My Items

The challenges being faced by Higher Education (HE) sector in our country as listed by the National Education Policy (NEP) draft is rather unusual, with the prominent ones being: highly fragmented sector with too many institutions that are too small most institutions, including universities are single discipline (mono-field) entities with little cross disciplinary or liberal content. no autonomy and freedom for the teachers or the institutions themselves, especially in the affiliated institutions. very little research happening in the state university system. considerations other than merit operating at every level, especially while appointing the heads of the institutions. Very little international presence in any form in our campuses, etc. In chapters 9 to 18 covering about 150 pages, the document outlines how these challenges are to be met during the next 10 to 20 year timeframes. While all these are indeed relevant and important issues affecting our HE sector, the perception of the immediate stake holders of the crisis in this sector (the worm's eye view!) seem some what different , and include lack of decent jobs for the graduates an atmosphere of aimlessness and cynicism pervading the campuses, shared by both the students and the faculty. impoverishment of families due to the exorbitant cost of private sector education an acute disconnect between what is learned in the campuses and what the world outside seems to need the State System of HE&R (which produces about 93% of our graduates, according to the NEP document) in deep coma due to decades of sustained neglect. research funded by public money in our elite institutions adding little to the economy or the society rather poor global standing of even the best of our institutions , etc.
It is probably the case that the NEP Committee's perceptions were strongly coloured and guided by what is proposed to be done about them.
A key recommendation that is likely to be implemented is the division of all institutions into three types, Research Univ, Teaching Univ and Colleges. This is entirely meaningless and uncalled for in our context, and it is certain to formalise and legitimise the already existing biases and extreme unequal resource allocations between the Central and State Systems. One doesn't have to be very clever to see this suggestion for what it is: Type I would be largely Central institutions, Type II would be State universities, Type III would be colleges (public and private), and Private universities could belong to both types. And what is claimed to be the basis for such a classification? One is the existence of appropriate systems, processes and infrastructure in place where the Central system has a huge advantage over the State system, thanks to the sustained investments and patronage that have gone into them for 4-5 decades . The other criterion relates to their outcomes, mainly HRD and R&D. Here it is necessary to be frank and accept that generation of human resources is the core activity that happens in all classes of these institutions, and given the continuum that exists here across institutions of different classes, there is no justification for rigid classification based on this criterion alone. The other ostensible reason cited is R&D out put, and here it is seen that NEP stays entirely clear of asking the hard questions that need to be asked of our “research universities” – what impact has their R&D outputs had on our economy and society so far? What ideas, approaches, designs, technologies, tools and techniques developed by them in our country can claim to have contributed even indirectly to our GDP, and to what extend? At the exalted level of an exercise like the NEP, one has to go beyond glib talks of start ups etc, and admit that the R&D in our elite institutions exist in a rarefied atmosphere, unpolluted by our economic and social realities, and this can not be a basis for declaring them to belong to a higher class, such as Type I institution. If at all such classifications have to be made, it should be based on performance per rupee invested. A far more honest thing would be to formally use the legal classification of Central Universities, State Universities and Colleges, and let the rankings be left to evaluations like NIRF. Why such top down classifications without much basis have to be avoided is because we know from experience that all decisions pertaining to allocation of resources, rights and privileges would be governed by the Type to which an institution has been slotted into, despite protestations of mobility, continuum etc. existing between them. It will only serve to legitimise and perpetuate the divisions that already exist between the Central and State systems. The question of what purposes and conditions should govern government funding of research ought to have been a central one addressed here since research is taken as a key aspect of higher education criterion, especially so in the context of the National Research Foundation that the NEP is proposing. It is significant that NEP does not demand that the established research institutions demonstrate the muscle of their research by committing to raise a significant part of their budget from the commercialisation of their research (and not through more central government grants).If there is a place where accountability is badly needed, it should have been here. And finally, since the NEP document says that 75% of the public spending on education comes from the states, shouldn't the states have been given a far higher role in this exercise itself?

