The women cricketers of the TamilNadu (TN) senior team have qualified for the nationals of the BCCI

Plate T20 tournament at Dhanbad, Jharkhand. The team which won two out of four games in the inital Plate matches of the tournament, cemented their place in the nationals after edging past Rajasthan due to their higher net run rate. The tournament which is to be held between February 11 and 14 is a knockout format which will see the girls take on the qualifiers from other groups. We are all very happy and excited because this is the first time the team is qualifying in this format after three years, said Swetha CV, the spearhead of the bowling attack. The new format is divided in two separate groups ; Elite and Plate. The former consists of the teams which have performed exceptionally well and are leading with respect to matches won; the latter

VINITHRA MENON

TNIC gives cold TN women T20 team makes it to nationals shoulder to protests
THE WORD

MELANGE

CHENNAI, FEBRUARY 14, 2014

The Tamil Nadu Womens Cricket team ...on their way up consists of teams with comparitively lower success rates. Each group (Elite and Plate) consists of 11 teams divided into three groups and the top two teams from each group qualify for the knockouts which takes them one step closer to winning the Cup. Tamil Nadu is now up against Andhra Pradesh who topped their group in the Plate division. This is a complete transformation from the earlier format which was zone-based wherein the top two teams from each zone would

Carrying a bag filled with old textbooks, Shilpa goes from one vendor to another, trying to sell them off. No one is willing to buy my books, she says. Shilpa finally reaches Mangesh Kumars bookshop, which raised her hopes a bit. Flipping through the pages, Mangesh also refused to take them. The edition of these subjects has been changed last year. There is not many looking for these books, he says. With no one to buy her textbooks, Shilpa, who has just completed her B.Sc nursing from Padmavathy College of Nursing, Dharmapuri, makes her way out of the chain of makeshift shops that

PHOTO: NIVEDITA BHARTI

Political campaigning through painted walls at Anna Salai

Second hand books at a shop in Moore Market

sell second hand textbooks in Moore Market. Mangesh says pharmacy textbooks syllabus change almost every few years. We buy them depending on the demand of the students and the sub-

Ossie Fernandes, former Right to Education State Representative, says the 25 per cent quota of school seats for poor students, is flawed because of English being the medium of instruction. If you keep English as the medium, whos going to come? How do you expect a payment dwellers child to walk into Padma Seshadri school, for example? The child will drop out immediately, he says. The elite section which uses English medium is just 10 or 12 percent in cities and in that in rural areas, it was much lesser, according to him. I dont think you set educational goals based on 10 percent of your population. You have to set goals even for private management based on larger population, he says. Fernandes feels that the private, self-financed, money making schools are the ones which really

SURAKSHA P

Education should not be for profit

RIGHT TO EDUCATION
pay the government, hence the former are favoured. They are good bread and money for the different inspectors and the channel that goes right up to top politicians. Government schools are not a channel for money making, he opined. Even in a linguistically diverse country like India, the state language can be the medium of instruction in all schools with due importance to English to carry on further, he feels. Its done in Bihar, you have to study standard 1 to 5 in Bihari. Nowhere does it happen. In Japan or China, in higher studies after standard 11 one can specialize in English. You study in Chinese but take two or three years off, improve your English and come back into the global network. Other countries are doing it, I dont see the problem, he says. English should be given due importance as a language of study, a
PHOTO: SICHREM.WORDPRESS.COM

jects, says Mangesh, who has been in this business for the last 25 years. Most of the vendors here sell engineering textbooks, which are in demand all the time. Students are the main source of

Posters replace murals on Anna Salai

The walls along Anna Salai, especially in Teynampet, which used to be adorned with murals, are now painted with slogans and pictures of politicians. The Chennai Corporation under the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), spent close to Rs 4.5 crores on painting the walls along most of Anna Salai with murals that depicted different aspects of Tamil culture. These included murals of Tamil history and life in rural Tamil Nadu. These were whitewashed last year. It is unclear what the new All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) led Corporation planned with these walls; but the walls now have political graffiti and posters. According to news reports, the initial plan was to paint the governments achievements on these walls. S. Lakshmi, a fruit juice seller, says, Those paintings were much better. They looked so much better than these ugly posters. Suresh Manhar, a migrant worker from Patna, This poster culture is everywhere in Chennai but these paintings were very unique. If you remove these posters, someone else will put more up.

UDAY SINGH RANA

India stradles a certain commercial baggage where education is a profit-vending machine.

