serious jeopardy. I suggested that we move ahead and reach to the tea shop and houses ahead in the trail. I also tried to make light of the matter joking that if a leopard really shows up, there is nothing for us to think and do! Whatever will be done, will be done by the beast, which can run upto 90 mph, can climb tall trees, has sharp nails and ferocious teeth. We are helpless in every aspect. The joke didn’t help much but the prospect of reaching habition and seeing another human face pushed S forward and she managed to reach the tea shop faster than me. People are mostly driven by two things, pleasure or fear ! 

For the next part of our walk back, at the tea shop, at the barbershop and to every other person whom S could meet and speak to, she had the same two question. 

1. “Did you also hear a roar?”

2. “Is it possible that a leopard was around”  

Most people, after giving an empathetic ear to this city dweller dismissed her apprehensions by citing the location and this time of the day. Some women, who had seen us walking on the that route remarked casually though that there might be a leopard who would have lent out that roar from far below in the dense jungle but you heard it here. So, there was a leopard ! S processed it in her own way and even at lunch and dinner she kept asking our hosts the same question and they kept brushing her excitement aside. S even tried to listen to voices of leopard, barking deer and other animals that were suggested by our host who was supremely confident that it couldn’t be the leopard. S was as sure as one is of one’s fear and I was as unsure as one is of anything one is unsure of. I had heard stories of leopard picking up one of the dogs of my previous hosts and had heard a roar of leopard once. I had of course been fascinated by Jim Corbett and his stories of the man-eater of Kumaon as a child which somewhat dwindled into disappointment in adulthood as I heard from many people of their disappointment of only seeing the footmarks or dung of the beautiful animal at the national park that bears the name of the famous English hunter. I was happy in my mind that these creatures still exist in real and not just in fiction and travel stories and am always keen to see them in the wild before we destroy these thriving ecosystems with our greed and avarice.

Clearly, S could not be persuaded for another morning trek even though a new trail was suggested this time. Thankfully I had some company in another family who had come in to the stay at the guesthouse. Ishan and I started early at 6.30 after failed attempts to persuade anyone else to join us in our leisurely walk to another small village through a jungle. Our host had suggested this route and cleared it of any wild animal, even sharing that this is the route taken by children of the village to walk many miles to come to their school - Aarohi Bal Sansar. We kept having small conversations as our walk started but as soon as the thickness of the vegetation, green cover of the trees increased and the width of the trail decreased our talks decreased and pauses of silence increased. I was walking ahead and we were super focussed on the path ahead. It was silent, it was almost meditative. There was slight wetness and dampness on the path, mostly due to the leaves wet due to the morning dew. The sun was up and peeped though the pine trees to look at two men from the cities trying to walk steadily though the unfamiliar terrain of the jungle. We only had the familiarity of our breaths, our steps and each other. Ishan started to share a little more about his life and was trying to catch up with me. I slowed down my pace as I realised he was having slight difficulty in breathing and talking at the same time. 

Suddenly, I stopped as I saw something of a size of a Nilgai and then of the size of a goat moving almost like a bullet in front of me. I then saw a majestic, thick and big tail and the ‘thing’ vanish into the vegetation downhill. There was no doubt this time. It was the mountain leopard. A fully grown adult, dashing at maximum speed from uphill above the small foot trail to the jungle below at a distance of hardly twenty feet from me. It was so swift and fast that I had literally a fraction of a second to process and react. I reacted quite calmly to my own surprise and turned back to see Ishan also stopped and paused in his track, mouth wide open, eyed protruding and almost looking at me for answer or confirmation. 

“It’s a leopard” I said it three times. Only then my heart started to process the information and started to beat a bit faster. 

“yes, I saw something move very fast, are you sure it’s a leopard”

“200%! It had either seen us from above and didn’t wish to engage with us or it had a prey downhill that it dashed to chase and hunt”. I realised it was alternatively looking like a nilgai and a goat to me in two different frames my eyes could capture because of the speed that these magnificent beasts can manage to move. 

