Thinking of Right to Information recently, I decided to google for it. Here are the few links I came across:
http://righttoinformation.gov.in/
http://www.ndtv.com/rti/default.asp
http://www.righttoinformation.info/
But I haven't gone thoroughly through any of those websites. But still I thought that some one might find these links useful. Check thse out and write in comments any thing you found interesting on those sites. Also add any of the links you know about RTI.
For the past few months, we have been hearing a lot in the debate on reservations for OBCs in institutions for higher education. And also a lot on inclusion, or rather, exclusion of creamy layer.
Many people, leaders and experts have voiced their opinions on these issues. But one issue has largely escaped our notice. The issue is the quality of so called higher education in other institutions all over the country. Regarding the fore mentioned issue of reservation every one, except a very few, have argued and discussed on how much of the cake a particular section of the population is entitled to. But very few have thought of how to increase the size of the cake. No, increasing the size of the cake, here, doesn't mean just increasing the number of seats in those institutions, it also means increasing the quality of education in other institutions.
Almost every one agrees that even after more than fifty years of policy of reservation, much hasn't changed regarding the social and economical status of those concerned. But then, nor has the quality of higher education in general. If anything, with increase in demand, the quality has actually fallen over years. True the economic status of India has improved. But perhaps, that is because of the effective utilisation of our resources and not because of any tremendous change in the quality of education.
Even today, education means marks. True, marks serve as a very good bench mark to gauge the performance of students and to some extent, that of teachers. But, they aren't what the whole of education is. Unfortunately, many institutions haven't realised this. By and large, the greater purpose of education, which I feel is "to help an individual know about himself, the world around him; to make one realise his own strengths and weaknesses and to strive to better his strength and lessen his weaknesses" is being ignored. Luckily for me, my school education has helped me know about myself and my world. It also helped me discover my strengths and weaknesses. But my professional education (Engineering) hasn't really helped me work on my strengths and weaknesses.
No stress is being laid on Imagination, Innovation & Invention and self discovery.
Even more appalling thing is that, a few sections or branches of education are being are totally ignored. Take for instance science. These days science seems to have been forgotten all together in many regions along with humanities. No one taking the sciences in +1 and +2 are any more interested in doing M.Sc. and B.Sc. All they want is to become an Engineer or a Doctor. The necessity of basic life sciences and research is being ignored. All attention seems to be on Tech and MBA. Of late, interesting things are happening in technical education too. Earlier key stress used to be on practical knowledge with sound basics. But with mushrooming of tech institutes,(yes mushrooming) even basic infra structure like labs and libraries are not being provided.. We do need more institutions. But they shouldn't be allowed to come up in a hap hazard way without proper control. Because of this students are lacking proper practical knowledge of things that they are expected to do later in their profession. For example, even though I am a third year student in Electrical Engineering, I still don't exactly know how a motor works. Another reason for this is severe shortage of staff equipped with proper knowledge tools to teach us (but then, again, I'm lucky to be studying in a college with staff. But not every one is as lucky). And with the advent and success of IT, even the theoretical knowledge is being lost. Every one talks of Soft Skills and Personality development, which should have been an integral part of education in the first place. And here, in AP, every student is expected to be more proficient at C and C++ than their core subjects. Any how core jobs are exotic. Today IT & ITES maybe our forte. But don't we need o stress on other areas too? Especially when we dream of being a developed nation as soon as possible! Don't we need to set all this right.
Fee in IITs and our colleges are about same. We may not be entitled to have the kind staff and facilities they have. Nor can we even dream of their job offers and fat pay checks. But don't we require basic amenities like labs and Internet. There are still colleges which forbid their students from using email in college. All these issues should be addressed very soon , along with the rest of the issues concerning education. I still don't have an idea about who is responsible for this situation. Who ever it is, I only hope that they realise the situation set things right as soon as possible.
"We institutions of higher education which help us realise our full potential. We need those institutions that give us a chance to be ourselves. We need institution where gets to experiment on new things, where one gets enough time to explore some new avenues of life, where we get a chance to Imagine, Innovate & Invent!"
For the past few months I've been thinking 'should death sentence be abolished?'. Well to be true, I have been thinking why death sentence should still be continued while many countries have abolished it. In principle, I'm against Death penalty. I detest it. One reason for this is that I love my life. So do everyone else, I believe.
Apart from my love for a life in any form, one more reason why I oppose death sentence is that killing a life serves no purpose. Yes, the crimes some commit deserve the harshest punishment. But is death penalty really harsh enough. I don't think so. Indeed death penalty offers an exit way from the tough path of transformation of an individual. Punishment is not an end unto itself. Its just a means to the end of transformation. I cases a person proves too hard to crack, he or she can be contained by many other measures like solitary confinement under strict supervision and security.
Still one may find all this concern over a gruesome killer or a terrorist to be absurd. But one reason why this concern is not absurd is that our judiciary system is still not fool proof. It still has many loop holes and pit falls. It is still possible that a real culprit can escape and an innocent person may be prosecuted and proven guilty. No, I'm not writing this in the context of Afzal's conviction. We've had enough debate over that issue. And I'm convinced that he is guilty. But the thing is this case alone doesn't ensure that our judiciary is so tight and strict.
Even if everyone everyone convicted is really guilty, justice is not being delivered on equal terms to all. Take the case of Abu Salem, he was arrested in Lisbon, Portugal. Though we had some substantial evidence of his involvement in some nefarious activities in India, Portugal, when given that evidence, refused to hand him over to us until our authorities gave them assurances that we won't hang him. And so do many countries who have abolished death penalty. Imagine the situation if Dawood Ibrahim too turns in some of those countries. How can justice be delivered depending on where a person, the guilty is arrested? Will we be able to say in such cases, that justice is not served as the criminal is not hanged?
Some may argue that we need not care about egalitarian principles regarding such criminals. But then, what goes round also comes round. So we need set right our law. We need to abolish capital punishment.
Well, if u feel u have some thing to say regarding this issue... please post your comments below.
For the past few months we have been hearing a lot on the debate of reservations. I tried to get a clear idea about the whole issue. But it proved to be a Herculian task. The reason is that I have too many questions and far too less information on the actual issue and the related history and statistics. So I thought some one out there can clear my doubts and I can finally get a clear idea and an opinion about the issue. And the questions and doubt that have been eating out my whole brain and time are:
Need for resevations?
Justification for the resevations?
Is it just because those concerned are historically oppressed?
How can reservations help backward classes come over social discrimination?
Do they "all" really need them?
Are they "all" still oppressed ? And aren't any one else?
Is it whole thing tenable?
What about others from poor and economically families from the so called forward classes?
And what about others from far flung and rural areas who aren't aware of any laws or privilages?
What's the need for inclusion of Creamy layer?
Are the benifits really reaching the most needy?
Can't we increase the size of cake insead of fighting over who should get how much?
Do we really enjoy the freedom to the course of choice to learn the things we like , the way we like?
And is the idea of reservations in jobs really justified? And do we really need them in private sector too?
I hope I can really know the answers to all these issues and can one day post my own opinion. Please, if you happen to know any thing related or have an opinion, please post them in the comments column.
Just a few days back many of my friends got recruited into some of the prestigious Information Technology companies like TCS, WIPRO, INFOSYS, HCL, etc. They were all happy to get selected into those companies, even without getting their Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) degrees. Their initial salaries are above 20k per month, quite a handsome package. And yes, even I felt happy then to see my friends getting such jobs in the most happening companies in the most happening field today, in India . And some of them even threw a party. We all enjoyed it.
But later, one question really troubled me and is still troubling me. And that question is are we really the IT super powers which, we think we are? First, I thought the answer is YES. IT, today, contributes a substantial part to our economy, it gave India a new identity in the global arena, it gave jobs to lakhs of Indians, and what's more, its all set to grow even larger. So I thought the answer is YES.
Now looking at the other side of the coin, yes we do export a lot in the BPO sector. But of late, a substantial part of these exports are coming from call centre end of the BPOs. Also our forte is services sector. We are yet to bring out a great IT product. Yes, we gave a few really nice products to the world, especially in the financial sector. But all those came from the subsidiaries to foreign companies. True, its hard to bring out a product solely from India, especially in this age when the operations of the companies are spread all over the world. But what is worrying is that in most cases, I think, we are putting the enormous capabilities of our work force to abeyance.
Even more than any of the above mentioned things, one thing that really puzzles me is, why have we, despite being a lot advanced in this field, failed to harness the power of IT for the good of common man. For example, we still pay our current bill at one place, our phone bill at another place, and various other bills at many other places. Can't we, with the help of IT, create a system to make easy all these payments. And take the case of education field, to begin with, our state (Andhra Pradesh) technical education board doesn't have a solid, fool proof centralized counseling system to allot seats in various colleges. We do have a centralized system, but it doesn't allow the prospective students to choose the colleges and courses they want at leisure. They are expected to make decisions on the spot. And this, in many cases, results in the students regretting their decisions at a later stage. And our university still prefers the age old approach of sending the results to our colleges via fax or phone, instead of posting them on the university website. Or take the case of our police force. It still doesn't have a national wide database of the records of, leave alone the normal criminals, even terrorists. If we have one, it can help our forces a lot in fighting the terrorism. Even better, if can maintain one with records of most wanted criminals. One need of paramount importance to any democratic country is the voter list. But we, boasting to be biggest democracy in this world, still grapple with the discrepancies in the voter lists and photo id cards. True, the sheer no. of voters makes it difficult to bring out a perfect system, but having the IT prowess we have , with the right will, I think, we can accomplish the task of bringing out a good, if not the best, system.
Now, after thinking over all these arguments, I find it hard to answer the question, I raised first, YES. Nor is my answer a NO. May be we the IT Super Powers in deep slumber. What do you think? Post your comments.
Yesterday I saw a running announcement scrolling down at the bottom of the screen on MTV.
It said that MTV was warned by the I&B ministry for broadcasting a Hindi song certified 'A' by the CBFC.
What does this mean? In whose interest did the ministry issue this warning?
Does this mean that actually, all the songs that were broadcast by MTV, all these years, for e.g., songs from AKSAR (just to name one) can be seen by anyone, including children?
After reading the announcement I was really appalled to know that all these songs were, indeed not certified 'A'. If these songs aren't certified 'A' , why certify others 'A'?
What else do the CBFC want in a song or in the movie to be certified 'A'?
Does it actually want a topless shot or a nude shot?
I'm not saying MTV shouldn't broadcast these songs. If people (this includes even me) want to see those songs, let them see and let MTV broad cast those.
But why mask the content as not 'A' certified.
I really don't understand why CBFC is following these double standards.
I request the I&B ministry to change the regulations on certifying these songs and movies. And then enforce the law correctly.
While we cant accept porn movies being released, even as 'A' rated, the discrepancies in various censor boards rules should be removed and a uniform code should be followed all over the country.
Also the age limit to view see an 'A' certified movie may be reduced to around 15 years. Because, if they aren't allowed to see them, they can still lay their hands on obscene movie via Internet or at their neighborhood CD shop or an extremely violent video game (in most cases parents dont object to their children playing these gory games) . But then the restrictions should be seriously implemented.
Also all ISPs all over India should try their best to block pornographic sites.
If China can, very successfully, screen all search results and websites, sometimes including BBC , just for the mention of words like Democracy, Human Rights, I think India can do better to stop the pornographic websites .
