- Did you know that the length from your wrist to your elbow is about the same length as your foot? Well let’s put that to the test. About 10.5 inches, and about 10.5 inches. So let’s fee if it works. Yep, its about right.
- The outside of your eye is called the cornea. Now the cornea cells are the only cells in the body that don’t need to get their oxygen through the blood. They can actually get the oxygen that they need from the air. So that’s why when you use contacts too frequently or sleep in them, its bad for your eyes because they’re not getting the oxygen that they need.
- Well all know what this is right? Well if you saw somebody trying to use this on their hair, you might think they’re a little weird huh? Well they might not be as weird as you may think. Why? Because your hair is made out of the same material as your fingernails.
- Did you know that it takes 72 muscles to produce human speech?
- You may have noticed that you have to cut your fingernails more often that your toenails. Well that’s because the longer the finger, the faster it grows. So the middle finger is going to grow the fastest and the slowest. Your toes are about 1/3 of the size of your fingers, so that means that you have to cut your fingernails 3 times as often as your toenails.
- The muscle that controls your eyelid is the fastest muscle in your entire body. It allows you to blink about 5 times a second, and about 15,000 times a day. And another thing is that women blink about twice as many times as men.
- Well you probably already know that a yard is 3 feet, but who came up with a yard? Well that was King Henry. In the 12th century, he came up with the standardized length of a yard. It was the distance from his nose, to his thumb.
- When you see pictures of bones in magazines, or when you see them at a museum, they tend to be white. So you might think that the bones in a human body are white, but that’s not true. The living bones in the human body range form colors of beige to a light brown. The reason why they’re white in museums and in pictures is because they take the bones and they boil them and they clean them, so it bleaches them white.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Here are some interesting facts about the human body
Sunday, October 3, 2010
மனைவியை மகிழ்விப்பது எப்படி?
அழகிய வரவேற்பு
- வேலையிலிருந்தோ, வெளியூர் பயணத்திலிருந்தோ அல்லது எங்கிருந்து வீட்டுக்கு வந்தாலும் நல்ல வாழ்த்துக்களைத் தெரிவித்தவாறு வீட்டில் நுழையுங்கள்.
- மலர்ந்த முகத்துடன் மனைவியைச் சந்தியுங்கள்.
- வெளியில் சந்தித்த நல்ல செய்திகiளைத் தெரிவித்துவிட்டு மற்ற செய்திகளை வேறு சந்தர்ப்பத்திற்காக தள்ளி வையுங்கள்.
இனிப்பான சொல்லும் பூரிப்பான கனிவும்
- நேர்மறையான நல்ல வார்த்தைகளைத் தேர்ந்தெடுத்து பேசுங்கள். எதிர்மறையான வார்த்தைகளை தவிர்ந்து கொள்ளுங்கள்.
- உங்களின் வார்த்தைகளுக்கு அவள் பதில் கொடுக்கும்பொழுது செவிதாழ்த்துங்கள்.
- தெளிவான வார்த்தைகளைக் கொண்டு பேசுங்கள். அவள் புரிந்து கொள்ளவில்லையெனில் மீண்டும் மீண்டும் சொல்லுங்கள்.
- மனைவியை செல்லமாக அழகிய பெயர்களைக் கொண்டு அழைக்கலாம்.நட்பும் இனிய நிகழ்வுகளை மீட்டுதலும்
- மனைவிக்காக நேரத்தை ஒதுக்குங்கள்.
- நல்ல விஷயங்களை அவளுடன் பகிர்ந்து கொள்ளுங்கள்.
- உங்களின் சந்தோஷ அனுபவங்களை இருவரும் சேர்ந்திருக்கும்பொழுது மீட்டிப்பாருங்களேன். (முதலிரவு மற்றும் சுற்றுலாவின்பொழுது ஏற்பட்ட...)
விளையாட்டும் கவன ஈர்ப்பும்
- நகைச்சுவையுடன் கலகலப்பாகப் பேசி அவளின் பிரச்சினைகளை மறக்கடியுங்கள்.
- ஒருவருக்கொருவர் போட்டி போட்டு, பந்தயங்களில் ஈடுபடுங்கள். அது விளையாட்டாகவோ, , பொதுஅறிவு போன்ற கல்விகளைக் கற்பதிலோ அல்லது வேலை செய்வதிலோ இருக்கலாம்.
வீட்டு வேலைகளில் மனைவிக்கு உதவ
- வீட்டு வேலைகளில் எதிலெல்லாம் மனைவிக்குத் துணைபுரிய முடியுமோ அதிலெல்லாம் உதவுங்கள். மிக முக்கியமாக அவள் நோயாளியாகவோ களைப்படைந்தோ இருந்தால்.
- கடினமான வீட்டு வேலைகளில் மனைவி ஈடுபடும்பொழுது நன்றி தெரிவித்து அவளை உற்சாகப் படுத்துங்கள்.