The former RTE state representative Ossie Fernandes at a workshop language of communication and can be given priority by holding special classes, he feels. Asked if this was because of colonial baggage, he says, India stradles a certain commercial baggage where education is a profit-vending machine. In many countries, education is primarily the responsibility of the state. All of the school managements here are into industries. There are many other industries which run schools. The school is either an avenue for evading tax or it brings in more income than the tax they have to pay. Education should not be for profit, he asserts.

Gone are the days when weddings were planned and executed by parents. Youngsters with exposure to various cultures want to plan their weddings themselves. What was once a family event is now being outsourced to wedding planners. Elaborate and monotonous ceremonies are being replaced with shorter, fun filled and thematic yet traditional ceremonies with classy gatherings. Pan Indian is the word which describes best the South Indian weddings these days. The affluent make their weddings a lavish affair, with two major cultural influences: Bollywood and North India. Though ce-

ZAINAB AHMED

The changing face of South Indian weddings

remonies like mehndi and sangeeth are not a part of south indian weddings, many ceremonies are preceded by them. Shruti Ravindaran, owner of wedding planning companty, ADHVIK Solutions, says that with the movies like Ye Jawani Hai Deewani showing big fat indian weddings, the youngesters now want their weddings more orchesterated. Also those who are staying abroad want a typical Bollywood wedding with music and dance for which we also send choreographers who choreograph sequences to popular Bollywood numbers, she says. There are Bollywood themes such as 80s theme or 60s theme in which the bride, groom and their close family members dress as per the theme and there is a dress code for the guests as well, she adds. Although in most of the cases the main wedding ceremony still remains traditional and is supervised by parents and elders up to a great extent, its mainly the pre and the post wedding events that are getting creative. Lakshmi Ravichandar, owner of Event Art says youngsters these days want to make most of the pre wedding days. So, rather than being involved in traditional ceremonies and meeting a lot many people, they prefer organising a more intimate get-together such as cocktail parties with their close friends and families. The major change has been the elimination of post wedding reception. Executing and being a part of the wedding is tedious enough. You do not want large scale parties then. So it is always good to have a simpler and intimate parties after the wedding, adds Shruti. Another factor that has added to this change is the inter-community and inter-nationality marriage. As youngsters go across the boundaries to study and work, they find their partners there. Usually in such marriages, the ceremonies are from two completely different cultures. So the wedding has to be planned and executed accordingly which also results in the change in traditional weddings, says Shruthi who,on certain ocassions, has also organised weddings in churches. However, there are still a group of youngsters for whom nothing can replace the charm of a traditional wedding. Saraswathi Ravikumar, Lakshmis partner at Event Art says that there are many young people who have grown up seeing a typical South Indian wedding going on for good two or three days with lots of meaningful and special moments. And so the idea of a traditional wedding still fascinates them. In todays world, its quite natural to think exotically but the culture and tradition must go hand in hand. We have a rich culture and weddings are the perfect time to showcase them, adds Lakshmi.
PHOTO: BALAMANIBRIDE.COM

Fernandes also regrets that a Supreme Court judgement enabled capitation fee to come into the education system. If the SC had taken a strong stance that education is meant for social change and not for profit it could have been possible. It doesnt want to give up on English medium schools because all their children have to go to English medium schools, he says. The easiest thing for the schools to do was to have 25 per cent in nursery but the SC order that came seven months ago made 1st standard as the entry level; then the schools could not evade the law. But most schools continue to have LKG as the entry level. If they still continue to do it, it is violative of the Supreme Court and the state will not even be obliged to pay them back. The private sector has used every possible method to circumvent the law, he said.

Pictures of neta-log (politicians) are everywhere. There are those, however, who seem glad that the murals are gone. You cant assume that everyone will like those murals. They were permanent. If you dont like them then too bad. You have too see them everyday when you go for work. At least these posters keep getting replaced, says Carl Thomas, a saleman. Art critic Sadanand Mennon says, They wanted their idea of Tamil Nadu to be on these walls so they painted pictures of fishing villages and wildlife. However, the people they commissioned weren't really artists. They were street artists that paint political graffiti. the name of art they created, what we call in art language, kitch. It was a ghastly repertoire of art. However, the purpose of these murals was to keep people from defacing walls. They were quite successful in preventing people from pasting posters on them. It is difficult to tell whether the decision to whitewash these walls was taken on a larger level in lieu of the approaching elections or it was done by a local corporation official to appease the Chief Minister, he says.

