Letter published in Hindu - Ragging

Here's the link to my letter (The hindu):-

http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/17/stories/2009031755560804.htm

Full Article

It is a matter of grave concerns that issues like ragging still find place in institutes of learning and education. Whether it is news catching cases of Aman kachroo in Himachal Pradesh or agricultural institute ragging incident in Andhra Pradesh, the so called ice-breaking practice seems to only corroborate in evil sense.  One shudders on the mere thought of innumerable ragging cases that must be plaguing in different colleges in different parts of the country.

What needs to be in place in times today is not beat the culprit policy based on punishments like restrictions, expulsions or suspensions, for they would serve a short term goal of reprimanding the guilty, but an holistic approach to end ragging in long run paving the ways to restore peace and harmony within every individual in more stressful times to come.

There have been many initiatives in form of Raghavan Committee Recommendations taken up in past with achievements in form of anti-ragging squads formation in colleges, but with today’s highly pressurized life-style, one need to go back to basics to overcome this menace.

There exists a thin line between being immoral and being amoral. To root out both, one needs to lay emphasis on Primary school education. For this, the core requirement is to make every student a morality-literate individual right from the primary school education till he/she passes senior secondary school education. This would call for incorporation of a subject covering morals, ethics, principles, society dynamics & individual behavior. A span of one subject at various levels over a period of 8 to 10 years will lay the creation of law abiding, moral and honest human beings. The evaluation of a student in this subject would be based on grading scales and in order to encourage students to take up this subject more seriously, reward in form of certificates can be given to individuals scoring highest grades.  This would help every student to be sound and rational in decision making process at the time of higher education studies. In a nutshell, a slow but a robust process having longest positive impact on the society.

Another improvisation needed in today is to make anti-ragging squads (ARS) more vigilant and action oriented in various institutes and colleges. This entails providing an SMS service to students to report any startling ‘ragging’ activity in college/hostel premises to ARS before becoming victim to the menace. The major step to be taken in this direction is to grow the size of ARS in every college to address concerns like availability and place an inspection team of faculty/professors to check regularly over the activities of ARS.

Third initiative would be in form of mentor-mentee program wherein ever senior would be allotted a couple of juniors who can have a highly interactive sessions that will help in confidence building measures during the stay in the college. A group of two to three mentees would deter any senior from exploiting one individual’s integrity and a diversified group would deter any unforeseen regional bias. Moreover, under the aegis of this program, by making the education more professional and research oriented, students (read seniors) at various levels can be encouraged to take activities or assigned tasks with juniors (as subordinates) to have those strong bullet points written on CV’s/resumes in a professional course and references in research proposals (in form of apprenticeship ).

Last but not the least, innovation would come in form of ice-breaking sessions to be held between seniors and juniors in form of a grand scale function organized yearly right in the beginning by college authorities’ who will address the concerns of a timid junior and assertive seniors.

I certainly feel measures like these would pave the success of having rational and healthy mindset amongst the student fraternity in ever walk of life.

Pragmatic Response towards external developments

Software sector has been the prime engine of growth in our country. There is no denying the fact that this sector gave the much needed impetus to see India shinning in truest sense possible and showcased its talent to rest of the world. With Aryabhata contributing ‘0’ to the world, we are marching to rank ‘1’ in world when it comes to talent, clearly a toggle between the two numerical as highlighted in binary form in Indian software industry. Indeed a matter of pride!!!

We are living in turbulent times which have made it impossible for us to proclaim that our economy is a decoupled economy from rest of the world. Indeed, Globalization and financial integration has linked us to the outer world, and hence allowed both direct and indirect tremors to rein in our territory. The decisions of the most cherished leader in today’s time are be-fittingly misplaced especially when it comes to safeguarding the interests of his nationals, the Americans. The decision to prune the extent of outsourcing to other countries like India (implicit) may sound ambitious today but is highly impractical in long run. The revival of any economy is recessionary times lies in public investment and by creating avenues to increase demand, consumption and production. If the companies in US cannot afford to pay high pay packages to local technocrats why would it not want to outsource the project to offshore entities at highly cheaper rates? Today, the growth is so inter-related and inclusive that factors like outsourcing just can’t be ignored. It acts not only as a revenue earner for firms but also helps in job creation for local masses. Growth of Indian companies like TCS, Infosys, and HCL has resulted in providing employment opportunities not just in India but abroad by setting up centers in Mexico, Brazil etc. Hence, a bilateral growth for both the home and host countries.

However, there are few measures that need to be adopted by India’s corporate sector during the times of crises. Since India has a strong pool of talent in form of software engineers, hardware engineers, techno-brats like hackers, and researchers, what needs to be done is to truly decouple the economy from turbulence in rest of the world, at least in one particular domain determining the growth. There are a few intrepreneurial characteristics we need to mobilize within ourselves not just to alienate self from global impacts, but to provide the much needed public investments in recessionary phase. This could come in form of an autonomous research organization/entity that could be set up by employing the best talent mix from such a strong intellectual industry which will get the necessary government grant for conducting research in coherence with existing institutions for providing domestic solutions for our country.  Yes, calling I.T companies to provide solutions for country in as much importance as they do to others. The conceptualized research entity would provide solutions like connecting all the hospitals in country through online networking making it readily available even to the people living in most isolated areas. This may not cater to the needs of internet illiterate masses, but would certainly address the need of public investment in short run and improvement in health index in long run. Another solution the entity could offer would include designing state level centralized web-portals for meeting the regular needs of households like securing a gas connection, refilling of gas cylinders etc. This would help in making it highly convenient for a net savvy population in both short and long run and also address the issues like fuel thefts and usage of household cylinders for business purposes. Another solution the research organization would offer would be to provide education through networking in rural areas, semi-urban areas etc. The after effects of all these solutions will have a multiplier effect on the economy and pave the way for industrial development especially in manufacturing and infrastructure sector. This would truly make India the I.T hub of the world and an emerging market with no string attached.

