Being addicted to movies, I just have to visit the nearest theatre wherever I am. Now don’t get me wrong. This is not a movie review I'm writing. During my recent visits to Mumbai, I noticed something very unique about the theatres in Mumbai. The National Anthem of India is played before each show and (obviously) everyone stands during the anthem to pay their respect to it. It was extremely heartening to see such a practice and made me wonder why this was not being followed elsewhere.
Apart from it being an excellent attempt at promoting National Integration, I feel, it’s also an attempt to quash the Me-Mumbaikar campaign started by Shiv Sena wherein they want to ban the entry of and oust the present Non-Maharashtrians into Mumbai. Their "Jai Maharashtra" chant makes me wonder if they even consider themselves a part of this nation.
In my opinion the federal system of government has been misinterpreted by most of our politicians. For me, the purpose of such a form of government is to felicitate grievance redressal and promote development at a micro level so as to improve the overall state of the country. But, the politicians, in their “Kissa kursi ka” do not realize that they have to look at the broader picture that is INDIA.
Similar realization by the state governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana would help a great deal in solving the water sharing issues in these states. The worst of the issues being the one in Nandigram, West Bengal where Ms Banerjee, instead of acting like a healthy opposition and trying to find a better more appropriate solution to make ends meet, is trying to oust Mr Chief Minister by adding fuel to the fire. I don’t think I should even start talking about the “Kissa kursi ka” because I could just go on and on regarding various issues and this post might never end.
I strongly suggest a special screening of “Chak De India” for all the politicians of the country to inspire them with what Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) tries to ingrain among his Hockey team – “First you play for India… then for your team members… and then if you still have something left in you… you may play for yourself”.
If our politicians realize this and start playing first for India instead of themselves then we might as well be able to disprove the BRIC report by Goldman Sachs by overtaking each of the G-6 nations and China too much before the time period that they predict.
Chak De INDIA!!
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Reservations - A logical solution!!
Being a former CAT aspirant, its natural for me to have an opinion about 'Reservations in Higher Education'. I am sure all CAT, or for that matter JEE, aspirants would also feel very strongly about it. My guess is that most General Category students are against reservations for the very obvious reason that it goes against the concept of Merit. But there is more to the reservations issue that some of us might not be aware of.
After India became independent, the few selected castes and tribes that were considered to be socially backward and needed affirmative action to elevate their status in society were placed under a certain schedule of the Indian constitution and hence the name Scheduled Castes and Tribes. It was also decided that the reservations made for them would be reviewed every decade and finally done away with in a 50 year span (which ended a decade back). I concur with Mr.Arjun Singh and his followers when they cite the example of US and talk of Affirmative Action but where I disagree is its implementation.
It would be useless and a waste of time to discuss about the failures of the Indian government in implementing its plans in the past century. This is analogous to what economists called Sunk Costs. For the uninitiated, what this means is don't cry over spilt milk and look forward from now on. So the question really is.. what next?
Let us assume that Mr.Moily and Mr.Mandal were correct in their calculations and suggestions and that we actually do need the reservations that they suggest. Let us also assume that we go ahead with the brilliant idea of increasing seats for implementing the quotas without considering the actual infrastructural limitations of the institutes. But do we do just that? The answer is a big NO. There are two things that need to be taken care of; Firstly, An individual should be able to avail of his reservation benefit only once in his lifetime and once he has done that none of his future generations should be allowed to do the same i.e. he becomes a General candidate, and secondly, the reservation should be done away with after a point in time.
The first point can be implemented by issuing a Social Security Number/PAN, similar to the one in US, for each individual irrespective of his age, origin or the fact that he does or does not pay taxes. Of course, I'm assuming that we have to have a central database in place which stores the entire history of an individual and his activities throughout his lifetime based on his SSN/PAN. Once we have a system(SSN/PAN) in place for tracking the activities of an individual, it would be extremely simple to check if he has utilized his reservation benefit previously, after which, he becomes a General candidate and so do his future generations.
As far as a timeline is concerned, this solution takes care that nobody for whom the reservations are implemented misses out on an opportunity to utilize it. The schooling of a child is completed in roughly 14 years. So, the children born while I'm writing will be entering school in the next 4 years. Keeping those children in mind we implement reservation in primary and secondary schools. For these 18 years all the generations born before and during the time I am writing this would get at least one opportunity to utilize their reservation benefit. Of course, once a student utilizes his benefit to secure a seat in a primary/secondary/graduate/post-graduate school he has exhausted it forever. Hence, one can remove the reservations in higher education after 14 years itself since the students who would have taken admission in schools this year would be the last batch who could not utilize their reservation benefit to secure admission in school and hence may be able to utilize the benefit in higher education. Of course, after 18 years, one can do away with the reservations in school as well since in this time span, reservation benefit would have been utilized by a population whose age ranges from 4-35 (18 years from now the last batch availing reservation benefit would be 4 years old and the batch passing out of school this year would be 17+18=35 years old). I have made an assumption that each individual from the given population would have started a family by the age of 35 which, in my view, is fair enough in the Indian context. Thus, it is safe to assume that each individual from a particular generation would have utilized his quota benefit and none of his future generations would be allowed to do the same.
If I assume that I have made a mistake in my calculations (which I should not have because they seem fairly simple) or have missed a scenario or assumption (which I'm pretty sure I have not) and increase the timeline from 18 to 25 years, I am dead sure that we can do away with reservations after that since under the conditions mentioned previously, no Indian will qualify to be an SC or an ST.
I agree that my solution requires heavy investment and might look unrealistic to some but it is perfectly logical and achievable. If worked upon diligently (maybe with minor adjustments) it can help in achieving an egalitarian society.
After India became independent, the few selected castes and tribes that were considered to be socially backward and needed affirmative action to elevate their status in society were placed under a certain schedule of the Indian constitution and hence the name Scheduled Castes and Tribes. It was also decided that the reservations made for them would be reviewed every decade and finally done away with in a 50 year span (which ended a decade back). I concur with Mr.Arjun Singh and his followers when they cite the example of US and talk of Affirmative Action but where I disagree is its implementation.
It would be useless and a waste of time to discuss about the failures of the Indian government in implementing its plans in the past century. This is analogous to what economists called Sunk Costs. For the uninitiated, what this means is don't cry over spilt milk and look forward from now on. So the question really is.. what next?
Let us assume that Mr.Moily and Mr.Mandal were correct in their calculations and suggestions and that we actually do need the reservations that they suggest. Let us also assume that we go ahead with the brilliant idea of increasing seats for implementing the quotas without considering the actual infrastructural limitations of the institutes. But do we do just that? The answer is a big NO. There are two things that need to be taken care of; Firstly, An individual should be able to avail of his reservation benefit only once in his lifetime and once he has done that none of his future generations should be allowed to do the same i.e. he becomes a General candidate, and secondly, the reservation should be done away with after a point in time.
The first point can be implemented by issuing a Social Security Number/PAN, similar to the one in US, for each individual irrespective of his age, origin or the fact that he does or does not pay taxes. Of course, I'm assuming that we have to have a central database in place which stores the entire history of an individual and his activities throughout his lifetime based on his SSN/PAN. Once we have a system(SSN/PAN) in place for tracking the activities of an individual, it would be extremely simple to check if he has utilized his reservation benefit previously, after which, he becomes a General candidate and so do his future generations.
As far as a timeline is concerned, this solution takes care that nobody for whom the reservations are implemented misses out on an opportunity to utilize it. The schooling of a child is completed in roughly 14 years. So, the children born while I'm writing will be entering school in the next 4 years. Keeping those children in mind we implement reservation in primary and secondary schools. For these 18 years all the generations born before and during the time I am writing this would get at least one opportunity to utilize their reservation benefit. Of course, once a student utilizes his benefit to secure a seat in a primary/secondary/graduate/post-graduate school he has exhausted it forever. Hence, one can remove the reservations in higher education after 14 years itself since the students who would have taken admission in schools this year would be the last batch who could not utilize their reservation benefit to secure admission in school and hence may be able to utilize the benefit in higher education. Of course, after 18 years, one can do away with the reservations in school as well since in this time span, reservation benefit would have been utilized by a population whose age ranges from 4-35 (18 years from now the last batch availing reservation benefit would be 4 years old and the batch passing out of school this year would be 17+18=35 years old). I have made an assumption that each individual from the given population would have started a family by the age of 35 which, in my view, is fair enough in the Indian context. Thus, it is safe to assume that each individual from a particular generation would have utilized his quota benefit and none of his future generations would be allowed to do the same.
If I assume that I have made a mistake in my calculations (which I should not have because they seem fairly simple) or have missed a scenario or assumption (which I'm pretty sure I have not) and increase the timeline from 18 to 25 years, I am dead sure that we can do away with reservations after that since under the conditions mentioned previously, no Indian will qualify to be an SC or an ST.
I agree that my solution requires heavy investment and might look unrealistic to some but it is perfectly logical and achievable. If worked upon diligently (maybe with minor adjustments) it can help in achieving an egalitarian society.
Monday, July 23, 2007
inally.. wat the F!!
At first sight, the name of my blog seems a little strange.. but when you think about it for a few seconds you might realize that the "F" stands for a number of words or should I say emotions!!
I joined this website supposedly in 2005.. May-June I don't really remember and in fact I don't really care because the fact of the matter is that it has taken me more than two years to write my first blog and God knows that even today I have overcome a number of hurdles and a number of "Page cannot be displayed" web pages to reach this stage when I'm typing what might not make sense to many people but it does to me.
Since I'm doing this for the first time, I'm not really aware if Bloggers have some norms or rules that they are supposed to follow. Even if they do, it really doesn't matter because I'm a firm believer of the "Screw the rules.. Play the Game" philosophy which I'm sure wont be new to my fellow DCEites or WWE fans. For the uninitiated, DCE stands for Delhi College of Engineering and WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment. Now that I have mentioned Delhi College of Engineering let me talk about myself. Jesus Christ! this was and is the most dreaded question that I have had to encounter in my IIM interviews (Please don't expect me to explain what IIM stands for!) but since this isn't one of them I have the liberty to talk about whatever suits me.
I'm Rohit, currently studying at IIM Calcutta. I'm a Computer Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering and have worked for 21 months at Computer Sciences Corporation, Noida as a Software Engineer. That pretty much covers my professional background. I'm not much of a writer so please excuse any amateur work but I do feel strongly about certain issues which I would like to express my views on. Also, time and again I have realized the importance of being a voracious reader and a good/inspirational writer, the most recent incident being the two essays I had to write for the Aditya Birla Scholarship. So here I am doing what I do best.. Bakar!!
Signing out today... will see you in future with more meaningful posts!!
I joined this website supposedly in 2005.. May-June I don't really remember and in fact I don't really care because the fact of the matter is that it has taken me more than two years to write my first blog and God knows that even today I have overcome a number of hurdles and a number of "Page cannot be displayed" web pages to reach this stage when I'm typing what might not make sense to many people but it does to me.
Since I'm doing this for the first time, I'm not really aware if Bloggers have some norms or rules that they are supposed to follow. Even if they do, it really doesn't matter because I'm a firm believer of the "Screw the rules.. Play the Game" philosophy which I'm sure wont be new to my fellow DCEites or WWE fans. For the uninitiated, DCE stands for Delhi College of Engineering and WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment. Now that I have mentioned Delhi College of Engineering let me talk about myself. Jesus Christ! this was and is the most dreaded question that I have had to encounter in my IIM interviews (Please don't expect me to explain what IIM stands for!) but since this isn't one of them I have the liberty to talk about whatever suits me.
I'm Rohit, currently studying at IIM Calcutta. I'm a Computer Engineer from Delhi College of Engineering and have worked for 21 months at Computer Sciences Corporation, Noida as a Software Engineer. That pretty much covers my professional background. I'm not much of a writer so please excuse any amateur work but I do feel strongly about certain issues which I would like to express my views on. Also, time and again I have realized the importance of being a voracious reader and a good/inspirational writer, the most recent incident being the two essays I had to write for the Aditya Birla Scholarship. So here I am doing what I do best.. Bakar!!
Signing out today... will see you in future with more meaningful posts!!
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