THE DEMOCRATIC NEWS

Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa, born on 20 August 1931 in a small village in Hassan district of Karnataka, rose from humble beginnings to become one of India’s most celebrated Kannada novelists and thinkers. He lost his mother and brothers to plague as a child and even left school for a time to wander the country, working odd jobs before returning to complete his education. Bhyrappa earned his B.A. (Hons) and M.A. in Philosophy at Mysore University, where he won the gold medal, and later a Ph.D. from Baroda University. These experiences of hardship, scholarship and travel shaped the themes of his writing. Novelist and Academic Bhyrappa’s literary journey began with the publication of his first novel Bheemakaya in 1958. Over six decades he wrote more than 20 novels, essays, short stories and even screenplays. Alongside his writing, he served as a lecturer and professor of philosophy at institutions including the Regional College of Education in Mysore and the NCERT in Del...

When a child collapses on a playground, most classmates and teachers freeze. In a nation of over 250 million school-going children, fewer than one in twenty know the basics of CPR or first aid. Yet almost all can recite equations they may never use. This stark gap between what we teach and what life demands is India’s education paradox. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 pledged to shift from rote learning to competency-based education, but the timetable in most classrooms remains frozen. Children still spend far more hours on abstract mathematics than on life-saving, civic or financial skills. We cannot postpone practical education to “later stages” when emergencies happen every day. If we truly want to build capable citizens, we must teach CPR before calculus. Life-skills are fundamentals, not add-ons First aid, basic health and hygiene, disaster preparedness, civic duties, digital safety and financial literacy are not “extras.” They are as essential as literacy and...