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.

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.

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.

Chernobyl: 20 years of disaster

26th April 2006 marked 20 years of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident, which remains world's worst nuclear disaster.

On 26 April 1986, at 1:23:44, reactor no. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power station exploded. One hundred times more radiation was released than by the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The sequence of events according to Chernobyl.info:

The accident in reactor no. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station took place in the night of 25 to 26 April 1986, during a test. The operating crew planned to test whether the turbines could produce sufficient energy to keep the coolant pumps running in the event of a loss of power until the emergency diesel generator was activated.

In order to prevent the test run of the reactor being interrupted, the safety systems were deliberately switched off. For the test, the reactor had to be powered down to 25 per cent of its capacity. This procedure did not go according to plan: for unknown reasons, the reactor power level fell to less than 1 per cent. The power therefore had to be slowly increased. But 30 seconds after the start of the test, there was a sudden and unexpected power surge. The reactor's emergency shutdown (which should have halted the chain reaction) failed.

Within fractions of a second, the power level and temperature rose many times over. The reactor went out of control. There was a violent explosion. The 1000-tonne sealing cap on the reactor building was blown off. At temperatures of over 2000°C, the fuel rods melted. The graphite covering of the reactor then ignited. In the ensuing inferno, the radioactive fission products released during the core meltdown were sucked up into the atmosphere.

For more, go to National Geographic's documentary and an excellent photo-essay by Pixel Press. The accident is very well covered on the Green Peace website too.

Anchalia's Death Covered In The Media.

British journalist, Onnik is keeping a close eye on the issue along with his Armenian colleague, Hasmik. Please visit Onnik's blog for detailed coverage on this issue. I quote from his latest report, Indian Students Carry On Protesting:

On Saturday the students walked to Republic square to hold a peaceful demonstration there. The Police and Red Berets were again there and looked pretty much tired. They were really surprised by the persistence of the Indians and other international students in attendance.

Indians say they will stay here until evening and will be back tomorrow, the day after that and every day until the rector resigns although they were less confident than two days ago, slightly confused and disorganized. Now, on the question of what they will do then if it doesn’t work, their response is that they don’t know. “We’ll see,” is the most frequent reply.

However, many students prefered to stay in their rooms instead of coming out to protest. Perhaps they had lost hope.

I must admit I'm very proud by the way those students have protested. It was through Onnik's blog that I got to know that The Telegraph has covered this issue.

The Indian embassy in Armenia had called up the family on Church Road here last evening to give them the news, said Pankaj, Prashant’s elder brother. “They said it was suicide, but we don’t believe it. We suspect he was murdered.”

“No official intimation has as yet come from the university even 24 hours after the incident,” he added.

[...]

Pankaj and his family suspect that Prashant’s roommate in Armenia could have had a hand in his death.

“He (the roommate) had borrowed a few hundred dollars from my brother and did not return it. It’s quite likely that Prashant had an altercation with him over this. My brother was not the type to commit suicide,” Pankaj said.

[...]

Prashant’s father Parasmal said his family has written to the President, the Prime Minister and the Lok Sabha Speaker asking them to intervene.

Let's hope this would work. Perhaps if more of the mainstream media players would cover up this news in details, the increasing awareness would pressurize the government to take some steps.

(Plea For Help From Indian Students In Armenia, Indian Students Protest In Yerevan, Armenia)

Plea For Help From Indian Students In Armenia

Reproducing the statement from Nanyaar's blog, Does it concern you??:

To Whomsoever It May Concern

This is to hereby inform that a tragic incidence of an Indian national’s death has taken place on April 20, 2006 at 1:00 pm in Yerevan Armenia .Which to eyewitnesses appears to be due to medical negligence. There were 4 eyewitnesses of Indian nationality and six witnesses of Armenian nationality and three witnesses of Syrian nationality. According to all Indian and Syrian national witnesses, the demised was alive and communicating, requesting help for at least 45 minutes and breathing his last. All the witnesses affirm that the ambulatory service arrived too late to help him in any form whatsoever. Following this unfortunate incident all Indian students demanded clarification for the Rector (equivalent to Vice Chancellor) but were given no satisfactory explanation. Students who were agitated by this act decided to go to Armenian parliament. During the protest march, when all Indians were moving towards the parliament there was no Indian official present from the Indian embassy in Armenia. It is more than 48 hours now as this application is being written and there is no official statement from the Indian embassy in Armenia yet on the sad incidence. We nationals of India studying in Armenia demand from the Indian embassy to give an official statement on the incidence and the results of the investigations which have taken place , who is in charge of the investigations and what are the requests which the embassy has made to the government of the republic to Armenia to avoid occurrence of such incidences in future. We Indian students in Yerevan state medical university, Yerevan, Armenia request the authorities to protect our civil rights as Indian nationals and enlighten us .Being the largest Indian population living on the Armenian land we hope that our pleas would be considered. Oblige us by acting, we all are Son’s and Daughters of India.

Requesting help
All Indian students
Yerevan State Medical University
Yerevan, Armenia

To say the least, I'm very disappointed by the way the Indian Embassy has dealt with this issue. The least they could have done was to back these students. Young boys & girls, living in an alien culture, don't deserve this kind of cold treatment by the official representatives of their own community.

