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Education Space Science Technology

India Launches World's First Education Satellite 263

Posted by timothy from the beaming-down-knowledge dept.
samfisher writes "New Scientist is reporting that India has launched EDUSAT, the world's first satellite exclusively dedicated to distance learning. EDUSAT will use the virtual classroom concept to offer education to children in remote villages, quality higher education to students in areas without access to good technical institutes, adult literacy programmes and training modules for teachers. The educational programmes can be viewed on any television set through a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65."
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India Launches World's First Education Satellite More

India Launches World's First Education Satellite

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  • Sure, the set top reciever is cheap( to us), but then you need to HAVE a TV and the electricity to run all the gear. So if the intention is to level to playing field, you have created another division around the power issue.

    • Re:But how much for the electricity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KitFox ( 712780 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:58AM (#10353533)
      Electricity may be the bigger problem, but the government and private organizations will likely be funding the equipment for classrooms. We're not talking about "Home education" here, we're talking about classrooms set up with the video equipment, a generator, and a satellite dish, serving the whole local community.

    • Re:But how much for the electricity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Baricom ( 763970 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:02AM (#10353545)

      You have created another division around the power issue.

      I'm assuming the power issue was there already. It doesn't make sense to blame an existing technology gap on something new.

    • Re:But how much for the electricity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:16AM (#10353594)
      That's not much of a division. Generating sufficient electrical power to operate a television set and receiver is trivial. Private generators, solar cells, wind power, manually-operated cranks, or any other number of devices can be used to power the setup. And nobody's said that only one person can watch the set once it's receiving signals from the satellite. Even a relatively poor community in India should be able to cobble together a set, receiver, and power supply. It wouldn't be impressive by US standards, but it'd work.

    • Re:But how much for the electricity (Score:5, Informative)

      by teetam ( 584150 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @12:28PM (#10355215) Homepage
      The state that I come from in India has 100% electricity coverage since the last 50 years! Every house in the even the most remote village has electricity and almost everyone nowadays has TV.

      NOT FLAMEBAIT: For news stories like this, if you are totally ignorant about the foreign country being discussed, it is OK to not say anything. Seriously.

  • Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Insightful)

    by superpulpsicle ( 533373 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:56AM (#10353520)
    If a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65, I think that's alot cheaper than U.S public education. I really don't know how edumacation money is spent in the U.S. Teachers are low paid, principal might be better, but all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars. Though all in all that's still better than colleges. Which now charges $65,000 easily in two years.

    • Re:Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Barlo_Mung_42 ( 411228 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:14AM (#10353587) Homepage
      "Teachers are low paid, principal might be better, but all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars."

      The problem is that we far outspend the rest of the world in military spending to maintain our illusion of superiority. We spend more than the next 23 nations combined for our ability to fight a multi front war while school funding continues to slip. In the city I live in they had to close schools three weeks early last year because of lack of funding. It's a complete misplacement of priorities and both political parties are guilty of it IMO.
      • We um, actually out-spend many foreign nations, per student, on education as well.

        Didn't any of your highschool teachers try to give you a back-handed insult by telling you how much brighter students were in [insert Warsaw pact nation here], even though many of them were stuck using nothing but slide-rules, second-rate calculators, and limited supplies of books? I got that line from teachers on several occasions(and no, it wasn't directed solely at me). That line was used, of course, to shock/jolt the cla

        • Re:Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AoT ( 107216 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:18AM (#10353747) Homepage Journal
          The big problem with education in the US is that the money doesn't actually get to the classrooms. It's all tied up in the administration. All the damn managers get paid *way* too much while teachers make relatively little and spend far too much on supplies.
          • Where have you been? Admin comes second in the US. The largest amount gets spent on those yellow school busses. Does any other country in the world have dedicated school buses? Most of the ones I've been in just work out a deal with the local bus company.

            I agree that admin is too high. Look at any school district and compare their admin numbers to what it was 20 years ago. Same goes with city government as well.
            • *what* local bus company?

