Maya sees politics in PM’s letter

Children's Day is the latest arena for politics between the Congress-led Centre and BSP-led Uttar Pradesh, which is going to assembly polls in early 2012.

Updated on: Nov 10, 2011, 02:01:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Children's Day is the latest arena for politics between the Congress-led Centre and BSP-led Uttar Pradesh, which is going to assembly polls in early 2012.

Millions of children in India's biggest state, Uttar Pradesh, will not get Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's inspirational message on how education can change one's life on November 11, three days ahead of the children's day.

HRD ministry had decided that headmasters in 14 lakh elementary schools in India will read the PM's message, where he recalls his tough days as a school going child in Chakwal, now in Pakistan, and his gradual rise to become Prime Minister.

"I went to a school in a village that had no electricity. My village did not have a pukka road or fast vehicles. I would walk miles to reach my school...I worked as hard as I could and the nation has always rewarded me for my efforts," the PM recalled.

He also said that during his school days school education was not free and it was not a fundamental right as now guaranteed by Right To Education Act, while inspiring children to use education to "rediscover themselves" and realise their "aspirations".

The HRD ministry had decided to send the PM's message to create awareness about Right To Education (RTE) and ensure all schools comply with RTE standards by 2013.

Mayawati led Uttar Pradesh government has sensed electoral politics in the Prime Minister's message and has not distributed his message to over three lakh schools in the state. The apparent reason is the failure of the Centre to provide money to distribute the PM's message but, in actual, it is party politics.

Even the BJP ruled states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which are also going to polls in early 2012, have not taken extreme step as UP. These states have decided that message from state chief minister's message will be read along with that of the Prime Minister.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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