Hiatus

I'm going to take a short break till 2nd June, when my finals shall be over..these are the last ever exams I take, so don't want to mess them up too much. Perhaps on the 30/31, as I revise South Asia, I might blog a bit, for revision purposes, but on the whole, expect to hear from me on the 4th- I'm off to London on the 3rd and the boy wants some attention, post exam!

There is this interesting article, by Nilanjana Roy on how Sonia has been constructed by the Indian media and public. Also looks at Sushma Swaraj's 'I will shave my head' threats in an interesting light- suggesting that it was an oblique slight at the fact that Sonia was a widow.

In other news, there is this article on how since both Kalam and Manmohan are teachers, the teaching profession is now ruling the country. From my own personal experience, as the daughter of two teachers, that's hardly the case. Teachers are paid a pittance, are blamed for everything- from difficult question papers, to poor marks. There is huge political interference especially in West Bengal. This is not to say that our teachers are all uniformly good. But our system is such that innovative teachers are rarely given any credit- only those who fetch high marks are. Further, the 'publish or perish' dictum seems to have hit Indian academia as well. As my father, who has spent 10 years writing a solitary book, argued with me, it is possible (and maybe even desirable) to spend more time on your teaching duties, rather than rushing off to conferences and presenting papers just to boost your CV. In fact, some of my favourite teachers, may not have been big names in academia, but were hugely inspiring in class. And if I was to ever teach, if a student told me that she was inspired to take up a subject/topic because of the way I taught it, that would be a greater compliment to me than a million good reviews of something I'd published.

Post exams, I'll take a look at cabinet portfolios and all that. Till then Tom Paine awaits me.