Today i was stuck in traffic of 90mins, for a drive that should have taken 15mins. The reason?
New Era School in Mumbai, was upgrading not only its facilities, but also its curriculum, which is a good thing. The bad thing, rather than planning it, they simply rushed through it, which resulted in all current students being relocated.
So the parents protested, on the streets, disrupting traffic, because they decided it was okay. I personally felt they should have been thrown behind bars for a few hours for disrupting civil peace. However we are an extremely tolerant society and did not.
One has to think though, what were the parents thinking? Does the general public care about the time they just lost, or about a school they do not care about. What were the parents and children getting? Curses or Pity?
It was complete chaos and a lot of people lost close to 5 good hours. Luckily i just lost an hour. However hope that all those parents that created so much trouble and pain for others, should be forced to have to send their children to the relocated school just for that.
By, Vikram Jhaveri
Tags: kids, morcha, mumbai, New era school, parents, strike, Traffic Jam
July 30, 2009 at 8:36 am |
I am father of a 9 year old daughter who is at home for last 2 months thinking why is she not going to school? Why is this injustice being meted out to her? A young mind today is talking about courts and street protests instead of leaning history, science and maths which will lead her to nation building. Does anyone even know that parents and students with sitting MLA had been on hunger strike for 7 days, handing out roses to passer-byes and motorists on the same road for days to end? The media is interested in gay rights and whether Sanjay Dutt scratched his behind in the morning make national news headlines. It is sickening. When the state turns a blind eye to injustice, and greedy people with power and corruption turn predators, people will take the same course we took. Though, the entire struggle has been peaceful, both us parents and students heartily apologise for even the smallest inconvenience to anyone. The roles of renowned structural engineers, education director and education minister are far from satisfactory. At the same time, Mumbai Police and the Chief Minister deserve a salute for their fairness and support. Who says the largest democracy in the world has achieved freedom? History taught us, the same management struggled to drive out the British and now they are driving out innocent children to bring in Cambridge education. Guess integrity, commitment, honesty and honour went out with the British. Personally though, I feel the top management got bad advise from equally bad advisors and failed to sense the pulse.
August 7, 2009 at 12:30 pm |
The Parents of the New Era School are putting untrue accusation at the school management (Birlas). The hue and cry over the temporary shifting of the students to a nearby location was unnecessary. The protest by the new era school parents is unjustified. They had no reason to take to the streets & hold the city to ransom as they did. Safety and well being of the students is the primary concern of the school management . A detailed scientific test on the structural stability of the building was carried out and the building was deemed unsafe. The Parents believed in Director of Education’s decision who is not even qualified in construction and repair field that the building is safe and not the three qualified, experienced and reputed consultants of the city who have given the verdict that the building is unsafe.The students were to be shifted to a temporary location at D N road not very far from current location for 2 years till the renovation was complete. Instead of approving the management’s plan, they put false allegations on the management of trying to make money out of this. Birla group will have far more lucrative ways of making money than through education. Please read more about this at http://tiny.cc/Fcx2F an article by renowned writer Mr. Anil Dharker.