December 2020
The states of India – the case of a very successful bypass surgery! Abstract: In our federal system, it is primarily the responsibility of the states to deliver the goods and services essential for the lives of ordinary people such as food, healthcare, education, housing, transport, electricity,water and sanitation, security etc. Most states have not performed well in this regard, and the ordinary people constituting around 90% of our population are caught between a largely disfunctional state system and an unaffordable private system. The states have not been held accountable for this failure partly because most of the elites and the well to do have found ways of completly bypassing the state system and taking care of themselves very well within the Central and Private systems. The English and Hindi speaking national elite with their strangle hold over the press and the media consistently paint the state systems as being corrupt, inefficient, incompetent and poor quality, encouraging the Centre to encroach further into the states' domains, which further drags the states downwards in performance and delivery. This situation has been brought about systematically through legislative measures adopted by the Central system over time, backed fully by the Private sector and our elite classes. If development has to reach the bulk of our people, it is essential that the Centre should stop this process, as well as reverse many of the steps already taken that has contributed significantly to today's extreme inequalities and poor living conditions of most of our people. I In the federal system that we have in our country, delivery of goods and services essential for the lives of the citizens are mostly under the control of the States, and the Centre has not much role in it, excepting in some areas like the banking sector, the courts, railways, air traffic, petrolium products etc. Even where the providers of these essential goods and services are private parties, they are mostly regulated by the state governments. The reality of our lives however is that the states have not played this role well, and the ordinary people have to endure extreme hardships in order to manage their lives even under normal conditions.That such a state of affairs has been allowed to continue indefinitely, and often times worsening, is rather puzzling given that we do have participatory institutions and processes at work at various levels, along with a vibrant press and media that bring to public notice all aspects of the functioning of the system, especially those of the elected bodies. One would have expected that something would have been done to set things right at the state level, especially given that we have substantial sections (in absolute numbers) of our popultaion who are the elite and the well to do, and who would have done something to arrest the decline in the functioning of the state system at least for their own sake. It is pointed out here that such a process of rectifying the flawed functioning of the state system has not happened as the elite and the resourceful have managed to find (in fact have been provided) a complete bypass of the state system by the central and the private sectors; they (the elite) do not depend on the state system for almost anything, but instead access all their needs through the central system and private providers. And most of them are in our metros, and a significant number of them have always headed further beyond our shores onto greener pastures abroad. II We look in some detail at how this successful bypassing of the state system has happened in various sectors and areas: Education: State schools are completely avoided by the elite by going through the Central or Private school system. The introduction of Plus 2 system in the schools ensured that one can go on from the Central/Private schools to the Central/Private universities and colleges without having to step into a state level institution. The Central institutions of higher learning were still being 'contaminated' by the graduates and postgraduates from the state system for their PG and Doctoral programs, and to avoid this, 5-year integrated PG programs were introduced, as well as new institutions like ISERs etc were opened to meet this need. Institutions for Law, Medicine and Agriculture Education were still with the state system till recently, and those interested in these fileds had to go there. But NLS s and AIIMS/PGI s were introduced to avoid having to do this in the fileds of Law and Medicine, just as IIM s were built for the same purpose for Management education. Agricultural (including Veterinary Medicine, Fisheries etc) Education seems to be the only field where there are no Central institutional networks – confirming the fact that our elite has absolutely no interest in this field! The key to this total bypass of the state system in the higher education field lies in the idea of All-India Entrance Exams – JEE, NEET, CLAT, etc. Given the economic, social, family an locational conditions needed to compete and do well in these examinations, just this one measure alone enables the elite to totally bypass the state system ; it represents the most powerful tool for the consolidation of the elite class ; a perfect filter for the exclusion of over 90% of our people from the corridors of power, wealth, influence and domination. Healthcare: Like the educational system, the healthcare delivery system under the control of the states is not something the elite would want to go anywhere near, unless of course they need some certificates from a government doctor! It is primarily the private sector that meets their needs, and where