2006-2017 Kasturi & Sons Ltd. -SHAJI KA [email protected] - Do trees yield gold and silver? Does the first aid kit include a spade and a car jack? The answer to both questions is yes, if textbooks issued by the Meghalaya Board of Secondary Education (MBoSE) are to be believed. Under pressure from academics, NGOs and parents, Meghalaya’s Department of Education has undertaken an exercise to correct errors in its books. The State’s Education Minister, Lakhmen Rymbui, has directed officials to provide him with copies after marking the errors. Corrective measures “Corrective measures will be taken so that students do not suffer. We will look into every aspect of publishing so that error-free textbooks can be provided,” said Mr. Rymbui. Apart from spelling and grammatical errors, factual mistakes on the culture and tradition of indigenous communities, primarily the Khasis, in the textbooks, had rubbed several organisations the wrong way. For instance, the Class IX Social Science book says: “The Khasi and Pnars are very good in carving. They have their own style of making gold and silver from the tree.” The book also refers to legendary Garo freedom fighter Togan Sangma as a Jaintia, and omits Captain Williamson A. Sangma, the first Chief Minister of Meghalaya, from a list of ‘prominent personalities of Meghalaya’. Similarly, in the Class X textbook on health and physical education, a diagram shows a spade, a flash light, a car jack and other car accessories as part of a first aid kit. The Class VIII book on Social Science, too, has a few errors. Aiborlang Nongsiej, a Shillong resident, pointed out that a column on the ‘Preamble to the Constitution in India’ has the word ‘brief’ instead of ‘belief ’. Overpricing too If these were not enough, some schools adhering to the State Board have been accused of selling overpriced textbooks instead of the cheaper ones issued by the MBoSE. The youth wing of the Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement, a political party, accused a missionary school in the State capital Shillong of making students purchase an environmental education book for ₹225 each. “The same book issued by the MBoSE costs ₹70,” the youth wing’s president Thomas Passah told reporters. Mr. Rymbui said the Board would be streamlined after the government appoints an “efficient, full-time” Executive Chairman for the MBoSE. The Board has not had an Executive Chairman for almost three years now, he said. CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC Gold from trees? Meghalaya seeks correction of textbooks Rahul Karmakar GUWAHATI Spelling mistakes, wrong grammar & dodgy facts need fixing CM YK B CH-CHE april 8, 2018 Chennai Section 2 Printed at . Chennai . Coimbatore . Bengaluru . Hyderabad . Madurai . Noida . Visakhapatnam . Thiruvananthapuram . Kochi . Vijayawada . Mangaluru . Tiruchirapalli . Kolkata . Hubballi . Mohali . Malappuram . Mumbai . Tirupati . lucknow . cuttack . patna Under scrutiny, Brazil’s political elite eyes Lula’s arrest with concern page 4 Bankruptcy cases will force banks to increase provisioning this year page 8 An NRI can invest in PPF only through NRE, NRO and FCNR account page 9 Drones, software help in monitoring thermal footprints of animals page 14 Palestinian journalist dies as toll rises to 9 GAZA CITY Two Palestinians, including a journalist, have died after being shot by Israeli troops during border clashes, the Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday, bringing the death toll in the latest violence to nine. WORLD PAGE 3 DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD IN BRIEF Facebook makes political ads more transparent WASHINGTON Facebook will not allow political ads until the identity of the advertiser is verified and the entity paying for them is mentioned. The aim is to improve transparency in political campaigns. WORLD PAGE 3 DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Now in her late twenties, Veeramma Selvan of Thek- kekadampara tribal hamlet in Sholayur gram panchayat of Attappady has reason to believe that her gods have stopped smiling. It was in Ja- nuary last year that she lost her five-month-old, under- weight son Balu — her fourth child — allegedly due to milk aspiration. Pregnancy and childbirth evoke traumatic memories for Veeramma and her hus- band Selvan. They lost three children — a daughter and two sons — before Balu due to health complications re- sulting from poverty and malnutrition. It was the death of Vee- ramma’s 14-month-old daughter Kaliyamma on April 12, 2013 — the first in a series of 45 infant deaths in Attapady — that turned na- tional attention on Kerala’s impoverished tribal hear- tland in Palakkad district. Under collective care The infant deaths and perva- sive malnutrition prompted the then UDF government to set up community kitchens to ensure at least one com- plete meal a day for children below six years, adoles- cents, pregnant and lactat- ing women and those above the age of 60. Though initial- ly operated through angan- wadis, the kitchens were handed over to the tribal women’s Kudumbasree col- lectives in 2014 and are sup- ported by the Central go- vernment’s National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). Though the State govern- ment has claimed that