This is my sincere request to all, if you have some contacts in the Indian media, we need to pick this issue up with them. It doesn't look like a big issue from our comfortable lives here in India, but please spare a thought for those kids stuck in that horrible situation. We atleast need to support them if nothing else!

(Anchalia's Death Covered In The Media, Indian Students Protest In Yerevan, Armenia)

Prakash Jha, showing the way.

According to this report, film-maker Prakash Jha has offered to build a four-lane super express-way between Hajipur and Muzaffarpur.

Filmmaker Prakash Jha, known for his bold allegorical films, has offered to construct a four-lane highway in Bihar - a project no private company wants to execute due to the prevailing poor law and order condition.

[...]

When a tender was floated for the Rs.4 billion project in 2004, no private bidder applied for it. Government officials admitted that private construction companies were not willing to take up the project due to a perception that Bihar was India's most lawless state.

I have always loved the way Jha's films depict the rustic India. But with this, respect for him, as a person, has gone many notches up.

Jha campaigned for Nitish Kumar in the last elections. What good this pair can do for Bihar, will be known in some more time. I just hope they stay sincere & keep up the good work.

Indian Students Protest In Yerevan, Armenia

Sometime in 90's the trend to go to Eastern European countries for Medical degrees started. How useful this practice has been to the students, is yet to be seen, but the trend hasn't slowed down. Armenia is one such Eurasian country, bordered by Turkey to the west. At present, about 800 Indian students are studying in their Medical Colleges. On April 20, one Indian student, 21- year-old Prashant Anchalia, fell down from his hostel's sixth floor window (He was a student at Yerevan State Medical University, which is the recommended university according to the website of the Indian Embassy in Armenia). The reasons to that are yet to be known. What followed can only be described as criminal apathy, from the university's dean - Anna Sargsayn, even after being a Doctor, refused any first aid to the student and warned any other student against helping him. Although, it happened in a medical college, the ambulance arrived about 45 minutes late, that too without any basic life saving equipments. Anchalia succumbed to his wounds on the way to hospital. The students, mostly Indians, enraged after this shameful display of indifference, gathered in the dean's office demanding an explanation. The newly appointed Rector Gohar Kjalyan, responded in totally outrageously manner. Without any context, she referred to Indian girls as prostitutes, and showed the students the middle fingers of both her hands!

One Indian student from Armenia, Nanyaar, has blogged about this incident (Its bye, We protest for justice). I was skeptic that he might get a bit too much biased about the incident. But then I found some articles by one Armenian journo, Hasmik Hovhannisian & his her British colleague, Onnik Krikorian, adding credibility to the news. I quote from We Protest for Justice, Nanyaar first hand account of the events :

We could see that he (Anchalia) was finding it hard to breathe and had to put him in the recovery position, against the hostel warden’s shouting. His breathing became better, the pulse steady but he was fighting for his life. His legs were broken, a deep cut in the forehead from which a pool of blood was forming, and also occipital bone seemed to be cracked. He definitely had to have fallen in a sitting position.

The dean for foreign student arrived, a doctor herself, and did nothing but watch his helpless bodies fight against pain.

The ambulance arrived; 40 minutes later, by now a crowd had been formed. I was told later; that 3 minutes after the ambulance departed he had passed away.

[…]

He was a quiet guy. Never spoke much, confided to his room, small circle of friends and I remember the bargain he had got on an old yellow Armenian guitar on which he used to practice. Just today’s back he had asked me if I was going to sing this time at the Garoon (spring) festival, and that he was planning to. The media had portrayed him as a drug addict and a psychologically affected person which he definitely was not.

[…]

The death comes in as a surprise and the news of the ambulance reaching there after 40 long minutes and the negligence of the hostel warden and dean makes the Indian student body to meet the Rector, Gohar Kjalyan. Students refuse to meet her in the Red hall and demanded for an answer to be given right there, she walks away and then seconds later walks back, abuses the Indian girls to be prostitutes and shows both her middle fingers.

[…]

Finally at 10pm it was decided that they will be meeting in the University Red hall. Questions were raised which only resulted in diplomatic answer by the Vice chairman of the NA. The education ministry tried to come on stage and give a politician’s speech by quoting “don’t you want to know what really happened to your friend?” But all we needed tonight was for her the rector to resign and actions to be taken on the dean who as a doctor did nothing to see her student dying in front of her.

The Rector apologized at 12 midnight, and she still could not understand what we wanted, while she thought she could just walk away. All Madam Ambassador did was to sit next to the VC and give him tips on what to talk.

What is the Indian Embassy doing to help the students. Apparently nothing. I quote from Hasmik Hovhannisian's report:

The Embassy representative, Mr. Bali, advised the students to disperse and let them settle the matter the diplomatic way.

The Embassy told the parents of the dead boy that he had committed suicide, without even waiting for the investigation to be concluded.

The students do not believe it was suicide.

“He was a balanced person. He had many plans for the future. He could not have killed himself,” they said.

The four-person delegation came back from the meeting with Tigran Torosyan and said that Torosyan had asked them for two days to get acquainted with the matter and decide what to do.

After that, Torosyan met with the Indian ambassador, Rina Pandei.

Meanwhile, Anchalia's body was flown back to India on 21st April.

(Plea For Help From Indian Students In Armenia, Anchalia's Death Covered In The Media)
(Thanks Namit, for the tip. Cross-posted at DesiCritics.)

Important: I see loads of traffic coming to this particular post through some mail (various email-clients). Could some one please forward me the email at vasingh[@]gmail[.]com, please?

Absurd are the ways of our government.

Last time when I was waiting in the queue for security check at the Delhi Airport, out of curiosity, I checked out the list of VIPs/VVIPs who are exempted from security checks at all the domestic airports in India. All of the entries were posts and not individuals, like President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, former PMs, Speaker, CJI, Leaders of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, CMs, Ambassadors, et cetera, but for the last two entries. At number 22, the list had Nobel Laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The last name on the list surprized me - Shri Robert Vadra. The entry added, almost apologetically, “while travelling with SPG (Special Protection Group) protectees.”

Why O' whay O' whaay O' why? No one's got a damn clue. I googled for the list of VIP who don’t have to go through a security check, but the Indian government hasn't put any such list on the net. But I did find an Indian Express report about this issue (link, dated November 13, 2005). I quote from the report:

Son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Vadra’s name was added to the list on September 28 in a circular issued nationwide by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) under the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
...
As husband of Priyanka Gandhi, who is an SPG protectee like her mother and brother Rahul, Vadra does get SPG protection when he travels with either of them. But no other spouse or family member of any SPG protectee has been so named in the list.
...
Why is he the only spouse named in the list? BCAS Commissioner S R Mehra declined to comment despite a faxed questionnaire sent five days ago. On November 10, when The Sunday Express contacted his office, Deputy Commissioner R D Gupta said: “We have no official reply. BCAS just took out the order as advised by the Ministry. Please talk to MCA Under Secretary L Haokip for clarification,” he said. When contacted by this newspaper Haokip refused to comment.

Just taking out the orders, aren't we. Incidentally this issue has been discussed in the Supreme court too, according to this Hindu report (link, dated January 23, 2006).

The Bench, therefore, asked Mr. Vahanvati to find out "why Mr. Vadra has been granted this exemption. Tell us which other spouse is given this exemption."

In its SLP, the Centre said exemption from pre embarkation security checks was not only based on the Warrant of Precedence but also based on compelling factors such as level of government security coverage on the dignitary which would virtually preclude the possibility of any prohibited/dangerous items from being introduced on board an aircraft through dignitary, his or her baggage.

Whatever that means! Some serious bullshit being thrown around here. I've very little doubt that this exemption would create a serious security threat, but 1) why should this favour be extended to Vadra, and 2) Why only Vadra? Is he really what Congress-wallahs love to think - Damaad of the nation? Why not give such immunities to people who deserve it many times more, like Amrtya Sen? Didn't the Sarkaari airlines give golden pass to Amrtya sen?

Absurd are the ways of our government!

P.S: I so badly want the photograph of that notice. If anyone of you is going to fly soon & has a camera-phone, do me a favor and get me a photo. Ye ehsaan main marte dum tak nahi bhoolunga :-)

Geeky love!

Geeks are quite infamous to be aloof towards the softer emotions in life. But there are some really buttkicking geeky ways to confess your love. Take a look at this amazing thing! Apparently, some dude (possibly some dudette) painted this on some roof in Queens, NY. Quite possibly, when it was covered by Google Maps (see link), he/she would have mailed the link to the lucky one. Alternatively, he/she would've rented a plane/baloon to surprize the love interest. Seriously, how can someone say no to this :-)

Hail the geeks because the geek shall inherit the Earth :-)

PicSquare - Upload, Share, Print.

Now that digital photography is attracting many more yuppies than the old film photography, storing & sharing of digital images has turned into an important aspect of it. Not that there is any dearth of online webspaces to store the pictures - Sony's ImageStation, Yahoo's Flickr and many more. Most of them provide the facility to get the printed copies on your doorstep by mail. But, sadly, that's limited to just US & Europe. While the demand of such a service in India has raisen considerably in recent times, we are yet to see any such service take off.

PicSquare is one such service introduced very recently in India. The brainchild of two young entreprenuers, it is still taking baby steps, but promises a lot more. The two masterminds behind this venture - Manish & Kartik - are undergraduates from IIT Bombay. Manish graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2002 and went on to pursue his MS from Purdue University. After completion, he worked for a while and later on gave it up to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams. Kartik completed his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering in the year 2004. He was working for about 1.5 years before joining Manish in this venture.

I have used PicSquare to get some of my photos printed. I guess it doesn't make much sense for me as a person living in India, ordering prints to be delivered locally, but if you think about Indians living abroad & wishing to share their memories with people back home, this service does make a lot of sense. E-Mail the pictures, you'd say, but then the internet penetration in India is still as low as a meagre 5%. Even for someone like me, living in a different city from my parents, it makes sense to get the printed photos delivered directly to my parents in Jaipur (They don't access the net, of course). Its also quite hassle-free for both the parties. One point I'd like to make it here is, the service as such is expansive if we compare to the local GK Vale printing (It costed me ~ Rs.90 for 11 4x6 prints, including delivery).

The print quality is very satisfactory. I guess they process the images a bit before printing them. Hence the richer colors & sharp images. No complaints here.

Their website is rather simplistic. I personally like to-the-point websites, without all flashy mumbo-jumbo & the cluster of buttons & links. The navigation is also quite intutive. They have implemented the functionality to upload multiple images in one go, which is utmost important for such a site. You can edit attributes for multiple images together, which is again an important desirable. They have borrowed the idea of tags from Flickr, which is another nice-to-have feature. They claim to provide unlimited image storing space, but my experience with them doesn't give me any chance to support or deny that. I can't say how gracefully their system will handle it once the bulk uploads start to happen.

You can select photos from the uploaded ones and put them in the shopping cart and order prints; quite standard process as far as online shopping websites go. Presently, they are charging Rs 4.50 ($0.10) per 4x6 photo, Rs 13.50 ($0.30) per 5x7 & Rs 67.50 ($1.50) per 8x10 photos (On a local printing shop, they charge about Rs 3.50-Rs 4.00 for one 4x6 print). One problem I found in their payment module is that it refused to work with my Visa card. Manish & Kartik later acknowledged the problem and hopefully they'll iron out such issues soon.

For the future, they have quite a lot planned. Personalized greeting cards, photo-printed T-shirts, customized coffee mugs, photo frames, calendars, etc. If we go by the testimonials on their site, they have already made many patrons. Hopefully, they'd make many more in coming times.

Keep up the good work, fellas!

Quota Raj Cometh

Excerpts from today's Economic Times front page report: Quota Raj: Half of IIT,IIM seats may be reserved -

Competition to secure admission to the IITs and IIMs is set to hot up, as reservation in these institutions is likely to increase from the current level of 22.5% to a maximum of 49.5%. These institutions already provide reservations for Scheduled Castes (15%) and Scheduled Tribes (7.5%), as mandated by the Constitution.

I could never understand the logic these politicians give behind reservation. In my eyes its all simply vote bank politics. To start with, reservations based on castes & tribes don't make any sense! If the motive is to help the socially backward people to come up, reservations should be given to the economically backward population. After 59 years of independence & reservations, what relevance does the tag "socially backward" hold? I know, in the rural hinterlands, they still discriminate on the basis of caste & tribes. But almost all of such exploited victims would come under the economically backward cover. In addition, it would also cover the poor people who are born in the higher castes.

Its again a failure of implementation. There exists a notion of a "creamy layer" crowd in the SC/ST junta. If the family income exceeds a certain limit, they can no longer enjoy the benefits of reservations. But this is another one of highly misused rules. But if the reservations are made for the economically backwards, atleast some more deserving people can avail the benefits.

The entrance exams for IITs & IIMs are extremely tough and thus it can be taken that IITs/IIMs want only the best to come there. Now if almost half of the students are going to come from a backdoor entry, how's that going to help, both the students & the institutes. The demand for IIT/IIM education has raisen considerably since the economy opened up & brought along a whole new set of high-tech jobs. The pressure on the aspirants is already enormous. Now if the seats for general category will further be reduced, aren't we defeating the purpose of opening more IITs/IIMs?

Its not tough to see why government is increasing the quota in higher educational institutes like IITs & IIMs. Its the same reason why they were pushing for reservation in private sector. Now since the private sector is booming & demand for IIT/IIM seats has gone through the roof, reservation will attract that much more votes. If the government really had the good of poor & socially backward at their heart, it would've worked towards making quality primary education accessible to all. If we comb through the IIT/IIM crowd today, very rarly we would come across someone with a rural background. Simply because the primary & secondary education system in the rural India has totally collapsed and hence the rural students can't compete with their urban counterparts. Reservations & all in the tertiary education is not going to help if the primary & secondary levels are so wretched.

Sometimes I wonder why class divisions in India (rich-poor) is weaker than religion & caste based division. The political parties find it more rewarding to call religious minorities, socially backward people and all, but no one campaigns with pro-poor policies and all. IIRC, Indira Gandhi had "Garibi Hatao" on her agenda, but hardly anything happened. Education, and thus better-informed voters, can cure it all, but then this responsibility also lies with the neta-log.

Varanasi Blasts & the Rath Yatras.

Whatever I want to say has been captured well in the following two articles. I'm posting some selected snippets, do take time to read the original articles.

Varanasi's Religion by Sagarika Ghose on IBNLive -

Never was there a greater contrast between Hinduism and Hindutva. Three bomb blasts shattered the calm of 2,500-year-old Varanasi on Tuesday, March 7. Immediately, the political party that claims to defend all Hindus, swung into action implying that this was an attack on Hindus. The BJP disrupted Parliament, the Lok Sabha was adjourned, BJP leaders unleashed rhetoric about "minority appeasement" and argued that the killers were emboldened by various policy initiatives of the UPA. But as Hindutva pointed fingers at "minorities", "anti-nationals" and "religious fundamentalists", what did Hinduism, by contrast, do? Hindutva blustered but Hinduism turned to prayer. Hinduism turned its back on calls to religious hatred. Hinduism came in large numbers to donate blood. Brave, forgiving diyas floated as a holy city asserted its magnificient dignity. Let the demagogues yell, whispered the Ganga, but I, too, am here.

Now the BJP is all set to launch its twin National Integration yatras, to be led by party president Rajnath Singh and leader of the Opposition L K Advani. The yatras, Advani recently said, are a response to the "wildfire of minorityism" lit by this government. In fact, "minorityism", according to the BJP, is the main reason for the Varanasi blasts. Lets examine the "appeasement" hypothesis. If I'm a "Muslim terrorist" and the UPA center is busy trying to appease me, would I suddenly set off bombs in Varanasi knowing that in any case the government is trying to please me? Not only is the logic linking "muslim appeasement" and the blasts a little faulty but this time Advani seems to be quite out of touch with the realities of a liberalising new economy. In 1989-90, Advani launched the famous Ram Rath yatra which catapulted the BJP to the national mainstream after the Shah Bano judgement and Mandal report had created a mood of Hinduism under siege. Yet India is now a different country from 1989-90. Also, sadly - indeed tragically - society is already doing what the BJP's politics is trying to gamely follow. We are already a hopelessly ghettoized society in which Muslims, even celebrity Muslims, find it difficult to find homes in south Mumbai or south Delhi.

However in spite of this daily social catastrophe, there is a new matter-of-fact togetherness: Aamir Khan, Tabu, Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel are symbols of how a competitive talent-based society has no place for discrimination. Advani's rath yatra is hoping to capitalise on the isolation of the Hindu, but it is an isolation that the Hindu clearly doesn't feel. Many who remember the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition were expecting riots the day after the Varanasi blasts. The fact that there was no riot, that there was not even a whisper of communal trouble, that in fact Hindus and Muslims joined in condemnation, shows that we as a society may be polarised and ghettoised, but at the same time, we are looking forward not backward.

Will middle India speak up? by Barkha Dutt at NDTV.com -

Despite the lonely corner non -believers like myself inhabit, I am reasonably confident that the ordinary Indian is as mystified as me by the hysterical debate that has consumed our media these past few weeks.

The theme song, actually it was a duet, went something like this-Hindutva is simmering under the surface, waiting to leap out from the political grave into the warm embrace of a new life; and "moderate Muslims" must speak, not just speak, they must shout, scream, holler, be heard, so that there is no "backlash."

All generalizations are a gamble, but I would take the risk and say that Middle India (as distinct from both the fundamentalists and the liberals) wants to travel down the Middle Path; the age of shrill rhetoric is over, Indians, are increasingly impatient with extremism of any kind, in any faith, Hindu or Muslim.

I'm pretty sure that the ordinary Hindu, angry as he or she may be about the assault in Varanasi, and before that, Ayodhya, will also find L K Advani's Rath Yatra disingenuous and unnecessary; a poor caricature of himself.

I'm equally sure, that if I were a Muslim in India today, I'd feel under siege; claustrophobically caught between those who claim to speak on my behalf, and those who are demanding that I must speak up as a "moderate." Lost in the cacophony of argument is the clarity of exactly what we are asking them to speak up against.

Are we becoming like the United States? Fearful of minorities? Alarmed at their assertion, superior and scornful about their conventions? Unable to see them as anything but the "other?" Fifty-nine years after India was born, in a country where there are more Muslims than there are in Pakistan, we are still asking Muslims to wear their nationalism like an identity card; we are still asking for proof of loyalty. This is not their failure. It is ours.

Update: Vir Sanghvi has written a column in Hindustan Times on the same issue.

CAT and Work Experience

Gammafunction left a comment on my last post about the CAT & MBA in general loaded a bit too against freshers. I did a little bit of reasearch and found the exact opposite to be true. Check it out -

(IIM Ahmedabad, Batch Profile - Class of 2007)

(IIM Bangalore, Batch Profile - Class of 2006)

(IIM Calcutta, Batch Profile - Class of 2007)

As evident, the number of freshers joining IIMs outnumbers that of the experienced guys by far (After breaking up the experienced fellows in different brackets as per the number of years spent working). I don't have any data for student appearing for CAT, but I think it would be rather safe to assume that the number of freshers taking the exam would be far far greater than the number of experience holders. Parental pressure, peer pressure, etc. make sure one does take a shot at CAT before taking the plunge into the work life. Of course, not all of them are serious, but still it's very likely that they outnumber the experienced guys in the number of final calls received too.

I'm not sure but perhaps each IIM keeps a predetermined batch profile in mind when issueing the interview calls and offers. Say, roughly 40% freshers, 10% with 1 year's experience and so on. I'm also told that the cut-off percentiles for experienced guys is generally kept a little below from that of freshers (Though, IIMB follows the exact opposite, it seems).

Work experience does matter, especially in a professional course like an MBA. You work in the industry, you see how things work and how to make them work. You learn a lot from good managers and even more from bad managers (I've had a mixed bag). And most importantly you develop a realistic idea about what exactly you want to do (or atleast what you'll never want to do again, as in the case of many software punters ;-). Spending some time in the industry does help, but that also means that you have to be prepared about a hell lot of things about your job, your company, the market, the competition, etc. along with the academics ;-)

As for the freshers, it is indeed a tougher competition. One, because they compete against a whole lot of other freshers (if we go by the predetermined mix formula). Second, they might come out as inadequate in the interviews simply because they are still wet behind the ears in many ways. I remember, when I had my first job interview - it went really well till I told them that as my future plans I'm planning to do an MBA after say two years of experience. I didn't get the job. Truth doesn't always pay. Of course, not all the freshers are as naïve as I was.

Disclaimer: Other than the pie-charts (taken from respective IIMs' websites) everything else are my speculations about the issue. "Any resemblence with anyone yada yada yada is purely coincidential" :-D

India - Pakistan Wagah Border ceremony

I got this video at Upright Videos. Boy! Do they have some cool collection?! Do listen to the BBC commmentary in the video. Funny that I should get this video now, when I just finished "Pundits From Pakistan" by Rahul Bhattarcharya. Rahul was touring with Indian cricket team to Pakistan in 2004 and he has captured his experiences in this book. But to say that this book is just about cricket is like saying Ramayana is about touring Sri Lanka. I can't say anything about the book which hasn't already been said. Just read it.

In the last chapter of the book, Rahul describes the Wagah border ceremony. While BBC commentary in the video describes it well, it lacks the subcontinental sentiments attached with the Wagah Border. Rahul taps it well. I'm producing excerpts from his book -

We found the spot on the sidelines. Chants rented the air. Pakistan Zindabad. Allah-hu-Akbar. A cheerleader who had almost knocked over Saad with his flag at the stadium was running up and down, waving his crescented cloth, urging masses on like the coach at tug-of-war.

Barely had we taken out spot than the crowds erupted into a delirious roar: a guard had begun marching towards a gate, some metres past the brick archway. Marching is a euphemism. He stomped so hard as if to create holes in the earth, a severely built man in immaculate uniform, a magnificent turban, boots of gleaming black, and wearing hate on his face as he had been told to. Even amid the chanting and hooting and clapping, the clamping down of the hobnailed boots could be made out.

The guard powered on till the gate, where he spread his hands like a performer, maintaining the hate on his face, and shaking his head vigiriusly in the manner one does after downing a Patiala Peg; high on induced hate. The hands were lowered to the sides in a series of theatrical gestures. Another guard followed, and another. Sometimes they went in tows and threes. As they reached the gate, one after the other, and played out their hate, the crowd was stirred to a frenzy. A depravity hung in the air.

A chronicle by a visiting westerner likend the ceremony to a European football game. This was ironic, instructive. Where Orwell had likened sport to war minus the shooting, here was wilfully calibrated war minus the shooting - shadow-boxing, in uniform, as the border - being likened to sport.

At last a pair of guards from either side shook hands, and the flags were gently lowered. This signified the closing of the border for the day. Both gates were slammed shut together, with immense force. There was a sudden, shocked silence, and in the silence of the moment, the metal rang in the ears. The silence continued for several seconds. The silence was a lot of things: a brief mourning, the acknowledgement of an attachment, of a shameful history; it was a symbolic reconciliation; I think it was, in large part, embarrassment at the preceding depravity.

Even now I shudder at the mesh of emotions at that scene at the border on March twenty-third. The faces of some wore a disturbed look. Some looked distraught. Some chanted. Some looked fragile, shattered, tears in eyes. Some looked plain entertained. Some, like Mr Ansari, were furious, furious with the jingoism the ceremony was designed to generate. Saad and I discussed things with passionate angst. It was a confusing time.

Highly recommended, the video and the book.

Hostile Witness

After the recent decisions on the Jesica Lall case & the Best Bakery case, the Indian blogsphere has a tag making rounds. I read first about this at Vivek's blog. Here's the tag:

Lets say that you are a key witness in a murder case. You saw the accused kill the victim right in front of your eyes. The facts of the case are absolutely clear to you, and fresh in your memory. Now, your testimony is up for tomorrow. You get a call during the night before the fateful day. The caller threatens to kill/harm either you or your wife/your kids/someone-very-dear-to-you. Alternatively, the caller could make you a different offer - that of money. Say Rs. 1 Crore (a little over $200,000). You know for sure that the accused can indeed shell out that much money. The condition is obvious. You must become a hostile witness. What would you do? And why?

The first knee-jerk reaction would be a 'No', simply because most of us like to see ourselves like someone with high morals and strong will. I shall not waste this space on that, I'm no Sunny Deol & this is no cinema. Answering this question is indeed very tough, mostly because its not very easy to imagine yourself into this horrid dilemma.

I don't think I would react to the money offered. Partly because I'm already comfortably placed in life; not playing in crores or stuff, but decent enough to have a decent upper middle class life. And partly because that it would be a burden on the conscience for the entire life; to sell yourself and causing injustice to come to poor victims. I think every one has some threshold and only after that barrier is crossed, people go against their moral sense of right and wrong. Money is not the one to tempt me.

Threat to my loved ones is a different thing. I don't think I can jeopardize their lives for anything. Keeping in mind that in most cases the police would not be able to protect my loved ones from the threat. And, after seeing that in many cases, even after few testimonies against the culprit, s/he was able to get free from some loophole in the judiciary system. This is to say, if I'm sure that the threat is real & the protection from the police won't be sufficient, most likely I would make a U-turn. Turning hostile would really be very burdensome morally, I would prefer to get disconnected from the proceedings, like saying I didn't see anything or I wasn't there.

