10,000 Delhites given literacy by Sewa Bharati (a RSS affil. organisation ) . . . . .

[MRT144]

haha, thue owned you

[aneeshm]

Umm . . . the people involved are not dumb . The objective is to make neo-literates teach the next batch , and so on until the target is achieved .

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Were India to even teach basic literacy to the entire population of Delhi, I'd be pretty impressed.

10,000 isn't a small number, but I think there are far more illiterates in New Delhi than that.

[MRT144]

so it should only take 4 years then...
right.

[Provost Harrison]

RSS? Royal Satanist Society?

[MRT144]

really sexy seamonster?

[aneeshm]

Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh ( National Association of people who themselves serve ) .

[Arrian]

to literacy. I don't know jack about the RSS, so I have no further comment.

-Arrian

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


10,000 isn't a small number, but I think there are far more illiterates in New Delhi than that.

There were about 20,00,000 illiterates in Delhi before this program started . The 10,000 neo-literates are expected to teach another 10,000 , while the original centres keep working . That is how , each phase , the number of people trained goes up by 10,000 . Within a few years , the whole of Delhi should be able to read and write and do basic maths .

The number of people being made literate in the Nth phase can be taken to be 10,000*N .

Thus it will go something like

1st - 10,000
2nd - 20,000
3rd - 30,000

and so on .

A bit or rough calculation shows that it will be approximately five years before they achieve their goal .

Or maybe they will do something which brings down that time even more .

And in case anybody thinks that this will never work - it has been tried , and it works .

I don't know which language they are using , but I assume it is Hindi , as that is a language which has a completely phonetic script , and which the people being taught already know .

[Cort Haus]

The Sandinistas of Nicaragua set up a rolling literacy programme in the early eighties - before all such social niceties were destroyed by the Contra War.

The first set of students would go out and teach the next batch, and IIRC it worked quite well until the conflict disrupted everything.

[Colon™]

Originally posted by Arrian
to literacy. I don't know jack about the RSS, so I have no further comment.

-Arrian

Nationalist-hindu umbrella organization. The BJP is part of it.

[Tattila the Hun]

I doubt all of the 10,000 neo-literates will actually teach their mad reading skillz to others. They propably have a job or something, plus, literacy gives them an edge over non-literates, in jobs, in everything... Some might not wish to lose that edge.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
What , specifically , makes you think the RSS is regressive in itself ? I concede that some organisations which are part of the RSS family essentially consist of nutjobs , but the RSS itself does not promote that behaviour ( as far as I have seen ) .

Could you please tell me the basis of your impression of the RSS ?

I wouldn't normally excuse the RSS completely from the behaviour of its daughter organizations, but I will for now. My main problem with the RSS still remains, in that it injects a poisonous "Us vs. Them" mentality into Indian political/cultural discourse, much like the Communists do. Their stand on coversions is a case in point, and is completely unjustified.

Moreoever, while I'm all for being proud of your country and national heritage, I think the RSS exhibits a dark side to that mission as well - it's extremely jingoistic, and is unwilling to recognize that Indian culture is an amalgamation of the cultures of several peoples, and is the stronger for it. It seems to define "Indian" culture as a direct descendant of some imaginary, non-existent historical utopia in which all of India was Hindu, every Indian spoke Sanskrit, and in which Hinduism was synonymous with liberal democracy. All of which, obviously, are false.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by LordShiva


I wouldn't normally excuse the RSS completely from the behaviour of its daughter organizations, but I will for now. My main problem with the RSS still remains, in that it injects a poisonous "Us vs. Them" mentality into Indian political/cultural discourse, much like the Communists do. Their stand on coversions is a case in point, and is completely unjustified.

Moreoever, while I'm all for being proud of your country and national heritage, I think the RSS exhibits a dark side to that mission as well - it's extremely jingoistic, and is unwilling to recognize that Indian culture is an amalgamation of the cultures of several peoples, and is the stronger for it. It seems to define "Indian" culture as a direct descendant of some imaginary, non-existent historical utopia in which all of India was Hindu, every Indian spoke Sanskrit, and in which Hinduism was synonymous with liberal democracy. All of which, obviously, are false.

They have a very strange definition of Indian - any religion or religious ideology which originated in India , with Indian ideological roots , or which has integrated Indial culture into its own , is classified as Indic in nature . This ends up including the Jains , Buddhists , Sikhs , the Parseed , and even some sects of Muslims , some of the Christians , and all of India's resident Jews .

The only people they consider to be "Them" are those who do not integrate into the Indian mainstream and who do not accept Indian culture as their own .

Even then , the social programs they run do not exclude anybody .

Every Indian spoke sanskrit - total rubbish . Only the educated elite spoke Sanskrit .

Hinduism was synonymous with liberal democracy - equally nonsense . Hinduism was usually synonymous with liberal monarchy .



But again - what do you think of the literacy program ? Do you think it will work ?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
But again - what do you think of the literacy program ? Do you think it will work ?

I hope it works