இனியவளின் ஆலோசனை
- குடும்ப விஷயங்களில் உங்கள் மனைவியுடன் கூடி ஆலோசனை செய்யுங்கள்.
- அவளிடம் ஆலோசனை செய்யப்பட வேண்டும் என அவள் எதிர்பார்க்கும் பொழுது அவளின் உணர்வுக்கு மதிப்பளியுங்கள் (பிள்ளைகளின் திருமண விஷயங்கள் போன்றவை)
- மனைவியின் கருத்துக்களை துச்சமாக நினைக்காமல் கவனமாகப் பரிசோதியுங்கள்.
- மனைவின் கருத்து சிறந்ததாக இருந்தால் (உங்கள் கருத்தை புறந்தள்ளிவிட்டு) அவளின் கருத்தைத் தேர்ந்தெடுக்க தயக்கம் காட்டாதீர்கள்.
- ஆலோசனை தந்து உதவியதற்காக அவளுக்கு நன்றி கூறலாம்.
பிறரை காணச் செல்லும்பொழுது
- மார்க்கத்தில் மற்றும் பழக்கத்தில் உயர்ந்த பெண்களுடன் தோழமை வைத்துக் கொள்ள வாய்ப்பு ஏற்படுத்திக் கொடுங்கள். மேலும் உறவினர்களைப் பார்க்க செல்வதால் இறைவனிடம் நற்கூலி இருக்கிறது என்பதை ஞாபகப்படுத்துங்கள் .
- அவளுக்கு சங்கடம் தரக்கூடிய இடங்களுக்கு போகச் சொல்லி கட்டாயப்படுத்துவது நல்லதல்ல.
உங்களின் வெளியூர் பயணத்தின்பொழுது
- மனைவிக்கு தேவையான நல்ல அறிவுரைகளை கூறிவிட்டு அழகான முறையில் விடைபெறுங்கள்.
- நீங்கள் வீட்டில் இல்லாதபொழுது இரத்தபந்த உறவினர்களிடம் அவசியமான உதவிகளை செய்து தரும்படி கேட்டுக்கொள்ளலாம்.
- குடும்பச் செலவுக்கு தேவையான பணத்தை கொடுத்துச் செல்லுங்கள்.
- நீங்கள் வெளிய+ரில் இருக்கும் நாட்களில் டெலிபோன், கடிதம், ஈமெயில் போன்றவற்றின் மூலமாக மனைவியுடன் தொடர்பு கொள்ளுங்கள் (பிரிவின்பொழுதுதான் இருவருக்குமே ஒவ்வொருவரின் அருமையும் முழுமையாகப் புரியும். அப்பொழுது இவற்றின் மூலமாக நீங்கள் வெளிப்படுத்தும் உணர்வு உங்களின் பரஸ்பர அன்பை வளர்க்கும்).
- முடிந்தவரை சீக்கிரம் ஊர் திரும்ப முயற்சி செய்யுங்கள்.
- திரும்பி வரும்பொழுது அவளுக்கு விருப்பமான பரிசுப் பொருள்களை வாங்கி வரலாம்.
- எதிர்பாராத நேரத்திலோ இரவு நேரத்திலோ வீடு திரும்புவதைத் தவிர்த்துக் கொள்ளுங்கள் (உங்களுக்காக அலங்கரித்துக் கொள்ளாமல் இருப்பது அவளுக்கு சங்டத்தை ஏற்படுத்தும்).
- பிரச்சினைகள் எதுவும் வராது என எண்ணினால் மனைவியையும் உடன் அழைத்துச் செல்லலாம்.
பொருளாதார உதவி
- கணவன் என்பவன் குடும்பத்தின் பொருளாதாரத் தேவைகளை பூர்த்தி செய்பவனாக இருத்தல் வேண்டும் மாறாக கஞ்சத்தனம் செய்யக் கூடாது. (வீண் விரயமும் செய்யக் கூடாது)
- அவளுக்கு ஊட்டிவிடும் உணவு முதல் அவளுக்காகச் செய்யும் அவசியச் செலவுகள் வரை அனைத்திற்கும் இறைவனிடம் நற்கூலி இருக்கிறது என்பதை ஞாபகப்படுத்திக் கொள்ளுங்கள்.
- அவசிய தேவைக்கான பணத்தை உங்களிடம் கேட்பதற்கு முன்னரே கொடுப்பதுதான் சிறந்தது.
அழகும் நறுமணமும
- அக்குள்முடி மற்றும் மறைவான பகுதியில் உள்ள முடிகளை நீக்கிவிடுவது.
- எப்பொழுதும் நேர்த்தியாக அழகுபடுத்திக் கொண்டு சுத்தமாக இருப்பது.
- அவளுக்குப் பிடித்தமான வாசனைத் திரவியங்களைப் பூசிக் கொள்ளுங்கள்.
தாம்பத்யம்
- மனைவிக்கு தாம்பத்ய சுகம் கொடுப்பது கணவனின் கடமை. (உடல்நலக்குறைவோ அல்லது உங்களின் மனைவியின் அனுமதியோ இருந்தால் தவிர).