              I have to question the logistics of that working in the states as well. Or at least in my area (fairly rural)---we have about 20 buses at my highschool that scour the county pretty much in set areas to get all the students to school. A "local bus company" would need at least as many, perhaps more (to account for day to day traffic as well) vehicles to accomplish the same thing, as well as taking a huge stride out of their established route to let people off at the school. In den

        • Re:Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Interesting)

          by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@NOSPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @12:08PM (#10355084) Journal
          Another major issue is that a lot, if not most non-us countries only test their high-performing students. In the US, we test *everyone*, and yet for years people have been duped into comparing those results against the top 50-25% of students in other countries. We mandate that *all* students get a moderately equal education, and that everyone gets tested. In the rest of the world, there are a lot of countries where students don't see any real equality in education, and a lot of kids don't get educated at all. Comparing scores from the US to other countries is really comparing apples to oranges.

          As someone who just started teaching, I can honestly say that there isn't a lot wrong with education in the US, at least compared to much of the developed world. Standards for teachers have continued to rise, and the people I see entering the workplace now are more skilled than teachers were 30 years ago. Is everything roses and chocolates? Hell no! But we're not doing badly. There's always plenty of room for improvement, but I'm not worried about this country collapsing due to the educational deficiencies of the next generation.

          What could be done to improve the educational system in this country? All sorts of things. The problem is that nobody can agree on those things. Personally, I think standardized tests are a crock of shit, and that they don't reliably test content knowledge nor the ability to use what one has learned. Do I have a better method to reliably and fairly assess a student's knowledge, which works flawlessly across all cultures and languages? No. And neither does anyone else.

          Would more funding help? Yes. But funding is useless without training and direction. I would love to see technology fully integrated into public schools, where we teach students to make good use of it. But until we get both funding and knowledgeable teachers and administrators, that won't happen. At the moment, my high school doesn't even teach programming, and it's one of the largest schools in the area. I have a celeron 400 for a workstation, running XP, Novell desktop environment, with mandated use of Gradequick for attendance and grades. I can't run multiple apps on it at once. But it's the best we have, because the funding isn't there, and the administration doesn't see better computers as a priority. Combine these things with a school board composed of non-educators, primarily concerned with chopping down the school budget, and there will be no change in how the school views technology for years to come.

          The bottom line is that in the US, we have made equality the goal, rather than maximizing the abilities of our top students. While it's a noble goal, we still aren't there, and the system is set up to force all students to a middle-point. We're a country that wants everyone treated equally rather than fairly. Education reform is tied to the government, the economy, and the citizens. The only way to make education better is to educate the general public on education, and hope that it trickles up to the government. We've been debating educational reform for hundreds of years, and we will continue to do so for hundreds more. If you want change, be sure to vote, and get on a school board, because they help set the policies and goals for schools.
      • Why don't the people of your community get together and fund a school for their children themselves (ie; rent a facility, hire the teachers, etc). That way they could hire the type of teachers they want teaching their children and be free of federal regulation. It would surely be cheaper than everyone sending their kids to a private school. Education used to be solely a local function, and there is no reason it can't be again.
      • The U.S. government spends more on education than it does for the military.

        The problem with public education in America is not a lack of funding, it's a lack of accountability.

        You've just repeated the same, old, tired liberal crap propaganda which has been going on since the Great Generation junk of the 60s.

        There's no proven causation between amount of money spent on public education and levels of proficiency among students. If there were, U.S. public school kids would be at the top of proficiency compar
      • Military and education costs come out of different pockets. The federal government pays for the military while state governments pay for the education (or at least they are supposed to under the 10th amendment).
    • The average wages+benefits to a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools? [thechampion.org] $57,722

      How about the average salary+benefits of being Administration? [thechampion.org] $94,500

      (Look up the salary of every public teacher in the state of Illinois at thechampion.org.) For Chicago, search for "DIST 299" The numbers include pension, which they can roll over. It's the private school teachers that make next to nothing. (Catholic grade school teacher I know: ~$24,000)

      The reason there's a shortage is because of race/gender affirmative act

      • Bullshit. My father is a Chicago public school teacher. He barely makes tha much with 25 years experience, a masters, and 40 hours (highest educational pay grade under doctorate). He has mental disability certs that are currently in high demand (utter lack o special ed teachers). He BARELY makes this much, and only has in the past few years.

