The Hindu : Opinion / Columns : The Aamir Khan Column: One simple step to increase our GDP

Just a copy paste from The Hindu website. Do read this interesting column by Amir Khan.

With education, the disabled can contribute to the growth and wealth of our nation

In America, 12 per cent of the population is counted as disabled, the corresponding percentage in England is 18 and in Germany, nine. In India, government statistics claim it is two per cent. Javed Abidi of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People has a very poignant question with regard to the above numbers: what is so amazing about the Indian environment or climate or gene pool that we have only a tenth or a fifth of the number of persons with disabilities when compared to other countries? Or is it that something is wrong with our counting?

Until the year 2000 — 53 years after Independence — the Census did not record a single disabled person in India! In other words, in the minds of the people making policy, taking decisions and allocating funds, the disabled did not exist. And if they did not exist, obviously we did not do much for them. So in the first 53 years of Independence, while we were building the infrastructure of our country, we did little or nothing to include them in our thoughts and actions. Therefore, the bulk of our infrastructure is not disabled-friendly, leaving them further marginalised, and disabling them further.

How we behave with the disabled among us tells us what kind of a people we are.

Ketan Kothari, another expert, explains how, by and large, we have two kinds of reactions to disabled people: one, that they must have done something wrong in their previous birth and therefore deserve what they got; two, let us use them as a ticket to heaven — make a donation to an organisation working for the disabled, or give money to a disabled person asking for alms, and score some brownie points with God. If this is how many of us behave towards the disabled, it is a sorry picture that we paint of ourselves.

Time to change, guys.

So where and how should this change begin? Education.

The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme and the Right to Education Act say that every child in India is guaranteed an education. Despite that, most regular schools in India deny admission to children with disabilities. They cite lack of infrastructure and trained special educators. They are probably right. But what stops so many schools across India from becoming inclusive and disabled-friendly? Who is putting a gun to their heads, not allowing them to do this? I'm afraid it is our own lack of thought, application of mind, and maybe of heart. Let's change that. If we start today, each school (if it really wants to) can become a truly integrated school within a period of two, or at most three, years. Let each school make this its target.

Currently, an alarmingly low percentage of children with disabilities are educated. Without the foundation of a strong education, no child can reach his or her potential in life. By denying children with disabilities admission in regular schools, we are denying them their right to education and, therefore, their right to make their lives productive.We are also denying other children the right to intermingle with, learn from, and grow up with friends with disabilities, and vice versa. With education for our persons with disabilities, we can prepare them to be productive, look after themselves, and their families.

The government says two per cent of our population is disabled. Various experts and NGOs say it is six per cent. I think it is safe to assume that the number is somewhere between six and 10 per cent — let's say eight. Now eight per cent of 1.2 billion is 96 million. That is more than the population of England (51 million), France (65 million) and Germany (80 million). As Mr. Abidi puts it, what we as society need to decide is, do we want 96 million of our population to be uneducated, unemployed, unproductive and left with no choice but to be a weight that the rest of us carry? Or do we want them to be educated, employed, productive, able to look after themselves and their families, contributing to the growth and wealth of our nation? If we want the latter then we simply cannot achieve that without including them in our mainstream education system.

That's the bottom line.

Jai Hind. Satyamev Jayate.

The Hindu : Opinion / Columns : The Aamir Khan Column: One simple step to increase our GDP

The Hindu : Columns / Nirmal Shekar : Let us accept the truth

Awesome article by Nirmal Shekar published in The Hindu.

Let us not be afraid to face the truth. We are a one-sport nation, writes Nirmal Shekar
As a professional sportswriter, I am sick of hearing the question over and over and over again. I find it almost nauseating. If there are tens of millions posing the question, then, over the four decades that I have spent in the profession, there have been tens of hundreds of answers, from serious commentators and sports critics down to lay persons.
Why does a nation of over 1.2 billion people end up with just a few pieces of bronze and silver every four years in the most celebrated event in sport?
Psychologists often talk of something called paralysis through analysis in life. When you think too much about something and ratchet up your anxiety levels, the performance is bound to dip. When it comes to this clichéd question, this very much seems to be true.
CONFUSED

