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State achieves 72 pc literacy
Fears of Ganga drying out unfounded, say experts
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He has his hands full, with knowledge Differently abled Alam has completed eight years of ‘Maulviyat’ studies, written a book and knows Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and English  Dehradun, September 7
Mohammad Shane Alam (20) is busy with giving autographs these days. This lad, who lost his hands at the age of nine, has turned many heads with his unusual way of writing with his elbow stubs. Alam, who hails from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, is in town for the Quran exhibition. Whenever he enters the venue, the people, who know about his trait, start asking for an autograph.
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State achieves 72 pc literacy
Dehradun, September 7 As the Human Resource Development Ministry releases fresh guidelines for the restructured National Literacy Mission on Literacy Day tomorrow with special emphasis on female literacy, it is expected to recast the literacy programme as Shakshar Bharat with the ambitious target of raising the national average to 80 per cent by 2012.
The giant strides by the state in making its population literate is also reflected in the female literacy figures which stand at 60.26 per cent. But the gender gap which stands at 23.75 per cent is an area of concern. The six districts where female literacy is a matter of concern are Uttarkashi, 36.05 per cent, Tehri 38.20 per cent, Champawat 43.48 per cent, Haridwar 44.7 per cent, Udham Singh Nagar 45.11 per cent and Bageshwar 47.75 per cent. “Once we receive the guidelines, the programme will be initiated here. What we have gathered is that the phased approach will be discarded and in its place several things like basic learning, vocational learning and continuing education introduced. “Female literacy is an area of concern and we hope to address it,” said SC Badoni, Chief Development Officer. It is believed that the restructured literacy programme will be female-centric and take learning to a new level where it would be linked to capacity-building and income generation.
A critical evaluation of the literacy programmes in Uttarakhand point towards the absence of staff, non- existent monitoring agencies and staff (literacy volunteers) who were paid a pittance. Special emphasis need to be given to districts of Uttarkashi, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Champawat. “We could not retain staff who were volunteers and paid an honorarium. In today’s world missionary zeal is hard to come by. The absence of staff was felt in several remote areas. We had 1,000 volunteers only. “Then there was the problem of monitoring. The success of any programme depends on it, but we could not do it at the village level. Little wonder then there was lapses in several areas,” said Dr Santosh Singh, Programme Manager, State Literacy Mission Authority. The National Literacy Mission was set up in 1988 to impart a sense of urgency and seriousness to adult education in the age group of 15-30. Rural schoolteachers, students and NGOs were involved to educate adults at their own home, village and community level. In Uttarakhand, the Total Literacy Programme was started in 1992 for two years but due to several constraints was extended to four years. Several targets could not be achieved. Later, a post-literacy programme was started to cover the targets. “In the first instance, it was felt that neo-literates covered under the programme were not able to retain learning and there was a complete relapse as they could not continue with education after learning to read, write and count. “In order to address this problem, the Continuing Education Programme was started in 2004 but it could not uniformly run in all districts. Uttarkashi was left out,” said Manvi Tripathi, Joint Director, State Resource Centre, National Literacy Mission. Experts believe that the need to recast literacy programmes is symptomatic of the changes that keep taking place in the adult literacy approaches the world over. As the programmes evolve, the shortcomings are addressed. The sequential approach of the National Literacy Programme could not be continued for long as the drive that began with a sudden burst gradually subsided achieving limited targets. The new literacy programme is expected to involve the three-tier system of panchayati raj and aims to increase the involvement of states. The stress will be on functional literacy to illiterate adults in the age groups of 15 and above. The programme will provide opportunity to acquiring equivalence to formal education system and imparting skill-driven training for sustained livelihood. It would provide an opportunity for lifelong learning, thereby creating an environment which promotes a literate society. Failure to universalise primary education, grounded as it is in complex socio-economic issues, has had serious implications for planning universal literacy. Programme delivery hitherto rested with the official hierarchy and included limited participation from the general population. “The whole adult literacy programme can acquire an altogether different character if there is stress on universalization of primary education. Even school and college children can be involved,” said Senthil Pandiyan, Chairman, District Literacy Committee. Literacy has value only if literacy skills are retained and applied and if it contributes to social change. Education for all or increase in literacy includes the spread of formal and non-formal primary education as well as adult literacy, including continuing education. “The adult literacy programme is the outcome of the failure of primary education, had the universal primary education programme been implemented fully, the literacy situation would have been totally different. “Every year a new army of illiterates is created if proper stress is not given on primary education,” said Manvi Tripathi.
