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The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) works with the government on all levels to determine curriculum and educational programs for the whole country.

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National Council Of Educational Research And Training :: Home

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The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an autonomous organisation set up in 1961 by the Government of India to assist and advise the Central and State Governments on policies and programmes for qualitative improvement in school education.

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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan AKA Education for All

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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan AKA Education for All

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Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is also known as Education for All, is a program to promote the constitutional right for elementary education for all.

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unesco institute for statisticsswach bharat abhiyan

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committee on unified education statistics

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national centre for policy research in higher education

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projected population up to 2016 by arun c mehta

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national institute of educational planning and administration

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Presents everything about education in India and recent initiatives in its efforts to achieve the goal of Universal Enrolment by 2010.

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More and more students are getting an education but most students do not eat a hot meal on a daily basis. A national program and financial support gave millions of children access to hot meals. Compliance for effective and enticing meals have been an issue but the government is working on fixing those issues.

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India's Massive School Lunch Program Aims to Curb Widespread Malnutrition

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Here is a video produced by the World Bank about the expanding education for females in India's rural areas.

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My New Life: Primary Education for All in India

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The constitution recognizes 23 different languages as official languages of India. The government's official language is Hindi written in the Devanagari script.

इंडिया
India written in Hindi.

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India's caste system is a social hierarchy.  There are four recognized groups: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. There is a fifth group called the Dalits, commonly known as the Untouchables, which is considered outside of the caste system.  The caste system can determine jobs, marriages, food and status in society.

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India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification. The BBC explains its complexities.

The system which divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma (work) and dharma (the Hindi word for religion, but here it means duty) is generally accepted to be more than 3,000 years old.

How did caste come about?

Manusmriti, widely regarded to be the most important and authoritative book on Hindu law and dating back to at least 1,000 years before Christ was born, "acknowledges and justifies the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society".

The caste system divides Hindus into four main categories - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. Many believe that the groups originated from Brahma, the Hindu God of creation.

At the top of the hierarchy were the Brahmins who were mainly teachers and intellectuals and are believed to have come from Brahma's head. Then came the Kshatriyas, or the warriors and rulers, supposedly from his arms. The third slot went to the Vaishyas, or the traders, who were created from his thighs. At the bottom of the heap were the Shudras, who came from Brahma's feet and did all the menial jobs.

The main castes were further divided into about 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes, each based on their specific occupation.

Outside of this Hindu caste system were the achhoots - the Dalits or the untouchables.

How does caste work?

For centuries, caste has dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life, with each group occupying a specific place in this complex hierarchy.

Rural communities have long been arranged on the basis of castes - the upper and lower castes almost always lived in segregated colonies, the water wells were not shared, Brahmins would not accept food or drink from the Shudras, and one could marry only within one's caste.

The system bestowed many privileges on the upper castes while sanctioning repression of the lower castes by privileged groups.

Often criticised for being unjust and regressive, it remained virtually unchanged for centuries, trapping people into fixed social orders from which it was impossible to escape.

Despite the obstacles, however, some Dalits and other low-caste Indians, such as BR Ambedkar who authored the Indian constitution, and KR Narayanan who became the nation's first Dalit president, have risen to hold prestigious positions in the country.

Historians, though, say that until the 18th Century, the formal distinctions of caste were of limited importance to Indians, social identities were much more flexible and people could move easily from one caste to another.

New research shows that hard boundaries were set by British colonial rulers who made caste India's defining social feature when they used censuses to simplify the system, primarily to create a single society with a common law that could be easily governed.

Is the system legal?

Independent India's constitution banned discrimination on the basis of caste, and, in an attempt to correct historical injustices and provide a level playing field to the traditionally disadvantaged, the authorities announced quotas in government jobs and educational institutions for scheduled castes and tribes, the lowest in the caste hierarchy, in 1950.

In 1989, quotas were extended to include a grouping called the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) which fall between the traditional upper castes and the lowest.

In recent decades, with the spread of secular education and growing urbanisation, the influence of caste has somewhat declined, especially in cities where different castes live side-by-side and inter-caste marriages are becoming more common.

In certain southern states and in the northern state of Bihar, many people began using just one name after social reform movements. Despite the changes though, caste identities remain strong, and last names are almost always indications of what caste a person belongs to.

What about job quotas?

In recent years, there have been demands from several communities to be recognised as OBCs - in 2016 there were violent protests by the Jat community in Haryana and the Patel community led huge protests in Gujarat in 2015 demanding access to caste quotas.

Both are prosperous and politically dominant communities, but they support their demand for caste quotas by saying large numbers in their communities are poor and suffering.

Some say the caste system would have disappeared by now if the fires were not regularly fanned by politicians.

At elections, many caste groups still vote as a block and are wooed by politicians looking for electoral gains.

As a result, what was originally meant to be a temporary affirmative action plan to improve the lot of the unprivileged groups has now become a vote-grabbing exercise for many politicians.

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India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification. The BBC explains its complexities. The system which divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma (work) and dharma (the Hindi word for religion, but here it means duty) is generally accepted to be more than 3,000 years old.

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Diwali is a Hindu festival of lights that is celebrated for multiple days. Festivities vary greatly based on the different locations. In Hinduism, the holiday celebrates the return of a family after years in exile. Lights are used to celebrate goodness winning over evil.

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Almost 80% of the nation of India practice Hinduism.  Hinduism, like many Eastern religions, is more than just a religion in the Western sense of the word.  It is more of a way of life. Below is the symbol for Om. Om symbolizes the universe and is the sound used most often when meditating.

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Here is an example of some modern music i'm sure you will enjoy

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India celebrates three national holidays: Republic Day (January 26), Independence Day (August 15), and Gandhi Jayanti (October 2). Republic Day celebrates the new constitution of India after they received independence. Independence Day is to celebrate their Independence from the British. Gandhi Jayanti is a celebration of Mohandas Gandhi.

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Raga , also spelled rag (in northern India) or ragam (in southern India), (from Sanskrit, meaning “colour” or “passion”), in the classical music of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, a melodic framework for improvisation and composition. A raga is based on a scale with a given set of notes, a typical order in which they appear in melodies, and characteristic musical motifs. The basic components of a raga can be written down in the form of a scale (in some cases differing in ascent and descent). By using only these notes, by emphasizing certain degrees of the scale, and by going from note to note in ways characteristic to the raga, the performer sets out to create a mood or atmosphere (rasa) that is unique to the raga in question. There are several hundred ragas in present use, and thousands are possible in theory.(Britannica 2018)

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Bollywood, a combination of Hollywood and Bombay, is a flourishing section of the arts that incorporate song, dance and film.

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Indian food is also heavily influenced by religion, in particular Hindu, and for this reason many people in India follow a vegetarian diet. Wheat, Basmati rice and pulses with chana (Bengal gram) are important staples of the Indian diet. The food is rich with curries and spices, including ginger, coriander, cardamom, turmeric, dried hot peppers, and cinnamon. Although many Hindus are vegetarian, lamb and chicken are common in main dishes for non-vegetarians.

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This is a brief discription of the stuggle to keep the classical Raga style of Indian music alive

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On the South bank of the Yamuna River in the City of Agra which is home to India’s most well known attraction The Taj Mahal. This “ivory-white marble mausoleum was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan (reigned from 1628 to 1658), to house the tomb of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The tomb is the centerpiece… which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall