•Is there an app for that?
•Although education minister Smriti Irani has said that learning Sanskrit is not compulsory, the removal of German effectively makes it the only viable option for most students.
• September quarter disappoints India Inc.
•While regional languages were meant to be made available to students as an option since 1988, there has been a great deal of difficulty maintaining uniformity.
•Apparently, the most famous sentence in Chetan Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend is Madhav telling Riya — “Deti hai to de, varna kat le”.
•Students of Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV) who have been studying German until now have to switch to another language — Sanskrit or a regional one — irrespective of the fact that they do not have academic grounding in either.
•Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend has so far sold a few million copies.
•Over 70,000 students from 500 KVs will be affected by this knee-jerk decision. But not to worry, they will be offered counselling, the minister said.
•Let me just Google that.
•The policy of KVs has been to offer regional languages only if 15 or more students opt for it; hence, most schools are unprepared for any option other than Sanskrit as third language.
•Subsidies will leave the next generation in debt, said Arun Jaitley.
•Education ministry is also writing to all CBSE schools to make the three languages — English, Hindi and Sanskrit/regional language — compulsory.
•Your password must be a mix of upper and lower case and must contain at least one numeral and one symbol.
•Bringing all CBSE schools under this new rule would mean the number of students affected will run into tens of lakhs. But what’s more important? Tradition, dude!
•Does that come in fuchsia? Or is it only saffron?
•Before we judge this decision harshly, we must understand the minister knows what’s best for the country. Regional languages and Sanskrit are important, she said, because the GDP of a country rises when reading, writing and comprehension is done in the local language.
•Machine wash at 30°. Do not tumble dry.
•However, Ms Irani did not mention what kind of data was gathered for this study nor did she quote any examples of countries or communities that have successfully demonstrated this ‘hypothesis’.
•Yo Yo Honey Singh’s most successful song this year is ‘Char bottle vodka’. It has nearly three million views on YouTube.
•Economists are struggling to comprehend how use of local language affects the GDP of a country. GDP is defined as the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period, usually calculated annually. So far, the role of language had been kept out while computing growth, but since the minister said this, it must be true.
•Let’s create a hashtag and Tweet the life out of it.
•“Everything is not bad about history. Ancient India had great scientific mind and rich knowledge. We need to find how to do its PR,” Ms Irani said. Presumably, by PR she is referring to public relations. It is defined as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organisations and the public.
•You can hire a spin doctor pretty easily these days. Send out a request for proposal ASAP.
•Perhaps, in further pursuit of ancient India’s scientific mind and rich knowledge, Irani spent four hours on Sunday consulting with an astrologer in Karoi village in Rajasthan.
•Shit just got real.
•It is entirely possible that astrology, palmistry and numerology would be introduced as possible compulsory subjects for students from Class IV to XII. If it is, I am certain it would help increase GDP too.
•Got a mani-pedi recently?
•Armed with Sanskrit, regional languages and palmistry scientists, India will have so much GDP, we won’t have place to keep it. It’ll be spilling out of everyone’s pockets and cupboards. We’ll buy hard disks and pen drives to store our excess GDP. It’ll be awesome!
•Wtf?!
(Veena Venugopal is editor BLink and author of The Mother-in-Law . Follow her on Twitter >@veenavenugopal )