my thoughts

In India, 29 th August, is celebrated as National Sports Day in the memory of  Maj. Dhyan Chand, who was born on this day in the year 1905 in Allahabad, UP. I am really keen to state a few things about him.  Maj. Dhyan Chand had two brothers, Shri Mool Singh Ji & Shri Roop Singh Ji (who also became an excellent Hockey player).  He joined Indian Army at the age of 16.  There is a belief that his name was changed from Dhyan Singh to Dhyan Chand because he used to practice in the night when the moon would appear which was after his duty hours (In the earlier days nobody knew that he was good in Hockey, hence no excuse for the practice during duty hours).  As the Hindi meaning of Moon is ‘Chand’ hence he was called by his friends as Dhyan Chand. He retired from the army as the Major and his promotions were mainly due to his extra ordinary skills of the game of Hockey. It would not be an exaggeration to state that in those days and even today Hockey is sy...

The facebook post by an IIT Professor and a news story based on that should have awakened the conscious of all those who really worry about the plight of the children in the name of making them super stars. An article ‘overburdened school-going children’ by Rashmi Pramanik in the book ‘ Childhoods in South Asia’ should also be an eye opener for all such people. The answer to the question of the child that ‘How would he find time out of 24 hours at his disposal when so much time is spent (much of that can be wasted)’.   School going children were already over loaded with the number of books and other stuff to be carried by them almost every day. Then the sudden explosion of knowledge from different sources made available to them.   Internet has already made their life difficult by giving the platform of social sites which take away substantial time from their already busy schedule. The school is a place where the child should be given opportunity to explore and create but ...

My previous article on the topic ‘Preventing violence in students’ attracted so many comments and most of the people specially the teachers by & large agreed that teachers will have to own greater responsibility to help children to learn values and save them from being trapped in a negative situation. But at the same time, some people did mention that the role of the family in ‘Indian context’ cannot be ignored and I fully agree with them. The social support system and the ‘needs’ satisfaction of the children has been fulfilled by the family from the ancient times. The family has always played a key role in the growth of the children in a manner that they become competent to face the challenges of life. The family here becomes the axis which is most important to achieve this mission. The children, particularly up to the age of adolescents are largely impressed by the way family fulfills their needs to develop core competencies.  Even in the disadvantaged groups (like SC, ST ...