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Letters

Message from e-Bay India
‘‘Your PaisaPay payment has been rejected. You paid the order total of Rs 59.00 using RuPay online bank transfer... Please note that your bank accout has not been charged for this transaction’’.
But my bank records a debit card payment of 59 rupees on 27 February. What game are these jokers playing.
Mukul Dube, New Delhi

Shutting Down Schools
India is a welfare state. Its constitution ensures or subsidised education for its residents. According to this, governments arrange and control overall education system from lower level to higher level education of the country. It happens to be unfortunate when the Government of West Bengal has reached to a firm decision of stunting down more than 70 schools (at secondary level) in Kolkata City proper in absence of pupils in these schools. Therefore, obvious question/query comes to mind why no pupil is in these schools, while number of private schools increases daily in and around the city, Kolkata. Do private schools grasp Government aided/sponsored schools? What are the differences in teaching and learning system of Government and private schools? Does the quality of education fall at margin in government schools?

It might be assessed in respect of global demand of education. In this era of the global market economy, education in mother tongue loses its importance because it is not enough to compete with the global employment market. Even it does not fit with local employment market as well. So, education in the English medium is being prioritised to all of the varied social and economic strata.

Parental attitude towards education of offspring has been changed considering the need and demand of employment market. Their attitude is no more determined by their socio-economic condition so far as education of their children is concerned. For an example rickshaw puller has changed his mind-set for his children's education. He is willing to invest for education at private school because he understands that education without English medium is nothing for future.

Globalisation changes the philosophy of education. The changing philosophy of education is for wealth making and aristocracy. Moral values of education are being left because of changing life style and life choices. Education is commodified. Thus, private education system is the driving force of consumerism, because it might help to meet global needs and demands as people think Private system sells education as consumer product. People are on a threshold of danger in all respects. Now who would come forward to save the society? It is the biggest question—will private education remain under control of the government?
Harasankar Adhikari, Kolkala

Postal Service
Today a man I know kindly agreed to dispatch a letter from me to an address in England. As the Mayur Vihar 1 post office has been wound up, he went to the one in Patparganj. He could do nothing the first time he went as the server was not working. When he went again he was told that since the letter was to go abroad it should carry proof of the sender's identity and a form filled in for the use of Customs.

While the contents of a parcel may attract Customs duty, a letter containing papers should not be of interest to Customs. Second, a person who sends drugs abroad by post cannot name someone else as the sender if proof of identity is a requirement—but drugs cannot be sent in an envelope whose thickness is negligible.

The postal people made a sensible rule for parcels but unwisely applied it to letters as well.
Mukul Dube, New Delhi

Frontier
Vol. 50, No.38, Mar 25 - 31, 2018