Prelim Bits 24-09-2019

Constituent Assembly and its debate on the status of Hindi

• Exactly 70 years ago, between Sep 12 and 14, 1949, Constituent Assembly of India debated the status of India’s languages.
• Among the issues that were discussed were the use of the term ‘national language’, instead of ‘official’ language,

1. Hindi vs languages such as Bengali, Telugu, Sanskrit,   
2. Devanagari script vs the Roman script,
3. The language to be used in higher judiciary and Parliament,
4. International numerals vs those in Devanagari script.

• Excerpts of what some of the members of the Constituent Assembly said are,

• N Gopalaswami Ayyangar 

1. Member of the Drafting Committee, presented the initial draft and the first amendment.
2. It said, Hindi in Devanagari script should be the official language, but English should be used for at least 15 years.

• Seth Govind Das 

1. Argued for “one language and one script”, and said that Hindi should replace English at the earliest.
2. Democracy can only function when majority opinion is honoured.
3. If we differ on any issue, that can only be decided by votes.
4. Whatever decision is arrived by the majority must be accepted by the minority respectfully.
5. To maintain this tradition that we want one language and one script for the whole country.

• S V Krishnamoorthy Rao 

1. English should remain, and a future Parliament should decide on the matter.
2. Hindi, was inferior to many South Indian languages. This Hindi and Hindustani question is purely for the north.

• Mohd Hifzur Rahman 

1. Argued for replacing Hindi with Hindustani, the language that Mahatma Gandhi favoured and Congress agreed.
2. It was spoken from Bihar right up to Frontier.

• R V Dhulekar 

1. Recalled that from Ramdas to Tulsidas and from Swami Dayanand to the Mahatma, all wrote in Hindi.
2. Argued forcefully that, “I belong to Indian nation, the Hindi Nation, the Hindu Nation, the Hindustani Nation”.

• Frank Anthony 

1. Conceded that “English cannot, for many reasons, be the national language of this country”.
2. But cautioned that the Hindi that was being imposed was very different from the one that common people spoke.

• N V Gadgil 

1. He wanted Sanskrit to be made the national language.
2. English should be retained for at least one century more.
3. Hindi, he said, is a provincial language.

• T A Ramalingam Chettiar 

1. He disagreed with Hindi being called the “national language”.
2. The South, he said, was “feeling frustrated”, and asked for accommodation.
3. Hindi is no more national to us than English or any other language.

• Satish Chandra Samanta 

1. He said Bengali should be preferred over Hindi as the national language.
2. It was a rich language and Bande Mataram, the poem that inspired the freedom struggle, was in Bengali.

• Syama Prasad Mookerjee

1. A resolution of the Constituent Assembly could not decide the supremacy of a language.
2. Unity in diversity is India’s keynote and must be achieved by a process of understanding and consent.

• Dr P Subbarayan - Suggested the adoption of Hindustani in Roman script.
• Kuladhar Chaliha

1. Sanskrit should be the national language because Sanskrit and India are co-extensive.
2. Hindi was a compromise solution and it is good for India.
3. However, Hindustani would be an even better choice.

• Jawaharlal Nehru

1. Recalled Gandhi’s views on this matter.
2. While English is a great language and has done us a lot of good, no nation can become great on the basis of a foreign language.
3. The chosen language should be more or less a language of the people, not a language of a learned coterie.
4. Language should represent the composite culture of India.
5. Therefore, Nehru said, Gandhi used the word ‘Hindustani’ “in that broad sense representing that composite language”.
6. Nehru, however, cautioned against forcing Hindi on all of India’s peoples.

• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad –

1. The absence of a common language was a key hurdle in finding a replacement for English.
2. He expressed disappointment that the Congress had given up its consensus on Hindustani.
3. If Hindustani is accepted then Urdu also will have to be accommodated.
4. Urdu is one of the Indian Languages.
5. It was born and brought up in India and it is the mother-tongue of millions of Hindus and Muslims of this country.

All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2018-19

• AISHE was initiated in the year 2010-11 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). 
• The main objectives of the survey was to,

1. Identify and capture all the institutions of higher learning in the country.
2. Collect the data from all the higher education institutions on various aspects of higher education.

• Data is being collected on several parameters such as,

1. Teachers, student enrolment, programmes,
2. Examination results, education finance, infrastructure.
3. Indicators such as Gross Enrolment Ratio, Pupil-teacher ratio, Gender Parity Index.
4. These are useful in making informed policy decisions and research for development of education sector.

• AISHE 2018-19 showed the gender distribution of students enrolled in various higher education courses in the country.
• The total estimated student enrolment in the country is 3,73,99,388, out of which 51.36% are male and 48.64% female.

• The ‘Gender ratio’ is higher on the male side in most courses, but there are exceptions,

1. Female enrolment is higher at M Phil and Postgraduate.
2. Enrolment at UG level is 51% male and 49% female.
3. Diploma has a highly skewed distribution at 66.8% male and 33.2% female.
4. At PhD level, male enrolment is 56.18% and female enrolment is 43.82%.
5. At integrated level, the distribution 57.50% male and 42.50% female.
6. PG Diploma student enrolment is 54.09% male and 45.91% female.

• A higher overall share of male students in enrolment is a trend also in most of the states.

• The report is based on voluntary uploading of data by institutions of Higher Education listed in government portal.

United in Science Report

• The report was compiled by WMO under the umbrella of the Science Advisory Group of the UN Climate Summit.
• It stated that global temperatures have increased by 1.1°C since 1850, and have spiked 0.2°C between 2011 and 2015.

• In 2018, the annual growth in CO2 emissions soared 2% and reached a record high of 37 billion tonnes.
• The current levels of CO2, methane and Nitrous oxide represent 146%, 257 % and 122% respectively of preindustrial levels.
• Moreover, the average global temperatures from 2015-2019 are also on track to be the warmest five-year period on record.
• The increasing climate change has also accelerated sea-level rise, and made oceans more acidic than ever before.
• Global sea-levels increased to approximately 4 mm/yr during 2007-2016, from 3.04 mm/yr during 1997-2006.
• Rise in CO2 levels, meanwhile, are responsible for the growing acidity in the oceans.
• Oceans are a major source of carbon sink. They store nearly 25 % of the annual human induced CO2 emissions.
• The report also recorded a decline in Arctic sea ice by 12 % per decade from 1979-2018.
• Antarctic ice sheet lost at least six-fold amount of ice annually between 1979 and 2017.
• Report suggested that, to combat the impacts of climate change, there is a need to triple the ‘Nationally determined contributions’(NDCs).
• It highlights the urgent need for development of concrete actions that halt global warming and the worst effects of climate change.

Source:   PIB,  The  Indian Express