I'm not tagging anyone, but if you like, post it on your blog. Don't forget to add the tag "Hostile Witness" to your post.

Tag: Hostile Witness

L.N.Mittal or Alien Mittal?

Someone really got to help me understand why is Indian Government trying to persuade the French & Luxemburg governments regarding the Mittal-Arcelor feud? Born in Churu, educated in Kolkata, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal moved out of the country in 1994 and at present holds an NRI status and stays in Britain. He has done well to be the richest man outside the US and the third richest man in the World, but what has he done for India? His group has presence in almost every country in the World other than India.

May be Indians are behaving in an emotional manner, biased towards their own son. The deal Mittal has offered looks fair and there are not many fair doubts the Arcelor shareholders should have, but that's not the point. Even if it is done for good, is there any place for such emotions in diplomacy?

Some further doubts -

1. What about Abdul Lateef Naushad, who was serving in a Saudi Arab jail for six months, waiting for his eyes to be gouged. His wife ran from pillar-to-post for saving her husband, the only earning member in the family. The external affairs ministry couldn't have been more indifferent. I quote from the Rediff.com report:

   "This kind of rigid, eye-for-eye Saudi law has executed hundreds of Indians there. Hundreds of Indians are currently jailed in Saudi Arabia for no serious criminal reasons," says human rights activist K Gopalakrishnan.
   
   One of the recent incidents was the execution of Naickam Ittiparambil Shahjahan last year. The Saudi Arabian government had charged Shahjahan with smuggling brown sugar in his shoes when he boarded the flight from Chennai to Dammam four years ago.
   
   But soon after his execution, the ministry of external affairs in New Delhi received a message from the Saudi Arabian government, which officially admitted that Shahjahan was innocent.

2. What about Fiji's ousted Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhary? After George Speight staged a armed coup and threw Chaudhary in prison, India did little other than imposing some economic bans, despite some protests. I quote from the Tribune editorial:

   There is some hope of improvement only if international pressure intensifies.[..] Australia and New Zealand have done some tough talking on the subject. “There is no point in mincing words — he (Mr Chaudhry) was kidnapped and detained unlawfully. It was a criminal act. He was democratically elected and what George Speight and his supporters are arguing for is a racially prejudiced Constitution,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said. New Zealand has been equally forthright. The role these two countries play will determine to a large extent the future course of Fiji. The problem is that imposing severe sanctions will further damage Fiji’s economy, thereby hurting many of the people the world is trying to help. As such, it has to be two-track diplomacy all the way. India has not played as active a role as expected. The expulsion of Fiji from the Commonwealth is hardly its achievement because this course is already outlined in detail under the Harare Declaration and the Millbrook Action Programme. The diplomatic initiative by New Delhi has not gone much beyond discussing the matter with the visiting Mr Howard. Its argument that India would not like to be seen to be applying pressure on the present dispensation in Suva lest it has an adverse impact on Fijian Indians does not sound very convincing.

3. What about the whole "patka" issue regarding Sikhs in France? Did Indian government do anything for those Sikhs?

The point is not that government should've dived into all the aforementioned issues (I'm sure we can find many more indifferent moments from the external affairs ministry, if we rake through the history); the point is why is Kamal Nath playing hardball with EU over Mittal? The wikipedia page on LN Mittal provides an interesting insight:

In 2002 he was embroiled in a political scandal dubbed Mittalgate with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as many felt that a donation he had made to the British Labour Party had led to Blair's intervention (a letter to the Romanian prime minister) in a business deal favouring Mittal. On July 13, 2005 it was announced that he had donated £2 million to the Labour Party.

I don't think I'm very well informed to comment or speculate any further. However, I would like to see what Vivek Kumar, an undertraining IFS officer himself, has to say about it.

Comments-Shomments Haaye Rabba

Raj tells in his latest post that not replying to comments made by others on your blog is deemed impolite among the netizens. I reply to the comments made here often, but mostly to the recent posts. Many visitors drop on to this blog via some search engine (somehow "pakistani mujra" is among the top traffic-getters for this blog ;-) and they make some comments on some old posts. I don't really make sure to reply to them, but now I'm told many people visit back to check if any replies are made and all. I'll try.

Meanwhile, some of my recent posts attracted some nice comments which I feel deserve more than getting forgotten in the cyber space. Sadly, many of them are made anonymously.

1. On my post about Suicide in IIT Bombay -

Deaths of students

Students are committing suicides; it’s a national shame,
They should be brave,not should be tame.
They all are smart,intelligent and bright,
Why they are giving-up before any fight?
What is the pain ,they are trying to hide?
What is causing them to commit suicide?
Why they choose to be on their own?
Among so much crowd,why they feel alone?
These are the questions,needed to be answered,
Whatever are the problems,needed to be conquered
They should be taught,rules of life game!
They can still be winners,without money and fame!!
They should be made at ease!! So they can share,
They are India’s future,should be handled with care!!
To save their lives,we all should try,
We just can’t afford to let them die!!!