ever avilable, the PGI s and AIIMS s too chip in. Housing: Neither the state nor the central governments have any significant role in the housing sector, and it is almost entirely in private hands. The elite in any case do not depend on the government sector for their housing needs. Jobs: The governments, both at centre and the statea, have no great role in providing jobs, and the private sector is expected to fullfil this need. There are however a limited number of high profile public sector jobs that the elite is interested in, and they are all in the central government and associated institutions and organisations. The state system has little of interest to them in this sector. Other services: In the transport segment, the railways, air traffic and shipping are with the Centre or Private sectors, and the rest such as road and river transport is under the regulatory control of the states. Here too, what they own and operate is the public bus transport system, for which the elite has absolutely no use. They use their cars, and the rail and air traffic systems. In matters like Electricity and Water supply that the states are expected to provide, the elite make their own private backup arrangements so that the dysfunctionality of the state system here does not bother them. In the area of food supply, things like PDS etc have no relevance for our elite, and the private players cater to all their needs. The area of public sanitation and hygeine that the states are expected to take care of is a matter of concern for the elite, but they try to avoid some of the problems by moving to exclusive enclaves and townships of their own. Even where the states are continuing to deliver certain services, they are increasingly being made to play the role of mere delivery arms for various the Central government schemes, similar to what many NGO s have been reduced to. Banking, Investments, Infrastructure, Industry: Generally speaking, governments are increasingly looking to the private and foreign sectors to meet the needs for large capital for these areas, though the central system still commands huge resources and control over it. The states once again are hardly any players in this core area, excepting in the matter of electricity, land, water and forests which are key resources for development – and these now are the battlegrounds between the States and Centre/Private sectors. III This All-India elite class consisting of about 4-5 % of our people have no stake in, or commitment to, anything much at the state level, including its language and culture. Their brotherhood is welded through English and Hindi; the addition of Hindi as a 'legitimate' language of the Indian elite is a significant phenomenon of the last 20 years or so, allowing for the widening of the base, cultural integartion and diversity of the elite classes which would have been impossible with English alone uniting them. Inclusion of Hindi as a language of the ruling elites of India has enabled doing away with any need to bother with other Indian languages and cultures – the Indian nation and the Indian culture can now march on without the cumbersome paraphernalia of 30 odd languages and cultures and all the other inconvnient baggage they bring along! All the pleasures and privileges that the Englsh language alone opened to them earlier are now available through Hindi, including being fiercely patriotic, proud of Indian culture etc! This consolidation of the national elite by totally bypassing the state system, this orphaning of the state system, has been systematically achieved through policy measures adopted by the Centre over the last 2-3 decades, often on the face of some (largely ineffective) opposition from the stake holders of the state system, which almost always turned out to be no match for the combined power of the Centre and the national elite with its influence and wealth. Much of this has been done in the name of the need to maintain quality, performance, efficiency etc. The state system is roundly accused of failing with regard to all these metrices, and is seen only as a cesspool of corruption, inefficiency, substandard quality etc. -- a veritable roadblock in the path of development and progress that the Centre and the Private players want to take our nation to. Our English and Hindi speaking national elite with their enormous resources and propaganda machinery has played a significant role in bringing about this situation where the constitutional entity entrusted with the welfare of the ordinary people has been dumped into the pits! A large proportion of our people are having to make do with a dysfunctional state system and an unaffordable private sector for most of their essential needs like food, healthcare, education, transport etc. IV This is not an argument as such against the formation and strengthening of an elite class at the national level, it is against the short cut and unfair ways through which it has been achieved which brings to question its genuineness and legitimacy to speak on behalf of the nation. However it maybe becoming increasingly possible now to correct this situation to some extent since significant changes have also been taking place at the state levels themselves during this period. The economies of many of our states have grown significantly over time, their state GDP s in PPP terms today often being comparable to those of many western nations even – GDP of Tamil Nadu today is same as that of S.Africa, as well as what was India's GDP about 40 years ago! Most states have also acquired considerable expertise and competence in matters of administration and governance in most of the spheres. Similar is the case