The UGC’s Colonial Hangover
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Dear Sir/madam, The UGC’s approved list of journals for the CareerAdvancement Scheme (CAS) and Direct Recruitment of Teachers and other academicstaff is at receiving end. How a prime body in higher education can come up with alist of journals for the Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) and Direct Recruitmentof Teachers without much discussion with its stakeholders. According to Reuters India speaksmore than 780 languages, with such a vast diversity of languages, how come UGC neglectthe journals published in vernaculars and compile the list. Though English isthe binder, still we have vast number of people using vernaculars forcommunications (writings/Speaking) and many learned societies also have theirown publications in local languages. In Kannada itself there are very goodperiodicals which carries the research publications mainly in social sciences. Beforepublishing the list UGC should have at least included some of the good journalspublished across India mainly in vernacular languages. Compilation of list of journalspublished in local languages is not at all difficult in today’s world or elsethey should have seek the opinion of academics and other stakeholders involvedin research and publishing activities. The list is completely western and biased.It has only included journals published by the major publishing houses, forinstance Elsevier. The list is also clueless about what was the basis forselecting these journals. Is it theimpact factor of the journal? Is it because of the journal is indexed in Web ofScience (WoS) or Scopus? Is it theeditorial board of the journal? Is it many of the Indian authors have publishedpapers in these journals? This is not clear at all. At least UGC should havebeen open on this aspect. The current government atcentre is promoting Hindu everywhere, under its own nose UGC is promoting acolonial language. Though English hasbecome lingua franca for global communication UGC should promote and encourage itsacademicians to write and publish in their own vernaculars to respect thediversity of India at least in social sciences. Views are Personal------------------------- With best wishes Vasantha Raju N.GFGC-Periyapatna
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Vasanth