Sunday, June 28, 2009

Scrapping the boards

Another UPA HRD minister continuing the legacy of his predecessors i.e. acting on merely his whims and fancies without properly thinking the outcome and consequences of his actions. This time it isn't reservations, this time it is something that completely breaks the backbone of our education system-- Scrapping the board exams.
With an eye to the future voters the Minister has come up with this draconian plan that removes the base around which a child's career is built.
Today an Indian student is considered superior than his western and eastern counterparts. An Indian professional is so much adept that he is feared by even the most powerful man in the world- The President of the United States who very recently said "Say no to Bangalore and Yes to Buffalo".
What is it that makes the Indian professional so much coveted by all the companies around the world? What makes him so successfull?
The answer is the competitive environment they find themselves into right at the childhood. By the time they leave college they are so much matured and so much used to hard working that they can easily take work pressures and get success in any field of life. It is the competitive attitude that builds inside the child that takes him to new heights in his career.

The reason given behind the scrapping-- To free the student of the stresses..
Hmm the minister must understand that a diamond becomes a diamond only after it undergoes high pressure and heat in the core of earth without which it is nothing but a lump of coke.

Another reason given is suicides..well suicides are there but how many?? 10-15-20-25 that is it..Now exams cannot be blamed for 25 committing suicide out of 25 million appearing for boards. The real culprits are the atmospheres at home which forces the students to take this step.

The minister says to stop all board exams and have a single test for all entrances.. Now will that single test wont traumatize the students? Also for hundreds of courses will we be now having a separate test for all? A nation wide test for law, a nationwide test for history. a test for literature etc etc...will that hold any meaning?
Also the students whole career will be based on his performance in those 2 hours of test..how fair will that be??
Now he comes up with another plan a grading system in boards.. So now some one having say 89 marks out of 100 will have the same grade as the one having 80 ( considering the various slabs of grading) so there it will kill merit. Not fair not fair at all to the ones burning the mid night oil to get good marks.
For grading system based on performance in school well I can only give a laugh..In a country where schools try any measure to get a "100%" result in boards which are fair, what will they do if they have the power to grade their students all by themselves?? Lol..teacher's pet anyone? I certainly wasnt one so maybe I would have failed under the proposed system...

As far as excelling in extra curricular activities are concerned students still have a lot of time for them right from Kindergarten classes to class 9th and then class 11th..It won't hurt to devote a couple of years from those 13-14 yrs of school life to studies.

The minister has to understand that competition builds confidence, it gives maturity, the strength to face the world and a platform for career building.
Moreover since the minister stresses that 10th board is not as important as the 12th boards then why not let it be??

Friday, June 12, 2009

Gimme Red!!

Funny how things turn out to be; an event leads to another which in its turn leads to another and so on..each one of these events, small or big can sometimes completely change a beings meaning of life, his morals, his ideologies and his perception of life.
The author of this blog used to be an absolute hater of communists, a pro-capitalist to the core but that was till he used to be a "drawing room thinker". But now, the things have changed. He is out in the "big bad" world. And for him now communism is the only thing "holy".
Why?? Let us see.. In the past six months or so over twenty four million people are "directly" out of jobs due to recession, the "indirect" victims being in billions. People are being thrown out of jobs, careers are being wasted, bright kids are being forced to beg and families are being forced to commit suicides. All for this recession --the great depression. These people are suffering and its not their fault, they are paying the price for other people's mistakes. And the real culprits, the real ugly dark faces are simply driving past the misery in their shiny silver plated mercs clad in rich tux..they have enough dough left to make sure their coming generations in live comfort.
What penalty are they paying for pushing the age into darkness?for destroying the livelihood of millions? What punishment are they liable to get for making the innocent lives miserable?None can suffice for the crimes they have committed are heinous. And are they feeling guilty?any remorse? No sir they are not..the money provided for the bail outs of their companies is being spent on the CEO's bonuses. So the money provided to help common man get a square meal is being well spent on thanksgiving turkeys, holidays in Miami and gold tapestries in their bed rooms.
Communism , a tool which takes power from these handful of billionaire villains responsible for the present catastrophe is the right thing to be endorsed. Control should be taken by governments and used for the well being of working masses.These capitalists must be made to pay for their sins. Equal rights must be given to the employer and the employee , a clause underlined in communism. The rich should not be allowed to get away with their crimes, equality must prevail, justice must prevail...Time to go Red.....

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Final Judgement 2009

The verdict for 2009 elections is out. It has been a thumping win for United Progressive Alliance (U.P.A.) with Indian National Congress getting over 200 seats in the assembly.
The best thing to come out of these elections were that most of the smaller regional (read communal-casteist-separatist) parties were swept out. Mayawati's B.S.P, Mulayam Singh's S.P., Lalu's R.J.D, Paswan's L.J.D., Deve Gowda's J.D.(s), Chandrababu Naidu's T.D.P. to name a few.
The biggest and the most prominent losers this time were the Leftists- their toll crashing from nearly 70 in the last election to nearly 25 in this election.
The people this time voted not on cast and regional basis but gave preference to national parties and rightfully so, for these small parties act as merely blackmailers at the centre, haggling and hussling the leading party for their selfish gains. The government was forced to wet their beaks every time a major decision was to be taken and most importantly it was not allowed to take any decision in national favour as most of the time it clashed with these small parties "ideologies" (read vote banks). As seen in the 15 th Lok Sabha, the left parties never allowed the leading Congress to take any step in the country's favour warning to walk out every time.

How can a country even plan to develop when we have such blackmailers at the centre checking the government's each and every step.So this time the Indian voters have quite intellectually voted for the main parties, being well aware that a weak and puppet government is absolutely no good and it must be strengthened.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Slave Mentality

Its been over sixty years ever since we have gained independence, more than half a century since we chased out the English out of our country..truly a proud thing to talk about..
"chased the English out of our country" but have we chased " English out of our minds"???
The most heinous thing the Britishers did to us was lowering our morale, making us believe that we are some kind of cockroaches struggling to be saved out of the gutter, some kind of second rated citizens because of our colour and our language..they zeroed our level of confidence and made us insecure about every movement we tended to make.
Though we successfully won the country back we didnt win back the confidence; the second rate feeling, the "disgusting" feeling we get while relating to anything Indian. Be it Indian goods or Indian culture or Indian language every thing sucks..
And this mentality is equally dominant among the kids, the youth and the older generation as well..Namaste is yuk and hey there is cool..Am I making sense now?
How many times have you heard mommies boasting proudly of there children "you see our vicky doesnt know Hindi (or any other regional language), always struggles with it but yeah his English is superb"...Is this a thing to be proud of???
Shameful Shameful indeed..it is no crime not be well conversed in your mother tongue but being proud of the fact??? Sounds pretty disgusting to me..
The other day I was chatting to a lady friend..she said jokingly "I am a vampire and I Am going to suck your blood". I replied "yeah chudail go on".Her expressions suddenly changed "Call me Vampi or Dracula or devil but not chudail please, its so low standard"..right so matrabhasha is low standard now..saddened as I was with her reply, I thought this is a phenomenon we witness everywhere; the suppression of India..though Indianism is not merely speaking in the native or wearing khadi but this kind of degrading behaviour toward anything local is completely deplorable.
Who is responsible for it?? What can be done about it?? What will change the mentality of the people?? These are some questions that need to be pondered over and provided a solution...

Friday, February 27, 2009

Tata Nano..Small car's big impact

So finally the launch date for the much awaited Tata Nano has been declared---March 23rd..
Truly the car will bring Indian auto sector into world scenario by launching the cheapest car ever..
But I have some views regarding it..

Nano the cheapest car costing only 1lack rupees (US $2000) will be affordable even to the commonest man..The sales will be high (predictably) and nearly everyone will become a car owner...ok so far so good but then..
Even in the present conditions its a nightmare to drive in most of the cities..Narrow road spaces, high traffic and frequent jams are a daily scenes..The Indian Road system is unable to bear such high pressure even today God knows what will happen when every second person is going to own a car.

It is a poor man's car as advertised ; alright agreed but that doesn't mean that rich are not going to buy it..Instead of buying bikes for their school going kids now they will buy a car..One car per child..how interesting..
Where is the parking space going to come from? 99% of the Indian cities do not have a well planned parking system in markets , you can find vehicles parked anywhere..
After nano?? i think it would be impossible to go to the market itself..the office buildings, the college- school buildings, the residential buildings, all will surely run out of parking lots..

Then what about pollution? The suspended particles in the air already exceed the danger mark by a large amount what will happen after thousands of new cars will be rushing on the streets emitting dangerous gasses..One cancer per child maybe..or one bronchitis per child..

Then the fuel problems.. fuel is already lacking..what will happen in the future I dread..

Now don't call me a pessimist after reading all that for even I am waiting for the car with the same enthusiasm as others...just a little worriedly though....

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Moral Police..how immoral!!

Yeah Slap her hard, kick her, punch her on the face, rip her clothes, lift her skirt..

Such was the scene inside the amnesia pub in Mangalore when a gang of hooligans attacked the ladies present there...The ladies were beaten , their hair pulled, thrown on the grown n Sexually molested..All this done in the name of religion and culture, for the hooligans called themselves "Sri Ram Sene"
The so called guards of the Indian culture acted like the worst kind of degenerates..What Indian culture permits the harassment of women? Which religion gives them the privilege of beating young girls? According to the myth the Sri Ram Sena consisted of monkeys who fought like true warriors for saving a woman abducted by the demon king. But the modern day sena though consisting of men acted like wild beasts in a jungle disgracing the Ram-naam..
What are they trying to proveby this sick , disgusting, shameful and brutal display of power? Perhaps trying to glorify the "rich Indian culture" and "sanatan dharma"..
Few days back i read in the papers about Swat, the taliban captured area of Pakistan where the militants have issued an order that no woman shall have any right in the society and live like slaves. The women were told not to come out of their houses..if they do they should be accompanied by their husbands and always be clad in their burkha. The girls' schools were bombed and several girls were molested.
The current incident in Mangalore mirrors this attitude.

As if all this was not enough , even the Karnataka Government supportes the hooligans and said that their objective was right though the methos "may be" wrong..Due to increasing public pressure 27 out of the 40 goons were arrested and were granted bail the very next day..well democratic India...
The media persons were equallyas guilty of the crime as the perpetrators, they knew that the incident was going to take place so instead of informing the police they comfortably reached the place 15 mins prior to the sene and set up their cameras at the right places. Even while the girls were being molested they were busy filming this and did nothing to stop this brutality..

Who is responsible for such sadistic , uncivilised, unethical display of behaviour? the government? the narrow mindset? or lack of proper education?

Proper steps are needed to be taken to stop such incidents in future. The governments, the police and the law courts must act now so that future talibisation of India could be prevented...