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Fears of Ganga drying out unfounded, say experts
Roorkee, September 7 Fears have been expressed that if the present rate of recession of glaciers in the Himalayas continues, the Gangotri glacier may disappear by 2035. Some reports also say the Gangamay become a seasonal river in the near future as a consequence of climate change. But the scientists at the hysrology institute say the retreating Gangotri glacier will not have a drastic influence on the flow of the Ganga. Giving reasons, Singh and another scientist Manohar Arora, who has been monitoring and studying the glacier for over a decade, said: “The Ganga is not totally dependent on glaciers for its waters, even in the headwaters region. Only about 7 per cent of the basin up to Devprayag is glacier-fed while snow and melting glacier contribute only 29 per cent to the annual flow at Devprayag; the rest is from rainwater”. The scientists said at Devprayag, the average annual flow was about 22,000 mcm (million cubic metres) which shows that the average contribution from snow and glacier is about 6,380 mcm only. “And certainly, the percentage of contribution of the glacier and snow reduces progressively as one moves downstream”, said Singh, adding that more than 70 per cent of the flow at Haridwar is due to rainfall. This means the contribution of the glacier in the flow of the river is significantly very less. ” The river has a significant amount of baseflow downstream at Haridwar. Though the Gangotri glacier at Gaumukh (at an elevation of 7,756 m) is traditionally considered the source of the Ganga, a number of mighty tributaries, including the Bhagirathi, Yamuna, Ghagra, Gandak, Kosi and Sone, contribute major part of the waters. While the Yamuna contributes about 61 per cent of the total flow at Allahabad (just 16 per cent of the total flow of Ganga comes from Haridwar at Allahabad), the contribution of the Ghagra, Gandak, Kosi and Sone rivers is 2,46,740 mcm, which is 1.62 times the flow at Allahabad. The scientists say over the past few decades the rate of recession of the Gangotri glacier has been between 22 and 27 m per year. “Leave aside other factors like heavy snowfall which extends the life span of glaciers, if we assume the recession rate to be 40 m per year, simple computations show that a 30-km long glacier (estimated length of the Gangotri glacier) would take about 700 years to completely melt away,” said Singh. The possibility of the Ganga becoming a seasonal river or disappearing in the near future was very low, he added.
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He has his hands full, with knowledge
Dehradun, September 7 Alam, who hails from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, is in town for the Quran exhibition. Whenever he enters the venue, the people, who know about his trait, start asking for an autograph. “It feels great when people come to me for autographs. But now, I have become tired of signing,” he quips. Despite being physically challenged, he has written a book which was unveiled last Saturday in Delhi. Alam, without any help, writes, eats, uses the computer and does all things which a physically fit person is capable of. “I don’t want to sit idle because I lost my hands. I want to show others, who are like me, that life doesn’t end here. “I feel really motivated when kids in my locality come to me and say that after seeing you attending college, we have started going to school,” tells the confident boy. Alam is doing a religious course from Darul Uloom, Deoband University. He has completed eight years of his ‘Maulviyat’ studies. “This will enable me to get admission in MA and then, help me pursue PhD, which is my goal,” he said. Alam has the knowledge of four languages - Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and English. “I want to pursue MA in Arabic or English. I am not that good in English but I have started working on it,” he said. He lost his hands during childhood. He had accidentally put his hands in a grass cutter. He has seven brothers and a sister. His father is a farmer and mother is a homemaker.
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Dehradun, September 7
