Presentation - 1

Education System in India

Good morning to everyone present here. I am going to talk about the various education
systems practiced in India and some of the challenges faced by the current education
system.
In the beginning, India had a gurukula system of education in which any one could
wished to study went to gurus house and requested to be taught. If accepted as a student
by the guru, he would then stay at gurus place and help in all activities at home. The
guru taught every thing the child wanted to learn, from Sanskrit to Holy Scriptures and
from mathematics to metaphysics. All learning was closely linked to nature and to life
and not confined to memorizing some information. The modern school system was
brought to India, including English language, originally by Lord Thomas Babington
Macaulay in 1830s. The curriculum was confined to modern subjects such as science
and mathematics, and subjects like metaphysics and philosophy were considered
unnecessary. Teaching was confined to classrooms and the link with nature was broken,
as also the close relationship between the teacher and the student. Universal and
compulsory education for all children in the age group of 6-14 was a cherished dream of
the new government of the Republic of India. But this objective remains far away even
more than half a century later. However, in the recent past, the government appears to
have taken a serious note of this lapse and has made primary education a Fundamental
Right of every Indian citizen. The pressures of economic growth and the acute scarcity of
skilled and trained manpower must certainly have played a role to make the government
take such a step. The expenditure by the Government of India on school education in
recent years comes to around 3% of the GDP, which is recognized to be very low.
The school system in India has four levels: lower primary (age 6 to 10), upper primary
(11 and 12), high (13 to 15) and higher secondary (17 and 18). The lower primary school
is divided into five standards, upper primary school into two, high school into three and
higher secondary into two. There are mainly three streams in school education in India.

Two of these are coordinated at the national level, of which one is under the Central
Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and was originally meant for children of central
government employees who are periodically transferred and may have to move to any
place in the country. The second central scheme is the Indian Certificate of Secondary
Education (ICSE). It seems that this was started as a replacement for the Cambridge
School Certificate. Now a large number of schools across the country are affiliated to this
Council. All these are private schools and generally cater to children from wealthy
families. And third type was state schools; each state in the country has its own
Department of Education that runs its own school system with its own textbooks and
evaluation system includes government schools, government aided schools and private
schools.
To know the development in the society, Literacy is another indication of economic
development, for the purpose of census, a person in the age limit of 7 and above, who can
write and read with understanding in any of the language is considered as literate in India.
As per Population Census of India in 2011, Literacy rate has shown as improvement with
9% from 65% in 2001 to 74% in 2011. But there is wide gender disparity in literacy rate
in India with 82% for men and 65% for women. The state of Kerala, a small state in the
South Western coast of India, has been different from the rest of the country in many
ways for the last few decades. It has, for instance, the highest literacy rate among all
states, and was declared the first fully literate state about a decade back with literacy rate
of 93.9%. Mizoram tops second in the list with literacy rate of 91.58 % according to the
census conducted in 2011. Government has taken several measures to improve the
literacy rate in villages and towns such as free education programs to rural poor people,
setting up of new schools and colleges at state and district levels and several committees
have been formed to ensure proper utilization of funds allotted to improve literacy rate.
There has been a good literacy rate in last 10 years, but still a long way to go.
So far we have been discussing about the various education system for schools and the
literacy rate in India. We have one question stinging us, why is India still a developing
country and what is stopping it from being a developed country? This particular question
strikes me every time when we read something about Indias education system. We see
Indias education system as a stumbling block towards its objectives of achieving

inclusive growth. India is going to experience a paradox of nearly 90 million people

joining the workforce but most of them will lack requisite skills and the mindset for
productive employment according to a report in DNA. The really critical aspect of Indian
public education system is its low quality. The actual quantity of schooling that children
experience and the quality of teaching they receive are extremely insufficient such as in
government schools. Indian school curricula lack the highly esteemed values of education
such as aggressiveness, competition, individual personal gain, out-smarting a fellow man
and verbal ability which needs to be taught from the time when the student was able to
understand.
A common feature in all government schools is the poor quality of education, with weak
infrastructure and inadequate pedagogic attention. What the government is not realizing
right now is that education which is a source of human capital can create wide income
inequalities. So if the government does not improve education system particularly in rural
areas the rich will become richer and the poor will get poorer. One of the ways in which
the problem of poor quality of education can be tackled is through common schooling.
This essentially means sharing of resources between private and public schools. We hope
government takes certain appropriate policy measures to improve the education system
otherwise inequalities are going to be widespread and Indias basic capabilities will
remain stunted. Let us strengthen the case for a stronger education system in India.

Presentation - 2
Cancer
Cancer is not a one disease; it is a group of more than 100 distinctive diseases. It is the
abnormal growth of cells which tend to proliferate in an uncontrolled way. Cancer can
involve from any tissue of the body and have different forms in each body area. Most
Cancers are named after the cell or organ in which they start. The major types of cancer
are carcinoma, sarcoma, melanoma, lymphoma, and leukemia. Carcinomas -- the most
commonly diagnosed cancers -- originate in the skin, lungs, breasts, pancreas, and other
organs and glands. Lymphomas are cancers of lymphocytes. Leukemia is cancer of the
blood. It does not usually form solid tumors. Sarcomas arise in bone, muscle, fat, or
cartilage and are relatively uncommon. Melanomas are cancers that arise in the cells that
make the pigment in skin. Throughout our lives, healthy cells in our bodies divide and
replace themselves in a controlled fashion.
Cancer starts when a cell is somehow altered so that it multiplies out of control. A tumor
is a mass composed of a cluster of such abnormal cells. Most cancers form tumors, but
not all tumors are cancerous. Benign, or noncancerous, tumors -- such as freckles
and moles -- stop growing, do not spread to other parts of the body, and do not create new
tumors. Malignant, or cancerous, tumors crowd out healthy cells, interfere with body
functions, and draw nutrients from body tissues. The cancer causing external agents are
said to be carcinogens. Carcinogens do not cause cancer in every case, all the time.
Substances labeled as carcinogens may have different levels of cancer-causing potential.
Some may cause cancer only after prolonged, high levels of exposure. And for any
particular person, the risk of developing cancer depends on many factors, including how
they are exposed to a carcinogen, the length and intensity of the exposure, and the
person's genetic makeup.
The major causes of cancer include genetic factors such as change in genes in the course
of persons life, cigarette smoking and use of other tobacco products, being over weight,
radiation exposure to the persons who work near the nuclear plants, and other forms of
carcinogen that is formed in the environment due to pollution. The cancer treatment

option your doctor recommends depends on the type and stage of cancer, possible side
effects, and the patient's preferences and overall health. In cancer care, different types of
doctors often work together to create a patient's overall treatment plan that combines
different types of treatments. Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation
therapy, hormonal therapy, and targeted therapy. It was important to consult with the
health care team so the patient can understand his diagnosis and the recommended
treatment plan. The patient can talk with the family members or trusted friends which
make the patient to feel confident in his treatment decisions.
Surgery is the oldest type of cancer therapy and remains an effective treatment for many
types of cancer today. The goals of surgery vary. It is often used to remove all or some of
the cancerous tissue after diagnosis. However, it can also be used to diagnose cancer, find
out where the cancer is located, whether it has spread, and whether it is affecting the
functions of other organs in the body. In addition, surgery can be helpful to restore the
body's appearance or function or to relieve side effects.
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells. This word is used to describe the
method to stop the growth and division of cancerous cells by destroying it. But in this
treatment the neighboring healthy cells is being destroyed and this damage accounts for
side effects linked to these drugs. Several other types of drugs are also used to treat
cancer, including hormone therapy and various types of targeted therapy. In fact, many
of the drugs recently approved for use in cancer treatment fall into these categories.
Because these treatments are much more specific to cancer cells, there is usually less
damage to normal cells, leading to different side effects.
Immunotherapy is another type of cancer treatment designed to boost the bodys natural
defenses to fight against the cancer. It uses materials made by the body or made in the
laboratory to improve the immune system or to restore the immune system function.
Although the methodology is not clear that it treats cancer, it may work by stopping the
growth of cancerous cells and it increases the effectiveness of the immune system at
eliminating the cancer cells.
Stem cell transplantation is an alternative procedure for the patients suffering from
leukemia (blood cancer), lymphoma (lung cancer) and multiple myeloma (WBC type

cancer). It may also used to treat genetic disease that involves blood. During a stem cell
transplant diseased bone marrow (the spongy, fatty tissue found inside larger bones) is
destroyed with chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and then replaced with highly
specialized stem cells that develop into healthy bone marrow. Although this procedure
used to be referred to as a bone marrow transplant, today it is more commonly called a
stem cell transplant because it is stem cells in the blood that are typically being
transplanted, not the actual bone marrow tissue.
High-energy x-rays or other particles can be used to destroy cancer cells in a treatment
called radiation therapy. Doctors known as radiation oncologists oversee radiation
therapy, which usually consists of a specific number of treatments given over a set period
of time. The goal of this treatment is to destroy cancer cells without harming nearby
healthy tissue. Radiation therapy can also be used to shrink tumors and reduce pressure,
pain, and other symptoms of cancer when it is not possible to completely eliminate the
disease. More than half of all people with cancer receive some type of radiation therapy.
For some cancers, radiation therapy alone is an effective treatment; however, other types
of cancer respond best to combination treatment approaches that may include radiation
plus surgery, chemotherapy, or immunotherapy.
Cancer has been recognized for thousands of years as a human ailment, yet only in the
past century has medical science understood what cancer really is and how it progresses.
Cancer specialists, called oncologists, have made remarkable advances in cancer
diagnosis, prevention, and treatment.
Today, more than half of all people diagnosed with cancer are cured. However, some
forms of the disease remain frustratingly difficult to treat. For those people who cannot be
cured, modern treatment can significantly improve quality of life and may extend
survival.