with state level political parties and processes which have also become more mature and stable. The political and administrative systems at the state levels are especially capable of rolling out and servicing large scale welfare measures aimed at the weakest sections of people. And along with this has also emerged a state level intelligentsia and elite that largely works with their mother tongue and is well connected with the idioms and cultures of the state, and at the same time capable of handling English as well. This is especially so in states where the mother tongue is not Hindi. There is a thriving local language press, media, theatre, cinema, literature and arts , though much of it maybe imitative of their English (or now Hindi) versions. And most of the states also have a highly educated diaspora living in the advanced countries, who provides the state level players with an understanding of all major developments taking place globally. These state level elites and intelligentsia however have rather limited reach and influence, largely due to the far greater wealth, clout and reach of their English and Hindi speaking national level counterparts. All state level players must have a more level playing field by stoping the Centre and Private players from opening up more and more bypass routes for the well to do to practice a virtual untouchability towards the state system. C N Krishnan 22/12/2020

April 2020 Our Laws must have a Gandhi's Talisman Clause Almost towards the end of his life, Mahatma Gandhi had said the following in a letter to a friend: "...I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away....." Called Gandhi's Talisman, this statement (test) must have served as a moral ethical compass for many individuals in their personal lives and decision making processes. Going beyond the level of the individual, it is time that we made this (or a suitably modified version of it) a mandatory clause in every piece of legislation and decision making done in India, from the Indian Parliament down to the Panchayat councils. The added clause could be along the lines “ ...it has been examined as to whether the proposed law/order/decision would, directly or otherwise, impact adversely on the lives of the poor and marginalised sections of our country/state/district, and wherever it has been found to be the case, adequate remedial measures have been proposed and incorporated..”, or some appropriate modifications thereof. We already have precedents of such mandatory clauses like in the case of sanctioning of large projects where an environmental clearance clause is mandatory; one of the boxes that has to be ticked before it becomes law. Or compliance with the Coastal Zone Regulatory clauses while putting up constructions near the sea shores. Or clauses like “no animal was harmed in the process” during the use of animals in entertainment industry . Etc. Despite the well known limitations and inadequacies of merely inserting a clause in a law, having the “Gandhi's Talisman Clause” as a part of the template for drawing up any legislation at any level could serve as a step towards reducing their (unintended) adverse impact on the poor and the vulnerable in our society who still exist in large numbers, much after Gandhiji gave his talisman. And even when the intentions are there, such considerations often get left out in the hectic processes of the actual crafting of the law which, beyond the broad goals and directions spelt out by the political leadership, is actually carried out by teams of lawyers, bureaucrats, economists, planners etc. Having the Talisman clause as an integral part of the template for detailed law making by such teams would ensure that such considerations do get incorporated in some manner and does not end up falling between the stools. While such clauses would certainly fall much short of what Gandhiji had wanted his talisman test to do for the poor, it may at least help to prevent much further harm coming to the poor and the dispossessed through the proposed law or decision! Such a step has now become all the more imperative as large scale disruptions of the lives of the poor have been happening, caused not only by natural disasters like floods and droughts, but even by some of the laws and executive decisions of the governments that appear to be getting pushed through without adequate thought as to how their (un-intended) consequences maybe further putting the lives of crores of our poor in jeopardy. The media, organised or otherwise, supply us vivid images of the sufferings that the poor and dispossessed have to face every time something happens to upset the already precarious state of their social and economic existence, irrespective of what causes such disruptions. And this is doing no good either to our collective consciousness as fellow citizens or the image of our nation that is rightfully poised to become a major player on the global stage. In a certain broader sense, the proposed step may be seen only as one of the many that have been taken, and would continue to be taken, to transform the Indian State from its oppressive and uncaring colonial origins to one that treats its people not as subjects but as citizens whom it guarantees certain minimal levels and conditions of existence. Thanks to the democratic foundations on which our state is founded and functioning (irrespective of however wanting it may appear in certain regards), and a certain memory of the Gandhian legacy that still seems to linger in parts of our society, significant gains have been made in this process of transformation of the Indian State. This proposal is just one more step in that direction All our political parties and organisations, and the entire country, are certain to support such a legislation that will also bring a sense of unity and solidarity among us in these troubled times. And what better way to tell the world too that our recent yearlong celebration of Gandhiji's 150th birth anniversary was not just a ritual, and that we have definite answers to questions like “is Mahatma Gandhi relevant today?”! C N Krishnan April 27, 2020