The next thought in my head was to go and figure out what type of leopard we had seen. It was very clearly different from cheetahs that are yellow in colour, have dark, distinguished spots and are very lanky in shape. I did not manage to see the face of the animal but the entire big back was muscular and hefty. 

Then the thought of our safety came and then Ishan followed up with the question - do we go ahead or go back. I thought for a while and then decided in favour of the familiarity of the road we had already covered and proximity of the human life there versus the unfamiliar jungle ahead and uncertainty of finding another person or house ahead. We certainly did not want to have the leopard, now familiar with us anywhere near us or to do anything to us ! We silently and softly walked back. There was no or little talk. This was pure fear and I am sure images of what will happen if the beast turns back or another one shows up were playing up in both our minds. Both of us picked up a stone each from the ground and grabbed it tight, more with hope than any strategy to fight or tackle the more powerful, faster and well-equipped master predator! 

We walked up to the main road and while I was keen to go back to check on my phone what kind of leopard we had spotted, Ishan was keen on tea! We walked up to the nearest market, finished two cups of chai each at a local shop and walked back to our home stay on the same trail that S and I had taken the other day. 

I could hear a lot of commotion in the room next to us with Ishan, Ekaansh, his son and wife Meenakshi exchanging exclamations, excitement and ethusisasm. Meanwhile, S lifted her head up from the razaai (blanket) and asked me with half-opened eyes, “what happened?”

Nothing!   

Bhoomi: the story of Babruvahana (or Parthajeet) - not just a review

Bharat Rang Mahotsav or Bha-Rang-Am as many call it is an emotional sigh of nostalgia for me. It reminds me of a world (of theatre) & time (my youth) which like a sweet, intoxicating wine I tasted with my tongue, wet my dry lips with but did not drink the full chalice. I moved from acting to directing, to writing plays to watching them. Although, I have never turned away from theatre, I am only an infrequent visitor to this caravanserai.

More on that later but now for the woman of the moment - Swati Dubey from Jabalpur. I met Swati briefly at NSD final selection camp in the year 2011. Swati continued her journey of exploring herself and her art through theatre and runs a theatre group called Samagam Rangmandal in the beautiful town of Jabalpur, MP. I have kept track of her work through this very medium of Facebook but once missed her show in Bhubaneswar by a whisker. 

I was witness to this brilliant play Bhoomi staged at the Sri Ram Centre during the 25th BRM. The play was directed by Swati and she was also playing the lead role of Chitrangada in this amazing tale from Mahabharata. On the face of it, the story is a tale of a egoistic, warrior king (Arjuna) driven by the unquenchable desire of expansion of their kingdom or land (hence, the name Bhoomi), meeting a beautful warrior princess in the land of Manipur (Kangla) in the North-East. They marry, have a child and then he deserts her to go back to the mainland (and mainstream culture) only to return after many years, yet again in a conquest of more land-grabbing via the the ritual of Ashwamedha. The horse is captured by a young lad who challenges the greatest archer and warrior of the time, Arjuna to a fierce battle fought in the beautiful hills of Kangla valley. Arjuna, or Parth is defeated for the very first time in his life. Surprised and shocked Arjuna, later finds out and gets assurance that the one who defeated him was and could only be his worthy son - Babruvahana. Also, known as someone who won against & defeated Parth, i.e. Partha-Jeet ! Hence, the deep connect this play had with me. I am told by my mother that my father as is usually the case in the affairs of men and women, prevailed and named me Partha-Jeet. He apparently had no idea about this tale of Chitrangada-Arjuna but wanted his son to be like Partha (Arjuna) who wins (Jeet) everywhere and every time. My mother wanted another beautiful name that finds a lot of mention in the Bhagavata Gita - Sthitapragyan, or the one with an established or still or calm intellect. I would have also preferred winning over inner foes and conquering oneself first as against this arrogance of fighting and winning!  

