Vande Mataram and Islam

It is very annoying to see that everyone around you is more happier to live in darkness despite of knowing where the light is. Or it can be other way round as well that I am in darkness and all others are in the true light. But no one so far has managed to convince me.

An organization of Muslim clerics declared that “Vande Mataram” is unislamic. Now there were two reactions expected. One from the secularists and another from the so-called hindutva organizations. If one thinks that both these camps would fight over the issue, one will make a mistake. They will certainly fight each other but their basic understanding of the issue is inherently the same.

Should the state force a song on its citzens or not is purely a state affair and hence must be dealt with true secularism. It is certainly a right of people to study a religion and declare something “unislamic”, “unhindu” or “blasphemy”. But I dont see a need for the state to bother about what does a book say about things which are not at all religious.

But see how the secularists respond. They are shocked. They now instead try to prove that “Vande Mataram” is in coherence with Islam. How the Quran should be interpreted in order to make it look like something that permits Muslims to sing vande mataram. Using religious arguments to counter religion’s attack on secularism is the mistake that the have been doing for a long time.

Imagine tomorrow the same organization gives away a fatawah saying “frisking muslims is unislamic” will the government refer to Quran and argue with them that it is not the way to interpret Quran? Shouldnt it say “If it is unislamic, so be it.” ? Failure of our leaders to do so has costed us so much. Instead the secular camp has bent before the Communal demands of various religions from time and now.

If someone considers RSS and similar organizations to be the nemesis of Secular camp they will be making a gross mistake. The Sar-Sanghchalak says

I don’t think any religion is against desh bhakti. To say Bharat Mata ki Jai and Vande Mataram is not like a religious puja or idol worship.

Isnt this the same thing? Now I hear that Sangh has also offered to translate Vande Mataram in Urdu. The difference between the secular and RSS approach apparently has absolutely no difference. And both these approaches are essentially deviating from the secular principles over which we are supposed to function.

By using such arguments the leaders are actually legitimizing the “living by the book”. In a long run the public is only going to demand that the state policies be modeled on these books that are written thousand year old.

Morons!

 

Subhashitam सुभाषितम

One thing I always liked about Sanskrit was this concept of Subhashitam (Good-Thoughts). There are often full of figure of speeches and sometimes even rely on sarcasm. Many even might sound contradictory. Here are some picked from this source.

भूतिर्नीचगृहेषु विप्रसदने दारिद्र्यकोलाहलः
नाशो हंत सतामसत्पथजुषामायुः शतानां शतम् |
दुर्नीतिं तव वीक्ष्य कोपदहनज्वालाजटलोऽपिसन्
किं कुर्वे जगदीश यत्पुनरहं दीनो भवानीश्वरः ||

- भामिनीमान

The bad people always have plenty. Poverty dances in the homes of people who lead a honest life. Virtuous people die early while the rogues live for hundred years. When I see such atrocities in Your creation, I get all fumed up in anger. But what can I do, I am helpless and you are all powerful.

- Bhaminimana

Now let us pick something from Manusmriti.

भद्रं भद्रमिति ब्रूयात् भद्रमित्येव वा वदेत् |
शुष्कवैरं विवादं च न कुर्यात् केनचित् सह ||

- मनुस्मृति

One must always talk auspiciously. One must not talk negatively about anybody’s endeavor. One must not quarrel just for the sake of quarreling. One must not pickup unnecessary arguments

- Manu Smriti

And on importance of revenge

पादाहतं यदुत्थाय मूर्धानमधिरोहति |
स्वस्थादेवापमानेऽपि देहिनस्तद्वरं रजः ||

- शिशुपालवध

When kicked with foot, even dust fights back and ultimately sits on top of your head. Such is its power of revenge. A person who does nothing when insulted is worse than dust.

- Shishupala Vadha,

 

 

Emotional Complexities

One thing I regularly do is : Preparing lists. I recently prepared a list of most depressing moments of my childhood. Though I will not publish it, there was one important take away from that list.

