11-03-2006, 08:59 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Manmohan pulls rug from under Arjun's feet </b>
Pioneer.com
Santanu Banerjee | New DelhiÂ
By playing the minorities' backwardness card effectively at the annual conference on Thursday the State Minorities Commissions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pulled the rug from under HRD Minister Arjun Singh's feet.
By his repeated references about lack of educational access to the Muslims and his emphatic stress on bringing Muslim women to professional courses, observers feel that he actually underlined the failures of the HRD Ministry's major projects related to the educational welfare of the Muslims.
According to sources, what seems to have put the <b>HRD Minister into deeper embarrassment was the Prime Minister's clubbing the failure of Muslims' access to education with other developmental schemes of the Government</b>.
The PM's backhand compliment to Arjun Singh's has come at a time when the Sachar panel has given a decisive hint that Madrasa education was an unlikely solution for the educational backwardness of the minorities.
However, for the past two years,<b> the HRD Ministry has been great thrust on Madarsa modernisation. According to sources, Arjun Singh now comes under political pressure with his existing schemes on minority education being dismissed as failure by none other than Prime Minister's Office</b>.
The depth of Arjun Singh's embarrassment could be gauged by the chronology of measures that he took ever since he assumed the HRD Minister's post.
Singh launched a `<b>detoxification campaign' to cleanse school curriculum from alleged tampering done by the last BJP-led NDA Government</b>. For this exercise a survey was conducted on school textbooks which produced some thousand-page reports. Subsequently reports were placed before the CABE Committee last year for formulating a secular National Curriculum Framework.<b> It was primarily done to appease the Muslims, who felt hurt by the alteration effected during the NDA rule</b>.
After assuming the office, <b>Arjun Singh set up National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions primarily to help the groups who wanted to set up minority educational institutions and had problem of getting no-objection certificates from the Local or the State Governments. The </b>move came in for censure from the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which told <b>HRD that it would not be advisable to overlook Local Governments on the issue</b>.
Significantly,<b> HRD kept out the unaided minority educational institutions of the 93rd Constitutional Amendment, which imposed quota regime on both aided and unaided private institutions.</b>
Incidentally, when Aligarh Muslim University lost its minority status in an Allahabad High Court ruling last year, Arjun Singh directed the HRD to contest the case for AMU.
<b>"These measures were meant to keep the minorities as an exclusive entity and not an inclusive entity," said a senior Government official. "Contrary to Singh's agenda, Manmohan on Thursday spoke for adopting measures which would integrate the Muslims into mainstream educational system," admitted a Left politician.</b>
It is important to recall when a special Minority Ministry was created under another Congress veteran AR Antuly, Arjun Singh resisted any move to shift some of the sensitive minority-linked educational programmes under the ministry.
Interestingly, Prime Minister, who was hassled over Arjun Singh's acerbic criticism of economic reforms during the Planning Commission's finalisation of XIth Plan Approach paper, is seen as having exposed the failed outcome of Arjun Singh's endeavour to bring the Muslims in real terms into educational mainstream despite these measures.Â
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Pioneer.com
Santanu Banerjee | New DelhiÂ
By playing the minorities' backwardness card effectively at the annual conference on Thursday the State Minorities Commissions, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pulled the rug from under HRD Minister Arjun Singh's feet.
By his repeated references about lack of educational access to the Muslims and his emphatic stress on bringing Muslim women to professional courses, observers feel that he actually underlined the failures of the HRD Ministry's major projects related to the educational welfare of the Muslims.
According to sources, what seems to have put the <b>HRD Minister into deeper embarrassment was the Prime Minister's clubbing the failure of Muslims' access to education with other developmental schemes of the Government</b>.
The PM's backhand compliment to Arjun Singh's has come at a time when the Sachar panel has given a decisive hint that Madrasa education was an unlikely solution for the educational backwardness of the minorities.
However, for the past two years,<b> the HRD Ministry has been great thrust on Madarsa modernisation. According to sources, Arjun Singh now comes under political pressure with his existing schemes on minority education being dismissed as failure by none other than Prime Minister's Office</b>.
The depth of Arjun Singh's embarrassment could be gauged by the chronology of measures that he took ever since he assumed the HRD Minister's post.
Singh launched a `<b>detoxification campaign' to cleanse school curriculum from alleged tampering done by the last BJP-led NDA Government</b>. For this exercise a survey was conducted on school textbooks which produced some thousand-page reports. Subsequently reports were placed before the CABE Committee last year for formulating a secular National Curriculum Framework.<b> It was primarily done to appease the Muslims, who felt hurt by the alteration effected during the NDA rule</b>.
After assuming the office, <b>Arjun Singh set up National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions primarily to help the groups who wanted to set up minority educational institutions and had problem of getting no-objection certificates from the Local or the State Governments. The </b>move came in for censure from the Parliamentary Standing Committee, which told <b>HRD that it would not be advisable to overlook Local Governments on the issue</b>.
Significantly,<b> HRD kept out the unaided minority educational institutions of the 93rd Constitutional Amendment, which imposed quota regime on both aided and unaided private institutions.</b>
Incidentally, when Aligarh Muslim University lost its minority status in an Allahabad High Court ruling last year, Arjun Singh directed the HRD to contest the case for AMU.
<b>"These measures were meant to keep the minorities as an exclusive entity and not an inclusive entity," said a senior Government official. "Contrary to Singh's agenda, Manmohan on Thursday spoke for adopting measures which would integrate the Muslims into mainstream educational system," admitted a Left politician.</b>
It is important to recall when a special Minority Ministry was created under another Congress veteran AR Antuly, Arjun Singh resisted any move to shift some of the sensitive minority-linked educational programmes under the ministry.
Interestingly, Prime Minister, who was hassled over Arjun Singh's acerbic criticism of economic reforms during the Planning Commission's finalisation of XIth Plan Approach paper, is seen as having exposed the failed outcome of Arjun Singh's endeavour to bring the Muslims in real terms into educational mainstream despite these measures.Â
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