Word: delhi
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Studying abroad in Delhi for the fall semester of my junior year, I got to see from an outsider’s point of view the status-seeking competition of a top university. My host institution, St. Stephen’s College of Delhi University, is known as one of India’s most rigorous and prestigious non-technical schools. Seats not reserved for lower castes or other minorities often go to representatives of the North Indian urban elite who master the competitive entrance examination process...
Entering such a setting as an outside observer provides a new perspective on the apparent ridiculousness of some status-determining customs in a closed system. Exam questions at St. Stephen’s, for instance, came from a short list approved 20 years ago by the central University of Delhi administration: Students pre-prepared long strands of factual regurgitation by photocopying and memorizing past students’ answers. But even more than a custom’s ridiculousness, the outside perspective allows one to synthesize the way in which an insider glimpses such ridiculousness and yet works within the rules...
...largest population of young people. At least 8 million children remain out of school in India, many kept to work at home or in the fields. India's shocking 64% literacy rate lags far behind that of its neighbor China and bodes ill for its long-term development. New Delhi plans to pump $38 billion into the education sector over the next five years, but the government has much to deliver as it tries to reconcile India's vast social inequities. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, of modest origins himself, knows the struggle is worth it: "I am what...
...sudden eruption caused a mild panic on flights already airborne. Kuenga Wangmo, a doctoral student at Cambridge University, was on a British Airways flight from Delhi to London when she learned of the news. "I was woken up when the captain announced that British airspace was contaminated by ash from an Icelandic volcano," she says. "I had no idea what was happening. Some of the passengers were nervous, especially those flying on to Canada." Wangmo's flight was one of the last to land at Heathrow on Thursday. (Read "Why Iceland's Volcano Is a Hazard for Air Travel...
...just weeks ago, New Delhi decided to challenge the rebels who carry Mao Zedong's name and who are waging the bloodiest insurgency India has ever seen. The government announced that 50,000 paramilitary troops would be part of Operation Greenhunt, with tough-talking Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram promising to "wipe off the Maoist movement in the next two [to] three years." As part of this campaign, police and paramilitary forces last week engaged in a four-day "area domination" exercise near the village of Dantewada in the Dandakaranya Forest. But the Maoists were not about to let this incursion...