But, coming back to the the play. It was extremely well-designed, well-performed, well-rehearsed and thoughtful play. The work of Swati and the writer Ashish Pathak wraps and unwraps so many layers, so many dimensions in the one and half hours, you are left with aftertaste after aftertaste in your mouth which you savour for many many hours after the play. 

There are layers of a gender presented through a different relationship between woman and man. The play starts with a scene of Shiva (in apparent disguise) being beaten up by Parvati. They bless the ancient forefather, Prabhanjan of the clan that rules Kangla. Parvati makes Prabhanjan understand the alternative that women can also lead and run clans and families and can inherit the kingdom of the father. There is an acceptance of matrilineal society which is not the norm elsewhere in the country. There is an encouragement of women to choose, determine and pursue their own course of life.   

There is also an alternative narrative where you are encouraged foster valour and strength as a path to glory but not cruelty; where you can take up arms to protect yourself (atma-rakhsha) and expand yourself (atma-vistaar) but not for greed (for bhoomi or resources) or ego (self-aggrandising); where you can transform war into an art. 

It was also wonderful that they had time for a conversation between the artists and the audience. This is becoming so much rare in these days of reducing attention span where people wait for the play to get over to catch up on 2000+ reels and 200+ notifications. We had a chance to share our appreciation for the amazing work of asthtically designed costume, beautiful interplay of lights, thoughtful use of props. We also heard about the detailed research that went into the development of the play where a group based in the heart of Bundelkhand & central India travels to Manipur to understand the culture, the styles and details they bring out so well in the play. We meet the trainer from Manipur, who joined the group in Jabalpur to guide the dedicated practice behind the breathtaking display of martial arts. We heard more about the dance and songs from the land of Kangla, Manipur.  

What a delight it was to understand & experience the play from all of our senses and mind. Thank you Swati for this. Shukriya !

The morning hunger !

Let's talk about classroom hunger!  

Many of us who work in the field of education would not usually put these two words together. We associate classrooms with learning, teaching or sadly as in the case of many government and private schools “lack of learning”. 

I was not keenly aware of this concept of classroom hunger until very recently. My closest engagement with this was with occasional review or proposing “solutions” to the Mid-day Meal (MDM) scheme or as it has been recently christened as PM POSHAN scheme. Over the years, working with multiple state government departments and interacting with senior education bureaucrats, I have seen how this monitoring, tracking and reporting of the mid-day-meal scheme takes up a disproportionate amount of time & mind-share. The other serious contender and culprit of the time and attention of senior bureaucrats is the sheer number of court cases they have to “personally appear” and deal with. 

As you can imagine, we in the education sector often tend to talk about this as something of a compulsion and distraction for the entire system. It's not unusual to hear even from the teachers that this is an unwanted responsibility that takes away some part of the valuable teaching-learning time in the classrooms. When questioned about the poor learning outcomes of the children and the obvious gaps in the teaching-learning process teachers usually blame the lack of engagement of the community (parents) and having so many non-teaching responsibilities primary of them being the mid-day-meal scheme for children as a reason why they are not able to focus on children's learning. Some in the sector also call this out as one of the problems or reasons for limited “time-on-task”. 

I would listen to such remarks and often respond with almost a reaction that I might have borrowed from somewhere "let us remember that for many children in our country, the mid-day-meal is probably the only nutritious meal of the day". I would just say it like a parrot without a deeper understanding of what I am saying or feeling the pain, the deprivation and the helplessness that unwanted hunger makes one feel and here we are talking about young children of age 6-14. 