- அதற்கெனவே உள்ள முன்பக்கத்தின் வழியாக மட்டும் (மலப்பாதையின் வழியாக ஈடுபடுவது தடுக்கப்பட்டது.
- காதல் வார்த்தைகளுடன் முன்விளையாட்டுக்களில் ஈடுபடுங்கள்.
- அவளை திருப்திப்படுத்தும் வரை தொடருங்கள்.
- அமைதிக்குப் பிறகு நகைச்சுவையால் அவ்விடத்தைக் கலகலப்பாக்குங்கள்.
- மாதவிடாய் காலத்தில் தாம்பத்யத்தில் ஈடுபடுவது தடுக்கப்பட்டது.
- பெண் என்பவள் அதிகம் வெட்கப்படுபவள். எனவே அவளின் கூச்சத்தை நீக்குவதில் எல்லை கடந்துவிடாதீர்கள்.
- அவளுக்கு கஷ்டமான கோணங்களை தவிர்ந்து கொள்ளுங்கள். நீங்கள் பருமனான ஆளாக இருந்தால் அவளின் நெஞ்சில் முழுமையாக சாய்ந்து அழுத்தத்தை ஏற்படுத்தி சுவாசத்திற்கு கஷ்டம் ஏற்படுத்தாதீர்கள்.
- அவளின் நோய் மற்றும் களைப்படைந்த விஷயங்களை கவனத்தில் கொண்டு பொருத்தமான சந்தர்ப்பத்தைத் தேர்ந்தெடுங்கள்.
இரகசியங்களைப் பாதுகாத்தல்
- படுக்கையறை விஷயங்கள் மற்றும் அவளின் சொந்தப் பிரச்சினைகள் போன்றவற்றை பிறரிடம் வெளிப்படுத்தாதீர்கள்.
மனைவியின் குடும்பத்தினருக்கும் தோழிகளுக்கும் மரியாதை செய்தல்
- அவளின் பெற்றோர்கள் மற்றும் உறவினர்களைப் பார்க்க அழைத்துச் செல்லுங்கள்.
- உங்களின் வீட்டுக்கு வர அவர்களுக்கு அழைப்பு கொடுங்கள். அப்படி வரும்பொழுது அன்புடன் வரவேற்று உபசரியுங்கள்.
- அவசியமான தருணங்களில் அவர்களுக்கு ஒத்தாசையாக இருங்கள்.
- பொருளாதாரம் மற்றும் உங்களின் சக்திக்குட்பட்ட உதவிகளைச் செய்யுங்கள்.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Statement on the Status of Tamil as a Classical Language
Professor Maraimalai has asked me to write regarding the position of Tamil as a classical language, and I am delighted to respond to his request.
I have been a Professor of Tamil at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1975 and am currently holder of the Tamil Chair at that institution. My degree, which I received in 1970, is in Sanskrit, from Harvard, and my first employment was as a Sanskrit professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1969. Besides Tamil and Sanskrit, I know the classical languages of Latin and Greek and have read extensively in their literatures in the original. I am also well-acquainted with comparative linguistics and the literatures of modern Europe (I know Russian, German, and French and have read extensively in those languages) as well as the literatures of modern India, which, with the exception of Tamil and some Malayalam, I have read in translation. I have spent much time discussing Telugu literature and its tradition with V. Narayanarao, one of the greatest living Telugu scholars, and so I know that tradition especially well. As a long-standing member of a South Asian Studies department, I have also been exposed to the richness of both Hindi literature, and I have read in detail about Mahadevi Varma, Tulsi, and Kabir.
I have spent many years -- most of my life (since 1963) -- studying Sanskrit. I have read in the original all of Kalidasa, Magha, and parts of Bharavi and Sri Harsa. I have also read in the original the fifth book of the Rig Veda as well as many other sections, many of the Upanisads, most of the Mahabharata, the Kathasaritsagara, Adi Sankara’s works, and many other works in Sanskrit.
I say this not because I wish to show my erudition, but rather to establish my fitness for judging whether a literature is classical. Let me state unequivocally that, by any criteria one may choose, Tamil is one of the great classical literatures and traditions of the world.
The reasons for this are many; let me consider them one by one.
First, Tamil is of considerable antiquity. It predates the literatures of other modern Indian languages by more than a thousand years. Its oldest work, the Tolkappiyam,, contains parts that, judging from the earliest Tamil inscriptions, date back to about 200 BCE. The greatest works of ancient Tamil, the Sangam anthologies and the Pattuppattu, date to the first two centuries of the current era. They are the first great secular body of poetry written in India, predating Kalidasa's works by two hundred years.
Second, Tamil constitutes the only literary tradition indigenous to India that is not derived from Sanskrit. Indeed, its literature arose before the influence of Sanskrit in the South became strong and so is qualitatively different from anything we have in Sanskrit or other Indian languages. It has its own poetic theory, its own grammatical tradition, its own esthetics, and, above all, a large body of literature that is quite unique. It shows a sort of Indian sensibility that is quite different from anything in Sanskrit or other Indian languages, and it contains its own extremely rich and vast intellectual tradition.
