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Filipino Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Filipino Times
Filipino community in Bahrain celebrates Independence Day with pride and gratitude
In honor of the 127th anniversary of the Philippine Independence Proclamation, a flag-raising ceremony and a commemorative program took place at the Sentro Rizal, Philippine Embassy Manama on June 12, 2025. The event was led by Philippine Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Her Excellency Anne Jalando-on Louis, alongside her spouse, Dr. Gerard Joseph Louis, and the officers and staff of the Philippine Embassy. This ceremony served as a reminder of the nation's hard-earned freedom and the sacrifices made by its heroes. Attendees included representatives from various Filipino community organizations, partner groups, and distinguished guests. This year's celebration echoed a distinctly deep sense of national pride, highlighting the lasting spirit of freedom and unity that connects Filipinos, transcending distances. The event began with a sincere ecumenical invocation. Fr. Anthony Almazan, OFM Cap., opened the proceedings with a Christian prayer, which was then succeeded by a Muslim prayer led by Ismail Dimapuno, illustrating spiritual diversity and unity. Subsequently, a solemn rendition of the Philippine National Anthem took place, evoking a profound sense of patriotic pride, which was then followed by the pledge of allegiance to the Filipino flag. The event was honored by a series of inspiring messages from prominent figures in Philippine governance. John C. Baluba of the Social Security System (SSS) conveyed a special message from SSS President and CEO Robert Joseph Montes de Claro. This was succeeded by a video greeting from Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan, who acknowledged the invaluable contributions of overseas Filipinos. The program paid particular tribute to the significant role played by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Migrant Workers Office, Officer-in-Charge Celia V. Cabadonga communicated messages from the Secretary of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), Hans Leo Cacdac, which were further enhanced by a video message from Secretary Cacdac himself. This segment emphasized the sincerity of the government in giving credit and appreciation to the remarkable contributions of Filipino migrant workers. An intermission number, through the power of music in expressing national pride, was beautifully demonstrated during an uplifting cultural performance. Mr. Virgilio Pasive Jr., the Administrative Officer of the Philippine Embassy, welcomed Attachés Linoernbar Blanco and Lucia Ramirez. They delivered a moving rendition of 'Isang Mundo, Isang Awit' (One World, One Song), exceeding boundaries and languages and embodying the spirit of unity and shared identity. Following the presentation, a video message from the Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique A. Manalo was introduced by Consul Bryan Jess T. Baguio, conveying the Philippine government's message of unity, patriotism, and unwavering commitment to overseas Filipinos. This was followed by special video messages of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, whose heartfelt words captured the nation's pride, reflecting on the Philippines' journey toward independence and the collective strength needed to face future challenges. These messages resonated with the core theme of the celebration, 'Kalayaan, Kinabukasan, Kasaysayan' (Freedom, Future, History), emphasizing the significant relevance of the event for Filipinos living and working abroad. During her address, Her Excellency, Anne Jalando-on Louis, took a moment to sincerely thank the community for graciously dedicating their time to participate in this significant event. Reflecting on the nation's advancements over the past 127 years, Ambassador Louis highlighted the ongoing progress and development of the Philippines. 'Each of us has a responsibility and a part to play in nation-building—whether we are in government, the private sector, civil society, or as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs),' she remarked. 'Through our collective efforts, we contribute to the growth of our nation and our communities both here and in our homeland.' In her speech, Ambassador Louis expressed, 'On this occasion, let us once again cultivate a deeper appreciation for our country—its rich and lasting history.' Ambassador Louis also honored the legacy of the nation's heroes, stating, 'We are fortunate to inherit the legacy of our ancestors, especially our national heroes. We have much to celebrate and take pride in as Filipinos.' During the program, the ambassador announced an exciting lineup of activities to celebrate the occasion, including an art exhibit, promotion of Filipino products in various malls and supermarkets, and performances by the Lakbay Guitar Duo. In a notable highlight of the day, International Triathlon Club member Michael Alfredo 'Mico' Faminial, an OFW, was given a commendation by the Philippine Embassy