        In other words, THESE NUMBERS ARE COMPLETELY MADE UP.
        • My mom is a teacher as well and these numbers seem about right. Remember its wage + benefits, not just wage. These days medical and pension plans are expensive. Also, it isn't clear whether this number is before or after taxes.
          • Even at benefits plus wage its off for the average. And for all his complaining about the top schools like Naperville (which for non-Chicagoans, is a VERY well off suburb), there's 2 that make under 30K. If thats benefit+wages, thats pathetic. Do you really think we can get people capable of teaching well, especially in science and math where they could probably go into industry and make 2-3x that? Is it really a good idea to have your children taken care of for 7 hours a day by the lowest bidder like t

      • Re:Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Interesting)

        by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @06:43AM (#10353944)
        Catholic and other private schools get to cherry pick the best students. It's much easier to teach smart kids.

        No matter what your criterea is if a school can get to pick who goes and who does not they will always win against a school that has to take everybody.

        BTW the reason for the higher salary of public school teachers probably has to do with the fact that they are unionized. As a general rule union members get paid more in any industry.
      • Of course you have to take in account that those numbers are probably what the annual salary would be if teachers worked 12 months of the year like the rest of the world. They end up having an abnormally large break during the summer months. Thus the problem is not that teachers are not getting paid enough, it is that teachers are not getting enough hours to work.
        • Those are average salaries, not entry level salaries. Public schools generally pay teachers who have been there longer more than new teachers. So the blue hair who taught you Math and who still uses an abacus probably gets paid more than the young Physics teacher who can relate to the kids and is thus able to teach them something.

    • Re:Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Interesting)

      by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) * on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:19AM (#10353600) Journal

      So India has found a more cost effective way of educating the population. Not only is this bloody fantastic, I also like the way that India is able to profit from the educational progress of other countries to leap ahead of them. All the technological innovation that took place in Europe and America - satellite technology, rocketry, etc., has been picked up and used without all the preliminary development having to be repeated.

      I hope Europe and America can do the same a few more years down the line to leap forward on the backs of Indian technology developed with their new low-cost education system.

      Of course, international patent agreements pushed by the US may prevent that. ;)
      • Not unusual. The US invented the transistor, but when you heard the term transistorised, it usually meant Japanese. The underdog frequently manages to innovate because they have to, while the head of the pack has noone to chase. I wouldn't be surprised if in a century India is the superpower and we're not.
      • [quote*]All the technological innovation that took place in Europe and America - satellite technology, rocketry, etc., has been picked up and used without all the preliminary development having to be repeated.[*quote]

        Are you aware that Indian space program was at the receiving end of sanctions by US from 1970? That also meant that India was denied the technology that you say has been picked up, almost all the time. Even now the ISRO is under sanctions by the US [check your sanctions list] even after being

    • Though all in all that's still better than colleges. Which now charges $65,000 easily in two years.

      You're an idiot if you're paying $32,500/year for an undergraduate college education.

      State schools are worse than private schools, but for the $22,500/year (or thereabouts) difference you're suggesting, at the undergrad level, they aren't *that* much worse (now, at the graduate level, it may make a real difference. But at the undergrad level, I generally don't think so, unless your comparison is Harvard to
      • They aren't always worse either. For an example off the top of my head- there's at least 3 public schools in the top ten list for CS. It varies from school to school, but there's a lot of good public universities out there.

    • Re:Good Pricing in India (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:28AM (#10353623) Homepage Journal
      I believe most of the money that you are talking about ("all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars") goes to administration. You know, the people that don't belong there.

      Really, the problem with public schools and our tax money is that the school don't have to be competitive in the marketplace. No matter what the results, voters choose who runs the school board. Failed leaders get re-elected based on their name recognition and advertising spending, successful leaders are ofter pushed out no matter what. On the otherhand if someone raises through the ranks and changes schools, and they aren't liked by the schoolboard then they also hit the streets.

      A good example is El Paso's Yselta school district. It's one of the countries poorest schools and one man Anthony Trujullo raised test scores to some of the highest in the country. Parents were happy with the change but he was fired by the board 4 to 3. One of his supporters said it was politics, and they fired him based on no more than "a personal dislike by four members".

      There is no 'market check', if you want to call it that and no competition for funds. Not that I'm for starving bad schools to death, but it makes you wonder. There is no incentive to actually make the schools better.

      "No Child Left Behind" was supposed to fix this, but it has by and large failed. That isn't just my opinion. (See this NYT Article [nytimes.com], reg required... basically there isn't room in "better" schools for those wishing to switch from "bad" schools, a provision of NCLB. [tinyurl.com])

      Many times, the failures of the public school system in America is deeper than it looks. Take school violence for example. I had to do a report for school with 4 others. When I suggested that violence had nothing to do with video games or TV people looked at me with awe. For more into that subject, read Preventing Violence in Schools Through the Production of Docile Bodies [inmotionmagazine.com] by Pedro Noguera (PhD). Good read, I promise. It basically says the failure of the public schools in general is based in the founding years and how they were formed after mental asylums and prison...

      We all have to be educated in these areas in order to exact change. Better public schools are our way to make this country better for all, it's the first line of defense (IMHO).

      • I believe most of the money that you are talking about ("all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars") goes to administration. You know, the people that don't belong there.

        And how do you suppose the administrative work is going to get done? You know: parents want reports on their child's performance, politicians want reports on school performance, health departments want reports, students want test scores, etc. Schools need to do budgeting, hiring and firing, human resources, etc.

        Teaching is
      • "Really, the problem with public schools and our tax money is that the school don't have to be competitive in the marketplace."

        Over 75% of all businesses fail leaving employees, customers, vendors and everybody out in the cold. Do you really want a system where 75% of all schools in the US shut down and where you have to constantly find a new school for your kids to go to?

        If the voters are not doing their job electing regents and board members then it's their fault and not the schools.

        Having said all tha
    • If a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65, I think that's alot cheaper than U.S public education. I really don't know how edumacation money is spent in the U.S. Teachers are low paid, principal might be better, but all resources don't remotely add up to our tax dollars. Though all in all that's still better than colleges. Which now charges $65,000 easily in two years.

      Education in the US must be bad judging your grammar and spelling.

  • Heh India has outsourcing problems too (Score:3, Funny)

    by Facekhan ( 445017 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:58AM (#10353527)
    We get to laugh cause jobs are being outsourced from India as its economy improves to countries where people will work for even less. In 50 years we may reach a point where there is at least something resembling a middle class in nearly every country. On the other hand we will probably all be working for a single megacorp/world government that lojacks us at birth.

  • Here in the US (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:58AM (#10353529)
    Edusat means Channel 1.

    It's a weird irony that it's cheaper to send up a satellite than it is to build schools to support everyone.

    • It's a weird irony that it's cheaper to send up a satellite than it is to build schools to support everyone.

      That's progress, baby. It'll be cheaper in a few years or decades :P to give all those people a PDA with a mesh network so you don't even need a satellite.

  • Low-cost? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:58AM (#10353531) Homepage
    65 USD may be low-cost for someone in the USA or Europe or so, but is it really for someone who doesn't have proper access to education yet? And of course, you need a TV set, too, which further adds to the costs attached to this... Don't get me wrong, I think that this is a good idea, but I don't see how it would help those who'd need help the most.
    • This wouldn't be a family thing, from what I gather. This would be a "The school for the local community, which is funded by the government and by aid institutions, will have the uplink equipment to be able to get proper teaching materials and courses without worrying about the espense of porting live instructors out." Ie, instead of having a living person, being paid and eating food, and limited to what knowledge they themselves have and can get ahold of, suddenly you can set up an insta-classroom with a

      • Re:Low-cost? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by metlin ( 258108 ) * on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:31AM (#10353631) Journal
        Hmm, you've apparently not been to a developing country.

        In most developing countries, there are adult literacy programs that people attend -- and force their children to attend. Why? For the simple reason that they do not want their kids to lead the same shitty life that they do.

        This is a wide-spread phenomenon, and something that quite correlates to a large chunk of the population from the underdeveloped areas moving into the cities.

        And btw, electric power is provided FREE of cost to most farming communities in some states in India -- to help them with things like running the irrigation pumps and the like, as well as to encourage them to start using things like the radio and television.

        Progress and better living for your progeny can be a very motivating thing. Especially in a closely family-knit culture like India.
    • It's as a communal installation, and is definitely cheaper than individually sending out your kids to schools "in the cities".

      This is a good thing happening in India. Good to see a lot of innovation and development in poorer countries.

  • Where Can I Get One? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LuYu ( 519260 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @02:58AM (#10353535) Homepage Journal

    Where can one buy one of these $65 receivers? I figure the signal probably reaches about half of the globe, so mostly anybody in Asia should be able to get the signal, right?