Third, the quality of classical Tamil literature is such that it is fit to stand beside the great literatures of Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian and Arabic. The subtlety and profundity of its works, their varied scope (Tamil is the only premodern Indian literature to treat the subaltern extensively), and their universality qualify Tamil to stand as one of the great classical traditions and literatures of the world. Everyone knows the Tirukkural, one of the world's greatest works on ethics; but this is merely one of a myriad of major and extremely varied works that comprise the Tamil classical tradition. There is not a facet of human existence that is not explored and illuminated by this great literature.
Finally, Tamil is one of the primary independent sources of modern Indian culture and tradition. I have written extensively on the influence of a Southern tradition on the Sanskrit poetic tradition. But equally important, the great sacred works of Tamil Hinduism, beginning with the Sangam Anthologies, have undergirded the development of modern Hinduism. Their ideas were taken into the Bhagavata Purana and other texts (in Telugu and Kannada as well as Sanskrit), whence they spread all over India. Tamil has its own works that are considered to be as sacred as the Vedas and that are recited alongside Vedic mantras in the great Vaisnava temples of South India (such as Tirupati). And just as Sanskrit is the source of the modern Indo-Aryan languages, classical Tamil is the source language of modern Tamil and Malayalam. As Sanskrit is the most conservative and least changed of the Indo-Aryan languages, Tamil is the most conservative of the Dravidian languages, the touchstone that linguists must consult to understand the nature and development of Dravidian.
In trying to discern why Tamil has not been recognized as a classical language, I can see only a political reason: there is a fear that if Tamil is selected as a classical language, other Indian languages may claim similar status. This is an unnecessary worry. I am well aware of the richness of the modern Indian languages -- I know that they are among the most fecund and productive languages on earth, each having begotten a modern (and often medieval) literature that can stand with any of the major literatures of the world. Yet none of them is a classical language. Like English and the other modern languages of Europe (with the exception of Greek), they rose on preexisting traditions rather late and developed in the second millennium. The fact that Greek is universally recognized as a classical language in Europe does not lead the French or the English to claim classical status for their languages.
To qualify as a classical tradition, a language must fit several criteria: it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature. Unlike the other modern languages of India, Tamil meets each of these requirements. It is extremely old (as old as Latin and older than Arabic); it arose as an entirely independent tradition, with almost no influence from Sanskrit or other languages; and its ancient literature is indescribably vast and rich.
It seems strange to me that I should have to write an essay such as this claiming that Tamil is a classical literature -- it is akin to claiming that India is a great country or Hinduism is one of the world's great religions. The status of Tamil as one of the great classical languages of the world is something that is patently obvious to anyone who knows the subject. To deny that Tamil is a classical language is to deny a vital and central part of the greatness and richness of Indian culture.
(Signed:)
George L. Hart
Professor of Tamil
Chair in Tamil Studies
Friday, July 30, 2010
Information Technology in India
Information Technology is one of the most important industries in the Indian economy. The IT industry of India has registered huge growth in recent years. India's IT industry grew from 150 million US Dollars in 1990-1991 to a whopping 50 billion UD Dollars in 2006-2007. In the last ten years the Information Technology industry in India has grown at an average annual rate of 30%.
The liberalization of the Indian economy in the early nineties has played a major role in the growth of the IT industry of India. Deregulation policies adopted by the Government of India have led to substantial domestic investment and inflow of foreign capital to this industry. In 1970, high import duties had forced IBM to leave India. However, after the early nineties, many multi national IT companies, including IBM, have set up their operations in India. During the ten year period 1992-2002, the Indian software industry grew at double the rate as the US software industry.
Some of the major reasons for the significant growth of the IT industry of India are -
Abundant availability of skilled manpower
Reduced telecommunication and internet costs
Reduced import duties on software and hardware products
Cost advantages
Encouraging government policies
Some of the major companies in the IT industry of India are -
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
Infosys
Wipro
IBM
HP
HCL
Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS)
Patni
Satyam
NIIT
India's IT industry caters to both domestic and export markets. Exports contribute around 75% of the total revenue of the IT industry in India. The IT industry can be broadly divided into four segments -
IT services
Softwares (includes both engineering and Research and Development)
ITES-BPO
Hardware
HR Software
Cost effective payroll and HR software solutions from KCS.
The liberalization of the Indian economy in the early nineties has played a major role in the growth of the IT industry of India. Deregulation policies adopted by the Government of India have led to substantial domestic investment and inflow of foreign capital to this industry. In 1970, high import duties had forced IBM to leave India. However, after the early nineties, many multi national IT companies, including IBM, have set up their operations in India. During the ten year period 1992-2002, the Indian software industry grew at double the rate as the US software industry.
Some of the major reasons for the significant growth of the IT industry of India are -
Abundant availability of skilled manpower
Reduced telecommunication and internet costs
Reduced import duties on software and hardware products
Cost advantages
Encouraging government policies
Some of the major companies in the IT industry of India are -
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
Infosys
Wipro
IBM
HP
HCL
Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS)
Patni
Satyam
NIIT
India's IT industry caters to both domestic and export markets. Exports contribute around 75% of the total revenue of the IT industry in India. The IT industry can be broadly divided into four segments -
IT services
Softwares (includes both engineering and Research and Development)
ITES-BPO
Hardware
HR Software
Cost effective payroll and HR software solutions from KCS.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Education System in India
Barun S. Mitra has recently written a thought provoking op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how the Indian State is trying to regulate innovation out of the educational system by strangulating it. To first put things in perspective, Mitra acknowledges that India’s education system and its engineering schools in particular produce some of the world’s brightest graduates for its increasingly knowledge-intensive economy. However, he also cited some of the following and somewhat shocking facts and statistics about the vast majority of graduates and the workforce that India’s education system currently produces:
- Only 5% to 7% of India’s current workforce has undergone any formal training in a skill.
- Nearly 70% of India’s current workforce may not have even completed their primary schooling.
- Approximately 135 million children are enrolled in primary schooling and about 15 in college but only 2.3 million will graduate.
- Just 12% of the 18-24 age groups enrol for any sort of post-high-school courses.
- Only 10% to 15% of all graduates are actually employable.
- Less than half of the 200,000 post graduates in the sciences are employable.
- Only 25% of engineering graduates are employable and approximately 64% of employers are not satisfied with the skills of engineering graduates.
- For 2008, Infosys spent US$5,000 to retrain each of the employees it hired while Wipro spent about 1% of its annual revenues on retraining the fresh graduates it recruited.
To address this situation, India passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in 2009. The new law, which took effect last April, requires the government to educate all children for free until the age 14 and for all primary schools to have one teacher for every 30 pupils (instead of today’s average of 50). Hence, state-run schools will be upgraded while private schools will be forced to reserve one quarter of their slots for children who come from impoverished backgrounds and all private schools will need to win official government recognition within three years – or else be shut down. All told, the law will cost about US$35 billion over the next five years.
However and when reporting about the new law, the Christian Science Monitor noted that state-run schools are considered to be so shoddy that 50% of parents in urban area have chosen to send their children to private schools where they receive a better education. In fact, the Christian Science Monitor interviewed a mother who chooses to spend 300 rupees (US$6.60) a month to send her child to a private school located in a slum. She was even quoted as saying that its much better than any government run school and that everybody says so.
This leads back to Mitra’s criticisms as he noted that surveys have shown that 40% to 50% of children from the slums of Delhi actually attend private informal schools. However, he also noted that the setting up of private schools is already completely tied up by the need for government licenses and permits. In fact, it requires 30-35 types of government permissions just to set up a school in Delhi and Mitra noted that hardly any of the coaching institutes that prepare students for engineering and medical colleges would be able to meet the new regulatory standards to qualify as a school. Moreover, he noted that senior officials at education related regulatory bodies have been accused of corruption and that one Kolkata newspaper has estimated that starting a technical or professional institute would cost US$10,000 to US$50,000 in bribes while university status would cost US$1-2 million in bribes.
Hence, we want to know what you our readers think of the new Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act and India’s education system in general. Will the Act do anything to fix the problems that plague India’s education system or will companies, especially those in the IT services and outsourcing industries, still need to spend considerable amounts of money to retrain the graduates that India’s education system produces?
- Only 5% to 7% of India’s current workforce has undergone any formal training in a skill.
- Nearly 70% of India’s current workforce may not have even completed their primary schooling.
- Approximately 135 million children are enrolled in primary schooling and about 15 in college but only 2.3 million will graduate.
- Just 12% of the 18-24 age groups enrol for any sort of post-high-school courses.
- Only 10% to 15% of all graduates are actually employable.
- Less than half of the 200,000 post graduates in the sciences are employable.
- Only 25% of engineering graduates are employable and approximately 64% of employers are not satisfied with the skills of engineering graduates.
- For 2008, Infosys spent US$5,000 to retrain each of the employees it hired while Wipro spent about 1% of its annual revenues on retraining the fresh graduates it recruited.
To address this situation, India passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in 2009. The new law, which took effect last April, requires the government to educate all children for free until the age 14 and for all primary schools to have one teacher for every 30 pupils (instead of today’s average of 50). Hence, state-run schools will be upgraded while private schools will be forced to reserve one quarter of their slots for children who come from impoverished backgrounds and all private schools will need to win official government recognition within three years – or else be shut down. All told, the law will cost about US$35 billion over the next five years.
However and when reporting about the new law, the Christian Science Monitor noted that state-run schools are considered to be so shoddy that 50% of parents in urban area have chosen to send their children to private schools where they receive a better education. In fact, the Christian Science Monitor interviewed a mother who chooses to spend 300 rupees (US$6.60) a month to send her child to a private school located in a slum. She was even quoted as saying that its much better than any government run school and that everybody says so.
