Saturday, October 18, 2014

India blocks Satyardhi

From The Hindu article Hero or persona non grata?  (via Rahul Siddharthan)"Not long ago, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) considered him persona non grata even though he was the first chair of the newly formed alliance for promoting Education for All (EFA), namely the Global Campaign for Education (GCE). In that capacity, we at UNESCO regularly invited him to high-level meetings on EFA to represent civil society. We valued his contributions, which consistently brought to light the educational neglect of working children and called upon developing countries and the international community to fulfil the pledges and promises made at the World Education Forum at Dakar in April 2000.
Hence we were aghast when the leader of the Indian delegation to the Working Group on EFA, a Secretary-level officer in the MHRD, made an informal request to exclude him from future meetings convened by UNESCO on EFA for reasons which were not specified. Despite our politely declining the request on the grounds that Mr. Satyarthi was invited in his capacity as chair of the GCE and that his nationality was merely coincidental, the Indian side persisted and had its way."

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