Dangers Threatening India

Four Dangers which India is facing today

Swine Flu, Chinese aggression, economic recession and drought

Swine Flu:

Still at its inception in India, H1N1 virus has already affected a common urban Indian. The Swine Flu death toll has already crossed 82 in the country, the highest - number of deaths : cases detected, which raises doubt on the centre as well as the state to effectively tackle the deadly pandemic.

The government has declared that the swine flu is here to stay and with the number of death reported increasing every day, it could lead to a major problem if not controlled properly. Reports say that the vaccines for the H1 N1 virus will come up the next year. Let’s hope that till then the number of death is bare minimum

The swine flu has resulted in quite a loss to our country economy - particularly in Maharashtra. The closure of malls, multiplexes, etc have resulted in tremendous losses to the economy. Also the timing of the flu couldn't be worse. It struck in the 1st week of August and aggravated around the middle of the month when there were festivities across all the religions. The celebrations of the Independence Day, Gokulashtami, Patteti, Padusan (Jain New Year), Start of Id fastings, Ganesh festival, etc have been affected. Especially the income of the people who sell roadside things during the festivals has taken a beating. Movies - Kaminey, Life Partner have also survived loss of close to Rs 25 crore.

Chinese aggression

I’ve never considered China a friend of India. It has now and then made it clear to the govt of india that it supports Pakistan and Bangladesh. The act of banning Indian sea food in response to India's ban on the Chinese toys and milk products clearly shows the Chinese attitude towards India. It's opposition to India at the Asian Development Bank recently for an irrigation project in Arunachal Pradesh exemplifies its stand towards India. China is still not ready to accept that Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim are a part of soverign India.

According to a news (on *INDIA TV*), Chinese thinktank is planning to divide india into 30 parts. Though this piece of News is highly exaggerated, Indian Government cannot neglect the movement of Chinese troops along the northeastern border of our country. Steps to answer to their aggression should be thought about and implemented quickly.

I am though an admirer of China who by its sheer power has managed to emerge as a global leader. However, its hunger for is worrying me. It doesn’t believe in peaceful existence.

Economic recession and the drought combined

Time couldn't have been worse for the drought to strike India. India has been trying hard to come out of the clutches of the global recession. The huge fiscal deficit created by government of India to help the economy will not be sufficient in case the monsoons don't come in the September.

174 districts in India have been declared drought affected and huge chuncks of money are being allocated to these districts. However, according to some reports there has been corruption in the list too (some northeastern states receiving ample rain have also been declared drought prone).

Food security problem which was actually a problem this year has just become more grave with the declaration of drought. Problems related to power, water shortages, agricultural suicides, etc will be more rampant in the next year.

Thus, the next year looks very tough and I that India is able to sail through without much damage.

Wow what a month!

So many things occurred in the last month. The appointment of the cabinet of the new government in India, the failure of Indian cricket team at the world cup, the emergence of Fedrer as the 'all time greatest tennis player', the end of the M.J era, to the opening of the long awaited Bandra-Worli sea link, the presentation of the dismal budget by the FM and the slow progress of monsoon.

While all these diverse things were occurring, I've been having a great time at my new B-school at Pune. It has been a great and a wonderful experience so far here at my college.I've been really impressed by the quality of the students in my batch (their academic diversity as well as their achievements), the discipline at the institute (It is really like a school where attendence is taken in every lecture and the sitting arrangement of the students is predecided- something I only had in school), the attitude of Director (to keep everbody on the feet at all times with assignments), the welcome by the seniors at the Freshers party (where all the seniors dressed as if a fancy dress competition and made us all have a gala time), the ambience at the institute (I've felt like I am staying in isolation away from the city), and some faculty (I didn't like all though).The things worth mentioning are:

1. We had a test conducted on the very first day (commencement of lectures) on Financial accounting. (Most of us were ill-prepared) and got average marks

2. The outbound learning (A routine team building exercise which I enjoyed thoroughly)

3. The schedule - The schedule of the 1st month atleast was very gruelling which left no time for anyone to do anything other than studies. (I, however, managed to meet Vish, Shan, Ravi, Dhav once)

4. The academic rigour - The pace at which the things are taught here is very fast. (Infact, the school believes in the funda of learning and not teaching). So, we are made to self learn most of the things.

5. The Freshers day (Milaap)- It was one of the memorable events that I recall. The seniors dressed as if in a Fancy Dress competition made a grand entry into the institute auditorium in front of the whole junior batch. (The entry was really awesome - spectacular - wish I had taken my camera). For the first time after coming here (After nearly 1 month), I saw people dance, make fun and enjoy. It was a great change from the regular routine and a pleasant change.

6. The marketing assignments - There is one professor who asks the class to read the chapters from the book before taking lectures. Once we didn't read for his class. When he realized it, he gave the whole class a punishment assignment wherein we had to the write whole chapter on 24 A4 sized papers. It was the first time after school may be that I wrote for 5 hours continuously. The funnier part was that the marking scheme for this assignment was -10 to 0. The perfect assignment earned us 0 marks while any substandard work fetched us negative marks. Never heard about such a thing before.
There are a lot of other interesting things here though they are not that worth mentioning.
In short, the past month has been a sort of a roller-coaster ride for me and hope to continue doing well - both academically and extracurricularly.

How fair is it?

Consider the case of two of my friends who have obtained the same degree from UICT with almost the same academic record. Both had aim of obtaining a Ph D after the degree and then teaching at an institute and become a professor and then act as a consultant to the chemical industry.

One of the two opted for the option of doing a Ph D at an university in USA and the other opted to do it at UICT, the same college where both had done their under graduation. Needless to say that the second one had the desire to do something for our own country and do research for India and what better place than UICT (the best for chemical engineering in India).

The person who has gone to the USA for research enjoys a scholarship of $ 22,000 per annum.(the normal scholarship for any person putrsuing PhD there). In addition to this, he is offered some teaching assistanceship where he has to teach people simple mathematics which he is quite comfortable.Alongwith that excellent research facilities and the tag of staying in America (parents' pride and all that). The research consists of studing the cell wall of a human cell. Now this kind of research is done with a view of clubbing together research of different students from the same university to create some biological drug by a faculty member of the university. The /final result will be the development of some kind of drug. The benefactor of this research - USA & the drug manufacturing company.

The other guy starts his reserach with the Director of UICT, the highest paid chemical engineeing faculty in India (on consultancy & teaching). For the first two years, he studies multphase reactors & then turns to research in core chemcial engineering, the development of reactors. Alongwith this, he has to do a lot of work on nuclear projects, a result of the Nuclear Deal in India. After 4 years of hardwork, he is offered a post of faculty as a lecturer & he has to teach multi-phase reactors - (a tough subject in chemical engineering) to final year students. In this case, the benefactor of this is India and its people (power generation by the development of new reactors). He is offered only Rs. 22,000 per month.

How fair is it - a person who wants to do research in India and do something for India is offered only Rs 22,000 per month and another who does research in USA earns $ 22,000 per annum (close to Rs. 90,000 per month).

Cartoons - What happened to them?

When I think of my school days, I remember that I and some of my friends used to watch 'Disney Hour' at 6 o'clock on Zee or the Sony channel without fail. In fact, when we reached school the next morning, the topic of discussion used to be the cartoon seen the previous evening. We spent the lunch hours on discussions on the cartoons like Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Chip & Dale, Tales Pin, Alladin, Mickey & Friends, etc. We even talked about cartoons on the cartoon network like Caption Planet, Swat Cats, The Centurions, Scooby Do and many more. Everybody - right from children in 1st standard to those in 10th used to watch the cartoons daily. Even some adults used to see the shows. Such was the power of these cartoons.

The cartoons have played quite a role in my upbringing indeed. I have unknowingly learnt quite a lot of things from these cartoons. While cartoons like Gummi Bears and Alladin took me to a new world which improved my ability to imagine, cartoons like Tales Pin and Duck Tales helped me learn the art of deducing from clues, thereby improving reasoning skills. (treasure hunting). Caption Planet threw light on the environment and nature while Swat Cats and Centurions focussed on the new developments. Apart from these teachings, the moral values like honesty, self-discipline, truthfulness, friendship, sacrifice, etc. were learnt from almost all these cartoons.

I wonder whats happened to the cartoons now.

Last week when I had been home and did not have much to do, I turned to the cartoons for fun. I was surprised to see that not a single old Disney cartoon was being telecasted on any of the children TV channels. 'Tom and Jerry' was being shown on the Cartoon Network for long stretches of 3 hours or so. Now 'Tom & Jerry' though good, (in terms of animation) doesn't help much w.r.t developing imagination, moral values. Nor can we watch the mindless cat and mouse show for hours long. The other cartoons shown on the cartoon network were not watchable due to poor animation or negligible content. The only cartoon on which was watchable on the Cartoon Network was Richie Rich. But the number of breaks in the 30 minutes show (about 4 or 5) took all the fun away .
Other channels like the Toon Disney showed sme cartoons under the name JETIX. The quality of animation of these JETIX cartoons was pitiful. I couldn't distinguish one character from other. (I wonder whats happened to the animation industry in spite of the advances in digital technology). On the Pogo channel, some good cartoons were being shown but none were interesting. These cartoons were appropriate only for a child in K.G class - were filled with a lot of colors and music with no story whatsoever. When I tuned to the Disney Channel, I was surprised to see no animated shows screened. I tried to see the much hyped recent cartoons of Shin Chan and the Pokemon on Hungama channel but unfortunately none of these were aired during my stay of 5 days.

Largely, I am disappointed with the quality and the content of the cartoons aired on television. None of the cartoons are what can be called appealing to the children or the teen agers. None of them had any quality of the brilliant Disney Cartoons mentioned before.
I really feel that the kids of today are missing out on an important aspect in their upbringing - the cartoons.
I wish that the old cartoons are again aired on the television so that kids of this generation do not miss out on the wonderful opportunity to learn from the cartoons on their own.

What happened to our dreams?

This thought occurred to me when I was seeing the Aviva Life Insurance Children Plan advertisement in which children talk about becoming pilot, sportsman, model, etc. after growing up.

A lot of children have plans to do something adventurous or creative in life like becoming a pilot, sportsman, model, actor, painter. However, I wonder how many children actually end up becoming something they wish for. May be a few have but I don't think that a majority of children end up becoming an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer which is so very conventional. Why does this occur?

I feel that our educational system has been created in such a way that a child gets trained to follow the conventional career path. After standard tenth, a child is made to choose between science, commerce or arts. While arts is a field where painting and other creative skills could be honed, it is not the preferred choice. This is because arts is not viewed as a good career option by most of the parents. They force a child to take up either commerce or science. Also the peer pressure plays a major role wherein a child is forced to take up either science or commerce. After 12th standard, again the path forward for most is engineering, medicine or law for science and B.Com (CA alongside) or BBA for a commerce candidate. And after the completion of these courses, he/she starts to look for a job to support his/her family. Some go for higher studies (many don't) and do their post graduation in their respective fields. Then they start earing and get involved in their jobs. Now if he/she has to go for his/her dream it has to be done so only by quitting the job which becomes very difficult considering the fact that he/she has to support family.

I have a friend of mine who has completed his LLB degree and now wants to follow his dream of becoming an actor. So, now he has started his new path to become an actor. It has been a lot of struggle for him to go along a path which is totally different from his qualification. If he had started preparing for it when he was in 11th or 12th, he could have been in a better position. However, better late thane never. Moreover, his family approves of him becoming an actor. So, I feel that he will achieve what he dreamt of. I wish him all the luck to become a renowned actor.

In the case above, the parents were supportive and there were no pressures on him. However, I do not think that most of the parents will not be supportive.

So, what happened to the dreams a child saw? The dreams died somewhere right in the school where the child was compelled to follow the conventional path and then his dreams remained dreams.

I feel that this happens for a majority of the children. Few lucky ones have a chance to follow their dreams and fulfill their aspirations.

So, what can be done? We can in no way change the educational system in a radical manner. So, it is the parents who have to be supportive of their children to help them pursue their dreams. Also, the child should be determined enough to be follow the path which will help him achieve his dream.
As a song from Westlife goes,
'Make that magic rule, let the miracle stay. Dreams come true'

Looking at the Sea

Looking at the calm sea about 6 years back at Ganpatipule, my father asked “What does the sea help us learn?” I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer as is the case when one is young (I am still young though). He later explained “It makes us leave our ego aside. A man thinks that he has conquered the world. He thinks that he can do anything. Yet in front of the large body mass of the sea, a man is just a small tiny creature standing helpless. So, whatever a man thinks of himself is just his brain doing the talking with absolute reality being that man is nothing in front of the sea. It has tremendous power to do things which he cannot even think. So, whatever ego a person has just dies away in front of the sea.”These thoughts didn’t leave me. From then on, I started to view the sea as something with a force to do anything. The Tsunami incident made these thoughts more profound.Now after so many years, I have come to realize the deep meaning of the statements made by my father. Not only did I understand the meaning of the explanation given by him but also I made up came up with my observation. I think that the sea is one of the most powerful forces the nature has created. It is spread over vast area and is all the time moving with waves always trying to expand its area. Yet despite all the turbulence within, it remains on the area it occupies. It doesn’t move out of the area it has chosen. (Tsunami is a time when an earthquake caused it to move. But at all the other times, it is in its own fixed area). It means the sea respects its existence and at the same time it respects the existence of humans and all the other living beings. Despite of all the forces within (waves and the high tides), it doesn’t trespass the area occupied by humans. This belief helps us understand we should respect each and every individual irrespective of our size and position, thereby, forgo the ego we have regarding ourselves.

Are IITs losing their edge?

"IITs still have their charm" was the newshead line on CNBC tonight. The news was with reference to the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) to be conducted on Sunday (12th April).
The news report described how despite the lacklustre placements and the global slowdown, there is a rise in the number of students appearing for the JEE.

Considering the fact that the internet has penetrated in the tier 3 cities and the rural areas coupled with the rise in the awareness amongst parents of the fact that the IITs are the best insitiutions in India for engineering (thanks to the mass media), it is so obvious that more students will opt for the IITs.

Well my point here is that the IITs are actually losing their edge as the premier educational institutions in India on the academic front. To prove this point, I will illustrate an example I have had while working for SI Group India Limited.

As a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility, the organization SI Group India Limited (Formerly Herdillia Chemicals Limited) allows students of chemical engineering from engineering colleges in Mumbai like IITB, D.J.Sanghvi, etc. The educational course mandates that the students need to have atleast one chemical plant visit in their third year. Thus, the plant visit helps the company as well as the educational institution. (both benefit through the activity). But do the students (for the benefit of whom the whole exercise is conducted) actually benefit?

Well most of the teachers will say that the exercise helps students see how a chemical plant and various unit operations which they have learnt. Even I felt that this should be the case. But after looking at the students who visited SIG for the past two years, I felt that students were not really interested to see the actual working of the plant. They just came to the plant to satisfy the compulosry attendance criterion. Let me give my personal experience.

I was asked to show the plant to the students for a couple of times this year (and thrice the last year). I started with a small presentation highlighting different products of the company and the processes for their manufacture. I deliberately didn't say some important things (like the type of packings, trays, reactor and other things of importance for a chemical engineering student) thinking the students will want to know them. But to my disappointment, no one in all the batches asked any questions. They were sitting only with the intention of finishing the task asap and leave the factory. Further, during the plant round, out of a batch of 30 students, only 3 or 4 students were found to actually listen to what I was saying. Infact, about 10 students were actually chatting something else (maybe films) and were about 30-40 meters away from me and did not hear even a single complete sentence from me during the plant round. There were only 3-4 students who were actually excited to see the plant. Others were disinterested to it.
Adding to my horror, it happened once that even the guide who had come with the students was not aware of the basic equipments of a plant. How the hell was he supposed to teach students?

One of the things that I learnt from their plant visit was that the chemical engineering course at IIT didn't include the 'environmental engineering' as a part of their syllabus. Now that's ridiculous. Even small colleges where chemical engineering is taught (Say PVPIT at Sangli, D J Sanghvi or LIT) have a compulsory course for environmental engineering. Basically, chemical engineering is incomplete without environmental engineering. Students didn't even have any idea about effluent treatment plant (let alone its working which we had been taught in detail).

These experiences imply the these students have actually joined IIT with the intention of securing high paying jobs and not with the intention of acquiring knowledge. Further more, the teachers here are basically just doing their jobs but not nurturing talent (atleast at the undergraduate levels. I know that at PhD level, the quality of researches is excellent) nor do they wish to change their syllabus or even consider to ammend a part of it so as to make it more industrially relevant. Later while chatting with the VP of the company, I realized that even he shared the same view.

So, have the students come to the best educational institution of India with a view of getting high paying scale jobs? Also what is the use of teaching students something which is incomplete and not of the standards which a normal person (who sees TV and feels that ppl at IIT get the best knowledge available) ?
If this condition persists, I feel that the IIT's will really lose their edge of being the best. Something has to be really done to change the attitudes of students coupled with significant changes in the syllabus (atleast the syllabus of chemical engineering - other branches I have no idea) so that they retain their status of being the best.

Starting to script the journey called 'Life'

It is often said the the most difficult step for any activity is actually initiating it. Be it setting up an enterprise, learning a musical instrument or even starting to write a blog. Once the activity is initiated, we automatically take steps to take the activity to its logical conclusion.

So very true!

For me too the first step of actually starting to write my blog was a difficult step. I wished to start writing this blog 6 months back. But due to my habit of procrastinating things, the first step got delayed। I couldn't make up my mind to actually start scripting my ideas and experiences. However, finally i have started this. Yes!
'Khair der aye durust aye' Start toh kiya !

Looking forward to add some spice in my life by jotting down important events happening in my life and expressing opinions about different events occuring around me.

So, this ends my first and the most difficult part of this activity of scripting my life. I just hope to continue blogging.