India tests China Killer long-range ballistic muke missile

The launch makes India part of an elite club with intercontinental nuclear defence capabilites [AFP]

India has test launched its first long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of reaching deep into China and as far as Europe, with a scientist at the launch describing the mission as successful. "It has met all the mission objectives," S P Dash, director of the test range, told the Reuters news agency on Thursday. "It hit the target with very good accuracy." It took the missile about 20 minutes to hit its target somewhere near Indonesia in the Indian Ocean. The launch of the Agni V, which can carry nuclear warheads and has a range of 5,000km, thrusts the country into an elite club of nations with intercontinental nuclear capabilities. Only the UN Security Council permanent members - China, France, Russia, the US and Britain - along with Israel, have such long-range weapons. "The successful launch of Agni V missile is a tribute to the sophistications and commitment to national causes on the part of India's scientific technological community," Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, said. Singh said he hoped Indian scientists and technologists would in the future contribute a "lot more to promoting self reliance in defence and other walks of national life". 'Confidence boost' Al Jazeera's Prerna Suri, reporting from New Delhi, said the launch was "significant because Indian scientists have been working for years to get the programme off the ground". "It is the most strategic and ambitious programme this country has undertaken in recent years," she said. "What's important is that this missile has been completely indigenously produced and designed. It's cost the Indian government over $500m to do that." Harsh Pant, a defence expert at King's College, London, described the launch as a "confidence boost", adding that the mission "signalled India's arrival on the global stage [and] that it deserves to be sitting at the high table". But Richard Bitzinger, a military specialist at Nanyang Technological University in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that India would need to carry out "several more tests" before it could declare Agni V missile operational. "It's not gonna happen overnight," he said. The launch came as India nears completion of a nuclear submarine that will increase its ability to launch a counter strike if it were attacked. Delhi insists its nuclear weapons programme is for deterrence only. One of the fast emerging economies known as the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - India is keen to play a larger role on the global stage and has been clamouring for a permanent seat on the Security Council. It has in recent years emerged as the world's top arms importer as it rushes to upgrade equipment for a large but outdated military. China's reaction There was no immediate criticism from world powers over the launch, which was flagged well in advance, but China noted the launch with disapproval. "The West chooses to overlook India's disregard of nuclear and missile control treaties," China's Global Times newspaper said in an editorial published before the launch, which was delayed by a day because of bad weather. "India should not overestimate its strength," said the paper, which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party's main mouthpiece the People's Daily. State-owned China Central Television said the missile "does not pose a threat in reality", enumerating some of its shortcomings, from a problem with guidance systems to its 50-ton-plus weight. CCTV said the missile would have to be fired from fixed, not mobile positions, making it more vulnerable to attack. Delhi has not signed the non-proliferation treaty for nuclear nations, but enjoys a de facto legitimacy for its arsenal, boosted by a landmark 2008 deal with the US. On Wednesday, NATO said it did not consider India a threat while the US state department urged restraint and said India's non-proliferation record was "solid". India lost a brief Himalayan border war with its larger neighbour, China, in 1962 and has since strived to improve its defences. In recent years, the government has fretted over China's enhanced military presence near the border. Experts said the launch could trigger a renewed push from within India's defence establishment to build a fully fledged  ICBM programme capable of reaching the Americas. "Policy-wise it becomes more complicated from now on, until Agni V, India really has been able to make a case about its strategic objectives, but as it moves into the ICBM frontier there'll be more questions asked," said Pant. Source: Al Jazeera and agencies Newscribe : get free news in real time  Related posts: India, Asia #1 world's top weapons importer! India Upgrades Its Military With China in Mind! India sees China as 'de facto competitor' India's increasing troop may go nowhere

Rote learning, painful lessons!

Tweet

Painful lessons on rote learning

Indian Diary By Coomi Kapoor

In spite of India’s universities churning out some two million graduates every year, there has been no Bill Gates or a Nobel laureate among them in a long time. The education system that rewards rote learning over originality and creativity seems to be at fault.

AN unusual announcement by a Delhi University college recently made headlines. The elite college said only those with 100% score in the school-leaving board exam should apply for admission to an honours degree course in commerce.

This left tens of thousands of anxious students who did the college trail mid-June at their wits’ end. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal was not happy, either. But there was little he could do since university colleges enjoy a good degree of autonomy.