for his incredible sporting achievement. Michael just finished a grueling 170-kilometer ultramarathon in Bahrain, the ultimate test of human endurance. His race began at 4:18 PM on Friday, June 6th, and concluded at 9:26 AM on Sunday, June 8th, and took an astonishing 41 hours and 8 minutes. However, Michael's challenge extended beyond mere personal athletic ability. He undertook this demanding endurance run to raise awareness about the health and welfare of cats and dogs in Bahrain. The Embassy recognized his initiative in adopting the same mission of promoting health, well-being, and social responsibility. His dedication to animal welfare exemplifies the Filipino values of compassion and service, and his accomplishments represent a significant contribution to the spirit of independence and patriotism that this special day signifies. Likewise, one of the attendees, Eliza Carang, 57, hailing from La Union, has dedicated 20 years of her career to working as a health assistant in Bahrain. She conveyed her happiness at being able to participate in the Philippine Independence Day celebration at the Philippine Embassy, describing it as a significant experience that revitalized her connection to her native land. 'As an OFW, this celebration represents proof of our determination to foster unity and collaboration among individuals in pursuit of a better life', she remarked. Attendees who graced the occasion include OWWA Welfare Officer Juvilyn Anns Gumabay, Captain Noel Escalona, the Senior National Representative of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the Combined Maritime Forces (AFPSNR to CMF), and officers from the Philippine School Bahrain (PSB). Additionally, representatives from Good Cause, Filipino Club, Pinay Ikaw Na (PIN), Katolikong Pinoy Bahrain, Filipino Badminton League Bahrain (FBLB), and the Filipino Writers' Circle (Filwrite) were present at the event. After the program, a traditional Filipino breakfast was served as part of the celebration, adding a warm and communal touch to the occasion.
Daily Tribune
6 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Tribune
Filipinos Celebrate Independence Day with Pride and Gratitude
In honor of the 127th anniversary of the Philippine Independence Proclamation, a flag-raising ceremony and a commemorative program took place at the Sentro Rizal, Philippine Embassy Manama, on June 12, 2025. The event was led by Philippine Ambassador to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Her Excellency Anne Jalando-on Louis, alongside her spouse, Dr. Gerard Joseph Louis, and the officers and staff of the Philippine Embassy. This ceremony served as a reminder of the nation's hard-earned freedom and the sacrifices made by its heroes. Attendees included representatives from various Filipino community organizations, partner groups, and distinguished guests. This year's celebration echoed a distinctly deep sense of national pride, highlighting the lasting spirit of freedom and unity that connects Filipinos transcending distances. The event began with a sincere ecumenical invocation. Fr. Anthony Almazan, OFM Cap., opened the proceedings with a Christian prayer, which was then succeeded by a Muslim prayer led by Ismail Dimapuno, illustrating spiritual diversity and unity. Subsequently, a solemn rendition of the Philippine National Anthem took place, evoking a profound sense of patriotic pride, which was then followed by the pledge of allegiance to the Filipino flag. The event was honored by a series of inspiring messages from prominent figures in Philippine governance. John C. Baluba of the Social Security System (SSS) conveyed a special message from SSS President and CEO Robert Joseph Montes de Claro. This was succeeded by a video greeting from Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Administrator Patricia Yvonne Caunan, who acknowledged the invaluable contributions of overseas Filipinos. The program paid particular tribute to the significant role played by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). 'Each of us has a responsibility and a part to play in nation-building — whether we are in government, the private sector, civil society, or as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Through our collective efforts, we contribute to the growth of our nation and our communities both here and in our homeland.' — H.E. Anne Jalando-on Louis, Ambassador of the Philippines to the Kingdom of Bahrain
Time of India
7 days ago
- Science
- Time of India
Yes, JEE! IITs are closing the gender gap, but there's still a long road ahead
