A bunch of cultural hawks in Jammu & Kashmir want a halt to all cultural activities in the state's schools. They have a point, you see. It is a different thing that you might not see it (I mean, their point) at all. They feel girls and being exploited, obsceneity is being promoted. The Daily News & Analysis has some details: After lying low for some time, Dukhataran-e-Milat (DeM) chief Syeda Aisiya Andrabi has suddenly sprung back to action and has threatened to launch an agitation against the “cultural aggression perpetuated by New Delhi and the state government to wean people away from religion”. “We will soon start an agitation seeking the closure of this cultural wing of the J&K education department that has become a breeding ground for exploitation of our girls,” Aisiya said, adding: “We have to fight this cultural aggression together. We should not allow India to succeed in its designs”.

Students at KJ Somaya College of Engineering in Mumbai were October 23 not allowed to take a test because they came dressed in T shirts, says a CNN-IBN report. The college management, however, contends that the issue has been blown out of proportion. "Some students were suspended and these reports are false," says Principal, K J Somaya College, Raj Kishore Prasad. [Link] Some recent college-related incidents: In September 2005, Avinash Nahar, a student at a Chennai college was harassed for wearing a dark T-shirt instead of light-coloured shirts prescribed by the college. The same month, the Orissa government banned students from wearing jeans to college. In February 2006, Farah Khanum, a student of the Aligarh Muslim University received death threats for wearing T-shirts to college.

You can find such juvenile statements only in the RSS mouthpiece The Organiser. And that too by former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi. [Link] Former Union HRD Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi viewed that sex education would transform the student-teacher relation into that of a man and a woman and it appears the government wants to import the western culture of sexual relations between students and teachers into India. He said introduction of sex education is what multinationals did to create the desire for sex among teenagers to sell their products. Thank heavens, this man is not in charge of our educational system at this moment.

This one is hard to believe — two schools in Mumbai have issued notices asking girls and boys studying there not to touch or hug members of the opposite sex. Did you just say OMG? CNN-IBN reports [Link]: Vibgyor School and Jamnabai Nursery School have specifically forbidden boys and girls from touching or hugging members of the opposite sex in the school premises. School authorities say the rule will “discipline” students, who are easily exposed to and influenced by violence and vulgarity on TV and other media. "It is our duty ki unko bataya jai kya sahi hai, kya galat hai (... to tell them what's right and what's wrong)," Trustee of Vibgyor School, Rustam Kherawala argues, justifying the move.

It is now the turn of the Students Islamic Organisation of India to tighten the screws on whosoever talks about sex education. The organisation does not have even 10,000 members across the country, but is big enough to be a mischief-monger. Its activists have already staged demonstrations in a number of cities/towns. Listen to (I mean, read) these quotable quotes: Sex education is teaching pornography and instigating. free sex. When the Indian Constitution declares that a person is an adult only at age 18, then why should an adult subject like sex be taught to 11 and 12-year-olds. Sex should be permissible only after marriage. If you teach it in schools it will be akin to making them hungry and taking away the food. Those were from some SIO activists who, you aill agree, are in dire need of some sex education classes.

That's what the Madhya Pradesh government tends to think when it comes to the issue of imparting sex education in schools. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state has stopped sex education classes for high school students after it found that illustrations in an instruction manual for teachers were "obscene". The sex education classes were part of the Adolescence Education Programme (AEP) for Class IX and above, aimed at creating AIDS awareness among students. The "objectionable" illustrations were diagrams of male and female bodies in four pages of the manual. The BJP government found it too much to take. "The chief minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan) has instructed the school education department to stop imparting sex education and informed the union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh about it," an official said.

Girls in Madhya Pradesh may not get to wear skirts anymore. Barely, a fortnight after a ban on fashion shows in government-run colleges, the women's commission of the state — of all people — is considering a dress code for girls in educational institutions. And of course, that means no skirts for you girls. [Link] You won't believe what this woman has to say: Some members of the Madhya Pradesh Women’s Commission have gone on record favouring the proposal. "A proposal envisaging a ban on skirts is ready and it would soon be sent to the government," commission member Sushma Arya told IANS. "Girls should not dress up in a way that could invite trouble. It (the proposal) is for their safety," she added. As if wearing burkhas will ensure the safety of girls. And, the shorter, the worse fate awaits you girls: