India Unreported

There is one incredible India and one untouchable India. - Manjula Pradeep;







Tradition are poured inside the child through their parents first. All of the parents teach their children about ethics and values. Still, parents themselves practice some form of caste and religious discrimination. The rituals of marriage and eating's give children first hand knowledge and practice of discrimination. Our education system gives very little information about caste atrocities. There should be complete restructuring of society which openly commits caste discrimination and it is not told as a crime for normal routine.

The Governments in the past have viewed the communal riots or caste atrocities as a matter of law and order, and hence they have failed to evolve a just society. There is a rise of an individual and followed by a group in opportunist way on the name of caste. The badlands of India in its small villages, have their own on-going caste wars, con-men and utter lawlessness. The lesson of history is that suppressive and discrimination practices against social equality movements don't work. In the short term they can disrupt and demoralise, but if the movement is socially rooted, the success will come one day. Moderation and tolerance are essential prerequisites of development in the majority-minority relations.

Fee Hike at IIT

Let’s be clear and honest to ourselves. Any thing that fails to change its philosophy with time, disappears soon. That holds pretty true for any educational institute also. Any organisation should be ready to accept change and should change accordingly.

There was an article by Atanu Dey stating - "The full cost of a decent 4-year technical education today is around Rs 20 lakhs (or around US$ 45,000.) That’s a conservative estimate. So in today’s nominal rupees, the full cost of educating 300,000 engineers is Rs 6,000,000 lakhs (or US$ 13.5 billion.) The IITs do charge some fees but those fees have been a small fraction of the true cost of education. It is reasonable to peg the total subsidy to be of the order of the estimated Rs 6 million lakhs. The objective of this exercise is to get a feel for the total transfer of resources from the general public to reasonably well-to-do upper segment of society.

That subsidy is a pure transfer or a grant, not a loan. The beneficiary is not required to return, either directly or indirectly, the money spent. There’s only an expectation that the return will be indirect. Moreover, not everyone has an equal chance of getting the subsidy. To get into an IIT, you have to have an excellent school education, for otherwise you fail in the intense competition for admission. Therefore you must be from a family with means much above average. Therefore the subsidy is targeted at the already fortunate. ."

And the content of the article was on the fringes of mine memories. It was rejunevated when IITs plan to increase their fees in coming years. Every person who has benefited from the subsidy given by government has the moral duty to pay back to the society. We have no rights to take benefits of subsidy or reservations if we are unable to pay back. IITs are going to increase their fees from Rs 50,000 per year as fee. Currently, it is on hold but I think it will be implemented soon. The proposal suggested increasing the fee to Rs 4 lakh per annum over a period of 10 years. This is done to remove the dependence of premier institutes on government for funding and becoming more autonomous.

I think that Atanu dey has got the point when he take his stand : On IITs, PanIIT, and the Funding of 50 New IITs .

My Opinion: My seniors inspired through their actions me that the students of ITBHU had an obligation to serve the institute & country, and I knew that I must one day use my education to serve India and my college. I don't have idea over the stance of IT-BHU administration and transition of college in to IIT status is still in pending state. There is no such debate in my college that how much a college should depend on government for monetary help ? The contribution has been fine from alumni but not even worth comparable to IITs. Their is vision missing in the administration about the future of ITBHU, not the vision documents (2006). I think its not the case of missing spirit of contribution, but the proper process and vision plan.

English and ITBHU

The campus is completely alien to the freshers both in terms of the place and its people. All freshers can experience a very different and real world and hence have the opportunity to learn about everything once again from its beginning in its true nature.

The first and foremost problem faced by students is to get the grasp the good English needed for communication and writing skills. 3 out of 60 people have given JEE in Hindi but almost the majority used to struggle to cope with the professional use of language. General exceptions are always there (Varun Murali, Kapil & Kunal in my batch) who helped the rest a lot in their pursuit of improvement. I observed that the ones who did cope happened to come from ICSE or CBSE schools whereas students with the state board school background had to push lot more harder than their fellow batch mates. Most of the students coming from state board schools are worst affected as boards provide specialist in field (PCM) but the versatility was lacking. Here in the college, the reading is not taken for the pleasure or learning new language but for acquiring the crux of GD and interviews with minimum work on grammar.

We started regular newspaper reading in the first year of college, out of compulsion to improve my English and vocabulary. It was more of a burden rather a hobby or interest for anybody. Few took the flight to financial times for the sake of improving his understanding of finance. TOI is suggested for primary level of & The Hindu for the next level. My interest in sports particularly cricket given a good reason to go through the each word printed in the sports section of the paper, but the road to editorial column remains at-least 1 year ahead in TOI section. We are enamored by news column writing and develop their views as our own for GD sessions.

The magazines and novels are the next target of masses for continual improvement program. Outlook, India Today and a hell lot of Business magazines are circulated in the whole college. Novels are highly popular with Dan Brown & Chetan Bhagat as the popular authors. This is the first time when most of students read for pleasure of it.

With the internet sources are considered new information and the books as old information, Library is not used by students despite of few brave reforms by IT administration. The Curriculum for learning English is most frustrating part in the academic help for raising the threshold level of English in the campus. The Professional Communication course is taught in the 1st semester and then there is sudden gap of six semesters for next course. Seminar and Group Discussion came in the 8th semester when people had already got the job and enthusiasm for learning has been at minimum level. This curriculum completely baffles me as the major problems faced by students are inability to express themselves in writing, public speaking and even listening to prolonged lectures.

Don't get me started over the language programme offered for learning 'English' by University. It was good for other foreign languages but the experience of my friends in their futile attempt to learn English from academia is horrible. One good thing is that event like JAM in college has really helped lot of people.

I will just say that we should encourage reading and application learning to our friends & juniors. We have to make them understand why reading the prescribed course isn't enough, why did they have to read 10 other books, blogs and several reading materials to make an informed opinion. The more we grow in the life, the bonding with technology is lessened and networking with the people increases.

*I may be seeing only minor part of a process but readers will give their discrete view on this topic.

Vichaar Shoonya + 5

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face in marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. [Part of Speech by Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910.]

1- Delhi's Commonwealth Games slave labour shame : CHILDREN are slaving away at work on building sites in New Delhi as the Indian capital struggles to get ready for this year's Commonwealth Games.

2- The Song That Is Irresistible: How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction : Robert Higgs's Schlarbaum Award Acceptance Speech, delivered on October 12, 2007, at the Mises Institute's 25th Anniversary Celebration.

3- The Grandmaster Experiment : The queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard. Yet in the ultra-elite ranks of chess, a woman who can hold her own is the rarest of creatures. How, then, did one family produce three of the most successful female chess champions ever?

4- Vanishing Wisdom : A report on water management in Uttarakhand where traditional systems do the disappearing act.

5- Microfinanace in Macro Mess : Corporate entry threatens the very idea on which microfinance institutions were set up. How will the dispossessed be affected.

6- Lilavati's Daughters: The Women Scientists of India

7- Deterring Internet Piracy : A burning debated between Cinephiles

8- How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest : Sure, students work hard to get into this elite college. But so does the admissions committee.

9- Burma : The political Black Hole (pdf format)

10- The structure and silence of the cognitariat: Only a small "creative class" achieves the creativity and freedom attributed by stereotype to all knowledge workers, writes Christopher Newfield. Below this elite exist far more numerous "perma-temps", who are highly qualified yet interchangeable.

11- How to Create Ideas that Evolve.

Mutation

I had more lived in solitude and silence within myself and only this blog was a creative act in itself in my short life. Cinephilia or writing is just a passion with rarely requiring extraordinary force of will. Beneath the riches of the creative life and observation, there was still one ordinary & pointless life, to be lived each second.

Everything under the sun and above the earth comes in my observation. The fact is that no matter where in history we are, all of those bad things exist. The point of our existence is to show even in a world filled with hate and evil, if we stop for a minute and just look around we can find the good. There is a purity in my isolation from the world, saving the last traces of innocence or whatever unconscious motives. I had gone through several long phases of depressions in 2 years with only 1 or 2 persons knowing about it. Now, I feel no joy or sharing heart's burden kinda of stuff in sharing my feelings with everyone. I will now focus on persons close to me who were emotionally supporting me when I was on crusades to save the world or doing social welfare.

Through history of my life, habits or oaths have been junked if they become inconvenient. The ever changing habits allows sovereign persons like me to scrap any prior resolution. Now, I am trying to break a prolonged phases of silence and formalities between relations. I am stranger to many persons in many aspects who are close to me. Have to sort out lot of personal life...

This week has been turned out good and I am quite happy with my performance. Just like anyone in the early 20s, I am still trying to figure out mine place in the world and work out who I am. I am still learning and need more time to do the things. Instead of what all people are doing in the life and various fields, I need more time and space to prove myself.

I was living life in reckless way after joining college from summer of 2004. Suddenly, mutation happens. Don't ask how ? Nobody knows, not even me about this tipping point.

I am changing... (Few examples)
I am bathing daily from last 7 days.
(Previously, 10 times in month)
I am combing my hair with comb daily.
(Previously, 7 times a month, that too with hands)
I am taking breakfast daily at right time.
(Previously, never taken)
I am shaving in each 4 days
(Previously, once in 45 days)
I am putting clothes pressed and in Hangers
(Previously never done that)
I am changing...*

*The above changes are done without any external pressure. Those who know me personally knows my disgust for taking bath...