Closing the Bangalore Chapter

16^th July, 2003: I reached the company guest house in Jayanagar, wet, tired & hungry. Things could've gone only better from there.

And how well things turned out to be! As the time for me to bid adieu to Bangalore is sneaking close, a mix of melancholy & nostalgia is setting in. When I first came to Bangalore, I was a fresh out of college, wide-eyed kid of 21; tired of scraping my time for the degree & bumbling with anticipation towards the corporate world. Coffee machine & the biscuits in the office pantry excited me, so did the free stationary (I did build up a mini ball pen collection of my own) & the wall-to-wall carpet in the office. I already had some of my closest buddies working in Bangalore then and later on I made many more good ones, at work. Sadly, many of them are no longer in touch. Not everything was as rosy though; coming from the soggy & warm Mumbai to wet & windy Bangalore, messed me up bad and I was in-n-out of viral fever for about one month. Then I guess, I just got used to it. The rains in Bangalore, though no lesser in the vigor, don't last for as long as those in Mumbai and they have assuring surety of schedule, unlike the ill-tempered rains in Mumbai which visit at the most inappropriate hours.

In last three years, Bangalore has given & taught me a lot. I have changed jobs twice since my first company and finally acknowledged that this is perhaps not what I would want to do all my life. The software industry, with all its lures & charms, failed to excite me for long; but it wasn't just the job. I was feeling a bit jaded for a while, by the city, by its people, by the mundane routine. Almost all the people I know in general, have one tiresome similarity - all of them are software guys! And the city, it has perhaps the greatest weather in India, but I think I've had enough of Bangalore. Nothing against the city, but I guess I would relish the change right now. Incidently, Bangalore is the city where I've spent the second longest continuous spell of my life (After Mumbai, where I spent four years of college. So much for being a Jaipuri :-) ). I guess, the wanderer in me is still not ready to settle. At the same time, if Calcutta wouldn't have happened, I guess I would've stayed back in Bangalore for another year or so, and happily. Who knows?

Change comes with a price tag; you need to get out of the comfort zone and go through the ordeal of settling up yet again, in a new rhythm. To accomodate new people, you need to get away from the existing friends; to venture new places you first need to leave the comforts of your home. Ironically, often we seek change to get rid of the monotonous rhythm only. It seems contradictory, but such is life.

There is just less than a week before I fly out of here, and yet the feeling isn't sinking that I'm leaving Bangalore. I guess it would start settling once I leave the city & its heavenly weather, to get roasted in the ruthless Jaipur summers :-) So here's me, off to yet another new city.

Prelude to Hell

All hope abandon, ye who enter here!
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

I'm reading Snapshots from Hell currently and it looks like an interesting book. The very first page quotes Dante, establishing the analogy between life in a prestigious B-School (Stanford in the book) and Hell. I picked this one up expecting insights & musings over Hell as I would be joining IIM Calcutta, another B-School, pretty soon myself. Entering the gates of Hell, so they tell me.

Some of my closest friend just graduated from IIMC and I've discussed with them about life there. We've also got a mailing group active, involving most of my would-be batchmates & few seniors. I've been gathering information, anticipating & gauging all the time. Though I have got a few contradicting bits, mostly what has settled in is -

• It's not going to be easy. No where near the breezer we had in Engineering.
• It's not going to be that tough either. Most important is to strike the right balance.
  
• It's important to learn things, but most important are the grades.
  
• You learn as much or perhaps more outside the class, then in the classroom. This much I understood in my stint at IIT Bombay.
• Finally, it's all about how you sell yourself.
  

These are the starting points I'm taking with me. Back to academia, more matured & experienced this time, hopefully. It's rather tough to not get nostalgic about the last time. I didn't do particularly well in my under-graduate course at IIT Bombay, I think mostly because I didn't apply myself, at all. As per the reputation of B-Schools go, they bury you under so much work, that you don't get many choices. And choices, given to a feckless mind, can sum up to disaster. So it's good in a way.