This leads back to Mitra’s criticisms as he noted that surveys have shown that 40% to 50% of children from the slums of Delhi actually attend private informal schools. However, he also noted that the setting up of private schools is already completely tied up by the need for government licenses and permits. In fact, it requires 30-35 types of government permissions just to set up a school in Delhi and Mitra noted that hardly any of the coaching institutes that prepare students for engineering and medical colleges would be able to meet the new regulatory standards to qualify as a school. Moreover, he noted that senior officials at education related regulatory bodies have been accused of corruption and that one Kolkata newspaper has estimated that starting a technical or professional institute would cost US$10,000 to US$50,000 in bribes while university status would cost US$1-2 million in bribes.
Hence, we want to know what you our readers think of the new Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act and India’s education system in general. Will the Act do anything to fix the problems that plague India’s education system or will companies, especially those in the IT services and outsourcing industries, still need to spend considerable amounts of money to retrain the graduates that India’s education system produces?
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Indian Politics
This post has been published by me as a team member of Indiana Legends for the SUPER 4 round of Bloggers Premier League (BPL) – The first ever unique, elite team blogging event of blog world. To catch the BPL action and also be part of future editions and other contests, visit and register at Cafe GingerChai.
Look at the above picture. What are the words that come to your mind when you think about Indian Politics? Chances are that the words mentioned in the picture are the ones you think about. The issue with Indians is that they think negatively about everything. They don't realize that Indian politics has 1 of the best value systems in the world! As they say "Beauty lies in the eyes of Beholder", we also need to look at Indian politics and politicians through a different viewpoint to see the values and morals they follow and the sacrifices they make.
In India it is believed that age is just a number. One should be young at heart. Same is believed by Indian politicians. Therefore we have people on the other side of 40 representing "youth" of India.
One of the biggest problems that India faces today is Corruption. The Indian govt acknowledges that and it has taken measures to eradicate corruption from the system. Therefore we have a PM who has absolutely no power. No power no corruption!
The Indian govt acknowledges the gender bias prevalent in the country and is working wholeheartedly to improve the condition of women. As a step forward for this process APJ Abdul Kalam was denied a second term and Pratibha patil was appointed the president of India. So what if she takes 100's of her relatives on tour with herself or her family is involved in various scams the govt is looking at the bigger picture here i.e. Women Empowerment while we worry about petty things.
One thing that is different in India from most other countries is that here elders are given due respect. It’s good to see that the same values are also followed by the politicians of India. Otherwise why would a Navin Jindal back "Khap panchayats" , who went to Supreme court for his right to hoist the national flag over his house! We may think that its all about vote bank politics but that's the difference between us and politicians. While we look for hidden motives they simply follow the values and morals.
Its always taught not to think bad even about your enemy. While we the mere mortals are not able to do that politicians not just do that they go 1 step further and help the enemy in times of need. That's why congress leaders joined hands with their enemies and helped them during the Gujarat riots!
Surprisingly our politicians also have very good knowledge about medical science. They know that genes and traits are carried forward from 1 generation to another. So we may keep thinking that its dynasty politics but the truth is that they choose the best candidate available for the job. Sadly they also have some misconceptions about it. One of them is that communalism is a communicable disease! Maybe they got confused between the similar sounding words. That why many politicians stayed away from Amitabh bachchan after he endorsed Gujarat (the state which is believed to be affected by this particular disease!).
"Atithi Devo Bhava" the literal meaning of this phrase is that Guest is just like god. Indians truly believe in this phrase. That's why whether it’s a Kasab or an Anderson all are provided with utmost comfort during there stay in India. In case the person wishes to leave he is provided with a government plane and if he decides to stay back crores are spent so that he gets the luxuries of his life. What’s more grateful is that the guests aren't required to pay from their pockets for the services. Since Indians believe in sharing the burden of others taxpayers take care of the expenses while the guests enjoy!
It’s not only the taxpayers who share the burden political parties and ministries also share the burden of each other. Otherwise why would NCP take it upon itself to educate people about the ill effects of eating sugar! That's the job of Health ministry. But in politics its all about helping each other.
Indian govt doesn't believe in geographical boundaries created by man. Therefore we have a MP who is not even an Indian! The govt also believes in giving second chance to the people. Therefore a person who has been banned for representing the country for life in a certain sport for match fixing can still become a MP and represent the country in a different way!
"B Positive". While the ordinary Indian came to know about this mantra after watching the movie "No Entry", Indian politicians were aware of it since long ago. Therefore whether its Bofors scandal, Black money or the Bhopal gas tragedy Indian govt doesn't worry much and is always positive about these issues!
There are uncountable examples to talk about when it comes to principles followed by Indian politicians. But a post about Indian politics cannot be completed without talking about the people because a democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people.