I never had worries about exams, studies and least about my future. The depressing moments I faced as a child seem extremely trivial now as a grown up. Or may be I have learned to live with irony called life. Secondly, I realize that I was more concerned and bothered about things that were not related to my life at all.

I remember one day when I was returning from Chowgule college, I saw an old women, with barely any clothes on her body was trying to find a shelter near a closed shop. It was raining very heavily. The shopkeepers around did not let her even on the pavement. Now, lets not mistaken me as a compassionate human being. It only raised many questions in my life, what made that old woman be a destitute? What exactly happened with her life?

Search answers for irrelevant question is not a bad hobby. It gives you a good insight into human behavior. It makes you understand why people behave in a certain way under certain situations. It is also very depressing sometimes to know the real reason people behave in particular way.

A girls high school was on my way when I use to walk my way to bus stand every morning. That school was considered to be very prestigious in Panaji city and rich and poor flocked to get their kids admitted in this school. A father use to come to drop his daughter every morning to this school and I happened to cross their way everyday.

The father was clearly very poor. He use to accompany his daughter on way to school and he use to walk with her to school every day. I could clearly see a pride on his face that his daughter is going to a good school. He probably internally craved that people will see him with his daughter near the school and praise him for this achievement. He use to continuously talk with his daughter in his way, he would inquire about her studies her friends etc. In fact I felt that he was trying hard to establish a communication with his kid. And yes if I haven’t told you already. He was a dwarf.

The girl however was a bit reluctant to walk with him. When they use to reach near the school she use to be in a lot of hurry to get inside the building. While all other kids with their parents use to say bye bye 10 times to them. There was a stationary shop right opposite the school where the kids would force their parents to buy things for them.

This man would ask her daughter if she needed anything. Pen, Notebooks? He would ask. I have to go, I need to copy something from my friend. She would reply and run into the school not responding or reluctantly responding to the waving hand of her father.

Clearly the reason why she would do this, it was so clear to me that she was embarrassed of her father. She did not want to be seen with her father. Where as her father never realized that why she rushes in hurry. He thought she was very dedicated to her studies.

As a silent spectator, I always wondered. Whether that girl will ever realize the value of her fathers emotions. Whether the father will ever realize that his daughter is embarrassed about him. What if when she tell him this bluntly if not now may be when she grows up?

And I am sure one day will come when she will realize that she failed to acknowledge some of the most precious moments of her life. But it will be too late than.

All these questions might seem irrelevant. But undestanding people too well is like a curse for someone like me. There are so many such stories that I know. Unkwon people, irrelevant incidents but then they help me understand complexities of emotions in human life.

When I look back at my most deperssing moments list, I realise that the underlying common factor for making those moments depressing was a failure to understand my own emotions. There was a complete mis-interpretation of incidences which made me feel bad about them. But preparing this list helped. It made me emotionally more mature. It taught to be more sensitive towards other people.

Panchatantra Story 1

As Vrushabha, the bull walked towards the only source of water in the Jungle, Karataka and Damanaka watched him carefully. Vrushabha neither had the usual rhythm in his walk nor the pride which he use to have earlier.

“Something is wrong with Vrushabha, isnt it Damanaka?” Asked Karataka.

“Why should we poke our nose into affairs that are not our concern? Haven’t you heard the story of the monkey which pulled out the wedge from the log,” asked Damanaka.

Karataka remembered the story well but he had not taken any moral out of it. He insisted that as two very diligent and alert citizens of Panchatantra forest it is their duty to find out what has happened.

Irritated Damanaka said “Haven’t you learned any lessons from previous stories I told you? Haven’t you heard what happened to Krish the Software Engineer working in a reputed software firm?”

Karataka swirled its tail in excitement while Damanaka continued to eat the peace of meat he had had stolen from Sanjeevaka the Lion King.

What Happened to Krish? Tell me Damanaka, tell me. I have heard that IIT, Call Centers and Software industry usually have action, sex and thrill packed stories. Is Krish’s story is that interesting? -Karatak’s enthu had no bounds.