North Indian style sangeet at a South Indian wedding

PHOTO: UDAY SINGH RANA

TASHI TENZIN

A market for second hand textbooks

the second hand textbooks and they sell the books after completing their course. Venoth, who works for Sam S.A Book House says the shop has been buying only engineering books from the students, as there is a good demand for them. We buy books from the students at half the publishing price and sell them back at 10 percent profit.I make sure to buy enough books before the college session begins, said Venoth. Another vendor, V. Balachandar, says old textbooks are profitable compared to fiction and other books. He buys at 40 per cent of the price and sells at 60 per cent, making 20 per cent profit. There are a few vendors, who sell novels and other books bought

qualify to play the final leg. Hemalatha Dayalan, one of the most successful performers with the bat for TN this season feels positively about the change in format. It gives us the chance to progress steadily. We get to play equal standard in the initial stages and there are no unfair advantages. If we qualify, we get to play a better standard of cricket. It ensures a healthy and balanced mix of teams as opposed to only playing your own zone teams repeatedly,she said.

Aarti Sankaran, a Level One coach and the Assistant Coach at the TamilNadu Cricket Association(TNCA) who has coached the TN womens team at both Under 19 and Senior levels, feels that the pressure in this format is intense. In a knockout stage, every match should be played like its the Finals. How you are mentally is equally if not more important than your physical preparation. This format is meant for winners,she said. The TN team found itself relegated to the Plate group after its lacklustre performance in the previous season. Now the team has entered the tournament as favorites having won against Andhra Pradesh in all their previous encounters thus far. Nethra, the young and enthusiastic Vice-Captain of the team feels that the chances of winning the Cup for the first ever time looks bright. This is a very talented team and every player has worked hard to reach this level. We are going in with a positive attitude to play for the win, she said.

The Tamil Nadu Information Commission (TNIC) has largely chosen to ignore the recent protests by Right to Information (RTI) activists in the city, demanding the suspension of the current Commission and reconstitution of a new body. We are simply going to ignore it, said K.S Sripathy IAS( Retd), State Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), adding that the commission could not address every protest that the activists chose to throw at them. Sripathy admitted to failings in the implementation of the Act in the state. However, he added, the RTI Act was comparatively new. Its a mixed bag. We are still in the colonial mindset of keeping information to ourselves, he commented, and accused the RTI activists of having little knowledge about the provisions of the Act. A group of activists in the city had gone on a one-day fast near the Chepauk guest house earlier this month, raising accusations of lack of transparency in the Commission. According to the protesters, the

ZAYAN ASIF

commission, which is supposed to overlook the proper implementation of the RTI Act by departments under the state government, is not forthcoming with information about its own working. According to Senthil Arumugam, General Secretary of Satta Panchayat Iyakkam, an NGO which works to help people make use of the RTI Act, the Commission is responsible for making sure that all the departments have put up information about their services on their respective websites. But the TNIC website itself does not offer any information on the number of cases the commission has handled, the cases pending or the penalties issued, he accused. The statistics section of the TNIC website displays under construction. Arumugam also accused the Commission of being understaffed. Under the RTI Act, each state has the provision to appoint as many as 10 State Information Commissioners (SIC). The TNIC has appointed only six so far. Most Public Information Offi-

cers (PIO) lack the training to handle RTI applications. They are given additional responsibilities besides their work as PIOs and their work gets overloaded, he said. Deepak P.B, a member of Voice of India, an NGO that has free RTI help centres, remarked that the PIOs often gave selected information and did not specify reasons for denying information in most cases. Under the Act, if a PIO failed to furnish the requested information without proper cause, he/she was liable for penalty. Most appellate authorities, however, favour the PIOs against the appellant, he said. CIC Sripathy agreed that there was under staffing in the Commission at various levels. Pointing out that they had been able to manage with lesser number of SICs in the past, he said that lack of adequate staffing at lower levels was proving to be a problem. The activist bodies, upon receiving little response to their demands, are planning on filing a Public Interest Litigation, repeating their demands for the reconstitution of the Commission.

PHOTO: VINITHRA MENON

from libraries through open auctions. Saiprasanth, a student who has come to buy textbook for his Tamil Nadu Common Entrance Examination (TANCET), says it is always better to buy books here if you want to save some money. The sales go up in July, December and January, when the semesters in the colleges begin. After the fire that gutted it in 1985, Moore Market moved in 1990 to another site adjacent to the old one; it was considered a treasure house where one could find rare books, old records and record players, and also pets. But the fire has not deterred the spirit of the market. The discounted rates remain the main attraction for Moore market.