Just like the politicians Indian people also have many good qualities. One of them is lack of unreasonable pride. Unlike others they don't believe that only they can make a good decision. Also they trust fellow Indians and respect their decisions. To show these qualities most Indians give their counterparts a chance to decide the government while they sacrifice their right to vote for some unimportant stuff like watching movies, sleep etc. Therefore it’s no surprise that the politicians that are chosen reflect the qualities the general people have.
India in 2050
Napoleon once said, “Let China sleep, for when China wakes up, she will shake the world.”
China has woken up. It is investing nearly half its GDP — that’s simply unprecedented. No other economy, at no other time in history, has invested capital on that scale. To call this “hyper”-investment is like comparing the Sun’s luminosity to a street-lamp. At the peak of its economic miracle, Japan was investing only 30% plus of its GDP — but China is doing 50%!
Over 200 years of economic experience tells us that hyper-debt-fuelled-investment creates a bubble and ends in a dreadful collapse. But China has consistently defied all such prophesies of doom. Frankly, it may not be too bizarre to believe that China could be scripting a new economic logic. Traditional theory says that investment should be “sustainable”, that is, it should be “matched” by rising consumption. But what if you pump so much capital into your economy — similar to putting extra fuel into a rocket — that you “escape” the gravitational pull of low thresholds? Especially if the bulk of your capital is spent on infrastructure (roads, railways, schools, irrigation canals, dams, hospitals, ports), as against factories which produce toys and televisions? This could be the Chinese masterstroke, the single discontinuity which could defeat 200 years of economic wisdom. Ultra-big manufacturing factories may create waste and over-capacity, but mammoth infrastructure could trigger higher productivity and the ability to create wealth. So it may be a fatal mistake to look at China’s investment spree in a single lump of factories-plus-infrastructure. Huge capital spending on life-enhancing social assets, like schools, research labs and hospitals, may actually empower people. By rapidly educating its workforce, by brilliantly executing immensely large projects, by importing expertise and dollars in a shrinking world, China could be creating a “shower of wealth and productivity” such that consumption eventually “trickles through” into the bubble.
Now look at India — that’s a classic textbook case. India’s structure is an uncanny prototype of a “promising” economy. Well above half its GDP — nearly 55 percent — is consumed by over a billion people, giving it the kind of organic strength that transformed the economies of the US, UK, Germany and Japan. Just its rural economy is made up of 800 million people spending over $425 billion. This, when agriculture’s share is declining, manufacturing is rising, and services are already more than half the GDP — again, a classically attractive mix. Like China, India saves nearly 40 percent of its GDP, but the bulk comes from households (as against China, where state-owned corporations with somewhat contrived accounting contribute more than households). India’s resource consumption has decreased for every incremental dollar of GDP since 1991 (as against China, which was using three times more resources per dollar of GDP than India). India’s economy is healthily private, with state-owned corporations accounting for less than a tenth of the output. At slightly over a trillion dollars, its stock market capitalization is about equal to its GDP — another beautifully balanced economic attribute. Its foreign reserves are over a quarter of a trillion dollars — neither uncomfortably high, nor low. Its bank credit is roughly equal to half its GDP (as opposed to over 150 percent for China), while bad loans are at an astonishingly low 2-3 percent in a world devastated by toxic financial assets (recall that China’s bad debts are precariously estimated at between 30-50 percent, the large range itself betraying a huge risk of fuzzy estimates).
The Indian Rupee largely floats against world currencies — it danced in a 25 percent band after Lehman’s collapse in 2008, without disrupting anything. A red rag is India’s weak government budget and rather high public debt at 80 percent of GDP — but here again, the highly vulnerable dollar loans are paltry by Asian standards. India is in a very sweet demographic spot, being the youngest country in the world — half a billion people are less than 25 years old, giving it a unique “demographic dividend” among peers. Ten of the world’s 30 fastest growing cities are in India — its urbanization rate, at 30 percent, is accelerating. With 350 million people displaying a reasonable proficiency in English, it’s the largest English-using country in the world. Its judicial system is robustly based on English Common Law. It’s a genuine, albeit imperfect, democracy.
Now billions more are getting somewhat rich (but not “very rich”) at a reasonable clip (but not “rapidly”) — as soon as one sub-economy becomes rich (the west coast of China or south India), the growth wave moves to the next-in-line poorer one (central regions in China or north India). Earlier, the smaller rich economies made a “one time transition” over a few decades — but China and India, because of their large numbers, could see “serial transitions” as one sub-economy after another hits higher living standards. This could make their growth stories far more elastic — with repeated “rebounds” from “slowdowns”, as one sub-economy plateaus but another begins firing on all cylinders. What’s more, this uncharted dynamic is happening simultaneously across both countries in a contiguous part of planet earth. The centre of economic gravity is shifting from some point in the Pacific Ocean to a dot near Mount Everest.
This power shift of civilizations could be the most dynamic idea of the 21st Century. Both China and India were giants in the 17th and 18th Centuries — according to economic historian Angus Maddison, together they accounted for over 50 percent of world GDP in 1600 (China had 28 percent and India, 23 percent). But 200 years of colonial domination shrunk their economies and political space on the globe. Over the last few decades, both countries are beginning to rear again — the initial swell of a giant tidal wave that made its last crest in 1770.