The feeling of exclusiveness eludes me, again. Exclusiveness, among the peers and not the entire population. The biggest group at IIT Bombay was of Rajasthanis, mainly from Kota, mostly from one particular coaching. I was the member of every big ruck. After finishing B.Tech. I joined one huge software firm and become another bit in the Indian silicon valley. Bangalore made me feel very another-brick-in-the-wall-ish, if I may. I writhed and tried to break the shackles, but I was caged in the jargon & the keywords. I was stamped - "Java/J2EE developer, CSE IITB." And I hated that. Going to IIM Calcutta, things haven't changed much. IIMC has a tradition of admitting engineers in big numbers. The batch of 2006 had 56% engineers plus 28% IITians. My herd is defined, I guess.

There is comfort in groups, they say. Along with comfort, there is conformity & submissiveness. I think we all (taking the refuge of groups, again) yearn our undivided & exclusive spot, in life, in history. Make our mark on the sands of time. Need not be Einstein-like, but we all long to be distinguished from the herd. That, my friends, is the core dream I'm carrying with me to the Joka-land. I might end up taking up the beaten path, lured by the riches & comforts. You never know.

PS: I was travelling for a while, hence the break in blogging. However, I shall leave Bangalore in another week and that would mean another silent period for this blog. Regular blogging shall resume once I reach Calcutta, hopefully.

IITs: The Selection-Effect Institutions

The archive of the articles Malcom Gladwell wrote for the New Yorker is full with his profound insights on various interesting topics. Recently, I was reading his article on the social logic of Ivy League admissions; the strategies they apply and used to apply, the kind of profile they seek and all that. I think the article is also relevant in the current discussion over the reservation in education issue, go ahead read it. But a certain part caught my attention and got me thinking about JEE & IITs. I quote:

Social scientists distinguish between what are known as treatment effects and selection effects. The Marine Corps, for instance, is largely a treatment-effect institution. It doesn't have an enormous admissions office grading applicants along four separate dimensions of toughness and intelligence. It's confident that the experience of undergoing Marine Corps basic training will turn you into a formidable soldier. A modeling agency, by contrast, is a selection-effect institution. You don't become beautiful by signing up with an agency. You get signed up by an agency because you're beautiful.

IITs are definitely selection-effect institutions. This is to say that almost all the students who make into IITs are excellent at problem solving & analytical thinking. The time spent in the IITs, though contributes a lot towards the holistic development of the individual, doesn't add that much extra value. Of course, the teachers are good & the facilities are better, but if say an entire batch of IIT would be swapped with the batch of students from say another lower ranked engineering institute, would that affect the bigger picture? I would like to say here that success (the way we define it in the materialistic sense) depends on a lot more than mere ability. You need to apply yourself, persist in tough times & keep on proving yourself again-n-again. So, would that make the original IITians less successful? I'd dare say no. Now, is it the IIT brand name which makes the students, or vice-versa? What makes the IIT brand? The placements, or the quality of students, or the rigorous academic schedule of four years?

In my opinion, its the JEE exam. It makes sure that only the students with great IQ make it into IITs (of course, it isn't exhaustive). This fact is reflected in various other facts, the average GRE & GMAT scores (at least in the analytical section) are much higher in IIT as compared to other colleges. IITians do relatively well at exams like CAT where your analytical abilities are put to test. Recently, most of the software companies & lately, financial firms too, go to various IIT campuses and pick up coders/number crunchers for their work, irrespective of the branch the student studied in IIT. Of course, the coursework at IITs doesn't inculcate the required abilities in the students; they came in with them. I remember, during my very early days at IIT Bombay, the dean once addressed us "freshies". Amidst all the gyaan, he told us that its the five pointers, who go ahead to become millionaires. Of course some of us took this as a cue and went ahead to bask in the notion that they've just got to get a 5 to become a millionaire, but that's not the point. The point is, even the students who constitute the lower half of the class are observed to do very well later on in their lives, enjoy success. Doesn't that say that the contribution of IITs (as in the learning inside the classrooms) in making them what they went ahead to become, was not much? Of course, bad grades mean those students did not apply themselves and have a tendency to lose the focus (if we assume the focus should be on academics).

