The Evening Wrap: Textbooks for medicine planned for all major Indian languages within three years

Within the next three years, India will be offering textbooks for medicine, nursing, and pharmacy in all major Indian languages, confirmed Chamu Krishna Shastry, Chairperson of the high-powered Committee for Promotion of Indian Languages under the Ministry of Education. The committee is already in talks with the National Medical Commission and other specific boards for this new initiative, he said. “We are working at being able to offer education (courses in medicine/nursing/pharmacy, etc.) in regional languages across India. The central idea being that in 10 years time, all the students will have the option, infrastructural and staff support to study these subjects in their mother tongue. This is not to say that English will be done away with. That option will also be kept available,” he said. The confirmation comes days after Madhya Pradesh released textbooks in Hindi for three subjects in the MBBS course as part of a project to impart medical education in Hindi. According to data from the Health Ministry, India has 612 medical colleges (321 government colleges and 291 private colleges) offering 91,927 undergraduate MBBS seats and 46,118 postgraduate seats. According to the Indian Nursing Council’s 2021 annual report, the country has 5,162 nursing institutes. Doctors’ associations have warned that doing away with language uniformity will be a regressive move that will have a negative impact on medical education and the opportunities it offers. They maintain that medical education needs to be at par with international guidelines and bodies, and a multiple language system will confuse students and lead to a fall in the quality of education. Refuting this, Mr. Shastry said, “Countries, including Japan and Germany, follow the same principle and offer medical education in their respective languages. Even international students seem to be able to cope well.” “Besides, we understand that 90% of the doctors, nurses and pharma professionals that we educate stay on in the country and States to work there. In this scenario, knowing the regional language is an added benefit. It puts the patients at complete ease and allows no communication gaps,” he added. Mr. Shastry said that, currently, work is on to create textbooks in Indian languages, educate educators, and initiate capacity building while equipping universities enough to cater to this change. “We are holding seminars and content creation workshops across the country in various universities. This initial phase will be on for the next three years, after which we will be ready to offer courses in major Indian languages for under- and post- graduation. Apart from medical education, we are actively looking at other fields where students will benefit from this transition,” he said. SC dismisses Kerala petition challenging operation of Thiruvananthapuram airport by Adani group The Supreme Court on October 17, 2022, dismissed the Kerala government’s petition challenging the Centre’s decision to hand over the operations of Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to the Adani group. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit reasoned that the bid offered by the Adani Enterprises Limited for every domestic passenger was ₹168, that is, 20% above the ₹135 offer given by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation. The court also noted that the private entity had already taken over “operation, management and development” of the airport from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) since October 2021. The Bench noted that the employees were given the choice to either stay with the AAI or switch over to service of the private entity. On Kerala’s request, the court kept open the issue of State ownership of the airport land. The State had alleged that preference given by the Centre to a private concessionaire like Adani, which has no experience in the field of managing airports, smacks of arbitrariness. “Running an airport is not like running any other entity. It requires a tremendous amount of experience, expertise and knowledge gained through experience,” Chief Justice Lalit orally remarked during the hearing. It asked the Centre, represented by Additional Solicitor General K.M. Natraj, whether it was not prudent to have made experience as one of the parameters. The government said the policy and conditions were fine tuned after several consultations. In its appeal, the State, represented by senior advocate C.U. Singh and C.K. Sasi, argued that the Kerala High Court had favoured the handover of the vital facility to a private entity though such a move was not in the interest of better management of the airport. The entire proceeding, including the tender process, was in violation of the provisions of the Airport Authority of India Act, 1994, the State had said. The concession was given to the Adani group despite a proposal from the Kerala government to form a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to run the airport on a revenue-sharing basis, the appeal had said. Mr. Singh argued that the State had experience in running airports through its various organisations. “The Kochi International Airport at Nedumbassery, Ernakulam, which is being operated by Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), a State government- sponsored company, is one of the leading airports world over,” the appeal said. The State also referred to the Kannur International Airport. “This airport has the most modern and state-of-the-art aviation and other passenger and cargo facilities and is being operated by the Kannur International Airport Limited (KIAL), another State -government-sponsored company. It has become operational and is making progress,” the appeal said. Mamata bats for Sourav Ganguly, asks PM Modi to allow him contest ICC polls West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on October 17, 2022, came out in support of former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Ganguly should be allowed to contest elections to the International Cricket Council (ICC). “I will request the Prime Minister to allow Sourav to contest ICC elections. Why is he being deprived? What is his fault?” Ms. Banerjee told media persons before taking a flight to north Bengal. The Chief Minister also raised the issue of why Ganguly was denied second term as BCCI president. The Trinamool Congress chairperson asked why “Amit Babu’s (Amit Shah’s) son has been retained (in the BCCI)” but Sourav has been left out. “Why was Sourav left out of the BCCI? The manner in which he has been removed is unjustified. I am really shocked,” she said. Ms. Banerjee said that since Sourav has been removed in an unceremonious manner the only compensation that could be is to allow him to contest the ICC elections. She said that in the past Jagmohan Dalmiya and Sharad Pawar had served as ICC president and Sourav Ganguly was the most deserving to hold the post from India. The Chief Minister, while maintaining that Sourav Ganguly was not a political person but pride of Bengal, urged the Centre not to take any decision “politically or vindictively” but to take decision for the interest of cricket. The remarks by Ms. Banerjee come at a time when Ganguly is being replaced by Roger Binny, former cricketer and the president of Karnataka State Cricket Association as BCCI president on October 18. Last week a section of leaders from the Trinamool Congress including the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen had described the decision of not giving another term to Sourav Ganguly as BCCI president as an instance of “political vendetta” and raised questions about whether the decision had anything to do with the sports icon not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Ganguly had also said that one cannot remain a cricket administrator forever and he had been in administration for eight years. There are also reports that Ganguly can contest elections for the post of president of Cricket Association of Bengal, a post he had held in the past. U.K. Chancellor of Exchequer Jeremy Hunt scraps nearly all government tax cut plans U.K. Chancellor of Exchequer Jeremy Hunt on October 17, 2022, reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago, including a planned cut to income tax. In a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets, Mr. Hunt said he was scrapping “almost all” the tax cuts announced last month and signaled public spending cuts are on the way. Mr. Hunt said a planned 1 percentage point cut to the basic rate of income tax that had been due to take effect next year won’t happen. He also scaled back a cap on energy prices designed to help households pay their bills. It will now be reviewed in April rather than lasting two years. Mr. Hunt was appointed Friday after Prime Minister Liz Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng, who spent less than six weeks in the Treasury job. Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng jointly came up with a September 23 announcement of 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in unfunded tax cuts that spooked financial markets, sent the pound to record lows and forced the Bank of England to take emergency action. Monday’s hastily scheduled announcement came two weeks before Mr. Hunt is due to set out a medium-term fiscal plan. Britain Prime Minister Liz Truss drafted Mr. Hunt in on Friday after she fired his predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng. Plans by Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng for 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts — including an income tax reduction for the highest earners — without an accompanying assessment of how the government would pay for them sent the pound plunging to a record low against the U.S. dollar and the cost of government borrowing soaring. The Bank of England was forced to step in to buy government bonds to prevent the financial crisis from spreading to the wider economy. The government has since ditched parts of its tax-cutting plan and announced it would make a medium-term fiscal statement on October 31. But the market remained jittery, and Mr. Hunt has decided he must make a statement to calm the waters even sooner. The Treasury said he would make a public statement, followed by a statement to the House of Commons, on Monday afternoon. Mr. Hunt spent the weekend in crisis talks with Ms. Truss, and also met Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and the head of the government’s Debt Management Office. Mr. Hunt’s moves are aimed at restoring the government’s credibility for sound fiscal policy after Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng rushed out a plan for tax cuts without detailing how they would pay for them. The unfunded tax cuts fueled investor concern about unsustainable levels of government borrowing, which pushed up government borrowing costs, raised home mortgage costs, and sent the pound plummeting to an all-time low against the dollar. The Bank of England was forced to intervene to protect pension funds squeezed by volatility in the bond market. In Brief: Justice D.Y. Chandrachud was appointed the 50th Chief Justice of India (CJI) on October 17 after President Droupadi Murmu signed his warrant of appointment. Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju announced Justice Chandrachud’s appointment in a tweet and extended his “best wishes” for the formal oath-taking ceremony. Justice Chandrachud will assume charge on November 9, 2022, a day after the incumbent Justice U.U. Lalit demits office as the CJI, and will have a tenure of about two years as Chief Justice until his retirement on November 11, 2024. Justice Lalit had a brief tenure after holding the charge as the CJI for a little under three months. Justice Chandrachud would be the first second-generation Chief Justice of India. His father, Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, was the 16th Chief Justice of India and one of the longest serving ones. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 17 OCTOBER 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( [Privacy Info]( Textbooks for medicine, nursing, and pharmacy planned for all major Indian languages within three years Within the next three years, [India will be offering textbooks for medicine, nursing, and pharmacy in all major Indian languages]( confirmed Chamu Krishna Shastry, Chairperson of the high-powered Committee for Promotion of Indian Languages under the Ministry of Education. The committee is already in talks with the National Medical Commission and other specific boards for this new initiative, he said. [Medical students as Union Home Minister Amit Shah launches the country’s first Hindi version of MBBS course books, in the presence of CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and State Medical Education Minister Vishvas Kailash Sarang, in Bhopal on October 16. ] “We are working at being able to offer education (courses in medicine/nursing/pharmacy, etc.) in regional languages across India. The central idea being that in 10 years time, all the students will have the option, infrastructural and staff support to study these subjects in their mother tongue. This is not to say that English will be done away with. That option will also be kept available,” he said. The confirmation comes days after Madhya Pradesh released textbooks in Hindi for three subjects in the MBBS course as part of a project to impart medical education in Hindi.  According to data from the Health Ministry, India has 612 medical colleges (321 government colleges and 291 private colleges) offering 91,927 undergraduate MBBS seats and 46,118 postgraduate seats. According to the Indian Nursing Council’s 2021 annual report, the country has 5,162 nursing institutes. Doctors’ associations have warned that doing away with language uniformity will be a regressive move that will have a negative impact on medical education and the opportunities it offers. They maintain that medical education needs to be at par with international guidelines and bodies, and a multiple language system will confuse students and lead to a fall in the quality of education. Refuting this, Mr. Shastry said, “Countries, including Japan and Germany, follow the same principle and offer medical education in their respective languages. Even international students seem to be able to cope well.” “Besides, we understand that 90% of the doctors, nurses and pharma professionals that we educate stay on in the country and States to work there. In this scenario, knowing the regional language is an added benefit. It puts the patients at complete ease and allows no communication gaps,” he added. Mr. Shastry said that, currently, work is on to create textbooks in Indian languages, educate educators, and initiate capacity building while equipping universities enough to cater to this change. “We are holding seminars and content creation workshops across the country in various universities. This initial phase will be on for the next three years, after which we will be ready to offer courses in major Indian languages for under- and post- graduation. Apart from medical education, we are actively looking at other fields where students will benefit from this transition,” he said. SC dismisses Kerala petition challenging operation of Thiruvananthapuram airport by Adani group The [Supreme Court on October 17, 2022, dismissed the Kerala government’s petition]( challenging the Centre’s decision to hand over the operations of Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to the Adani group. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit reasoned that the bid offered by the Adani Enterprises Limited for every domestic passenger was ₹168, that is, 20% above the ₹135 offer given by the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation. The court also noted that the private entity had already taken over “operation, management and development” of the airport from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) since October 2021. The Bench noted that the employees were given the choice to either stay with the AAI or switch over to service of the private entity. On Kerala’s request, the court kept open the issue of State ownership of the airport land. The State had alleged that preference given by the Centre to a private concessionaire like Adani, which has no experience in the field of managing airports, smacks of arbitrariness. “Running an airport is not like running any other entity. It requires a tremendous amount of experience, expertise and knowledge gained through experience,” Chief Justice Lalit orally remarked during the hearing. It asked the Centre, represented by Additional Solicitor General K.M. Natraj, whether it was not prudent to have made experience as one of the parameters. The government said the policy and conditions were fine tuned after several consultations. In its appeal, the State, represented by senior advocate C.U. Singh and C.K. Sasi, argued that the Kerala High Court had favoured the handover of the vital facility to a private entity though such a move was not in the interest of better management of the airport. The entire proceeding, including the tender process, was in violation of the provisions of the Airport Authority of India Act, 1994, the State had said. The concession was given to the Adani group despite a proposal from the Kerala government to form a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to run the airport on a revenue-sharing basis, the appeal had said. Mr. Singh argued that the State had experience in running airports through its various organisations. “The Kochi International Airport at Nedumbassery, Ernakulam, which is being operated by Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), a State government- sponsored company, is one of the leading airports world over,” the appeal said. The State also referred to the Kannur International Airport. “This airport has the most modern and state-of-the-art aviation and other passenger and cargo facilities and is being operated by the Kannur International Airport Limited (KIAL), another State -government-sponsored company. It has become operational and is making progress,” the appeal said. Mamata bats for Sourav Ganguly, asks PM Modi to allow him contest ICC polls West Bengal Chief Minister [Mamata Banerjee on October 17, 2022, came out in support of former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly]( and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Ganguly should be allowed to contest elections to the International Cricket Council (ICC).  “I will request the Prime Minister to allow Sourav to contest ICC elections. Why is he being deprived? What is his fault?” Ms. Banerjee told media persons before taking a flight to north Bengal. The Chief Minister also raised the issue of why Ganguly was denied second term as BCCI president. The Trinamool Congress chairperson asked why “Amit Babu’s (Amit Shah’s) son has been retained (in the BCCI)” but Sourav has been left out. “Why was Sourav left out of the BCCI? The manner in which he has been removed is unjustified. I am really shocked,” she said. Ms. Banerjee said that since Sourav has been removed in an unceremonious manner the only compensation that could be is to allow him to contest the ICC elections. She said that in the past Jagmohan Dalmiya and Sharad Pawar had served as ICC president and Sourav Ganguly was the most deserving to hold the post from India.  The Chief Minister, while maintaining that Sourav Ganguly was not a political person but pride of Bengal, urged the Centre not to take any decision “politically or vindictively” but to take decision for the interest of cricket.  The remarks by Ms. Banerjee come at a time when Ganguly is being replaced by Roger Binny, former cricketer and the president of Karnataka State Cricket Association as BCCI president on October 18. Last week a section of leaders from the Trinamool Congress including the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen had described the decision of not giving another term to Sourav Ganguly as BCCI president as an instance of “political vendetta” and raised questions about whether the decision had anything to do with the sports icon not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Ganguly had also said that one cannot remain a cricket administrator forever and he had been in administration for eight years. There are also reports that Ganguly can contest elections for the post of president of Cricket Association of Bengal, a post he had held in the past. U.K. Chancellor of Exchequer Jeremy Hunt scraps nearly all government tax cut plans U.K. Chancellor of Exchequer Jeremy Hunt on October 17, 2022, [reversed most of an economic package announced by the government just weeks ago]( including a planned cut to income tax. [British Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt walks outside Downing Street in London, Britain on October 17, 2022. ] In a bid to soothe turbulent financial markets, Mr. Hunt said he was scrapping “almost all” the tax cuts announced last month and signaled public spending cuts are on the way. Mr. Hunt said a planned 1 percentage point cut to the basic rate of income tax that had been due to take effect next year won’t happen. He also scaled back a cap on energy prices designed to help households pay their bills. It will now be reviewed in April rather than lasting two years. Mr. Hunt was appointed Friday after Prime Minister Liz Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng, who spent less than six weeks in the Treasury job. Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng jointly came up with a September 23 announcement of 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in unfunded tax cuts that spooked financial markets, sent the pound to record lows and forced the Bank of England to take emergency action. Monday’s hastily scheduled announcement came two weeks before Mr. Hunt is due to set out a medium-term fiscal plan. Britain Prime Minister Liz Truss drafted Mr. Hunt in on Friday after she fired his predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng. Plans by Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng for 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in tax cuts — including an income tax reduction for the highest earners — without an accompanying assessment of how the government would pay for them sent the pound plunging to a record low against the U.S. dollar and the cost of government borrowing soaring. The Bank of England was forced to step in to buy government bonds to prevent the financial crisis from spreading to the wider economy. The government has since ditched parts of its tax-cutting plan and announced it would make a medium-term fiscal statement on October 31. But the market remained jittery, and Mr. Hunt has decided he must make a statement to calm the waters even sooner. The Treasury said he would make a public statement, followed by a statement to the House of Commons, on Monday afternoon. Mr. Hunt spent the weekend in crisis talks with Ms. Truss, and also met Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and the head of the government’s Debt Management Office. Mr. Hunt’s moves are aimed at restoring the government’s credibility for sound fiscal policy after Ms. Truss and Mr. Kwarteng rushed out a plan for tax cuts without detailing how they would pay for them. The unfunded tax cuts fueled investor concern about unsustainable levels of government borrowing, which pushed up government borrowing costs, raised home mortgage costs, and sent the pound plummeting to an all-time low against the dollar. The Bank of England was forced to intervene to protect pension funds squeezed by volatility in the bond market. In Brief: [Justice D.Y. Chandrachud was appointed the 50th Chief Justice of India (CJI)]( on October 17 after President Droupadi Murmu signed his warrant of appointment. Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju announced Justice Chandrachud’s appointment in a tweet and extended his “best wishes” for the formal oath-taking ceremony. Justice Chandrachud will assume charge on November 9, 2022, a day after the incumbent Justice U.U. Lalit demits office as the CJI, and will have a tenure of about two years as Chief Justice until his retirement on November 11, 2024. Justice Lalit had a brief tenure after holding the charge as the CJI for a little under three months. Justice Chandrachud would be the first second-generation Chief Justice of India. His father, Justice Y.V. Chandrachud, was the 16th Chief Justice of India and one of the longest serving ones. 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