September 6, 2002

THE HSTP DEBATE CONTINUES - REFLECTION IN MEDIA

There have been another spate of articles and news-reports during the last fortnight. In addition to providing the references we are also attaching these for ready reference.
1.. Latest issue of frontline carries an article by R Ramchandran - Axing a science teaching programme Volume 19 - Issue 18, Aug 31 - Sept 13, 2002.
2.. Press statement was issued by 13 eminent Indian scientists which was carried in a number of newspapers on 3rd and 4th September. Statement and list of signatories attached.
3.. Prof PM Bhargava, founding director of CCMB, Hyderabad addressed a press conference and issued the statement by scientists in Bhopal on 3rd September.
4.. Latest issue of EPW published a letter by Shri Manu Kulkarni responding to the editorial published in EPW on 25.06.02 - Dead hand of obscurantism. In-between another letter was also published in EPW on 03.08.02 - Eklavya closure notice - announcing the state govt's final decision to close the HSTP and the Social Science programme of Eklavya. Attaching the letter. Do respond to the issues raised in these letters to EPW at epw@vsnl.com and edit@epw.org.in
e.. Shikshantar has posted Prof Ramakant Agnihotri's article on there web-magazine. You can give a link on the HSTP site. It's on their message board. www.swaraj.org/shikshantar
6.. Rashtriya Sahara carried an article by KR Sharma on the edit page on 23rd August.
We do have a number of unpublished articles in English and Hindi. If you have any suggestions on how and where these could be used do let us know.
Most of the articles in English are also available on the HSTP site developed by the Columbia University Asha chapter. The site has become an extensive documentation ground for the current debate but it also has a number of other important HSTP documents as well. Do visit this site and sign the Online petition if you haven't managed to do that till now.

http://www.cisl.columbia.edu/grads/presi/EKLAVYA/
It has link to a new petition also:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/forhstp/petition.html
In the meanwhile the state government has issued another press statement on 2nd September in response to the Scientists appeal. While this statement is quite conciliatory in tone it does not address / concretise any of the questions that Eklavya had raised in its last letter to the CM on 7th August. There has been no response to the letter till date. We will focus on this aspect in the next update.
Do circulate the updates to the others - relevant egroups, list-servers etc as we aren't being able to reach all those who might be interested in this issue.

Rajesh Khindri, Kamal Mahendroo, Tultul Biswas, and others
For HSTP and Eklavya