Sept 2019 Our ways OR What should be our attitude towards Artificial Intelligence
Abstract: The West seems to view “Technological Progress” such as embodied in Artificial Intelligence (AI) etc as something unstoppable, like hurricanes, and all that one can do is to try and minimise the devastation caused by it. Such surrender to technology comes perhaps naturally to the West as it is largely in continuation with its tradition of surrendering oneself to man-made institutions for the sake of greater power and control. India has had a different tradition of setting limits to what man-made institutions can do to the individual; total surrender was reserved only to gods (that too the deserving ones!) and not to any mortal authority. It should therefore come naturally to us to set limits to what technologies like AI are allowed to do to us so that large scale devastation are avoided. The challenges of driving on roads in India are well documented, very often with winning wit and humour, and every generation makes creative contributions to this industry or art form – recall the recent moon walk episode on the state of Bangalore roads in the wake of the Chandrayan-2 launch. The one I want to bring up here is our attitude towards the traffic regulation mechanisms such as traffic signals; it is notorious that we don't always respect them, and this malady is expected to be treated by levying hefty fines as being presently attempted. It is the collective experience of all of us road users, including pedestrians, that the green signal is no guarantee that we can drive on or walk on safely; it is only one of the requirements for doing so. Even with the green light on, we all have to be alert to a variety of other impediments that might stop our progress , or worse still , send us off unceremoniously from this world altogether – such as people, cattle, vehicles, boulders, holes, cables, building materials etc appearing suddenly in front of us, notwithstanding the assurance we had from the green light , backed ultimately by the authority of the State, that it is our right to move on unobstructed. Far from trusting the green light entirely and moving on unconcerned, we continue to be on full alert regarding the dangers ahead , sobered by the thought that, like guerrilla fighters, we are pretty much on our own for our survival and reaching which ever destination we set out for. The knowledge that the green light can not anyway be trusted fully for our safety and survival on the road also shapes our attitude towards the red light. The red light certainly is warning us that there is danger ahead, but that need not be taken as the last word on the matter. With or without red light, and even with the green light, we know there are dangers ahead in our path all the time and it is entirely upto us to deal with them on our own, guerrilla fighter style as mentioned. In this sense,the red light is not treated as the last word in the matter – just as we couldn't trust the green one fully any way. The traffic signals in our country thus do not control the traffic by itself; it is only one of the aids for us to negotiate the traffic; ours is at best a “signal aided” traffic. This apparently is not the case in the rich industrialised countries where green is an unconditional sanction to move on unobstructed, and red is an entirely non-negotiable no-no. One makes oneself entirely powerless before them, in return for which there is guarantee that their writ runs unquestioned. Using the combatant analogy again, a road user there is more like a soldier in a regular army with the knowledge that there is a huge infrastructure and system in place that can be depended up on for one's safety and survival, unlike the guerrilla fighter model for the users of Indian roads. Such countries could be said to have a “signal controlled” traffic. This unwillingness to put ourselves entirely at the mercy of the those in charge of running the affairs of our society is not confined to road traffic alone; all of us who can afford to do so do create and maintain back ups (often many layers of them) for most of the routine provisions and services that we are expected to receive as a matter of right and for which we have made payments. Thus , even in metros where there is reasonable infrastructure being provided, we do provide for back ups for electric power, cooking fuel, water supply, security arrangements, children's schooling, etc. at our homes so that we can get on with our lives even when the main system fails to deliver. Huge drums for storing water is a common sight even in homes where the corporation water supply is fairly assured and steady. Same with DG sets and UPS, kerosene stoves etc. (We will for now overlook rumours of some people even keeping pigeons and horses in case phones fail and transport system collapses!). It is as though we do not trust the 'establishment' to do what it is expected to do under normal circumstances; we seem to think that when things become difficult, we are entirely on our own and the larger system can not be relied up on to take care of us – the guerrilla fighter syndrome again! (The many who can not afford to build such back ups are entirely at the mercy of whatever the system provides).