 
Flood of applicants: Crisis in higher learning has manifested in a high percentage of school-leavers seeking admission to Delhi University and others located in big cities. – AP

The 100% cut-off, however, helped focus on the growing malaise in higher education. Schoolleavers with 90% to 95% marks could not be certain of admission to colleges and courses of their choice. And those with 70% or lower could well drop t he idea of doing an undergraduate course at the University of Delhi.

Indeed, it would be hard for the vast majority of the teaching community in the university to gain admission on the basis of their ma rks now. Until very recently, it was rare for anyone to score a perfect 100 in school-leaving exams.

A good first class, say, 70%, was enough to get one in a couple of decade s ago. Following complaints of subjective and erratic marking in the school-leaving exams, the Central Board of Secondary Education tried to make the system as objective as possible. Unfortunately, the big downside of the new system was that it further privileged rote learning over intelligence and understanding.

Overnight, there was a huge inflation in marks across the board. The grade inflation did not translate into brighter and better stud ents. Barring a small percentage, a vast majority of school-leavers lacked basic understanding of subjects in which they had scored very high marks. It was sheer rote learning.

Also, along with the grade inflation, almost simultaneously college cut-offs for admissions to various courses touched new highs.

Crisis in higher learning also manifested in an inordinately high percentage of school-leavers seeking admission to Delhi University and others located in big cities like Bombay, Chennai, Calcutta, Bangalore, and Hyderabad. Clearly, the standard of education in the hinterland was not the same as it was in big cities.

With the number of colleges in big metros not keeping pace with the exponential growth in the student population, it was natural for the elite institutions to feel the pressure. Hence, the 100% benchmark for admission to the capital’s most prestigious commerce college.

Though old-timers bemoan the decline in standards at even the most prestigious colleges in big metros, there still existed a wide gulf in the quality of education in main centres and provincial towns.

Besides, there was a cache attached to not only British era universities such as those in Mumbai, Delhi, and Calcutta, but also to elite colleges which made it easier in later life to seek jobs and even matrimonial alliances.

With 400-odd universities churning out some two million graduates annually, including over half-a-million in engineering courses, there was an increasing demand for a basic college degree for joining the job market.

Employers insisted on a college degree even for menial j obs such as a peon or a chauffeur. No wonder there was such a huge rush for admissions to undergraduate colleges.



Admittedly, vocational education for school-leavers was talked about as one of the ways to ease pressure on college admissions. Given the social and economic backgrounds of a vast majority of aspirants for college education, the authorities believed they were better off learning professional skills.

A fast-growing economy with a rising middle class needed carpenters, masons, air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanics, television and computer repairmen, etc. in increasingly large numbers.

Unfortunately, even those who ended up as unskilled workers such as clerks and couriers insisted on acquirin g a plain bachelor’s degree because most employers in public and private sectors had laid that down as the minimum educational qualification. There was a low demand for admissions in vocational courses in the few institutions that existed in big cities like Delhi.

Despite all the emphasis on a college degree, it was notable there were no great achievers in scientific research and academic fields. The sole emphasis being on passing the exams through rote, improvement of mind naturally took a back seat.

That explained the total lack of achievers in various disciplines of educational instruction. In short, in spite of India’s universities churning out some two million graduates every year, there has been no Bill Gates, no Steve Jobs and no Nobel laureate among them in a long, long time. When the education system rewarded rote over mind, it was not surprising that originality and creativity was at a huge discount.

Recognising the value of learning by rote, a huge number of coaching institutions sprouted up all over the country.

Private tutors charged large amounts on students eager to score high marks in school-leaving exams. Indeed, even the all-India exams for admission to class one central government services had become a simple matter of learning by memory.

In recent years, Kota, a mid-sized town in Rajasthan, has gained prominence all over the country for its record number of coaching institutions.

Here, each institution vies with the other in boasting that its students scored the highest marks in various competitive exams, beginning with the school-leaving one.

Eager to enrol fresh students, such “shops” regularly take out fullpage advertisements in newspapers to claim “100% success” of its alumni in various exams. Essentially, these coaching coll eges help students mug the answers to questions asked in the relevant exams over the previous two decades or so. That was it.

However, a further damage to the quality of students getting into regular university colleges was done by the abolition of the interview at the screening stage.

Following complaints that interviewers were often subjective in assessing admission-seekers, the entire emphasis was shifted to percentage of marks in the school-leaving exam.

Thus, there was no way of knowing whether an admission-seeker was otherwise mentally-equipped for further education. No wonder India’s colleges no longer produce alumni who are good in studies, sports and extra-curricular activities.