IIT needs IIM help

Read somewhere that IIT's are planning to get into Medical Education in India.

This is downright silly. IIT's are the premier Technology Education Institutions in India. They have core competency in offering world class engineering education. The Core Competency required for offering a similar world class education in Medicine is totally different, and IIT's frankly do not possess it.

Looks like IIM's need to step in, and tell IIT's that an insane strategy of offering medical education will dilute the focus and brand equity of IIT, which we can ill afford.

How the PM-in-Waiting's Constituency is faring!

It is amusing to hear Rahul Gandhi, the Congress's self-proclaimed Prime Minister-in-waiting of India, talk about lack of development, concern for the poor and the contribution made by his great grandfather, grandmother, father, mother and himself to nation building.

We shall expose how hollow the claim of theNehru-Gandhi dynasty is by looking at certain socio economic indices of two constituencies - Rae Bareli & Amethi - represented by the so called first family of India. All the figures are averaged for Rae Bareli and Amethi together

People Below Poverty Line - 54%
Families without electricity - 86%
Children NOT Vaccinated - 84%
Neo Natal Death - 83 per 1000
Post Natal Death (0-5 years) - 160 per 1000

This, despite the Constituencies getting preferential treatment and unlimited resources.

A person(s) who cannot improve the welfare of his constituency in, well nearly 4 decades, cannot be expected to improve the lot of the Indians elsewhere.

We get the politicians we deserve!

Yeh bhi chalta hai

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/randomaccess/entry/a-fat-and-portly-air

The flip side is that I don't have to be ashamed any more  :)

When will you ever get this into your thick skull, Prime Minister

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday gently told the Supreme Court, which recently directed the government to distribute foodgrains free to the poor, not to get into the 'realm of policy formulation'.

"How can foodgrains be distributed free to an estimated 37 per cent of the population which lives below the poverty line," Singh asked during an interaction with editors at his residence in New Delhi.

It was not not possible to give free foodgrains to all the poor, he said while answering a question on the order of the Apex Court which had directed Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to distribute foodgrains to the poor instead of allowing them to rot.

BECAUSE, my insensitive Prime Minister, the food is rotting, eaten by rats and rodents, who dont pay the Government when millions of people starve!!! And your Government is sitting on a stock pile of food grains while the poor are tightening their belts because they are hungry!! You are talking about the need for people to be happy with 8.8% GDP growth, which is a self actualization need, when their first level, basic needs for food are not met!!.

 
When will you ever get this into your thick skull?

Indian Athletes given the rough end of the stick in CWG

The Commonwealth Games organizers have been questioning the patriotism of people who accuse them of corruption, citing that raising all the stink in the public adversely affects the image of the nation.

The reason why Countries bid for mega events like Olympics, Asian Games and the not so mega event like CWG is to give a fillip to the athletes in their country. During the 5-6 years it takes from Games being awarded to it being held, prospective medal winners are identified and given the best of the facilities so that the host nation wins as much medals as possible. That and that alone will enhance the image of the host country, and not the organizational effciency (sic) as Suresh Kalmadi and his ilk make it out to be.

But with barely a month to go for CWG, do anyone of us know who are our medal prospects, how much effort has been put on training them and on putting them in the best frame of mind. I doubt it. At least do Indian Olympic Association know who the top athletes are? The answer is an emphatic NO.

Instead, what we have is a series of cases where weight lifters and swimmers are tested positive for doping (bringing shame to the country). The irony is that the Indian Weighlifting Federation has been in the radar of the anti doping agencies who are certain that doping is done with official patronage. The Federation was handed out a hefty fine recently, but IOA could care less. This is a national disgrace.

We have the situation where the only Indian to win an Olympic Silver, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore will not be able to participate in the Games due to internal politics and silly selection policies.

We have the situation where our top athelete of the Games, shuttler Saina Nehwal, has expressed her total dissatisfaction with the facilities. The skeletons are tumbling out.

In the end, we will return with a bounty of medals that is much less than what we got in earlier Games - But hey! Who Cares? We have spent Rs 70,000 crores, everyone involved had made money through organized loot and what if Nation doesnt get medals and athletes are given Rs 100 rooms (if at all) apart from Rice gruel and pappad to eat?

And no one is held accountable!

What a Shame!

Guruve Namaha:

Akhanda Mandalaakaaram

Vyaaptam Yenam charaacharam

Tatpadam Darshitam Yena

Tasmai Sri Gurave Namaha.

A loose translation is as follows, "Guru can guide us to the supreme knowledge of THAT which pervades all the living and non-living beings in the entire Universe (namely Brahman). I salute such a Guru"

Teacher's day gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand I have always regretted that I was never blessed to have one ideal guru who had a profound influence on me, though there were many who contributed in one way or other to me being what I am today. On the other hand, I am apprehensive whether I have lived upto the expectation of my students myself. And then there is a feeling of gratitude to God for giving me the opportunity to be a Guru in this short life, a role that has given me immense satisfaction.

But this Teacher's day has a melancholy touch to it. It will be the last Teacher's day as an active Teacher. Professional developments and a personal decision has led me to draw the curtains on my teaching career. The Marketing Management and Macro Economics lectures I conduct for my MBA students is likely to be the last.

I shall be taking a sabbatical for a couple of years, during which I shall be working on a dream project on Education, aimed at school kids aged 8-14. A project, I hope, that shall shape the personality of at least a few thousands of young kids. Kids have always been close to my heart and I have always regretted not using my skills as a Guru on them. I enjoy being with kids and the feeling is mutual. Being with them, interacting with them, teaching them and learning from them should give me the peace of mind, sense of satisfaction and an attainment of certain self actualization needs.

But all that is in the future.

For now, 'Au revoir'

Time for sterner actions

Pakistan has mastered the art of being victimised to a fine degree. They are like an irrant child, who beats up his brother and then cries loudly that he himself has been unfairly attacked first or punished unjustly. It is time someone called their bluff once and for all.

They do this every single time they instigate a terror attack in India. They go aggressively in the media, and win the war of sound bytes by proclaiming their innocence or rather lack of proof of their guilt a bit too loudly. The world at large, which are not as roguish as this infant terrible, are too gentlemanly to take them on their own game, especially India. The result? They get away with murder, literally.

They did this when the Srilankan team was attacked by gunmen in Pakistan, leading to ICC cancelling all future matches in Pakistan. They cried their innocence from roof tops, claimed that it would kill Pakistan Cricket bla bla bla and got away with it without being sanctioned or slapped with a harsher punishment that was justly deserved.

Now the spot fixing case. There is enough circumstantial evidence to implicate Butt, Asif and Aamer. And Mohammed Asif is a serial offender - he was caught in possession of drugs in the Dubai Airport and it took intervention at the highest level to get him released, but he is personna non grata in Dubai (It is another matter that Pakistan accepted this meekly. They never let out a peep about Dubai Customs falsely implicating Asif. Hey! They know what the consequences if they hurt the sentimates of one of the middle east rich countries). Now, instead of suspending the trio pending the completion of an enquiry (which is what is the normal practice in any decent organization), the Pakistan high commission and the cricket board has been going hammer and tongs at how the players have been framed and how Pakistan cricket has been singled out as a victim. The classic act of the hunted turning the hunter. When ICC got fed up with Pakistans ambivalence, they promptly suspended the unholy trio, and instead of accepting it meekly, Pakistan is on the offensive, even insinuating the Pawar, an Indian, who is the head of ICC is behind this, thus turning this into an Indo-Pak animosity, which is rubbish. Anyone who knows Pawar, is aware that he is one of those who will protect the corrupt, for he himself is corrupt to the boot (remember that he was the main backer of Lalit Modi in BCCI and tried his best to protect him during the IPL scandal)

Pakistan Cricket is rotting, like the Country. It is the nerve centre of corruption and unethical practices. Remember how the matches in Sharjah during 1980s were fixed, forcing India to take the tough decision on not sending teams to Sharjah tournaments, which eventually killed that tournament. Remember the ball tampering under Wasim and Waqar?  Remember the match fixing involving Salim Malik et al? Remember the whispers about drug use by Imran and Co? Remember the various allegations of match fixing of late involving Kamran Akmal and a few others? And now this. Like the country, Pakistan Cricket is a pest that should be squashed at the earliest.

Surely, if one can throw out Zimbabwe cricket just because they have a dictator ruling the country, and isolate South Africa because the Country was practicing apartheid, then Pakistan can be given the boot from International Cricket till the Country and the Board turns a new leaf. Certain people understand only certain language.