I began to grasp this problem with some understanding after listening to the experiences of my team members working in Bihar. One of my colleagues who works out of a district office of the state and has to undertake regular school visits as a part of his role was sharing with me ironically as we were having a team dinner at Patna, about his experiences and made this statement almost matter-of-factly “...during school visits, when I interact with children I do start with asking what they have had for breakfast in the morning, and most of the times children reply in the negative or look away in silence signaling unmistakably that they have not had anything to eat in the morning before they came to school…they come to school empty-stomach…"  

His experience and understanding was first-hand, his feeling and pain was palpable. This made a different impact or at least deepened the understanding of the problem that this mid-day-meal scheme was trying to solve. Lest the analytical minds of people like me dismiss this as a one off incident or with questions of ‘how representative is it of the state wide situation’, a few weeks later at another team review meeting we had at least six of such colleagues confirm that a large majority of children do come to the school empty-stomach without anything to eat in the morning. 

Please let that sink in. For a large number of children coming to our government schools, the mid-day-meal is not just the only healthy or nutritious meal of the day but probably the first meal of the day of any kind! This is the stark, sad reality of the large number of parents and the families who send their children to our government schools. There is such poverty, deprivation and helplessness that they cannot afford to feed their young children before sending them to school. 

I would not be able to imagine, much less understand nor would many of you who are reading this, what kind of homes these children live in, what kind of jobs their parents work for, how little they earn, what kind of possessions they have or rather do not have! One can only vaguely imagine the relief and the reassurance these parents and families have when they know that their children will at least have something healthy and nutritious to eat around noon when the school serves a hot cooked meal to their child to eat. If this is the reality of our children and families that after 78 years of our independence, how likely it is to expect that we will be able to guarantee the child her right to education or the right to learn?

I was now able to understand or at least place in context, what some these colleagues shared as a part of their school observations “...children leave as soon as they have had their mid day meal” or the often quoted literature or anecdotal evidence that “..children come to the government schools only to have the mid-day-meal..”. 

I was almost tempted to reply “why shouldn’t they?” It was becoming clearer to me that the parents are sending the kids to the government schools to get at least something they know that child will get i.e. a good nutritious meal. Now, many of us have come across so many reports or even have experienced ourselves the not-as-per-expectation quality of the meals served to children, reports of irregularity in the provision of food, occasional health hazards due to lack of attention during preparation etc. If anything, please let these incidents not take away from the massive effort of the Indian state to provide hot cooked meals to 120 million children across 1.2 million government schools daily! Remember the last time you and I invited around 10-15 friends and tried to host them for lunch/dinner maybe once-twice a month/quarter. Contrast that with the effort it takes for the government (with all of our allegations of poor capacity) to ensure 120 million children are provided cooked food across the length & breadth of the country across 1.2 million government schools. My senior colleagues shared with me that the provision of the mid day meal is being monitored almost as a highest priority with the number of children who are taking the mid-day-meal is tracked on a daily basis and the availability of adequate ration food-grains oils and other food materials is almost checked on a weekly basis.      

It is in the backdrop of this extremely limited and non experiential understanding of the problem that I was invited to be a part of a discussion on school-meals organised by an established foundation, consulting companies and other sector exports. I would have reacted to the discussions in a very different manner, not atypical of people who are seen as sector experts or people who have been working with the governments for a long time by underestimating the efforts or saying “the government is already doing this, there is no need for anything else, it’s too difficult etc.”.  

I tried to listen and heard a different but sincere articulation of the problem and the solution. The foundations or funders said that they believed that school meals provide some of the highest return on investment “...almost $9 for every $1 invested”. The consulting company shared that there are interesting models of financing additional expenditure required to provide meals to children. These discussions were focussed more on providing meals to complement and supplement the government's efforts such as providing a healthy breakfast to the children or a health drink towards the end of the day. Again many state governments have taken lead in this matter by taking steps such as in the state of Telangana where we work very closely with the education department, last year a breakfast scheme for children was introduced and also ragi health drink was provided to the children towards the end of the day. I remember the state government of Gujarat also providing milk and other supplements to children. There was an encouraging presentation by one of the civil society organisations funded by CSR which claimed that they are providing additional school meals to at least 10 million children across different parts of the country in the form of breakfast millet-laddus or health drinks. I could appreciate the efforts better as I had a slightly improved understanding of the problem through the experiences of my team. 

