Today is Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s 75th birthday. Gandhi, Congress’s longest-serving president, has experienced many highs and lows throughout her political career.

Gandhi was elected president of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 1998 and a Member of Parliament from the Amethi parliamentary seat in 1999. She went on to become the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha after that.

Her journey from a young grieving widow to the centre-stage of India’s politics, speaks volumes of her leadership skill in a country with which she was not familiar but became a naturalized citizen of. Her Italian origin continues to be a bugbear for her leadership.

Under her stewardship, the Congress emerged as the single largest party in the 2004 General Elections and formed the government in the Centre with a rainbow coalition also comprising of the Left parties. Gandhi has led the Congress for more than 20 years. In 2017, she resigned from the post of UPA chairperson and her son Rahul Gandhi was named party president. However, Sonia Gandhi was back in the saddle when Rahul Gandhi decided to step down following the party’s defeat in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Key social welfare measures under Sonia Gandhi’s tenure as UPA boss:

Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI): Makes information accessible to citizens. Right to Information Act 2005 mandates timely response to citizen requests for government information.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MNREGA, now MGNREGA): MGNREGA is also known as the UPA’s signature programme. Under this act, every rural family that demands employment, within 15 days of their demand and within 5 km of where they live. And instead of a dole, MGNREGA pledges the dignity of work that would also build the rural infrastructure. Despite mocking it, the NDA government has continued with it by increasing its grants as a useful tool.

Read Also: Sonia Gandhi turns 75 today, here are some throwback pictures of longest serving Congress president

Right to Education Act 2009 (RTE): This Act provides for free and compulsory education for children aged between 6-14 years in India under Article 21 (A) of the Constitution of India. Under this, no school can deny admission to a child in the age bracket of 6-14.

National Food Security Act 2013 (RTF): When the Congress returned to power in 2009 on the basis of the government’s pro-poor policies. The UPA chairperson spelt out her priorities ‘Food for All.’ The law was passed in 2013, became the largest social security programme backed by law in the world.

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A basic improvement in 2011 has been the choice taken on a basic level to stretch out the privilege to instruction till Class X (age 16) and into the preschool age range. The CABE board of trustees is currently investigating the ramifications of rolling out these improvements.

The Ministry of HRD set up a significant level, 14-part National Advisory Council (NAC) for execution of the Act. The individuals included Kiran Karnik, previous leader of NASSCOM; Krishna Kumar, previous overseer of the NCERT; Mrinal Miri, previous bad habit chancellor of North-East Hill University; Yogendra Yadav – social researcher. India

Sajit Krishnan Kutty, Secretary of The Educators Assisting Children’s Hopes (TEACH) India; Annie Namala, a dissident and head of Center for Social Equity and Inclusion; and Aboobacker Ahmad, VP of Muslim Education Society, Kerala.

A report on the status of execution of the Act was delivered by the Ministry of Human Resource Development on the one year commemoration of the Act. The report concedes that 8.1 million kids in the age bunch six-14 stay out of school and there’s a deficiency of 508,000 educators nation wide. A shadow report by the RTE Forum speaking to the main training networks in the nation, in any case, testing the discoveries bringing up that few key legitimate responsibilities are falling behind the timetable. The Supreme Court of India has additionally mediated to request execution of the Act in the Northeast. It has additionally given the legitimate premise to guaranteeing pay equality between instructors in government and government supported schools. Haryana Government has allocated the obligations and duties to Block Elementary Education Officers–cum–Block Resource Coordinators (BEEOs-cum-BRCs) for successful usage and consistent checking of execution of Right to Education Act in the State.

It has been brought up that the RTE demonstration isn’t new. General grown-up establishment in the demonstration was contradicted since the greater part of the populace was unskilled. Article 45 in the Constitution of India was set up as a demonstration: The State will attempt to give, inside a time of a long time from the initiation of this Constitution, for nothing and obligatory training for all youngsters until they complete the age of fourteen years. As that cutoff time was going to be passed numerous many years back, the training priest at that point, MC Chagla, notably stated: “Our Constitution fathers didn’t mean that we simply set up huts, put understudies there, give undeveloped educators, give them terrible course books, no play areas, and

state, we have followed Article 45 and essential instruction is extending… They implied that genuine training ought to be given to our kids between the ages of 6 and 14″ – (MC Chagla, 1964).

Read Also: What is education? A definition of education.

During the 1990s, the World Bank subsidized various measures to set up schools inside simple reach of provincial ommunities. This exertion was combined in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan model during the 1990s. RTE takes the cycle further, and makes the enrolment of youngsters in schools a state privilege.

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