So what would happen if this quality gets diluted, by let's say, 50% reservation? That would mean that half of the class is made up of the students who didn't do as well in the JEE as the other half. Roughly, it can be said that this would mean that their analytical skills are not at par with their general category colleagues (I say roughly, because I'm seen many exceptions. But in the end, that's what they are, exceptions). It might kill the brand in the longer run, the companies wouldn't get what they pay for and thus would shun IITs. But another outcome, which seems more likely to me, can be a fractured student society at IITs. Since its mandatory to declare that they are from quota at the time of placement, if would divide the placement scenario in two tiers. Different for general quota & reserved quota students. There are only about 10% of students from the SC/ST quota in the IITs, so no such phenomena is observed and they too are benefited from the IIT brandname. But if their percentage gets something like 50%, it might actually affect their chances adversely.

What's the solution for that? Reservation in private sector? To cover up their incompetence? To me it looks as if the government is standing with its back to the Sun. Instead of going in this direction, they should try and provide better education & better access to the primary & secondary educational institutes. If equal opportunities are provided at that level, I don't have any doubt that it will reflect at the tertiary educational level.

Sadly, the logical things almost never fetch the votes.

First week of Photophilic

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Friday, May 12, 2006

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Monday, May 15, 2006

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

My new photoblog, Photophilic, is now one week old. The first week has been quite satisfactory one for me. I got Jha to comment twice, without taking him at gunpoint :-) Though he still have to comment on his own pic, two comments within a week is *huge* success!

I'm trying best to maintain the quality there. Last week I posted some pictures from our recent Ooty trip, some from the Goa trip at the new year's. This week I'm concentrating on portraits. Jha's stunning "Vijay Dinanath Chauhan" pose has already captured the fancy of many. No wonder that picture tops the number-of-comments chart with 12 comments so far :-)

Please take a tour. If you like the stuff, you can always subscribe to the RSS feed, or bookmark it. Keep visiting & commenting on the pictures. Also, please spread the word among your friends and all :-)

Chalo fir,
- Varun

Euphoria Mehfuz. Really?!

Zindagi hai dhuan to kya

Too little, too late.

Bujh gayi har subah to kya
Rootha mujhse khuda to kya
Ho gaye hum juda to kya

Faasle they hazaaron darmiyan,
Waqt ke they hazaaron imtehaan

Fir bhi ban ke nishaan,
Tere honthon ke kisi kone mein,
Hansi ke tarah, main mehfuz hoon

Teri aankhon ke chipe dard mein
Aansoo ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon

Bewajah har wajah to kya
Begunahii hai gunaah to kya
Beasar hai dua to kya
Ho gaye hum juda to kya

Raaz gehre hazaron bepanah
Lafz thahare hazaaron bejubaan

Fir bhi ban ke nishaan
Tere honthe ke kisi kone mein
Hansi ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon

Tere gesu ke ude pannon mein
Yaadon ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon

Teri aankhon mein
Mehfuz hoon
Teri yaadon mein
Mehfuz hoon
Teri baaton mein
Mehfuz hoon
Tere baalon mein
Mehfuz hoon

Faasle the hazaron darmiyaan
Waqt ki thi hazaron aandhiyan

Fir bhi ban ke nishaan
Tere honthon ke kisi kone mein
Hansi ke tarah, main mehfuz hoon

Tere kaandhe ke chipe til mein
Vaadon ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon

- Lyrics for "Mehfuz" from "Mehfuz (Euphoria)"

