Undeserving martyrdom foisted

31st October!!!. Lot of memories flood back. 25th Anniversary of Indira Gandhi being assassinated and 25 years to the day that changed my life forever - the day I got my MBA admission. I can remember that day, a quarter century ago, as it happened yesterday. I had posted on this in June 2009, and again reproduced it in the IGNOU Kuwait E-Magazine. Still, for those who missed both, here is the link,

http://rajanvenkateswaran.blogspot.com/2009/06/unforgettable-day-25-years-ago.html

I was watching the TV yesterday where the anchor in NDTV (congress mouthpieve of course), kept on repeating about the Martyrdom of Indira Gandhi!!. Something irked me. I went and looked up at the dictionary for the meaning of the word 'martyr' - A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce a belief - Now, now, could someone enlighten me as to what belief Mrs Gandhi held, and what persecution she suffered????. True, Indira Gandhi was killed by her Sikh Body Guards after she tried to root out Sikh militancy in Punjab. But, the Sikh militancy was something she fed and nourished over the years - a monster she created to counter the Akalis politically - through supporting Bhindranwale and his ilk. It was more of a case of 'She who lives by the sword (pun unintended), dies by the sword'.

Disgraceful

A report on Railway amenities suggested that the current AC coach windows are small, do not give a clear view of the countryside and hence need to be replaced with bigger windows with clearer panes is welcome. The moot point is whether one needed a committee that spent a couple of crores to suggest something so obvious. Then comes the shocker! The committee has suggested that every train has a separate luxury coach that is open, listen to me, 'Foreigners'.!!!!

This means this coach will not be accessible to Indians. Mahatma Gandhi, who prefered to be thrown out of a First Class compartment in South Africa, to move to a third class one meant for blacks and Indians, must be turning in his grave. This is demeaning to all Indians.

While no one disputes the necessity to improve tourism, having an exclusive coach for 'White coloured caucasians' is the ultimate way of insulting the indians. This comes from a mindset that Indians do not deserve anything that is good, even if he has the money, but that the best of this country should be made available to the White Sahibs. This, being suggested, by a committe comprising of Indians, funded by the Indian Railways, which in turn is funded by the Common man, is disgraceful to say the least.

With people like these committee member working for the Government, is it any wonder India as a nation is not respected in the International circles?

Deem(Doom)ed Universities

HRD ministry and minister Kapil Sibal do not want to talk about the report on deemed universities by its own review committee, because the panel has said that over 40 universities, most of them private, do not deserve deemed status.

The committee found only 38 deemed universities to have excellent infrastructure and 44 could retain deemed status after improving certain aspects of infrastructure, research and administration. The rest, a little over 40, were beyond redemption and could not retain deemed university status. Of the deemed universities that do not deserve deemed status, three were in Haryana, two each in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh but thehe bulk of deemed universities not found fit are in South India, especially Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The reason why ministry does not want to talk about the report, sources said, is due to the fact that it will find it impossible to take away the deemed status of any university (Doesn't it strange that these Universities that affect the life of thousands of students cannot be held accountable by anyone?) .

The reason is not far to seek. Powerful politicians who run many of the deemed universities have been working to thwart any disciplinary action and have ensured that laws were enacted to protect their interests in perpetuity.

Even legally, the ministry cannot take action as under the UGC Act, deemed status is given at the recommendation of UGC. And UGC, the regulatory authority is corrupt to the boot. Deemed University status were given by UGC flouting all basic norms. A similar process has to be followed in case of revocation of deemed status. The funniest part is that while Ministries committee has found many deemed Universities to be unfit, UGC's review committee of deemed universities has not found fault with any of them.

The biggest inadequacy of deemed universities, according to the review report, is the manner in which they have started hundreds of study centres all over India. Fee and administrative structure of private deemed universities are totally unregulated and are run in a whimsical fashion, the report said.

A substantial section of the report deals with how higher education was being run as a business and academic and administrative posts were held by family members and relatives of promoters. Research output of most private deemed universities was sub-standard.

Now is there any wonder why all these led to this Headline?

No Indian university among world's best 100, Harvard tops the list

Round up

Eight times grand slam winner Andre Agassi has admitted using the recreational drug crystal meth and lying to men's governing body the ATP to escape a ban - It has come to a stage that one can't get around to believe any sportsman is clean. Agassi was the epitome of disciplined training (in fact gut wrenching training. it is said that Pete Sampras once stayed in Agassi's house for a vacation and tried to replicate Agassi's physical fitness regime, but vomitted half way through, and Pete was a superb athlete and no.1 tennis player in the world then). At least he was, in the second half of his career. It is such a let down for his legion of fans to know he used drugs.

President Pratibha Patil is in London to receive the baton for Commonwealth Games from Queen Elizabeth II on October 29. The President is all ready to get the dubious distinction of the first-ever head of state of a Commonwealth country to receive the baton from the Queen Elizabeth. It’s a ‘baton’ that’s customarily given to the host country of the Commonwealth Games. The Commonwealth has 53 member states including Nauru, and none of them ever thought it prudent to be so obsessed with the colonial hangover that their head of the state would go and be a durbari in the former coloniser’s palace - It is a crime that we are hosting Commonwealth Games by spending $ 1.6 billion in the times of Global recession, a meaningless games at best. If the idea is to develop sports infrastructure, one just has to do an audit of how the 1982 Asian Games facilities were 'utilized' in later years. Also, the AAFI has not deemed it fit to conduct National Games for 2 or 3 years in a row now. Any wonder we are not getting even bronze medals in International meets? And now, our esteemed President is displaying India's spinelessness and subservient mentality in the global arena. A crying shame!

Prime minister Manmohan Singh said India will press Pakistan to curb the activities of those elements that were engaging in terrorism in this country - Whew! I was always wondering why Pakistan were keeping quiet. Now I know! They were just waiting to get the green signal from Manmohan Singh. We can expect Pakistan to take stringent action against terrorist now, for the genius MMS has spoken at last - What an AH we have as our PM!!!

Maths made easy

Vedic Mathematics is interesting and has many Sutras (Rules).

For example,

If you want to find the square of 65, you can employ the Ekadhikena Purvena sutra ("By one more than the one before").

The rule says since the first digit is 6 and the second one is 5, you will first have to multiply 6 and (6 +1), that is 6 X 7, which is equal to 42.

Then multiply 5 with 5, which is 25.

Hey Presto! The answer is 4225.

Now, you can try this method to find the squares of all numbers ending with 5.

Troubled Economy

All is not well on the Economic front. The UPA 1 had blamed the Left Parties for not allowing them to spur the Reforms. The Left has been out of the Ruling Front for the past 2 years and the Government is spending lavishly on the social sector front while all the parts of the Economy are crying for help. It is almost like Nero fiddling while the Rome is burning.

The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) in its report released yesterday, has put a wonderful spin on the state of economy not backed by any strong data or fundamentals. It has predicted that India's GDP will grow at 6 1/2%. But this is based on the assumption that the North East monsoon will be normal and we will have a bumper Rabi crop, which is wishful thinking to say the least.The Council also assumes that manufacturing and services sector output will accelerate in growth which is extremely unlikely due to the credit squeeze and foreign loans are drying up for the manufacturing sector. What is worrying is that the central budget fiscal deficit has soared to 7% of GDP, double the level two years ago, and the Government is hardly doing anything to reduce the deficit.

The stimulus package announced by the Government envisages pumping in money into the economy. This is more likely to increase inflationary pressures while the economy suffers stagnation in demand. Though the WPI index shows the inflation at <>

The economy is in crisis, and the saddest part is that the Government, headed by the 'Economist' has absolutely no clue as to how to go about. All they can think of is pumping more RBI printed notes into the economy such as through NREGA which is siphoned off by the corrupt elements. This results in more black money being created that is sent abroad through hawala to re-cycle it back to the stock market via the Participatory Notes. This helps to artificially boost the equity market, where unscrupulous traders and Institutional investors make huge gains through manipulation of the SENSEX.

As long as the SENSEX booms, Government is happy. And damn the poor and the needy. They dont need them as the elections are more than 4 years away.

Chalta Hai Syndrome?

The Nano, the world's cheapest car, appears to have developed a technical snag. Three cases have been reported of the car developing short circuit near the combination switch in the car's steering column, igniting small fires. The company has called two of them back for repairs. The problems, that are similar in nature, have been noticed in three cars — one each in Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Delhi. The cars have seen smoke emanate from near the steering column area, even when parked with ignition switched off, following which some of the area around it has melted due to heat - This could be pretty damaging for Nano. Safety is a big issue in Auto Industry, especially in the West which Tatas are targeting, following the relentless fight done by Ralph Nader in the 1960's. Something like this could kill the product.

Is this a result of the 'Chalta Hai' attitude that is so typical of Indians? Something which I have been running a crusade against?