the welfare measure is a success in ensuring minimal nutri- tional security to tribal peo- ple of three panchayats of Attappady, it has come in for harsh criticism from the Ker- ala State Commission for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, which has termed it a complete failure in achieving the desired ob- jectives. The ruling Left Democrat- ic Front (LDF) remains deep- ly divided over the conti- nuance of the facility presently operating in 193 tribal hamlets. The rethink had pushed the scheme to a crisis in February with the Kudumbashree units owing the Kerala State Civil Sup- plies Corporation ₹6 crore. It took Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s intervention, fol- lowing an appeal by Kudum- bashree activists during his visit to Attapady in February this year, for the funds to be released. Ironically, the debate in Kerala comes even as States like Jharkhand and Chhattis- garh are sending experts to Attappady to study the pro- ject with a view to replicat- ing it in their tribal areas. ‘An alien intervention’ The Commission said it has demanded a thorough re- view of the project based on the feedback from the tribal community. Speaking to The Hindu, Commission mem- ber S. Ajayakumar said 154 among the 156 tribal promo- ters working in Attappady under the SC/ST Depart- ment were highly critical of the project. “Most of the community kitchens now remain only on paper. We found that all the functioning kitchens provide a menu different from traditional tribal diet. In most cases, local non-go- vernmental organisations are diverting money from the funds for community kitchens. The project re- quires a complete overhaul by including tribal menu and liberating it from the clutches of NGOs,” Mr. Ajayakumar said. “I am quite astonished by the allegation of the Com- mission that NGOs are di- verting funds from the com- munity kitchens. It may have mistaken the NRLM for an NGO. The tribal Kudumbas- ree units are operating the kitchens and we are just fa- cilitators. Every deal is tran- sparent,” said Dr. Seema Bhaskar, coordinator for NRLM in Attappady. Government sources said ₹28 crore had been spent on the kitchens so far. Success in numbers “Those who are highly criti- cal of the community kitch- ens forget that children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) have reduced from 613 in 2013 to 26 in 2018. We never considered them as long term solutions. [But] they must be allowed to con- tinue till restoring their [tri- bal] lost land and liveli- hood,” said Dr. Bhaskar. Food for thought: do Attappady community kitchens serve the needy? Amid criticism from SC/ST panel, experts say project must continue K A Shaji Attappady A handful: A tribal child at Attappady relishing her nutritious meal. * K. K. MUSTAFAH SUNDAY SPECIAL Green solution: A bicycle modified by the National Environmental and Engineering Research Institute collects garbage while floating on water. It was handed over to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation on Saturday. * S. SUDARSHAN CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC Cleaning cycle Ninong Ering, Congress member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh, has op- posed the extension of the Armed Forces (Special Pow- ers) Act (AFSPA) in some parts of the State, saying it was “misused by the Army.” Mr. Ering, who represents Arunachal East in the Lok Sabha, said that in the name of the Act, the Army “ha- rassed and tortured” villagers. On April 1, a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) notifica- tion extending the AFSPA for another six months, de- clared Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts in Aruna- chal Pradesh and the areas falling within the jurisdiction of eight police stations in dis- tricts bordering Assam as ‘disturbed area’ under Sec- tion 3 of the Act. ‘A peaceful State’ “It’s a peaceful State. We didn’t expect the AFSPA to be extended by another six months. This Act has been there in these areas for the past 20 years, what has been the outcome? Army and NSCN beat people. If it was serving any benefit, I would have understood. The Army misuses it and does not do the real work,” Mr. Ering said, highlighting the trou- bled situation in the region. Mr. Ering claimed he had raised the issue earlier also when the UPA government was in power, saying he had given multiple notices in Par- liament to discuss the subject. “The Army comes and tortures the public; they ar- rest and harass them. You don’t take any action against the insurgents but harass the public instead. No one knows where the funds allo- cated for these areas are spent. I get several represen- tations — villagers feel the go- vernment is betraying them,” he said. Reduced areas: Rijiju Responding to Mr. Ering’s demand that the AFSPA be revoked, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said, “The AFSPA has been enforced in Arunachal Pra- desh for the last three de- cades. As the situation is im- proving, our government has reduced the total area under the AFSPA, and hope- fully, it will be reduced more as the situation improves.” AFSPA extension comes under fire Arunachal Pradesh MP cites ‘harassment and torture’ of villagers by the Army Vijaita Singh New Delhi ILLUSTRATION: SREEJITH R