    • I'm a bit hazy on this, but my understanding is that you can focus the transponders aboard a satellite into relatively narrow areas - the narrower the focus, the stronger the signal. The article seems to confirm this:

      All but one of the KU-band transponders will be dedicated to specific regions of India, while the rest of the transponders will provide blanket coverage for the country.
    • Unfortunately that's not the case, but it used to be. The older generation of satelites had a much broader footprint, and if you're living in Asia (like me), you'll remember that there only used to be one beam of STAR TV available for the entire Asian region (meaning that millions of Chinese cried out in pain at their first exposure to Bollywood :-), and a lot of Indians tried to figure out the deeper meanings behind Canto-Pop). But eventually technology progressed, and there are now no less than 5 differen

  • i hope the implementation works out well (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:06AM (#10353563)
    there have been local projects in rural india where small pilot projects have been hugely successful. weather forecast for fishermen in quite a few places. the indian fishermen have small boats & cant afford GPS. hence they benefitted enormously from the satellite + MET office. farmers in villages have taken to drought predictions/ rain forecast in many arid zones. the sub continent is really unique with different weather conditions, different levels of affluence, religions, languages. etc. also complicating the problem is the presence of close to a million villages (there are 700,000 of them). in this regard, satellite is truly a tool that could be used. there are pilot projects running in IIT for low cost VSATs, and cheap telecom tools for tech to enter into villages. already, the government run telecom giant has penetrated the villages with mobile that gets access at a pittance. just wanted to point out the complexities involved, most of /. wouldnt know the ground realities in india.

  • Educational TV... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eselgroth ( 629022 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:08AM (#10353568)
    I am reminded of when -- back in the 50's -- the State of Indiana sent an airplane up in the air every school day. It circled around and around, broadcasting educational films to every school in the state that had a receiver. Ain't nuttin' new under the sun... -- TE

  • Bi-Directional? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by KitFox ( 712780 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:13AM (#10353585)
    What I am wondering is whether this is a two-way link. It's not specifically stated in the article that it is, however some things in the article inmply such a situation. Specifically the fact that it makes claims about "each link catering for up to 200 classrooms". If it were just a broadcast bird, I'd expect that anybody in the signal range could nab the signal off the air and use it. But if classrooms have uplinks, then the channels would be limited in bandwidth.

    If the classrooms have return uplinks, then this project makes much more sense than the current "Education alongside other functions", because two-way communications for students can be very important, and the multipurpose satellites would not be well-suited to the uplink needs of the classrooms themselves.

  • Low cost? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Geburah ( 610977 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:13AM (#10353586)
    "The educational programmes can be viewed on any television set through a simple low-cost receiver costing about $65."

    In India average urban household income is estimated at US$2,847, while also having an average household size estimated around 5.07 people.

    Thats like you feeding a family of five on $7.50 a day.

    My point being, $65 is not "low-cost" for this part of the world, whether it be schools or familys purchasing this technology.

    ---------------
    Source [marketnewzealand.com]
    • Can you at least *try* to grasp that currency conversions aren't one for one? Just because X currency converts to 7.50 USD doesn't mean jack about what it can buy or what its worth in its native land.

    • Re:Low cost? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bill_Royle ( 639563 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @04:21AM (#10353754)
      It sounds to me like the boxes will be used in existing classrooms, albeit in remote areas. Thus, 20-30 people might be in a classroom watching a single communal TV.

      Reminds me of that movie "Mosquito Coast", actually.

      One way or the other, this is a great move by India. The US has some programs like this, but it'd be nice if we focused more on it.
    • Thats like you feeding a family of five on $7.50 a day. My point being, $65 is not "low-cost" for this part of the world.
      By that (flawed) calculation, the receiver costs the same as what they pay for 9 days of food. Sounds pretty cheap to me.

  • See where offshoring has brought India? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Money for Nothin' ( 754763 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:15AM (#10353591)
    Now India can educate its populace too, relatively-cheaply. Surely the anti-outsourcing crowd isn't opposed to people being educated -- right?

    (except, that is, for those who don't mind publicly stating that their having a monopoly on being educated is a good thing b/c it raises their wages. Some of us like to think that having everybody educated beyond caveman levels has been good for the world; we also believe that further education is likewise, logically, a good thing. But some people don't agree, I know...)