When my turn came to share or contribute, I re-articulated what I heard from my senior colleague Kamal Nath Jha that the mid day meal scheme has at least four major objectives such as (a) removing classroom hunger, (b) ensuring nutrition of children, (c) fostering inclusion in school whereby children of different backgrounds, community eat & share their food together, and hopefully as a result of all this (d) children engage in learning and we are able to retain them in schools for longer. 

I went on to add that the government is providing a lot of inputs to this scheme in terms of resources, time and attention and tracking them very meticulously  but they do not monitor the outcomes and definitely not all the outcomes or objectives as my colleague articulated to me. To the best of my limited knowledge, currently we only have the NFHS which measures the percentage of “underweight” and “stunted” children once in 3 years and reports the same. This resonated with the people in the consultation who went on to add that at least nutrition can be tracked in more details such as percentage of Severely Malnourished and Moderately malnourished children (SAM & MAM as some would know). 

I summarised that we need to track these critical outcomes much more reliably, consistently and regularly either individually or as a composite score so that we all raise awareness & understand the issue. Something similar to what the ASER report by Pratham has done for learning needs to be done for nutrition and classroom hunger. 

Many years of working closely with the government schools we have come to understand and normalise the fact that the children who come to the government schools are actually coming because their parents do not have a choice and they cannot afford even the small fees charged by the so-called low-fee or “affordable” private schools. Now some of us are keenly aware that many of the parents who send their children to the government schools are the ones who are not able to provide them with two square meals a day. They only or the first outcome they want or expect this large, powerful and well-resourced system to deliver is removal of classroom hunger, proper nutrition for their children and retention in schools. 

Can we at least try to ensure that?  

When we were locked in !

This is my first attempt at photo blogging! I am not too sure of the rules and formats and not sure even how useful is this platform for the same but we won't know until we try. 

This relates to the period when we were all locked indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When our freedom to step out of our homes at will, our choice of meeting people (friends, colleagues, strangers) and doing what we wish was taken away. Forced to see the world from the limiting frames of our windows and balconies, I found the frame of camera liberating. The frame allowed me to look up to the skies, zoom in and look at objects far away, zoom out get a different perspective, step back to soak in the surroundings all through the power of the lens. One of the things that my wife and I used to talk about is the colour of the sky. I used to joke around that in Delhi the sky is brown or grey because of the terrible air pollution. The AQI numbers of Delhi were usually a matter for memes as we had stopped worrying about it beyond a point and started to make jokes about it. Due to the pandemic induced lock down the AQI numbers were as good as any other city and "the sky was never blue(er)" as my wife often remarked. 

I was particularly fascinated by the birds in and around my house and the small park facing it. We live in one of the smaller blocks of the busy and bustling Malviya Nagar in the southern part of Delhi. Delhi contrary to it's image and actual status of one of the most polluted cities of the world with worst AQIs which are often 7-10 times that of the accepted range, is home to a large species and number of birds. There could be many reasons for it but one of them is the fact that Delhi for a capital city of a large, populous country has one of the largest percentage of green cover in terms of forests, parks and natural habitats. Most pockets of Delhi's 'colonies' or 'blocks' would have a small or big park. 

Where one would find common birds like pigeons, crows and bulbuls along with many other small birds such as the sun-bird, fly-catcher and others. 

And just because they don't have a fancy name, we see them everywhere around us and do not have to travel to somewhere and wait for sometime doesn't take anything away from their beauty, their cheerfulness, playfulness and voices.

We have a special relationship with the pigeons though. We love them, hate them but can't do without them and vice versa it seems. They are always eager to come to our small balcony, sit on our AC, do their thing (yes!) and even tried to make their nest and lay eggs. We call them our 'boys' and one of the first things that my wife does in the mornings is to clean up the mess the boys leave around and rest of the day it's my job to shoo them away. But boys will be boys! 

And boys like to do boys things! They reproduce and their children do necessarily take after them initially but soon they too become part of the 'boys' and we can't tell one from the other.

These are pigeons too (they are called yellow-footed green pigeons and are apparently the state bird of Maharashtra)

When you are forced to slow down and be steady, you observe the change in things, you otherwise would not. Like we saw the change of seasons through this peepul tree: where we saw how the lush green leaves of the tree turned pale-yellow, fell to the ground leaving the tree without any leaves but where hope and life slowly found it's way back. We saw the cycle of life repeat itself again and again.

These vegetable vendors and other essential service providers were the only humans we could see other than ourselves. It was interesting how it took a pandemic to make us realise what was essential and what was not! How these jobs and people, hitherto unnoticed became celebrated as frontline workers and heroes. But for how long?

We also saw deep compassion and thoughtfulness for not just humans but animals. This guy would turn up at the exact same hour, sun or rain; serve the dogs of our and other streets with cooked food on paper plates and then come back to collect the plates.

Here are some of the rockstars and celebrities! Well, I know some of their names and could share details but just enjoy their beauty, grace and poise ! 

Will end this blog with a story of hope. I was told that sparrows - the common house sparrow had apparently almost disappeared from Delhi some time back. Maybe because of some efforts, or some prayers or hope but most certainly because of the wonderful ways nature works they have now made a comeback. 

Do leave a comment. On the photos or the writing or both. All photos were taken by a human (me) using a Canon EOS gifted to us many many years back by family. To the freedom to be out of our homes, fly away from the routine, travel and live.

Hope for learning and learning for hope

It's hard for me to feel elated, ecstatic and upbeat about the day i.e. 15 Aug, our independence day. I am not a pessimist but it's hard to look beyond the 'here and now' and find solace in what we have achieved as a country in all these years and feel as euphoric at least not as we are supposed to feel about it - 'Har Ghar Tiranga', 'Har office Tiranga' and post-selfies about it and 'Amrit kaal' the echoes of which is going to last another 1000 years or so we are told. 

Well, people who have tried to control, predict and shape history with their vice like-grips, ever-so-sure about the firmness of their iron-fists, the certainty of results of their actions, infallibility of their designs and programs (or pogroms if you like) have often lived to see something different, unexpected and disastrous befall their el-dorado or utopia. Some of such mythical, imaginative (as they have no base in reality) and utterly nefarious designs, structures and actions may take a few generations to be decimated and pulverised to the dust of time! 

Coming back to 'what is' and 'what would be' makes one a bit poignant, a bit pessimistic, almost forcing one to flee and avoid these thoughts and find solace in work, endless distractions on phone, music, Netflix (cinema, webseries) or in travel, yoga or gym, in social occassions, family and other banalities of the day! 

Yes, we have achieved many things and the very existence of this nation-state as a sovereign (yes we are not directly governed by another country), democratic (at least in pretention of adult franchise, elections and government) and united (yeah, we haven't had state(s) splinter away from the country, a civil war that resulted in a coo or similar) should be celebrated. We are doing better than ever as economists and statisticians will tell us in terms of well-being not only in economic development (GDP, GDP per capita, roads, ports, airports, infra and what have you!) but also in social indicators of health, education, nutrition etc. Many social disaparities have reduced such as access of girls and socially disadvantaged groups (SC, STs) to primary education, women's participation in economy etc. So what's the crib about? 

The gripe isn't about the direction; it's about the pace, the inclusiveness and wholeness (of texture) of this progress or growth we have achieved in all these years after independence. 

Let's unpack one by one. The pace or quantum or rate of growth. It's hard to disagree that a faster rate of progress would have been better, that's the nature of any growth, more always seems better! But, haven't we done well looking at the constraints of resources (we were left an extremely poor country) and where we started (our baseline was so low!)? Yes, we have done well compared to where we were (the starting line) but one has to also look at where one should be (the finishing line)! I will quote only one set of statistics of a field I know well - education and can argue, debate with facts, data, experience and understanding. But, I am urging you to reflect if the same is true of other areas of human life. 