IITs continue to remain at the centre of the middle-class dream of pride and prosperity. But for many years, female students were left on the margins of this aspiration. While the 2025 results underline the continued dominance of males in engineering (82.7% of the total qualifying students in 2025), the record pass percentage of girls this year shows that a lot has changed since 2018 when IITs introduced an affirmative action scheme by adding extra seats for girls. Seven years ago, the situation was dire with women constituting a shockingly low 8% in the BTech degree, a number that had stayed stagnant over the nearly 60+ years of the existence of first-generation IITs. Nobody found anything odd about this since engineering was coded 'male' until Prof Timothy Gonsalves, former director of IIT Mandi, took matters in hand and piloted the scheme known as the 'Supernumerary Seats Scheme' (SSS). The evidence to convince the IITs Council that the scheme was necessary and would not lead to a 'dilution' in the quality of students, came from two sources: JEE data showing that many women who qualified did not join IITs for varying reasons such as getting admission to 'male' branches like civil and mechanical, and parental concerns about safety and distance from home. Girls had little choice in their admission, as we found out in the first open house held in 2018 at IIT Delhi for JEE Advanced qualified girls and their parents. The second source was a 2016 IIT Delhi study that showed that irrespective of the JEE rank they entered with, female students outperformed their male peers. It is intriguing that only the IITs have been plagued by the extremely low percentage of female students in engineering; the national average is around 30%. Southern states had already initiated a 33% reservation for girls in the 2000s. So, ironically, it's the so-called Institutes of National Importance (INIs), the IITs, that barred women from their portals, reifying the image of elite engineering as a male preserve, in the process depriving not only STEM of diverse perspectives on research and innovation but also women of stellar role models and networks that the IITs generate. Female faculty numbers in these institutions also remain low – a story for another time. The SSS scheme has been successful on several fronts. It has met its stated target of raising the percentage of girls to 20% by 2020, which improved to 22% in 2024. There are important wins to be noted here. A perusal of JEE data shows that the number of women appearing for JEE Advanced has risen by 33% between 2018 and 2025. More critical indicators of the scheme's success are the percentages of those who qualify and those who get a seat allotted. Prior to SSS, females represented 12% of all (males and females) who qualified and 9% of those who were allotted seats. Post-SSS, the percentage of women allotted seats had more than doubled to 19.8 % in 2024. The rate of growth of seats allotted increased from -1.4 % per year between 2011-17 to 4.1 % between 2018-24. The rising percentage of women allotted seats since 2018 is a function of the extra seats as well as girls being able to meet their preferred choices of institute and department, resulting in rising acceptance rates. This stemmed the drift away to an NIT or an engineering college near home. Further good news, as recent work by STEMtheGap, a research project housed at IIT Delhi, shows, is that even if some supernumerary girls enter IITs at somewhat lower JEE scores and ranks, they catch up with their male peers and perform similarly while exiting the program. How successful has the scheme been in opening the doors to engineering as an educational and career choice for young women? Our qualitative studies with girls who entered IIT Delhi post-SSS show that families across caste categories are factoring in women's higher chances of getting into an IIT, as are schoolteachers and coaching centres. The additional girls have changed the feel of IIT campuses, resulting in a more welcoming environment and less isolation. Since the scheme also ensures that every department reaches 20% representation, it prevents the bias caused by the clustering of women in 'lower-ranked' departments. The scheme also follows mandated caste reservations, thereby addressing gender imbalances within caste categories. The scheme has thus increased both gender and caste diversity in IITs, apart from breaking disciplinary stereotypes within engineering. To further increase the female pipeline for IITs, it is important to initiate measures that address deep-rooted biases about girls' and women's inherent STEM abilities and remove structural barriers built into entrance exams; such steps can help reshape the environment for inclusion. Further, initiatives like open houses and mentorship programs, which bring schoolgirls to IIT campuses for an immersive experience, are also key to changing the mindset that women are unsuited to engineering. Kaur is professor, IIT Delhi and co-lead on STEMtheGap research project Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
India Today
13-06-2025
- Politics
- India Today
A linga fracas over Hindi
Late in May, the Tamil Nadu government took the unprecedented step of moving the Supreme Court, seeking the disbursal of over Rs 2,000 crore in funds under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme (SSS), claiming the Union government had withheld it in a bid to coerce the state into implementing the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020. Tamil Nadu has been vociferously opposing the NEP's three-language formula and the tacit pro-Hindi tilt ascribed to it.
