India Foundation for Education Transformation: Its Service to the Society

Skill is the most important component in education which makes a person capable of earning his or her livelihood. The system of education takes care of the development of school skills among the children in the schools. But the spread of pandemic Covid-19 has drastically disrupted every aspects of human life including education and impacted the skill development process has also been impacted. It has created an unprecedented test on education. Outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted more than 120 crores of students and youths across the planet. In India, more than 32 crores of students have been affected by the various restrictions and the nationwide lockdown for COVID-19. In many educational institutions around the world, campuses are closed, and teaching-learning has moved online. In India many schools were quick to react but to a limited extend. While many schools in the cities have adapted to online teaching schools in the remotest areas did not have the resources to get on the starting grid. Here the India Foundation for Education Transformation moved in a contributed its bit.

Jane Austen’s Comic Vision and Her Use of Irony

Irony in its broadest sense, is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or event in which what on the surface appears to be the case or to be expected differs radically from what is actually the case. In other words, the basic feature of irony is a contrast between reality and appearance. It can be categorized into different types, including verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony. These types of ironies are often used for emphasis in the assertion of a truth. Jane Austen uses all these ironies in her novels to show the comic vision of her life. She has used it as a neutral discoverer and explorer of incongruities.

Bhabani Bhattacharya as a Novelist: A New Approach

Bhabani Bhattacharya, the Sahitya Academy Award winner is among the major Indian novelists writing in English. His literary fame is not confined to India alone. His books have been translated into 26 languages, including 16 European languages. Being a humanist, he is greatly moved by the poverty, hunger and sufferings of the people. In his novels, he has exposed the various social evils of modern men hunger for food and freedom, prostitution, exploitation, superstition, hoarding of foodgrains etc.

Jane Austen’s Comic Vision in her Art of Characterization with Special Reference to ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Characterization is a literary device that is used step-by-step in literature to highlight and explain the details about a character in a story. In other words, characterization is the representation of persons in narrative and dramatic works. The term character development is sometmes used as a synonym. This representation may include direct methods like the attribution of qualities in description or commentary and indirect [dramatic] method invitie readers to infer qualities from characters’ action, dialogue, or acceptance. Such a personage is called a character. The range of Jane Austen’s characters is narrow but humour touches all her best characters.

Writing Style of R. K. Narayan

R. K. Narayan was among the first Indian English writers to be taken note of the West. With a clever use of just the right amount of humour, Narayan was able to transform his seemingly ordinary characters into larger-than-lite individuals, who brought a change in the existing social and political structures of Malgudi, a microcosmic representation of our nation. And, with this, he inspired us to think, dream and write differently to delive into a magical reality for better than the one we know. His works are often considered synonymous with the innocence of childhood, and even today the social undertones of his writing echo the complexities of the Indian society.

Various Themes in Sarojini Naidu’s Poetry

Sarojini Naidu is the most lyrical of the Indian English poet. Because of the sweetness and musicality of hor verse, she was fondly called by Mahatma Gandhi “the nightingale of India.” In the early phase of her poetic corear, she was anamored by British romantic poets and imitated them in her poetry. But on the advice of Edmund Morris, she tried to reveal the heart of India romantically, lyrically and sensuously. Consequently, she published three volumes of the poem: “The Golden Threshold” [1905]. ‘The Bird of Time’ [1912] and ‘The Broken Wing’ [1917]. These volumes were highly praised by the western literary magzines like ‘The Time’, ‘The Glasgow Horald’, ‘The New York Times’.

R. K. Narayan, the Novelist of the Commoners and His Ironic Sense of Humour

Narayan’s humour is direct course of his intellectual analysis of the contradictions in human experience tragically or comically. Irony can be tragic also, but in Narayan our concern is only the irony, that works as a base for Narayan’s humour the instances of which are found at every step in his novels. The keynote of Narayan’s interest is his very minute observation and subtle ironic harmonious way of telling his story. There is, in his novels, scarcely audible laughter shot through all the novels. His comic vision is ironical. His all embracing irony, which includes the particular social context in his men and women, who have their various transactions and the existential reality based on their particular experiences. The clash between the tradition and modernity in which Narayan’s characters are sandwiched has ironical implications. Narayan’s comprehensive knowledge of the perception of inherent irony in human life makes him a master of comedy, who is nor unware of the tragedy of human situation and tragi-comedies of mischance and misdirection. The basic comic situation in Narayan’s novels is one of the derivation from the normal and in the plots of his novels, he follows the usual pattern of irony order, disorder, order. His irony is free from the satiric spirit of condemnation and censure. His ironic vision is closer in spirit to Chaucer, Shakespear and Dickens. His closeness to Chekhov is striking the same objectivity, the same freedom from comment, the same intricate alliance of humour with tragedy the comic irony with, as Greene puts it and the same seeming indirection even with which the characters, on the last page, appear to vanish into life.

Patrioitic Note in Sarojini Naidu’s Poetry

Sarojini lived and created in those stirring times when India was passing though the stages of her struggle for freedom. It was the age of such great patriots and freedom-fighters as Gandhi, Nehru, Gokhale, Tilak and many others and she had close contacts with all these heroic personalities. Patriotism was in the air so to say, and Sarojini could not remain unaffected by the spirit of the times. After her meeting with Gandhi in 1914, she herself plunged into the thick of the bottle, and her letters and speeches are full of her deeply felt love for her motherland. This love is also reflected at every step in her poetry. India was is her blood; it was as part and parcel of herself, and the note of patriotism is struck in numerous poems written at different periods. It is expressed in her poems, ‘To India’, ‘The Gift of India’, ‘An Anthem of Love’, ‘Lokman Tilak’, etc.

Changing Pattern of Agricultural Mechanization in Nalanda District of Bihar

In agricultural production, farm mechanisation is a very necessary input. The number of tractors has increased rapidly, and in recent years, the population of draught animals has decreased in Bihar. A study was conducted in Nalanda District of Bihar, to classify the trend of tractor use and their economics. Mechanization is one of the most striking and pervasive phenomena of our times. Unfortunately, its study has been neglected by the social sciences, which have not sufficiently recognized that while technology itself belongs to the field of the natural sciences, its far-reaching effects on social life make it a vital subject for study by the social sciences. Insufficient and high variable precipitation and low fertility are major constraints to agricultural productivity. This brings the role of irrigation facilities and use of fertilizers. India is witnessing growth in irrigation facilities. Wells, canals and dams are constructed to cater needs of farmers. However, there is a lot to be achived in this regard. Applaying fertlizes are increasing day by day. It increases production as well as productivity of the field. At the same time, there is rampat mechanization of agriculture. Thus, it reduces human efforts and increases production of the field.

Bhabani Bhattacharya Vs ‘He Who Rides A Tiger’

Bhabani Bhattacharya’s ‘He Who Rides a Tiger’ is yet another novel of man’s epic struggle against the unjust social equations which are as old as the ancient vedic civilization. It is the story of a blacksmith, Kalo, living in a small town, Jharana, in Bengal, and his daughter, Chandra Lekha. It is set against the backdrop of a widespread famine of Bengal of 1943. Though ‘He Who Rides a Tiger’ and ‘So Many Hungers’ treat the theme of hunger, exploitation and debasement of man, ‘He Who Rides a Tiger’ is no rehash of the latter novel. It launches a scathing critisism on the evil of caste system which has been the bane of Indian society. Arguably the writer’s best novel, it touches the pulse of the irony of Indian social life. The Indian social realities are presented with increasing bitterness within the perspective of the freedom movement. Its greatness as a piece of literature lies in its assertion of tremendous potentialities of the spiritual growth of man, and a thorough exposure of an imperfect social system.