The curly haired medico with a guitar, is back! As is typical of Euphoria, their new album - Mehfuz - has some good ones, piled under some really mediocre stuff. I am not particularly against their music, I loved Maeri and before that, when they came out with Dhoom Pichuk Dhoom, I was very impressed with their authentic Indian sounds. But, just like almost all Indian bands (Silk Route, Aryans, etc.), they gave us very few and very rare good ones. I initially thought that here are some Indians who might give Pakistani Junoon a run for their money. Now even the comparison looks ludicrous. I will never forget the night Euphoria played at Mood Indigo; when their originals couldn't hold the high-energy crowed, they resorted to playing Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams! That night they lost whatever respect I had for them. A career span of almost a decade and all they've given are less than half a dozen good songs! Duh-de, Paki kid bands can kick their butts! IIRC, they jammed with Junoon once, where Junoon sang Maeri and they sang Sayonee. It was really embarrassing to see them butcher the Junoon classic.

Coming back to their latest album; I liked the title song - Mehfuz. It has the best lyrics in the album (produced above) & has slow soulful music. Palaash Sen's voice suits such slow songs better. Though he can sing well at high notes & fast songs, his voice has a hint of shrillness which doesn't really gel well there. Soneya is the song whose video is being aired these days. I liked the day-to-day conversation like lyrics & energetic music, but the song doesn't really capture your fancy. Out of playlist, out of mind types. Polly-Ghami Bewafa starts with beautiful shers, but then descends fast into mediocrity. Other than these few, there are some mediocre ones and some real crappy ones.

I could not understand what audience are they targeting. Its worth applauding that they have tried various different stuff in their album, but in that attempt the album has lost the direction. It doesn't have any signature style, not much in common between the songs. They are singing Punjabi & Dohe & English & Guitar Solos .. what kind of stupid musical cocktail is that! And of course, they aren't that versatile to pull it all off well.

All in all, the album is a disappointment, if you really had some expectations from Euphoria.

P.S.: If you want the lyrics for their other songs, you should check here & on their official website (which surprizingly has some mp3s too!).

Photophilic is up!

Check it out at Photophilic.blogspot.com. I have copied the template I developed and tested here and started posting pictures. Should you be interested in subscribing to the atom feed, its available here. I have also put up a Creative Commons license, which basically says -

You are free:

• to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
• to make commercial use of the work

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
• No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

Bookmark it, be a regular, keep commenting, yada yada yada. I have decided to not put any tracker or anything there to keep the worries about traffic and all away. Comments would be the only way to know if there's anyone checking the pics out. That doesn't mean I wouldn't advertise it per se :-D. Now you know what would be my status message for coming days ;-).

Though I would try to post daily, I have decided to not compromise on quality for this. That is to say, if someday I don't find any picture worth posting in my stock, I shall give it a skip. Two things, this should keep me clicking more often & secondly, who doesn't like a "quality" photoblog. Of course, I define "quality" here.

Everything set. That leaves us with one question - who's gonna be my model? Send mugshots, fast.

Photophilic

I have designed a template for the new photoblog. Please have a look at Photophilic. Suggestions are most welcome. I have yet to put this into "production" mode, but I'm more or less pleased with the look & all.

And oh, I wanted to name it "Pixellaneous" but sadly that one's taken. "Photophilic" though was my second choice, looks cool to me. Suggestions for the name are also requested.

Update: With everything else, now Photophilic has the functionality implemented to display the image EXIF information when mouse hovers over the image. Just check out the first image by hovering over it. Is that cool or is that cool? B-)

Why Isn't Socialism Dead?

Even after the grave failures of many socialist experiments, why isn't socialism dead? Why is it still growing in the Southern American countries? I got hold of one excellent article over this, and since my understanding isn't very deep, I'll just quote from the article. Read the full piece here, its intense but extremely interesting.

[..]The Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, has argued in his book, The Mystery of Capital, that the failure of the various socialist experiments of the twentieth century has left mankind with only one rational choice about which economic system to go with, namely, capitalism. Socialism, he maintained, has been so discredited that any further attempt to revive it would be sheer irrationality.