“Not every one is Chetan Bhagat Karataka, we are mere Jackals in the forest, we dont have IIM-A degrees and no one will publish our stories. Besides people dont like stories with moral, but looking at you still behaving like a fool, I think there is no point in having a moral to the story. ” Damanaka’s tone was grim which put water on Karataka’s enthu but he knew that Damanaka will soon start his story.

Krish was a very ambitious engineer. He had slogged very hard to get into the so-called “Best scope” engineering stream only to realize that all streams were essentially the same and none of them enlightened him to any new knowledge. Though Krish persisted and believed that his talent would be valued once he joins the industry, he did not smoke or drink like his other friends. He cleared engineering without getting a single back and 70% aggregate.

Damanaka you need to work on your story telling. We are no more kids, unless Krish drinks cans of beer and has a girl friend who smokes how the story will generate that excitement? No Wonder panchatantra is losing to television. Its time to add masala to the story.

Damanaka however ignored Karataka’s sarcastic comments. He continued.

Krish joined a reputed company. If you are not familiar with Indian software industry Karataka let me tell you, All software companies in India are reputed. They all are number one in something or other and all of them do only challenging work and all of them are driven by innovation of very high rank. In fact reading their advertisements you will wonder where are all the companies who are doing the legacy, support and other kinds of ordinary work.

Damanaka’s face was glowing as he narrated the story. Karataka was flipping his left ear. Damanaka  lifted his right paw and scrubbed his left ear. He then continued.

Krish joined and he had to be on bench for some days. He wondered what went wrong. his fingers were all excited to type out that code which he believed will make his life seem useful to the world. He thought he will do amazing things and will soon climb the ladder. But as time passed and he was still on bench his interest started decaying. He spent most of the time in TT room and pantry. And just in case you need some spice Karataka, he also started line marofying on the tester girl in the next cubicle. Krish got more and more cynical as the higher management failed to get him billed. His anger increased as that tester girls married off to one man in higher management.

Krish began to feel victimized. He started feeling that the security guards check his bag more thoroughly when he left office. His friends on projects started avoiding him on weekend. Give me one chance oh God, and I will work very very hard and show these people what I am worth of. He suddenly felt religious.

And that day arrived. Krish got himself on a project. He told the manager that he was already familiar with the framework and hence would start giving results right from day one. Manager showed happiness over his attitude and asked him to prepare some important documents as well. Krish did his work like a honest sincere and alert employee Karataka. Just the was you felt the need to go and talk to Vrushabha.

However Krish was a bit disappointed when he saw the same documents being mailed to client the only change being that the Author’s name was changed from Krish to his Manager’s name. But Krish was sincere like you Karataka. He did not take it to heart. He knew that the manager values him. When Pappu in his team screwed up Bug no 805 and 640, he promptly fixed them staying up the whole night.

Did his manager value his work Damanaka? asked Karataka with a question mark on his face.

Yes of course. Manager’s are good at it. Everyday when the manager left at 6 pm he would visit Krish’s cubicle instruct him about what needs to be done in next four hours and gave him few words of encouragement.

When client appreciated Krish’s work manager sent all the team members and super manager an email.

“Krish has received praise from client for the work he has done. Certainly if all team members stick to the processes I have set forth, I am sure everyone can perform like Krish. It shows that our processes are spot on”.

Not everyone is as smart as me. Krish’s heart cried but he kept quite Karataka. He kept quite. He came on weekends he spent sleepless nights. He could not remember when was the last time he went out on weekend. When was the last time he read a good book on lazy Saturday afternoon. While Manager drank coffee with Pappu and Smitha, Krish worked hard.

His hard work paid off. The Bugs were reduced, deadlines were met. Client was happy. Manager praised himself, patted his own back and asked others to clap in meetings.

The day of appraisals came. With heart full of hope Krish opened his mail. He just heard that Pappu got promoted.

Stop it Damanaka. Shouted Karataka. Thats enough.

But this is the climax of the story Karataka, aren’t you interested?

No I am not. Replied Karataka. I got the moral of the story. Let’s shut our mouths and let the Bull drink his water promptly. Let us not go to find out what happened.

Moral: When you hear that appraisals happened in your ex-company,dont ping your friends and ask them what happened. Not when it’s Saturday and when they are working.

 

6 pointers and Goal of IITs

It was by pure accident that I landed myself among 4 professors in room. One of them was a very distinguished and elderly professor I had blogged about before. There was a woman Prof. from Humanities and Social Science department, I dint know the other Prof. and the 4th one was my guide.

The elderly Prof. was saying that, when it comes to final year project all the profs. will guide only those students who have a CPI of 7.5 and above. He himself though is known in department to take “any” student who is refused guidance by all other Profs. He also noted that if a student has score less than 7.5 it actually means the student should not have been in IIT in the first place. [As per rules if you score less than 6.0 you are kicked out of IIT]

“Since the student has score above the mark set by the institution, isnt it the institutions responsibility to arrange a guide for them? No one takes them and an old man like me has to take the responsibility.” He questioned others. I smelled that a debate is about to start.

“Why do keep such students in institution? throw them out” Said the lady prof.

“But the rules say that if he scores more than 6.0 he can stay in IIT”- Another prof.

“Then change the rules” her reply was swift.

Everyone laughed and I too grinned.

“But then if you increase the level you will still find some at the bottom.”

I thanked the fate that at least one of them thought pragmatically. And then the same old man said the following words, which I indeed expected from him knowing him through his lecture, speeches and articles. These words not only are true but they highlight how IITs have turned to “Institutional Insanity” ( Word borrowed from Atanu Dey).

“I have seen many 6 pointers passing out of these institution. They have completed their projects well, they have got good jobs, they have a family, they are happy and they have contributed to the growth of society in a way no less than most 9 pointers. Then why reject them?”

One gets into IIT by fighting his way out from thousands and lakhs of students. The competition is not just unfair but takes a heavy toll on life of those students. Certainly if one gets into IIT by merit he is someone who has fought his way out by beating others to dust. I have written before about people who don’t get through. They are made to feel losers.

But even after getting in, and meeting the criteria set by the institution there are some “made to feel” losers.

By now way I am arguing against merit. Keep raising the bar but more important question that the institution needs to remember is, what is its goal? I am unable to find it even after searching the whole IITB site.

If the goal is to:

Act as a filter to, weed out every possible definition of mediocrity and pass only the best among the best in the given lot of best minds to society.

Then I think what the woman professor said is correct. Why 7.5? One can keep the criteria to 9-10 as well. There are geniuses all around the campus who will achieve it.

But if the goal is to, and I believe it should be the real goal:

To find the best talent in country, provide them with best infrastructure and guidance, to help them become finest engineers available to society.

Then I would say it is insanity not ensuring that every students passing the criteria of 6 CPI must get a guide.

But then the problem is not about guide and project. The problem is while talking about excellence the institution must remember that the kind of students enter IIT are excellent even if IIT doesn’t give them anything. Wherever they will go in world they are indeed above average. What matters is whether IIT can act as an amplifier and not a filter to the talent and intellect they posses.

As far as I am concerned I am new to this environment. But I see that most of the public institutions are so deviated from their original goal. It is not good for our society.

 

Faith in Terror

Recent blasts in margao have spurred a discussion in society and apparently peaceful Goan society is now deliberating upon the terrorist face of religious fundamentalism. Though the reasons and culprits behind the Margao blasts are not yet known conclusively to the public, discussion such important matter never had a better time.

Society is always divided in groups why does it take something like Communism or Religious groups to indulge in violence as a mean to show their hatred? We haven’t heard yet that some anti-alcohol group planted a bomb in a pub. Mostly it’s the religious groups or some groups like Naxalites resort to violence to show their hatred towards what they call “unbelievers”.

The Motivation and The Barrier

The reason is, an ordinary Human being like me will always find it extremely difficult to reason out to myself about the moral validity of my act. Human beings always avoid activities for which they cant reason to themselves. Since I cant reason to myself that I need to explode a bomb in public I simply cant think of doing such barbaric act. And this is same for almost all human beings irrespective of their religion. A Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian human being will by nature think of this act as barbaric. The reasoning capabilities of human mind are by default a major barrier to overcome when one decides to indulge in such act. All human beings are born with this ability and hence none of us is a born terrorist, in fact all of us are born as peace lovers. This clearly indicates that statements such as “All muslims are terrorists”, “Muslims are violent by default” are nothing but illogical and invalid statements.

The difference is clearly in something that helps the individual break this natural barrier. Why we see more of Islamic terrorism is explained by the fact that Islam’s doctrine actually helps an individual to rationalize his acts of terrors. He think that it’s his virtue to explode bombs in public. It is the teaching of Islam, and a firm dogmatic beliefs in what “The Book” says helps him to commit such dastardly acts. It is the Islam that makes a Muslim more violent than anything else. And it is not only about Islam, in fact any dogmatic belief makes an Individuals rational thinking capabilities very weak.

The Secular Argument

But then listen to the arguments of the secular camp which always claims that, Islam is a religion of peace and it is the poverty, political oppression and lack of education is what makes them more prone to violence. Assuming this as true the government announces several communal schemes where banks are asked to reserve 6% loans to minorities, panels like Sachhar are set up.

But then one must ask why does the Tibetan Monks, which have been oppressed by all means, which are poor to any extent, haven’t taken up arms against China? Why don’t we see a Tibetan buddhist monk suicide bomber destroying the Chinese Embassy? Instead their leader HH Dalai Lama get peace prize for Nobel. It is because that a Buddhist will have to work very hard to reason out to himself any act of violence. They might do it when they are pushed to limits but certainly their religion certainly makes the barrier against violence much stronger as opposed to the teachings of Islam. Buddhism can be relatively termed as religion of peace not Islam.

It is also interesting to note that, not just secularist, leftist but even the right wing organizations like RSS and parties termed as “Communal” like BJP seem to reach consensus over the statement that “Islam is a religion of peace, it is only some Muslims that are violent” while the truth (though politically inconvenient) is exactly the opposite. No Muslims is different from a Hindu, it is the Islam that makes him different.

The Sanstha and The Law Enforcers

Considering a case of Margao blast where the media and government have been claiming that Sanatan Sanstha is a prime target. The claim might lack evidence, but an organization like Sanatan is more likely to indulge in such acts because of the dogmatic beliefs it has been believing and propagating. Organizations like Sanatan, have been calling their arbitrary conclusions “Scientific Spirituality”. A look at their literature will give a sufficient insight about their system of beliefs. No one can deny them a right to believe that a ghee lamp is spiritually better than oil lamp, but the logic they will use to believe it can also be a perfect foundation for the acts for which their are being suspected.

It will be naive for us to belive that the government is capable of handling such situations carefully. Because they have not really understood the problem. They say all religions are same without reading all the major teachings of those religions, they link terrorism to economic reason when it is well proven that most of the terrorists are well educated and from upper middleclass or rich families. Interested reader can refer to the latest bestseller “Superfreakonomics”. Instead the government is very likely ot suppress the matter and symptoms of the problem rather than going to the roots of it.

From the Print: Theory of evolution and Religion

Here is the reproduction of my letter published in Navhind Times today.

Rational Thinking over Religious Dogma
MR Michael Vaz has made very relevant comments in his letter Science and Religion (NT, October 27) in reference to a letter by Eduardo Manuel Sequeira (NT, Oct 16). Despite the scientific progress that the human race has achieved, many people tend to believe still believe in the Word of God. So firm is the belief that they start rejecting scientifically established theories such as Darwin’s theory of evolution etc. Several noted scholar’s like Mr Sam Harris and Mr Richard Dawkins–most of them atheists–have written ample on the topic. Like any other scientific theory, even the theory of evolution can be subjected to criticism and is open to challenge, but it is not a sign of intelligence to accept dogmatic propositions against a scientific theory. Despite this, a progressive and developed nation like the United States ran into a controversy. In 1925 the Tennessee Legislature overwhelmingly approved legislation making it a crime to teach ‘any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal’. On a personal note, I have realised through my study that the theory of evolution is visible not just among the species but in many other problems. Several algorithms like ‘genetic algorithms’ based on this concept of evolution are very useful in ‘artificial intelligence’. Even fields likes economics, linguistics etc have made use of theories of evolution and ‘survival of fittest’. In fact several studies have been published about how evolution is affecting religious beliefs as well. Slowly but steadily, the rational thinking capabilities of human beings is winning over pure faith on religious dogma. If we go by ‘survival of the fittest’, religious dogma seems to be the lease fittest of all.
AKSHAR PRABHU DESAI, Canacona

Difference Between A Doctor’s and Engineer’s thinking

Doctors and Engineers especially in their student years don’t share a respectful relation. Mostly Medicine being the more preferred choice of career, many of the engineers are actually “wanna be doctor but could not get into” types. Hence they now want to prove that being Engineer is actually a better thing than being a Doctor. But this blog is not about that.

I never wanted to become a doctor and pure love for mathematics and analytical think brought me into Engineering field. But now while I attend Artificial Intelligence lecture, medicine often comes in our discussion. How can we design expert systems to diagnose diseases.

The question that our professor raised today was something that I had thought about many times before. There is a fundamental difference between how people in different professions think. A Doc, said my prof., makes any hypothesis purely based on his experience and diagnoses the disease. He then continuously updates his hypothesis based on response that the patient gives to his treatment.

As long as the basis for hypothesis is not the Doctor’s immediate financial needs, I would say it is a fine approach. But Doctors need to work harder at getting their hypothesis write in the first shot, if an engineer has to trust them. Even a trivial symptom like cough might make them think that they have got a fatal disease. More so because they use Internet to arrive at that conclusion themselves.

Given my experience in software engineering, I only hope that doctors dont really work the way we do. So many times we realize that the code we are writing is ugly and there is a better solution, we end up keeping it that way just because “it will not show up” or the client would not know about it. What is Doctors think that way ?

Engineers have analytical mind. Given a set of symptoms we will have to correlate those symptoms with some disease with known symptoms. Clearly a well-studied and well-known (though not well solved) problem in machine learning.

But then I am really worried about the cases where a wanna be doctor ends up becoming an engineer. Isnt something terribly wrong with that?

Note: Many seem to get offended by the statement that most engineering get into the profession because they could not get into medicine, this is an india specific statement and purely on a personal note.

Regulating Higher Education In Goa?

In today’s Navhind Times, Dr. Nandkumar Kamar, a noted and genuine scholar from Goa argues the “need” to “regulate” the higher education space. I think the whole argument of regulating education is completely misplaced.

A DOCTORATE in any subject for Rs 2 lakhs, an MPhil in languages, natural or social sciences for Rs 1 lakh, any post-graduate degree for little less than Rs 50,000

Why would someone buy a Doctorate for Rs. 2 lakh instead of spending 4 years? The incentives are simple, you get a degree in so little time. Certainly thats illegal but people buy it because it works. The reason such fake degree manufacturers exist and flourish has two very important factors behind it.

Firstly, the acute shortage of educational resource. Our universities are abysmally equiped to meet demands and aspiration of our students. 4 lakh students appear for IIT-JEE, 8000 get through. The remaining 392000 students are not suckers. Most of them do deserve something equivalent to IITs but they dont get into it. They then try to opt for other opportunities, including buying out a degree.

Secondly, it works! The people who pass out from an institutes like Goa Engineering college, are not really in practice smarter than someone who has done a good course from NIIT or SEED. Both of them are considered as equivalent in Industry. In fact I can show examples where people with absolutely not engineering background have fared far better in real world than those who have degrees. Clearly, the fake degree is useless and doest make any value addition to individual, but then neither does the real degree.

Before blaming the mushrooms of educational institution promising quick and sure degree, we must question if an institution like Goa University is any better. Instead, Goa University is run by public funds. It is a complete farce. It is just a government authorized degree sale center where degrees are cheap but one has to only spend time in there. That is why people prefer to buy degrees instead of earning them.

Though Dr. Kamat argues that Goa needs more laws and regulations in Education field in order to prevent these malpractices, the solution he suggest doesnt go well with me.

The trade of selling degrees is booming because the government has not shown any practical interest to amend and arm the Goa University Act, 1984 suitably to bar competing profit-making private interests in higher education.

What scares me is that several intellectuals seem to be opposed to the idea of institutes making profit by providing education as a service. The taboo word being “profit”. I believe that India’s education policy is not only harmful for growth of private educational institutes but the degree with which government has controlled and regulated education and higher education is just scandalous.

Government has failed completely in building system of education which will give wise man to society. While it is hiding its failure by painting glossy fake pictures of India, it has prevented other people in building any alternate system. They have restricted access to the most vital resource of the country as well as an individual. No wonder the individuals find work around to get it.

The sorry state of higher education in India can be understood from Atanu’s posts.

Of the ten percent who do get post-secondary education in India’s around 300 universities (comprising of 17,000 colleges), their results are disheartening. India produces around two and a half million college graduates, including 400 thousand engineers annually. But the quality is so poor that only a quarter of them are actually unemployable. Stark statistics reveal the oversupply of raw graduates and the under supply of unemployable graduates. Infosys, an IT giant, last year sorted through 1.3 million applicants only to find around two percent were qualified for jobs, according to a recent report in The New Yorker.

The remaining 98% one must remember are mostly passed out from reputed institutions across the country with good marks spending 3-4 years of graduation. But what they have learned in those 4 years is as equivalent to getting a fake degree by paying 2 lakhs.

If we take Goa’s case, where industrialization is not a common phenomenon, if you want a better future you need to get out of this place. If you need a government job one has to show proof that he has so and so degree and pay a bribe to minister. Minister takes care of everything else. What you have learned, your competence in the subject hardly matters. Obviously buying a degree is much easier and better than earning it.

I think Goa has good potential to become an education hub for the country. Certainly laws can be passed and committees can be set up. But it should be to free education from Government control and make it more open and accessible. Once you allow private colleges to compete freely with government one’s, the only differentiating aspect will be the usefulness of degree awarded. The attempts to improve this usefulness will lead to improved quality of education.

What applies to India generally applies to Goa, but I feel Goa can always take up pioneering work because it is a small state. Atanu Dey’s Policy brief on the topic is an eye opener and I wonder why our policy makers cant accept it.

Education forms a very important feature and pre-requisite for economic and social development. A more and better educated society is likely to prosper and be peaceful than others. For this excellence should be the goal of system. A governmental setup can not struggle for excellence, it needs to happen by letting the entrepreneurs of our country invest in education. Let the Tatas , Ambanis start universities, also let the educational start-ups come up with sufficient funds. Government should act only as a facilitator and not a controller.

Who can put this in better words if not Mr. Arun Shourie?

he first thing to do is to stop counter-positioning primary, universal education against higher education. We need both. We can afford both. Second, we must see both — the threat as well as the opportunity: the threat that we may lose our best minds at an even faster rate than the rate at which we have been losing them in the past decades; on the other side, the opportunity that we can be educators to the world.Third, to ward off the threat and to tap into the opportunity, we require the same sort of measures. To arrest and reverse the alarming deterioration of standards in most of our institutions of higher learning. To ensure that in regard to both – students as well as faculty – merit, performance here and now, alone counts. To ensure that rewards are strictly commensurate with performance.

And resources. A large proportion of these will have to come from the government – for instance, private entrepreneurs just do not have the long horizons that basic research requires. Equally, government alone will just not have enough resources for this sector. Thus, one service that finance ministers can do is to give the most generous incentives and tax-breaks for industry to invest in education and in R&D. For every trifling misuse, a Manipal will come up.
And the resources have to be defrayed not just on equipment – that is what is done ever so often: and by the time the underpaid, under-motivated faculty learn to exploit the equipment to its full potential, the equipment is obsolete. A good proportion of the resources have to be set apart for making salaries and allowances of faculty and researchers and their work-environment attractive enough for them to forgo careers in private industry and to choose instead to be in universities and research institutions. [Read Full at Atanu Dey's Blog]

alert(“test”);

The Banning Business

“Cong for ban on Sanatan” says a news in Navhind Times (24th Oct). The news provides some valuable insights into the minds of legislator with respect to what they think of Sanatan Sanstha, a hindu religious organization which has come in news after the blasts in Margao last week.

Mr. Alexio Sequera the power minister had some gems of his wit.

He further said that it was fortunate that the police could immediately detect the linkage between the blast and the Sanatan Sanstha; otherwise, “I believe everybody would have tried to point fingers at the “innocent” Muslims”. With prompt detection the communal harmony that prevailed in the state was maintained, he said. [Empasis mine]

Unfortunately for congress, there is no way to ban any organization just because they think it should be banned. The “Preventon of Unlawful Activities 1967″ law is what needs to be followed. Mr. Shantaram Naik, has figured out how this law can be used against Sanatan.

Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member, Mr Shantaram Naik, told The Navhind Times on Friday that before any exercise on banning Sanatan Sanstha was undertaken by the government the main office-bearers, directors, trustees, of the institution should be arrested and prosecuted under Sections 153A, 153B, 295A, 298, 383, 403, 415, 504 and other sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Responding to a question on what was his opinion on banning the organisation, Mr Naik said that banning of the institution was done under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. This act has recently been amended and has been made more stringent.
Mr Naik, however, said that priority of the government should be to direct the police to file criminal prosecutions against key figures working in the institution, based on the records available regarding violence and communal hatred preached by the institution openly.
He further said that if the activities of the institution were examined, with the help of their propaganda material, periodicals, newspapers and websites, the police machinery could easily file not less than 100 charge-sheets, based on their writings alone.

This interests me. If Sanatan is found responsible all sort of legal action must be taken against it. But the point is there are so many other organization that too should be treated in the same fashion and with same urgency the government has been showing. NCP can top the list. Convince yourself by reading this.

But it is logic of Mr. Naik that surprises me. The law clearly marks what is called “unlawful activities”. The clause is

1[ " unlawful association" means any association-

(i) which has for its object any unlawful activity, or which encourages or aids persons to undertake any unlawful activity, or of which the members undertake such activity; or

(ii) which has for its object any activity which is punishable under section 153A or section 153B of the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860 ), or which encourages or aids persons to underta- ke any such activity, or of which the members undertake any such activity: Provided that nothing contained in sub- clause (ii) shall apply to the State of Jammu and Kashmir.]

Which means the office bearers of the organization, if they do something that can be punished under the above mentioned sections, you can describe the association as unlawful. Mr. Naik’s logic however though is very interesting. He first wants to ban the organization, but it can not be banned unless you have a valid reason to ban it. Hence arrest it’s office bearers invoking the above mentioned sections. Then ban the organization.While arresting them the reason to arrest them, and to invoke the above sections is purely “organization needs to be banned and this is a pre-requisite”. This is a clear case of how the law can be molested for the ruling party’s interest. While NDA enacted POTA this was the reservation that the Congress Party had, that it will be used against Muslims. However the party must be now happy that they can use UAL(P) in defending innocent Muslims.

However from the news reports I am of opinion that the Congress government will not be able to prove any accusations against the office bearers. Hence even if they ban sanatan it may not stand well in the house of court. The delay in making the decision probably is only due to this factor and nothing else.

Other side of the story is that, whenever there are any terror activities, Congress leader always claim “Terror has no religion”. But this time around Mr. Alex’s argument show that he is infact very pleased that “innocent muslims” can not accused of the conspiracy. The big question before me is, if Sanatan is a hindu organization, why would it plan for blasts in a Hindu festival itself ? Worst their own man dies in this. News that the bomb exploded while carrying it or while planting it doesnt sound credible.

In ideal case the government’s efforts should have been directed towards investigating the truth from all possible aspects. But as usual the government is busy using this incident as an parity to Islamic Terror that is holding our country at ransom, by playing votebank politics. The worst , the law is being raped while doing so.