While, some might believe they have the right answers/solutions, we have been left in such a confused state that there is no single ‘right’ prescription for the malaise.
But if you chose to leave aside all serious analysis as to why Indian track and field athletes, swimmers, gymnasts, hockey players and other Olympic participants fail to live up to our — and sometimes their own — expectations and came around to zeroing in on a rather reductionist, and surely controversial, viewpoint, the answer might be simple.
For, this question raises its ugly head for only about two weeks every four years. The rest of the time — for three full years and eleven and a half months — we are obsessed with, worship and shamelessly pay obeisance to a sport played with any degree of seriousness by eight-and-a-half nations.
Let us, then, accept the truth. We are a one-sport nation. And even a toddler would tell you what that sport is.
So, let us forget the London Games. In a few weeks, the Indian cricket team will be playing in the Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka where the conditions will suit Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his boys to the hilt.
ANOTHER WILD PARADE

Let’s look forward to another wild parade through the streets of Mumbai with the boys peacocking from an open-top bus. Let’s unabashedly hail their heroics, throw fresh flowers and encomiums at them even as my fellow professionals try to pull out every adjective in their vocabulary to celebrate the great achievement.
Meanwhile, Mary Kom would probably be running from pillar to post to find a cooking gas cylinder in Manipur, Yogeshwar Dutt would be walking to the nearest tea stall in his hometown, unmolested, his stellar achievement long forgotten.
The peerless Viswanathan Anand’s fifth world chess title would be a distant memory and he would be preparing for yet another tournament that nobody cares about even as Jeev Milka Singh tees off somewhere that nobody has heard of. Birdie and eagles…well, we haven’t been to a bird sanctuary in a while; should make it a point to visit one.
That’s who we are. That is what we are. That is India. Say all you want about how mediocre Indian sportspersons — cricket is advisedly left out of the description of sport because it is no longer a sport and hasn’t been in quite a while as it is on a par with things religious — are but we simply do no care for them for the most part.
WE LET THEM DOWN

And when the Olympics come around, we are saddened, angry and aghast that we are not able to revel in reflected glory. We are ashamed that countries with one millionth of our population pick up gold medals. These guys have done us in, we say. We believed so much in them and they have let us down.
But the truth is, it is we who let them down. For, we don’t care about them for three years and eleven-and-a-half months. We don’t care about their impecunious circumstances, their heroic struggles, their fight against-the-odds and battles with cynical, self-serving sports administrators heading often corrupt sports bodies.
Instead, we spend sleepless nights over whether Chennai Super Kings would make it to the final of the IPL or whether a mediocre also-ran cricketer really did take recreational drugs at some rave party in Mumbai; or whether Yuvraj Singh is dating the latest Miss India or some other starlet whose only claim to fame is that she was seen with a cricketing superstar on a night out.
My dear readers, let us get real. We have failed the Koms and the Yogeshwars and the rest as much as we seem to believe that many Indian athletes have failed us. They don’t owe us as much as we owe them.
We need to follow their careers, cheer them from grassroots up, care about how they are treated by the administrators, worry about how they are ignored by the big corporate giants who would readily part with $10m for a 15-second TV ad campaign featuring a Sachin Tendulkar or a Gautam Gambhir. But we don’t.
We simply don’t give a damn most of the time and then bemoan their lack of success at the Olympics once every four years.
Believe me, it is not easy being an Indian and trying to achieve world-class feats in most sports, barring cricket, with its superb infrastructure public and corporate support and unmatched financial clout.
This is not to belittle what the Gavaskars, Kapils and the Tendulkars have achieved. But, tell me this: why is nobody canvassing for a seat in the upper house for Anand, why isn’t anyone talking about a Bharat Ratna for the genius of the 64-square game?
The world chess champion is an Indian — chess, my friend, chess, where the grey matter matters more than in any other game — and that should make us prouder than any other achievement by any Indian sportsman or team.
But forget it. By the way, when is India’s first match in the Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka? I bet Harbhajan will be back with a bang. What a fighter the man is!
Nothing reflects our unity in diversity — and is a greater tribute to it — than our national obsession with cricket.
Sorry Mary, we forgot about your gas cylinder and the constant problems with power failures in your little house. But that is who we are.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/nirmal_shekar/article3758296.ece