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THE SOUL OF THE BUSINESS
A
PRIVATE FAITH MADE DANGEROUSLY PUBLIC
The Making of a Paper
By SHOMA
CHAUDHURY
In
Gratitude
By TARUN
J TEJPAL
Tehelka
EDUCATIONSUMMIT2007,
New Delhi, April 27
interview
‘Language
is central to identity’
Excerpts from
an interview with Pavan Varma, Director General of
the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and author of several books
including The Great Indian Middle Class, Ghalib: The Man, The Times
and Krishna: The Playful Divine.
He spoke to Puneeta Roy
and Amit Kaushik
Can
you look at education in isolation from what happens in the larger society?
No you can’t.
I have a very strong view on language and education.
I feel we are producing a nation of linguistic half-castes, who can
never speak English with the degree of adequacy or fluency that any
language demands, but who are nevertheless adrift from both their mother
tongue and the national language.
I think we need
to go back to the drawing board and really implement, up to Grade 6,
education in the mother tongue and the national language, and then introduce
English.
We are natural multi-lingui...
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