Kusum Choppra

As the burkha controversy deepens with more and more European nations cracking down, it is perhaps time to stand back and take stock. There is no doubt, a security angle which cannot be ignored. A voluminous coverall with socks and sandals, gloves on the arms and only eyes visible, if the wearer has not worn goggles, it is impossible to differentiate between a male or a female, which is scary in these times of random terrorism, where weapons are whipped out and targets are often innocent civilians. On the integration front, the recent upsurge in burkha wearers had an equal impact. Take the example of Ahmedabad, replicated no doubt in dozens of other cities across India. Once upon a time, it was difficult to differentiate Hindu women from Muslim ones in Ahmedabad. If the latter were more prone to wearing flashy silver and gold in their garments, the same held true of many other communities such as the Marwaris and Punjabis, so one was never quite sure. All of a sudden, after the petr...

Educationists are facing a dire shortage of teachers of humanities subjects, leaving one wondering whether no one has actually studied in the arts stream in the recent past. WHY? This is not a very recent phenomenon. It started some decades ago when careers in medicine and engineering were considered the be–all of life; hence an emphasis on the sciences. Those who did not make it into medical or engineering colleges fell back on the B.Sc degree for physics and math, etc., for a teaching career; even law as a last resort. Such was the pull of the scientific world that there was this all out campaign to drag every possible stream of studies into the Science category, with the application of so-called scientific methods of chart-making, experimentation and statistical compilations etc . Those subjects not amenable to such tactics were ridiculed, labeled ‘out of fashion’. When the load of B.Sc graduates was found to be unemployable, at a time when the economy with surging forward with bank...