CPM flays move to privatise non-performing schools
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 4
The Delhi Government’s proposed move to privatise non-performing schools run by the state government in the National Capital Territory came under sharp attack from the Communist Party of India (Marxist). It is “‘a shameless abdication of responsibility to provide quality education to poor children,” the Delhi unit of the CPM in a statement said.

The government’s sordid intention became obvious from the fact that schools targeted for privatisation were primarily located in slum clusters, resettlement colonies and other areas where the city’s teeming millions of poor lived, the party said. “‘The schools with a poor record in Board examinations are to be handed over to private educational trusts, which will be allowed to charge the fee they desire. This, in effect, means that children of the poor will no longer be able to attend schools as their parents are not in a position to pay the kind of fee that private educational institutions charge,” it said.

Delhi Education Minister, Raj Kumar Chauhan, had recently announced that schools, which did not perform well at Class X and XII levels, would be privatised to tone up their performance. The real reasons for poor Board results, the Left party said, lay in woeful lack of infrastructural facilities, including insufficient number of teachers and lack of accountability of school staff. “‘This is not only unacceptable but also callous in the extreme,”’ it said, and called upon the government to immediately rescind its order, which would only commercialise education, and confront the real causes for non-performance of schools.

MCD asks teachers to complete syllabus

New Delhi, February 4
The Municipal Commissioner, Mr S. P. Aggarwal, declared before the House of the MCD that 6,300 teachers of the corporation’s schools, who were on strike for 24 days, would be given their salaries provided they complete the syllabus for the students. The teachers were asked by the Commissioner to take extra classes on working days, Sundays and Saturdays.

Pomp and show mark Greater Noida carnival 
Our Correspondent

Noida, February 4
Greater Noida celebrated its 12th Foundation Day by organising a week-long carnival from January 23 to 28. The extravaganza was a great success, judging from the various activities organised and the crowds that thronged it from all over. The organisers had catered to all tastes, ages and social strata.

There were cricket tournament, crafts fair, rural sports and athletics for men, women and children in six age categories, a festival of folk songs and dances, puppet and magic shows, rangoli, musical chairs, Odissi dance and ghazals and other entertainment programmes.

Besides, there were neighbourhood management conference, kavi goshti, cultural programmes, exhibition, property mela, spot painting for kids, inter-collegiate youth festival, Greater Noida amateur golf tourney and industrial expo. There was also a seminar on building India’s future cities, apart from a cultural show by Anoop Jalota.

Greater Noida transformation from sleepy villages and farms to a fully integrated, ultra-modern township, resonant with vibrant activities and a promising future, was there for everybody to see.

Anoop Jalota with his deep resonant voice and inimitable singing style rendered popular bhajans and ghazals, enthralling the huge final-day audience. Defence Secretary Yoginder Narain, the chief guest, had aptly remarked that “Greater Noida will be definitely one of the best new cities of the country and that Greater Noida holds a great future in the industrial map of the country”.

Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority came into being in 1991 to develop a modern integrated township near Delhi. The first Master Plan for the development was prepared in 1992 for population of 5 lakh which was revised as per the NCR Plan, called the Outline Development Plan 2001.The plan envisaged a balanced development of the region, creation of an appropriate rural-urban balance through a well-conceived 4-tier hierarchy of settlements.