[..]When Hernando de Soto asserts that capitalism is the only rational alternative left to mankind, he is maintaining that capitalism is the alternative that human beings ought to take because it is the rational thing to do. But what human beings ought to do and what they actually do are often two quite different things. For human beings frequently act quite irrationally, and without the least consideration of what economist called their "enlightened self-interest." And it is in this light that we must approach the problem, Why isn't socialism dead?

The Role of Myth

[..]In short, revolution is not a means to achieve socialism; rather, the myth of socialism is a useful illusion that turns ordinary men into comrades and revolutionaries united in a common struggle -- a band of brothers, so to speak.

Sorel, for whom religion was important, drew a comparison between the Christian and the socialist revolutionary. The Christian's life is transformed because he accepts the myth that Christ will one day return and usher in the end of time; the revolutionary socialist's life is transformed because he accepts the myth that one day socialism will triumph, and justice for all will prevail. What mattered for Sorel, in both cases, is not the scientific truth or falsity of the myth believed in, but what believing in the myth does to the lives of those who have accepted it, and who refuse to be daunted by the repeated failure of their apocalyptic expectations. How many times have Christians in the last two thousand years been convinced that the Second Coming was at hand, only to be bitterly disappointed -- yet none of these disappointments was ever enough to keep them from holding on to their great myth. So, too, Sorel argued, the myth of socialism will continue to have power, despite the various failures of socialist experiments, so long as there are revolutionaries who are unwilling to relinquish their great myth.

Can Socialism Die?

[..]It may well be that socialism isn't dead because socialism cannot die. As Sorel argued, the revolutionary myth may, like religion, continue to thrive in "the profounder regions of our mental life," in those realms unreachable by mere reason and argument, where even a hundred proofs of failure are insufficient to wean us from those primordial illusions that we so badly wish to be true. Who doesn't want to see the wicked and the arrogant put in their place? Who among the downtrodden and the dispossessed can fail to be stirred by the promise of a world in which all men are equal, and each has what he needs?

[..]The shrewd and realistic Florentine statesman and thinker, Guicciardini, once advised: "Never fight against religion...this concept has too much empire over the minds of men." And to the extent that socialism is a religion, then those who wish to fight it with mere reason and argument may well be in for a losing battle. Furthermore, as populism spreads, it is inevitable that the myth of socialism will gain in strength among the people who have the least cause to be happy with their place in the capitalist world-order, and who will naturally be overjoyed to put their faith in those who promise them a quick fix to their poverty and an end to their suffering.

The piece also talks about the theory of Scientific Socialism by Marx - "Capitalism, he argued, had been a good thing; a necessary step that mankind had to take to advance forward; but, according to Marx, capitalism would eventually suffer from an internal breakdown. It would simply stop producing the goods. Like feudalism before it, capitalism was inevitably bound to pass away as a viable system of social organization, and then, and only then, would socialism triumph." With the current capitalistic tendencies, its not very hard to see that the gap between the rich & poor is widening. Laissez-faire would most be one extreme of free-market economy, which would crush the poor totally, hence we need government to make policies to control the market forces. But what if the goverments aren't up to it? As the number of have-nots would grow to be manifolds of haves, wouldn't the utopian dream of a socialistic society catch their fancy? That's what I think is happening in the South America.

Pixel Blues

Clicked this one at the Leela Palace hotel. I like this frame, mostly because the inclusion of the leaves makes it look like the "God of Small Things" cover design.

It's almost a year since the photography bug bit me hard. I was always interested in clicking, but not really deep into it. It started with the Pune-Bombay trip with Jha & Rg. Jha had bought the beast named Canon Powershot S1 IS and the train journey was just long enough to get me interested in the camera. After that, I clicked a lot using Jha's camera; on weekends, during lunch hours, at nights. I even started a photoblog on blogger and started posting an image daily. The photoblog got reasonable success. Then I bought myself a bigger & better beast - Panasonic DMC Lumix FZ 20. By this time, I was majorly into photography & photoblogs. I learnt mostly using online resources. My first ever entry at the PhotoFriday.com challenge got me a podium finish, but since then I haven't been lucky.

Then something happened I had always feared. Don't know where exactly it started, but I guess sometime around the start of this year, my interest in the art started to wear off. May be it was the job change, the new job demanded a little bit more than the last one, or the pantry in office which made it unnecessary to have the lunch outside, or the rising temperature. I shut down the photoblog and even the uploading at my flickr account (which went pro, courtesy Rg & Jha) reduced to a trickle. I lost the inspiration and my photos stopped to excite me.

Now, I'm pushing myself hard to get going once again. Ooty wasn't a big success, with the bright glaring sun. I went to the good ol' Leela Palace and clicked some good ones. Soon I'll be moving to Calcutta, which is one city that excites many renowned photographers. The IIMC campus is quite picturesque in itself, I'm told. Right time to start it all over again. Thus, I have decided to revive the photoblog. Though I did write some Javascripts to implement some of the essential functionalities (like the "previous" & "next" links), I'm not very happy with the blogger.com photoblog. They're really lagging behind in this, they should provide some decent templates for photobloggers too. But sadly, other than Blogger.com there aren't any free blogging services which provide better support for photoblogging. At least, I haven't came across any. I have to read more about Pixelpost, but AFAIK they need some online space to work with and that would mean doling out some bucks. That wouldn't be the most prudent thing to do before plunging once again into the student life.

So, if you guys come across some easy solution, puhleeeeeez let me know. In the mean time, I'll carry on some experiments with the blogger templates to make it look something as simplistic, yet cool like this or this. And yeah, I'm also kinda looking out for someone who won't mind modeling for me :-D

Comment on "Quota Raj Cometh"

Someone anonymously posted a comment on my blog about the reservation in IIT/IIMs. I would have liked to have a name associated with it, but anyway, I think the comment deserves a reply as a post (at least half as big as the comment :-). A search on Copyscape showed that someone with name Shylock is spamming the blogosphere with the same comment (here). It raises some arguable points though. The comment-

We must investigate the term "merit".Is "merit" just a score in entrance exams at age of 17?

Take the claim of "merit based" entrance to all IIMs and dozens of other institutes.

The CAT exam is based on the SAT exam in the USA . It has been proved beyond doubt that the SAT test is culturally biased . Blacks and hispanics do poorly at it year after year .

If a student who is eligible for admission to IIM on the basis of his CAT score, were to take the same CAT exam in which he/she cleared in a language that he/she did not understand then he/she would be at a disadvantage compared to someone who was schooled in that language . Not knowing that language does not mean you lack the capacity to clear that exam.

Approximately 25 % of CAT test is about English! Another 25 % is about English Comprehension!!!! There you are !!!! About 50 % so called aptitude test is a hoax for someone who is from a non-english speaking background .

This is how the CAT like the SAT is discriminatory .

See the full form of SAT - Scholastic Aptitude Test . The problem is aptitude testing is not so simple . There is no test on earth which can reliably tests aptitude .

Aptitude tests such as the SAT have a historical tie to the concept of innate mental abilities and the belief that such abilities can be defined and meaningfully measured. Neither notion has been supported by modern research. Few scientists who have considered these matters seriously would argue that aptitude tests such as the SAT provide a true measure of intellectual abilities.

It was found that people could be coached to better their scores at SAT . The name SAT - Scholastic Aptitude Test could not be correct . So under such valid criticism the name was changed to Scholastic Assessment Test, since a test that can be coached clearly did not measure inherent "scholastic aptitude", but was influenced largely by what the test subject had learned in school. Even the College Board which conducts the SAT has beaten a hasty retreat.This was a major theoretical retreat by the College Board conducting SAT, which had previously maintained that the test measured inherent aptitude and was free of bias.

About ten years back , however, even the redundancy of the term assessment test was recognized and the name was changed to the neutral, and non-descriptive, SAT. At the time, the College Board announced, "Please note that SAT is not an initialism. It does not stand for anything."