  • troll alert!! move your a**es and get back to work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:19AM (#10353601)
    Looks like any post about anything happening in India seems to attract all the trolls like moths to a burning candle. The problem is not India - they are doing what needs to improve their lives; even if that means taking jobs for cheap from Americans. Capitalism and global economny are American ideas - we cannot ignore them because they are starting to hurt us now.
    Instead of sitting on our fat behinds (yes, 60% of our country is overweight - that is a whole different problem), it's about time we figure out how to get the house in order before blaming others. Schools suck, college costs have sky-rocketed - have the stupid politicians fix this first.
    All the jobs that were outsourced are history - manufacturing jobs in the last two decades to China, and now some of the tech jobs to India and elsewhere. And any amount of crying aren't going to get those back. Figure out what is relevant in today's economy and work towards using that to your advantage.

  • Country Wide Classroom (Score:3, Informative)

    by proudlyindian ( 781206 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:28AM (#10353621) Homepage
    Since the late 1980s in india there was a concept on the govt channel DD called Country Wide classroom which covered topics like chemistry, physics, maths and various quizzes and it was quite fun

  • I wonder.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:31AM (#10353629)
    ..if australia would find use for such a system?

    having such a spread out population (besides the coastal areas) may require just such a thing...

    not really sure how much of a space program they have though..

    • Re:I wonder.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by mattjb0010 ( 724744 )
      There's the school of the air [questacon.edu.au].

      not really sure how much of a space program they have though..

      Woomera satellite launches in the past, plus talk of new launch sites [google.com]
    • They're down under. They can't use satelites, they'd be underground... in order to get the thing up in the air they'll need to use submarines.
    • We have the school of the air for kids living on remote stations. It used to be 2-way radios, but now it's all 2-way satellites with video conferencing and stuff.

      My family has friends who run a sheep station up in the north of SA, and I can remember when we used to go up camping there we'd stop in to say hello, etc. and seeing where their 'kids went to school'. It was a small hut separate from the homestead with a 2-way radio running off a car battery, because they'd only run their diesel generator for abo
  • everyone commenting so far seems to envision that everyone in each of those villages is supposed to have their own television and receiver... How about if just a few people that live near each other help pay for the cost together and share it?
    Maybe that's what the original intent of the sattelite was?

  • not for long (Score:5, Funny)

    by Illserve ( 56215 ) on Sunday September 26, 2004 @03:55AM (#10353699)
    If it's for education, I'm sure Bush will find some reason to have it knocked out of orbit.
  • I just bought my first copy of New Scientist off the rack today, the Sept 25 issue. I thought I was buying a magazine that took over where Scientific American left off, but after reading all the articles, I am shocked to find the quality of the science is abyssmal. Its like reading Pravda or the Enquirer only with a scientific sounding tone.
    Computer scientists here can go look at the article "the jumble cruncher" that is a jaw droppingly stupid story about turing machines and physic with circular logic an

  • Hello Class (Score:2, Funny)

    by k_stamour ( 544142 )
    Hello Class, My name is Kali from Dali, thank you for turning on your receiver. I will be you new American History Teacher, please turn to page 120. Today we look at the history of the American Presidency, from WWI to the current War. This segment brought to you by the GOP. Remember kids, no guns in school, out side....have fun! The young republican club will meet later today at 4 pm. Please have your receiver on by 3pm. Dyna Corp will announce a new School Principal at noon. And have your bus fuel fe

  • Laudable achievement (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cOdEgUru ( 181536 ) * on Sunday September 26, 2004 @10:03AM (#10354460) Homepage Journal
    This topic will soon be relegated to the archives and there is a good chance this post wont be read, but I have to say it for the sake of posterity (of future topics that is).

    Education is good. Education teaches a child to think, to pick out his fights, his goals, his aspirations. Despite what Pink Floyd told us, education, atleast in the less developed corners of the world, is a must. Else we run the risk of religious dogma being fed to these children, we run the risk of them being taught by unscrupulous leaders who do not value scientific thinking, who seeks to find answers in the religious texts and lives in the past while sucking tomorrow's future down in the drain with them.

    I am proud that India has been kicking it up a notch, in the field of education. When a country truly cares about the intellect of its citizens and aspires to leave its future generation with the power of thought, only then it can shine among the rest of the world. I only can hope Pakistan and other of its neighbours do the same. Religious education is good, in moderation. It should be balanced by education that teaches a child to question his beliefs and that of the society and to work towards making his life and that of around him, better.

    The Western world should be glad for India and anyone else who decides to take such paths.

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