It is absolutely true that there is no need to mystify or romanticise such observations about contemporary India as these can be easily understood in terms of the large scale scarcity of resources, poor quality of infrastructure and governance, etc., which when rectified should make us behave exactly like those in the rich west. Possibly, but may not be entirely so too. Our disdain for man-made authority (the state and its laws, the police, traffic rules, tax laws, energy/resource conservation measures, hygiene and environmentally healthy practices, physical fitness etc) is quite pervasive and across the classes and regions, and is often traced back to the days of our independence struggle when open and public defiance of the state and its laws, as well as of many social norms and practices, was a powerful form of fighting for national independence and ridding the society of many of its evils. There is a view that this practice of public 'disobedience' of authority, deployed so effectively by Mahatma Gandhi and his disciples, has stayed on with us much after we became free and masters of our own destiny, at least nominally. But as scholars like Dharampal have pointed out, such practices may have a much older history in our case wherein open defiance of the state and its authority was considered a legitimate way of fighting for justice – for oneself, one's family, one's community, one's region etc. Unconditional surrender to man-made authority was perhaps not ever considered a great virtue – god in his/her various forms were the only ones who could command such absolute surrender. For endless generations children in our society have been growing up listening to stories of men and women of virtue (sages, poets, kings and nobles, plain householders etc) standing up to mighty emperors who they felt were deviating from the path of righteousness, virtue and justice.This was the case even with gods who the virtuous felt were deviating from the path of righteousness; they would be defied too, just as they would defy a tyrannical king. Limits were set to what the global can do to the local, the outer can do to the inner, etc. Autonomy and inviolability of the individual seems to have been the corner stone of our social and political consciousness and conduct; what Mahatma Gandhi termed Swaraj at the level of the individual. This streak of putting clear bounds that can not be crossed by any form of man-made authority no matter how mighty has perhaps been endemic to us for long. Unconditional surrender is reserved only for those humans and gods who in one's perception have stayed the course of righteousness and justice unwavering. For most parts of its existence, such might not have been the case with the West where no one had any public sanction to defy the many forms of man-made authority such as the church, the king, the army, the hospital, the school, the academia, science & technology, etc.Total surrender to the authority of such institutions was required from the citizens, and their proven ability to do so unconditionally over long periods of time could also be responsible for the unprecedented power and domination that the West has achieved in the world – traffic flows smoothly as the signals are obeyed unconditionally. For over a century, no where has this surrender of the West to its institutions been so complete as in the case of its S&T; “listen to the scientists” is what the 17 year old Climate Crusader from Europe tells the politicians and the corporations for saving the world – the biting irony of it being that our environment and climate got to this stage precisely by doing so! Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest of the institutions/regimes that the Western man seems to be eager to surrender to – an institution that looks to subsume all other man-made institutions and become the sole Master for the humans, and represents a logical culmination of the long process of surrendering to the machine that the West has been pursuing. While there is little that we can do to influence the West in the matter, there may be some definite learnings from our own civilisational inclinations and preferences in this domain that we can bring to bear while making our decisions on technological issues like AI. If indeed we have historically been able to put limits to what authority and power is permitted to do to the individual, then there is nothing like the 'inevitability of technological progress' which we are told we all have to subject ourselves to like a force of nature. We can choose to draw the lines where we wish to; for example we may decide to have an “AI aided” life rather than an “AI controlled” life, etc. The knowledge that we have had a civilisational track record of putting limits to what role technology (man-made institutions and authority in general) should play in our lives, should help us take a sensible and practical stand on issues like AI. We need to move closer to the spirit of what Mahatma Gandhi had said in Hind Swaraj:“... it was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fibre. ...” The emphasis on not getting enslaved, by machinery/technology or anything else. As in the case of much else he wrote and spoke, it should be taken that Gandhiji is not here just giving his personal opinion on the matter, but was reflecting the thinking and understanding of the ordinary people of our country.This should thus give us the confidence that , in the case of AI or anything else that threaten to over power us, we can fall back on our own historical experiences and learnings and chart our own path of resistance; we need not be limited by the ways in which such resistance may be developing in the West itself, constrained as they would be by their own historical settings. We would most likely decide to have traffic lights in our urban centres for sure, but we would also have more realistic expectations of what role they can play in regulating our traffic!
C N Krishnan 29th Sept. 2019

starting to write for testing

A post to test categories.

The Kandhla event on 19th February 2021 will hopefully be accessible online.

Vande Mataram ( IAST : Vande Mātaram , also pronounced Bande Mataram ; transl. Mother, I bow to thee) is a Bengali poem written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1870s, which he included in his 1882 Bengali novel Anandamath . The poem was first sung by Rabindranath Tagore in 1896. The first two verses of the song were adopted as the National Song of India in October 1937 by the Congress Working Committee prior to the end of colonial rule in August 1947.

Jana Gana Mana is the national anthem of India. It was originally composed as Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata in Bengali by polymath Rabindranath Tagore. The first stanza of the song Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India as the National Anthem on 24 January 1950.

This is a test blog post to see how blogging works on the wix platform. I am also embedding a video to test video embedding capabilities.

We’ve made it quick and convenient for you to manage your blog from anywhere. In this blog post we’ll share the ways you can post to your Wix Blog. Blogging from Your Wix Blog Dashboard On the dashboard, you have everything you need to manage your blog in one place. You can create new posts, set categories and more. To head to your Dashboard, open the Wix Editor and click on Blog > Posts. Blogging from Your Published Site Did you know that you can blog right from your published website? After you publish your site, go to your website’s URL and login with your Wix account. There you can write and edit posts, manage comments, pin posts and more! Just click on the 3 dot icon ( ⠇) to see all the things you can do. #bloggingtips #WixBlog

When it comes to design, the Wix blog has everything you need to create beautiful posts that will grab your reader's attention. Check out our essential design features. Choose from 8 stunning layouts Your Wix Blog comes with 8 beautiful layouts. From your blog's settings, choose the layout that’s right for you. For example, a tiled layout is popular for helping visitors discover more posts that interest them. Or, choose a classic single column layout that lets readers scroll down and see your post topics one by one. Every layout comes with the latest social features built in. Readers can easily share posts on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and view how many people have liked a post, made comments and more. Add media to your posts When creating your posts you can: Upload images or GIFs Embed videos and music Create galleries to showcase a media collection Customize the look of your media by making it widescreen or small and easily align media inside your posts. Hashtag your posts Love to #hashtag ? Good news! You can add tags ( #vacation #dream #summer ) throughout your posts to reach more people. Why hashtag? People can use your hashtags to search through content on your blog and find the content that matters to them. So go ahead and #hashtag away!