Blog Posts by author Sumita Dasgupta

I was in Kathmandu last week. An interesting time to be in Nepal as a political observer, watching the Jhalanath Khanal-led government run out of time to cobble together a coalition. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there as a political observer. My task was to meet with the top brass in the government’s Education department. And to try to figure out if an environment programme that has managed to excite and engage school students in India, would work its magic in Nepal, too.

It began like every other year. I am talking about the frenzied activities that usually take place in various parts of the world in the last week of May. This year too, Mission Cleanup was on in full swing to give our grimy planet that fake spruced-up look on 5 June, when the global community celebrates ‘World Environment Day’.

After the immediate and expected reactions (signalled by an uproar among state-level bureaucrats) to the union minister Mr Kapil Sibal’s dictum on board examinations, its long term impacts on the Indian education machinery  have now begun to unfold.  Some are direct and rather heart warming.