We have ensured (today and almost for a few years now) that almost all (90% or more) of our primary school going age children are enrolled in some or the other school (government or private). This we should be happy about. Could we have done this earlier ? Yes. There was no reason why we couldn't have started earnest efforts soon after moving education into the concurrent list in 1977; making universal primary education as a national goal as we did after the MDGs prioritised Education for All (EFA) and allocating resources and efforts towards it for the next 20-25 years as we did under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). We could have been where we are today in the early 2000s! 

Second, talking about the wholeness of things. Most children are enrolled in schools but only 60-70% of them attend schools regularly. I am taking a larger range to accomodate and avoid discussions about which sources I am using and reliability of one versus the other - ASER, NAS, NFHS or anything else. And as with any avereges, they mask the situation or starkness of data - so Bihar, UP (and that's a lot) attendance situation is 45-60%. Enrolment is not schooling ! My name is there in a school register, is not equal to I go to school. Simple? 

Third, more than half of the children in the schools are not learning the foundational skills of reading, writing and basic maths. The world bank calls it 'learning poverty', some of us call it a 'learning crisis' and even 'learning emergency'. It is all of that. Again, let's not get into statistics, data reliability, incentives or under or over reporting here. I can separately engage on it. More than half of all children (mind you this is regardless of private or public) of primary age not learning or acquiring these basic universal skills would means crores of children, 7-8 crores of them ! Let that sink in slowly, take your time. 

To come back to the inclusiveness of the progress. It shouldn't be too hard to guess who would be the majority of these 7-8 crore children. Children belonging to SC, ST, religious minorities, remote rural areas, girls, children enrolled in all government or affordable private schools? In other words, children of poor parents or parents who are unable to spend large amount of money on their child's education or life. That's the single biggest determinant - parental income. So, income poverty is the reason for learning poverty and further those children who are subjected to learning poverty today are the ones who will very likely suffer from income poverty as they become adults and start their families due to lack of these basic universal skills. I used the word subjected to learning poverty as we the state (people of this republic) are responsible for it not the child. 

We even guaranteed it (mind you not enrollment in schools, but education or learning) as a fundamental right ! So, if the children are not learning, we have failed to provide and ensure that right for them. 

I want to end with 'what would be' and yet again in this age and times of post-truth (basically falsehood) something that doesn't give a lot of scope for optimism is that if we are not aligned on a single picture of reality today how can we on the plans and direction of future. In fact to make matters worse, some people are actively attempting to change 'what was' i.e. history! What happened, happened! Yes, we know that certain narratives get more prominence than others - that of the victors and that of the rulers but alternative narratives do exists and they come out in their own time and space. It is for the students of history and others interested to pick a wholesome meal out of this buffet of narratives. But for a section of those who are ruling today (and in majority) for the furtherance of a bigoted agenda, driven by the desire to shape the future, it's not very scientific or healthy to attempt to change the past. 

That's worrisome yet again not just because we are making a mistake or many mistakes or going down the wrong path! That we have done many times in the past and will continue to do so. It's the systematic shutting down or the attempts to shut down the possibility of learning (from our mistakes and successes both) that's the most concerning for me. Starting with poor learning for children but certainly extending all the way to the very poor learning (or re-learning tending to brainwashing) of adult-citizen, fuelled and fully aided by media, technology and the powers of narratives. 

Societies and nations will continue to make mistakes and have deep rootes challenges of class-divide, caste (this is our special contribution), religion, region, language, sex, sexual-orientation and everything else that can divide (and interestingly unite) the homo-sapien but as long as we learn there is hope ! 

There is !

Sincere, apologies for lack of editing and mistakes. I just typed this whole thing on phone and posted it.