The framers of these SAT tests assumed that intelligence was a unitary inherited attribute, that it was not subject to change over a lifetime, and that it could be measured and individuals could be ranked and assigned their place in society accordingly. The SAT evolved from these questionable assumptions about human talent and potential.

More and more people are questioning the validity of SAT . In the past MENSA used to accept high SAT score individuals . For the past decade it has stopped accepting SAT scores .

The whole exercise of deciding merit based on CAT scores discriminates against those from lower socio-economic status.

Though many non-IIM institutes have started accepting CAT scores, the application fee of these institutes is still inexplicably high.

The CAT is primarily an exam of Math and English. Logical and Analytical Reasoning is nearly absent (except for some verbal reasoning which again depends on knowing English well!!!!).

CAT is a clever way to keep those from lower socio-economic strata away Institutes funded with tax payers money .

So claims of '“Merit'” based on CAT scores is hollow and discriminatory against those of lower socio-economic strata.

Dhirubhai Ambani had a poor command over English . He would not have made it through CAT. So what "merit" are we talking of?

---

1. Merit, as I understand it, is the quality of being worthy & better equipped for some thing, in this case the chance to study at the coveted IITs & IIMs. Note that, merely being better equipped doesn't ensure the success, it simply increases the chances. So, if someone has done well at the JEE, it shows that s/he is good at problem solving and is more likely to succeed at the undergraduate level.


2. Like it or hate it, but you can't deny it that English is the language of business in this new world global economy. A clarification though, you can take JEE in various regional languages, but the medium of instruction at IITs remains English. CAT stresses on English comprehension, and rightly so, since for the managers, its almost indispensable. Dhirubhai Ambani was a genius, but even he didn't take any chance with it and sent his sons for the best education.


3. Both the entrance procedures are biased towards those who had quality education in their schools. If you see the crowd at IITs, most of them are from the urban centers. Rural kids lag behind because they didn't get good education at the school levels. They either have to move to bigger centers to study, or lose out to their urban counterparts. This is the place where the government should concentrate if they really want to eradicate the bias. Curing the symptoms, by allowing them back door entry, isn't going to cure the ailment.
   


4. The logic government is giving behind the reservation system is that this should be done to compensate for the centuries of discrimination against these castes and tribes (Although Ambedkar himself thought that 10 years of reservations should level the ground.) I personally feel that it would make more sense to provide help to those who are in a disadvantageous position today. Thus, reservations & financial help for those belonging to economically challenged families would be more appropriate.

I Resign

Drafting an appropriate resignation letter can be a headache. You want to sound honest, but not rude. You want to sound polite, but not wishy-washy. It takes a lot of jargon and b*llshit to get the perfect resignation letter.
Right?
Wrong!

Is the resignation letter holding you back from resigning?
Are you googling your nights away for that perfect letter?
Are you begging your friends for that ultimate template?

Voila! Not anymore. Because I-Resign.com is here.
Yes, I-Resign. Say it proudly, say it loudly -- I Resign. Tell your manager, tell the HR -- I Resign.

"But whaaat it eez?"
I-Resign brings you the most suitable templates for all kind of situations. Going for further studies? Leaving for the fatter paycheck? Or even leaving to have a baby? They've got it all covered! Just check out this page. You can even customize the templates according to your details and download the letter as word document!

---

I used the website. Check out the letter-

Dear XXX,

I write to confirm that I am resigning from my position as Software Engineer.

I have decided to realize my professional and personal goals by accepting a formal offer to study for an MBA in IIM Calcutta. This was not an easy decision and took a lot of consideration but I believe it is an exciting step forward and one that I hope you will understand and support.

My contract of employment requires me to work here for a further month from the day I give notice. Hence I request you to release me on June 2nd, which would complete the notice period. Please be assured that I will do all I can to assist in the smooth transfer of my responsibilities before leaving.

I wish both you and YYY every good fortune and I would like to thank you once again for having me as part of your team.

Yours sincerely,

Exquisite! This you won't find on the website. I thank Reshma for this wonderful piece.