The Hindu
12-06-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Supernumerary seats at IITs boost female representation, but STEM gender gap starts early
IITs admit over ten thousand students every year for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Numerous studies and reports show an abysmal gender ratio in this student group. The number of female students at IITs, however, is slowly but steadily improving. Many attribute the increased representation of female students to the Supernumery Seat Scheme (SSS), introduced by the IIT Council in 2018. The scheme made additional seats available for female candidates, rather than using the reservation method. While the addition of seats has indeed boosted the number of girl students going to IIT, skewed gender ratio at the Olympiads, a platform for students who excel in school-level Science and Mathematics, shows structural problems in gender equity in STEM. Schemes such as Supernumery seats address the gap in one intended area, such as UG for IITs, NITs, but there is a need for sustained effort at the junior level to get more women interested in Maths and Science. A good push at the junior level could be promising for improved female representation in STEM. Numbers increasing For the undergraduate programmes at IIT, admissions happen through the JEE examination. More female candidates are appearing and qualifying for the test. The JEE Advanced 2025 results show progress in the area of gender representation, with 9,404 (17.3%) female candidates qualifying, the greatest number since 2017, which was 7,137 (14.1%). Each IIT has its own admission process for many of the postgraduate programmes. Though the number of test takers may improve, familial and societal expectations that often confine women to traditional gender roles pose as barriers to achieving parity. The authors of Lab Hopping: Women Scientists in India interviewed the director of ISRO's human spaceflight in 2018. During her young days, V. R. Lalithambika, a specialist in advanced launcher technologies, qualified to be a student at IIT Madras; however, pressure from elders to start a family meant staying back and studying at a local college. Nevertheless, she found her way to the top. Supernumery Seat Scheme It is for women like V. R. Lalithambika that the committee under the chairmanship of Timothy Gonsalves implemented SSS. Under this, extra seats were added in all the branches, until the percentage of women therein reached 20. Research from the STEMTheGap project shows that, barring IIT Kharagpur, all IITs now comprise 20 per cent female students in their Engineering programs. Certain rules govern supernumery seats for female allocation at IITs. The qualifying cut-off marks for each program of every IIT are computed in a gender-oblivious manner. Every program has two pools of seats: Gender-Neutral and Female-Only. The Female-Only pool includes supernumerary seats, if any. Female candidates are eligible for both pools. A female candidate, however, first competes for a seat from the Female-Only pool. Only after she fails to get a seat from this pool will she compete for a seat from the Gender-Neutral pool. These rules of seat allocation ensure that there is no reduction in the number of available seats for non-female candidates compared to the number of available seats. It is also said that the number of seats in the Gender-Neutral pool of an institute (e.g., IIT Kanpur) in 2025 will not be less than the number of seats in the Gender-Neutral pool in that Institute in 2024. Increased representation of women An IIT Madras spokesperson shared data with The Hindu, which showed increasing representation of female candidates at undergraduate courses as a result of implementation of supernumery seats. The percentage of female students rose from 16.4 in 2015 to 20.7 in 2025. The UG courses at IIT Madras saw 138 female students in 2015, as compared to 839 male students. In 2025, the number of female candidates rose to 234 and males to 1129. It shows a 4.3% increase in female students in the decade. This overall increase in representation of women at IITs is reflected in the student statistics posted on the Council of Indian Institute of Technology. The top five IITs (as per NIRF 2024 rankings) show a trend of bringing down the gender gap. At IIT Kharagpur, female students were slightly above 1500 in 2012. The same year, the institute had a little over 8000 male students. In 2021, the number of female students increased to almost 3000, whereas male students were a little over 11,000. Between 2012 to 2021, the ratio of female students rose from about 18 women per 100 men to 26 women per 100 men. The scheme brought the difference between male and female students at IIT Kharagpur from nearly 70% in 2012 to less than 60% in 2021 -- a closing of at least eleven percentage points in the gap. Need for inclusion efforts at junior level Recently, the Indian team for the 2025 International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO), to be held in Sochi, Russia, was officially announced. The six-member team includes only one female candidate. The National Standard Examination in Junior Science (NSEJS), which is an annual examination conducted in India aimed at high school students, is the first stage for selection to IJSO. At this first stage, the gender ratio is skewed. Students then go through a few stages of elimination to be selected for the international level. The enrollment numbers for females in NSEJS lag behind males. The percentage, however, has consistently increased over the years. It went from over 29 percent female enrollment in 2020 to over 42 percent in 2024. The 17th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA2024), which bagged numerous medals, comprised only male students. The same is the case with the team for the 15th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA), which consisted of only male candidates.
