Challenges to identify and mentor gifted children in developing countries: the Indian experience

The National Education Policy 2020 (NEP-2020) has recognized the need to identify and nurture gifted and talented children beyond the school curriculum. Through systematic research, the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru has developed multiple protocols for identifying and multi-level, multi-stage mentoring of gifted children. This study argues that there is need for a paradigm shift in the identification process that predominantly uses psychometric measurements in the portfolio that captures the actual data points of gifted children. This is particularly relevant for developing countries like India, which has a diverse population predominantly from disadvantaged communities. Establishing norms for standardized psychometric tests developed for the western populations will have inherent limitations to identifying the gifted children in multi-lingual and multi-cultural contexts. Needless to state, India has far too few trained psychologists to accomplish this task

The gifted child’s right to education

India’s commitment to provide free and compulsory elementary education was demonstrated after the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act ( RTE Act 2009) was enacted. Today, every child is entitled to quality education at the elementary school level. With the growing recognition that no two individuals are the same, the formal schooling system in India has to gear towards meeting the needs of children who come from diverse backgrounds. By the RTE Act, 2009, the schooling system in India is compelled to embrace inclusive education as a philosophy and approach and demonstrate the same through practice. Inclusive education encompasses gender, scheduled castes and tribes, religious minority, physical and learning disability, and the gifted and talented. Including all children up to 14 years in the formal education system in India is an uphill task. In the crisis of serious resource crunch, it may appear hard to argue for resources for a gifted education programme. Conceding equal educational opportunities for all is important. Advocates of gifted education argue that these provisions are not adequate to meet the needs of the gifted children. Therefore it is imperative that the state not absolve its responsibility of catering to the needs of the gifted children as this will hurt the gifted children of the poor the most

Gifted with Disabilities: The Twice Exceptional in India

The ‘twice-exceptional’ is a segment of the population in whom extraordinary abilities coexist with disabilities. For a country like India with a large and diverse population of over 1.3 billion, which constitute about 10 –15 per cent of the gifted population, the twice-exceptional children are estimated to be about 1.2 million in the age group of 3 –18 years. The number of children in this specialised group is large; identifying them and providing them with appropriate services needs attention. The twice-exceptional child will need a unique environment that will simultaneously harness his/her gifts and also provide support to overcome the challenges whether they are learning difficulties, developmental disorders, or handicaps of a perceptual, physical, or psychological nature. In the absence of any initiative for the twice-exceptional children in India, the paper discusses the need for recognition of this invisible population. Drawing from the experiences of other countries, the paper provides a framework for identification and interventions that India can undertake to address the needs of our twice-exceptional children. The paper concludes with the possible policy directions in tracing this unique population in Indi

Antioxidant and antimitotic activities of sulfated polysaccharide from marine brown algae Padina tetrastromatica

Antioxidants play a central role in the prevention of carcinogenesis. The most natural compounds exhibit their protective effects by eliciting antioxidant potential. Sulfated polysaccharide was isolated from the brown algae Padina tetrastromatica, then purified and evaluated for its composition and in vitro antioxidant and antimitotic activities. Both ethanolic sulfated polysaccharide (ESPS) and ethanolic sulfated polysaccharide-column purified (ESPS-CP) exhibited considerable amount of carbohydrates (11.2% and 17.6%), sulfate (11.4% and 7.4%), fucose (5.5% and 15.7%), uronic acid (4.7% and 11.8%), xylose (0.5% and 0.03%) and sulfated polysaccharide (2.4% and 12.7%) content. The FTIR analysis and phytochemical screening also confirmed the presence of sulfated polysaccharides. In the in vitro antioxidant activity determination using DPPH (1-1-diphenyl 2-picryl hydrazyl) radical scavenging activity, hydroxyl radical scavenging activity, superoxide anion scavenging activity, hydrogen peroxide scavenging activity, total antioxidant activity and reducing power, ESPS showed more activity than ESPS-CP. In the case of nitric oxide radical scavenging, ESPS-CP was found to be more effective. At a concentration of 2mg/ml, both samples were potent antioxidants with significant IC50 values. The antimitotic studies such as mitotic index in onion root tips and sprouting assay in green gram seeds also proved that both the extracts are able to prevent mitosis. The extrapolation of these results can find opportunities in therapeutic regiments of cancer

Beyond family and societal attitudes to retain women in science

Several reports earlier have focused on providing facilities for women scientists based on the premise that family and societal factors are responsible for women dropping out of science. The views of male scientists who constitute the majority in science reflect these popularly held notions. However, the present study points towards systemic biases that operate at the organizational level as a significant contributing factor. The study sample represents the diversity among women scientists and includes men scientists, emphasizing the need for policies to take into consideration the differences across these groups

Emerging Directions in Global Education-A Meeting Report

Emerging Directions in Global Education (EDGE, www.edgeforum.in) is an initiative to bring together educational leaders, practitioners, decision makers from the public and private sectors, and thought leaders from India and across the globe to create a virtual roadmap for the Indian higher education sector. The second edition of EDGE was organized recently. The conference attracted over 250 delegates who represented the decisionmakers of some of the leading higher educational institutions in the country, as well as international participants from the United States, the European Union, Australia, Singapore and other countries

Woman Power in Corporate India: In Conversation with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Chairman and MD, Biocon Ltd

This article presents trends from an analysis of data on women directors who occupied directorial positions on the boards of 166 Indian companies for the period 1995 to 2007. It complements other gender related studies in India