Ruk ja bande...

Toofan aur barish ki boondein,

Andhere mein sannate ki goonj,

Mitti mein dhas chukka hai bande,

Haasil karne ki bud chukki teri bhook!!!

Maut ko gale lagakar,

Chale they insaan ki khoj mein,

Na rahe ‘Mahatma’, na rahe ‘Pandit’,

Kya maut chupi thi unki soch mein???

Kuch palon se jhujharo hokar,

Mar mitne ko mann karta hai,

Har pal mar raha hai bande,

Bas mann mannne se darta hai!!!

Ek aag thi yuva mein,

Jo aaj vibhuti ban hai hawa mein gum,

Jis hawa mein lete ho sansein, uss hawa ke dard ko sunn!!!

Anant lakshya ki khoj mein,

Chod chukke ho apna ghar,

Jeet ko pa lena chahte ho lekin,

Haarne se lagta hai darr!!!

Veeron ke shehar mein,

kayarta ka ankur hai foota,

insaan ne insaan ko kya,

insaan ne bhagwan ko loota!!!

Utho dikhawe ki kabar se,

Tod do ab jhoot ka chehra,

Karna hai to kuch kar dikhao,

Na hone do parchai ko aur kala, aur gehra!!!

Shaheedon ki smriti,

 sardi mein garmahat deti hai,

kyon hai kissi ka haq cheena,

mrit logon ki kevel kheti hai!!!

To be continued….

A failed story

I was a lonesome lover,

Searching her with hopes undeterred,

Don’t be disheartened what friends would say,

The day of success isn’t a distant away…

With gentle promises in my heart, gave every day a novel start,

Dreamt of caring for her more than self, and would face evils with all the stealth!!!

One day, the remote prospects became an idealistic truth,

Didn’t happen by chance, but we were made for each other’s good,

With bud of love carved on my heart, forever to stay,

The day of success wasn’t anymore a distant away!!!

Overlooked friends n foes, lived in a world reincarnated for her,

We swayed to love till our last breath, and promised to bid a bye together!!!

Dynamics of time flew past at an alarming pace,

Is love a dream or reality, she would pray,

I would hold her hands in my hands,

 “This day of success would last an infinity...”, I would say!!!

But the actions of past, formulated a circuitous future,

With life and love not lasting forever,

I stood waiting, when she was gone one day,

The day of success is no more alive today!!!

                                                                                                A failed love story….

Life Factors

Factors of life

The various facets of life, be at experience, knowledge, learning plays an important role at various stages and that too simultaneously. Do we ever give it a thought as to how do they define the future course or the trend they follow for every individual?

Well, I’ve tried explaining them with a graph I could conceptualize which depicts how these important and implicit parameters shape us up. This may neither be the correct way to explain things nor the right version, but my experience certainly goes against the argument.

Experience: - Experience is something we inherit from the day we are born into this world. Culture is one what we learn in this social society as an institution, experience is something that keeps building as we progress (in age) with time. Certainly, it shows a balance between what we learn and what we understand, or in a more apt manner, a balance between the ‘flowing’ time and the life factors. The graph depicts it to be present at an angle of 45* with the abscissa showing an ever-lasting positive slope in life.

Knowledge: - No knowledge can be gained without learning process in place, but then, the learning process starts right from the stage an infant is born. In fact it learns various tasks in mother’s womb like calling for food, sleep needs etc. even before birth and once it enters in this mysterious external world. Hence, knowledge keeps getting assimilated at every subsequent stage, in every subsequent second of growth. The books give an implied knowledge during adolescence, the facts give a rationale-building knowledge in prime, and experience give knowledge during adulthood. However, knowledge is a process, which, initially increases at a rapid rate, but after a considerable age, begins to slow down and finally becomes constant (with almost negligible enhancement).  The slowing down occurs due to acceptance of all that is present in this world, due to unwillingness to question anymore, due to introspect and retrospect with self. And finally it remains the same during the stage of retirement, when one’s own view point becomes stronger than world’s and thicket seems to build within.

Understanding: - Understanding is one such life factor which somewhat shows an equal rising and declining trend. Yes, it grows first at a much slower rate, but with passage of time and gain of experience, it begins to pace up and starts assimilating at rapid rate. The initial slow down is due to the lag occurring because of slow comprehension. A baby learns to accept who her mother is due to knowledge, but is not able to judge what makes it do that. A toddler shows inquisitiveness on interfacing with nature, but does not meet with all the desired answers. It picks up speed due to continued presence of fast ‘knowledge’ garnering, which increases ‘understanding’. This makes a young individual, rational, logical and strong in all decisions he/she make. However, after a considerable period, the understanding begins to show a declining trend owing to a large passage of time (when various kinds of gaps begin to set in) and due to redundancy in knowledge.

Hope the above mathematical representation of life helps in clearing most of our doubts and show that the most universal language in this world is indeed mathematics!!!

Thankyou, Raghav