China has woken up. It is investing nearly half its GDP — that’s simply unprecedented. No other economy, at no other time in history, has invested capital on that scale. To call this “hyper”-investment is like comparing the Sun’s luminosity to a street-lamp. At the peak of its economic miracle, Japan was investing only 30% plus of its GDP — but China is doing 50%!
Over 200 years of economic experience tells us that hyper-debt-fuelled-investment creates a bubble and ends in a dreadful collapse. But China has consistently defied all such prophesies of doom. Frankly, it may not be too bizarre to believe that China could be scripting a new economic logic. Traditional theory says that investment should be “sustainable”, that is, it should be “matched” by rising consumption. But what if you pump so much capital into your economy — similar to putting extra fuel into a rocket — that you “escape” the gravitational pull of low thresholds? Especially if the bulk of your capital is spent on infrastructure (roads, railways, schools, irrigation canals, dams, hospitals, ports), as against factories which produce toys and televisions? This could be the Chinese masterstroke, the single discontinuity which could defeat 200 years of economic wisdom. Ultra-big manufacturing factories may create waste and over-capacity, but mammoth infrastructure could trigger higher productivity and the ability to create wealth. So it may be a fatal mistake to look at China’s investment spree in a single lump of factories-plus-infrastructure. Huge capital spending on life-enhancing social assets, like schools, research labs and hospitals, may actually empower people. By rapidly educating its workforce, by brilliantly executing immensely large projects, by importing expertise and dollars in a shrinking world, China could be creating a “shower of wealth and productivity” such that consumption eventually “trickles through” into the bubble.
Now look at India — that’s a classic textbook case. India’s structure is an uncanny prototype of a “promising” economy. Well above half its GDP — nearly 55 percent — is consumed by over a billion people, giving it the kind of organic strength that transformed the economies of the US, UK, Germany and Japan. Just its rural economy is made up of 800 million people spending over $425 billion. This, when agriculture’s share is declining, manufacturing is rising, and services are already more than half the GDP — again, a classically attractive mix. Like China, India saves nearly 40 percent of its GDP, but the bulk comes from households (as against China, where state-owned corporations with somewhat contrived accounting contribute more than households). India’s resource consumption has decreased for every incremental dollar of GDP since 1991 (as against China, which was using three times more resources per dollar of GDP than India). India’s economy is healthily private, with state-owned corporations accounting for less than a tenth of the output. At slightly over a trillion dollars, its stock market capitalization is about equal to its GDP — another beautifully balanced economic attribute. Its foreign reserves are over a quarter of a trillion dollars — neither uncomfortably high, nor low. Its bank credit is roughly equal to half its GDP (as opposed to over 150 percent for China), while bad loans are at an astonishingly low 2-3 percent in a world devastated by toxic financial assets (recall that China’s bad debts are precariously estimated at between 30-50 percent, the large range itself betraying a huge risk of fuzzy estimates).
The Indian Rupee largely floats against world currencies — it danced in a 25 percent band after Lehman’s collapse in 2008, without disrupting anything. A red rag is India’s weak government budget and rather high public debt at 80 percent of GDP — but here again, the highly vulnerable dollar loans are paltry by Asian standards. India is in a very sweet demographic spot, being the youngest country in the world — half a billion people are less than 25 years old, giving it a unique “demographic dividend” among peers. Ten of the world’s 30 fastest growing cities are in India — its urbanization rate, at 30 percent, is accelerating. With 350 million people displaying a reasonable proficiency in English, it’s the largest English-using country in the world. Its judicial system is robustly based on English Common Law. It’s a genuine, albeit imperfect, democracy.
Now billions more are getting somewhat rich (but not “very rich”) at a reasonable clip (but not “rapidly”) — as soon as one sub-economy becomes rich (the west coast of China or south India), the growth wave moves to the next-in-line poorer one (central regions in China or north India). Earlier, the smaller rich economies made a “one time transition” over a few decades — but China and India, because of their large numbers, could see “serial transitions” as one sub-economy after another hits higher living standards. This could make their growth stories far more elastic — with repeated “rebounds” from “slowdowns”, as one sub-economy plateaus but another begins firing on all cylinders. What’s more, this uncharted dynamic is happening simultaneously across both countries in a contiguous part of planet earth. The centre of economic gravity is shifting from some point in the Pacific Ocean to a dot near Mount Everest.
This power shift of civilizations could be the most dynamic idea of the 21st Century. Both China and India were giants in the 17th and 18th Centuries — according to economic historian Angus Maddison, together they accounted for over 50 percent of world GDP in 1600 (China had 28 percent and India, 23 percent). But 200 years of colonial domination shrunk their economies and political space on the globe. Over the last few decades, both countries are beginning to rear again — the initial swell of a giant tidal wave that made its last crest in 1770.
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