2. On my post on Emran Hashmi & Gobhi Pakodas (I think its Emran himself ;-)

Are you out of your freakin mind! Have u even seen the guy? He's extremely hot..if u got close to him u would burn down! Oh right you can't even get close to his shadow... as for his choice of movies i dont agree much with them but u can't deny his hotness based on his few stupid choices. and as for a pathetic adult stuck with a mind of a 10-year old i dont know how much i can expect from u! and if u hate the guy sooooo much would u like to explain why u have seen all 9 of his movies or at least kept track of all 9. i think that this is just a case of a secret admirer gone bad! kinda like giving attitude to the girl a boy really loves (in the 5th grade)... you you still sitting in class?

Update: "Death of Students" is written by Rachana Bajaj. After I posted her poem here, she showed me another piece of excellent poetry written by her.

Blogs
I was wondering, what are blogs all about?
I found that they are people’s SILENT SHOUT!!
Some laugh aloud, some scream with pain,
Emotions are coming out straight from their brain!
Young ones put up their personal issues,
You can find them sobbing without using tissues!
They can be boring, they can be nice,
But the language you get with added spice!
You can read them once twice or thrice,
The best thing is, they come without price!
Blogging can be good when you feel alone,
You can get some expressions as your very own!!!

The Bangalore Bloggers' Meet & Akshara Foundation

Met few fellow bloggers from Bangalore today. We had a nice time chatting over coffee at the St. Mark's Road Barista. Surjo left early but not before telling me about the NGO he works for - Akshara Foundation. After he left Bhaskar, Aravind and me chatted for another 30-45 minutes, discussed almost everything under the Sun. Got some valuable insight about the IIM GD/PIs from Bhaskar, who is an IIMI alum himself. Aravind brought up the issue of dismal attendance at the meet and the stagnated growth of the group. We need to address these issues soon. I think I'll post about the group at Bangalore community at Orkut. If you blog and are from Bangalore, join the gang at "Blogger's of Bangalore" group at Google Groups. Please spread the word among your friends/colleagues.

Among various interesting topics discussed, the Akshara Foundation demands the foremost mention. Remember all the discussion about India which ended up cursing illiteracy? The problem happens to be a lot worse than it seems. Even though we claim two-thirds of the population to be literate, the number of functionally illiterate people can be much higher than one-third of the population. Counting someone among literates just because s/he can write her/his name seems rather absurd to me. Its time to tackle the problem or atleast acknowledge gravity of the problem. I quote from Deccan Herald's second edit (21/01/06)

.. 98 per cent of children aged between 6-14 years are enrolled in schools in rural Karnataka. While this is creditworthy, what is shocking is that 45 per cent of them cannot solve simple numerical sums of subtraction and division. Around 53 per cent of children in the 7-10 age group cannot read even a small paragraph with short sentences from a Standard I text book. The Pratham survey reveals that standards of education in states other than Karnataka are no better, but this is no consolation.

It would be unfair to blame the teachers alone for the state of affairs. As a matter of fact, government school teachers are well-qualified. But the trouble lies with the kind of education provided. While the emphasis in Standards I and II should be on developing reading and writing skills, the focus is now merely on teaching from text books, which makes learning boring for little children.

The Akshara foundation is a part of Pratham Network which did the survey for this report. They have specific programs to deal with this particular problem. They call them Accelerated Learning Programs. Being a non-profit NGO, they need the support of the community to achieve the goals they've set. The bangalore blogosphere is contributing; a blogspace is maintained to keep other's posted about the proceeding - Everyman's City. Please read through their call for volunteers. Please join in and/or spread the word.

Top 12 from the year!

I started this blog on 11th January 2005. I just wanted to write, write arbit stuff. My first ever post - Agriculture in India: Road to future? - was a rather serious one. I was reading various documents regarding Indian economy and stuff for my upcoming IIM interviews and it all got rubbed to my blog. Once I got started I wrote almost about everything - economics, politics, films, humor, satire, cribs, etc. As the year ends in another week, I thought it'll be a good time to look back and select some of the better ones that I wrote and showcase them here. Actually, I got this idea from Creative Generalist's blog. Do read his list (but only after mine ;-)), there are some absolute gems there.

Why 12? I actually wanted to have top 10 sorts, but in the end I liked 12 and thought dropping anyone of these wouldn't be fair. So 12 :-). I'm not into tagging and stuff, but just to put the idea in fellow bloggers' minds - select your favorite posts and list them!

Here it goes -

1. Job Motivation - A satire on the mundane intricacies of the boring office life of a software engineer.
   
2. Gym Mis(s)adventures - A humorous misadventure, totally fictitious!
   
3. So, What are your hobbies? - Do we really need one?
   
4. Eminem meets Udham Singh - Two of the greats of our time :)
5. Business Plans - I'm still looking out for VCs.
   
6. My Baby - Yes, it happened!
   
7. Carobaar - Ratan Tata's 1 lakh car cometh.
   
8. Glamourizing the Gutter - Sick of gangster movies? Read on!
   
9. Software Engineer and CAT - A parody of Somebody to Love - Don't you want to take the CAT?
   
10. Planet of Eves - Females ruling the earth - rosy notion? Not really!
    
11. Stand Up Comedy & Follow up - My attempt at stand up comedy.
12. Suicide at IITB, Update I & Update II - A misfortunate incident which created a big buzz in the campus & in the blogsphere among alumni.