Euthanasia

Please read: http://www.ndtv.com/news/cities/brain-dead_in_mumbai_hospital_for_36_years.php

The question of legalizing euthanasia crops up time and again. Whenever public comes to know of the situations mentioned in the above news item, some limited debate does take place and inevitably such debates do die down as fresh issues arise. While some countries and some states of certain countries appear to have debated and made certain legal provisions, most countries remain largely insensitive to the issue. In countries like India where human life (except those of politicians, film personalities and cricketers) is least cared for, the apathy of the government and judiciary does not come as any surprise.

This issue can be viewed from two different angles. The first one is when the person concerned wants to end his/her life for reasons like long suffering, disease without any apparent cure and perhaps even in the situations where he/she feels that there is no hope of leading life to a personally acceptable level of dignity. Even if there is a faint hope of some likely medical developments in near future for a particular ailment, the benefits of such developments do not immediately percolate to a common-man - they take time to reach and become affordable. It is better to leave it to the judgment of the concerned individual and keep him/her informed of the factual situation by eminant people and social activists. There is no reason why such a person should be denied euthanasia as long as certain safeguards are taken in the interest of his kith and kin and the society. If someone wants to die under the legal provisions of euthanasia with an intention of emotionally blackmailing someone else or threaten the peace of the society (these days we hear about far too many such threats in the name of fake ‘hunger strikes’), it should not be allowed.

When it comes to brain-dead people or people who are in such medical situations, as in the news item mentioned above, there should be proper legal guidelines. Totally abandoned brain-dead life for 36 years is too long. Bombay has become Mumbai and Raj has virtually taken over from uncle. Things have changed beyond recognition. It is a longer sleep than the famed one of Rip Van Winkle. By the way, what happened to the culprit? Laws of Euthanasia need to be formulated carefully to ensure that there is no scope to commit legalised murders in the name of euthanasia. Every care should be taken to ensure that it is done in a fair manner and there should be no engineering from behind or political maneuvering.

Tiger Wounded by Whores

Nearly a dozen whores wounded a Tiger recently.

The western whores have the knack of hunting their prey methodically. They select judiciously. Wait patiently. Build up record. Keep legal advisors at hand. Engage ghost writers to write their ‘autobiography’ ready to publish at an opportune time and make sure they become best sellers and outsell Vatsyayana on the day of book release itself. They kill Tiger at one stroke.

Their oriental counterparts have a different upbringing. They preserve customer identity; they do not betray their customers. Distinctly oriental. Centuries old tradition. They do not come out in dozens and hail: there goes my customer!

Rewarding Disclosures

Disclosures are not new to nearly 80% of 1.2 billion Indians. Their poverty and hunger are so thoroughly exposed and there is hardly anything for them to disclose. Some have so much and their disclosures are sure to give voyeuristic pleasure to beholders. What is the exact purpose of these disclosures, who will verify their veracity and what is the proposed action plan based on the information made available or not made available?

Few have come first in disclosing and none of them had anything worth disclosing! It is difficult to hazard a guess but the number of those who have something substantial to disclose could run into many thousands and not be in many lakhs.

One cannot attach any true significance to any such unofficial disclosure activity, till it becomes official and comes with a) full details of the scheme b) time frame for compliance c) awards and penalties, if any, for full-disclosures, partial-disclosures and non-disclosures. I am positive that none in the P-class, B-Class and CBS-Class (for definitions, please read: http://tarantula-apolitical.blogspot.com/2009/11/rags-to-rags-stories.html ) have any suicidal tendencies.

To make such a scheme a whopping success, a model scheme on following lines has to be developed:

Voluntary Disclosure Scheme - 2009

For the benefit of those who are compelled to hide, for the last 62 years, their wealth in different forms, places and names to protect it from becoming an object of glare by voyeuristic communities like media and public, a scheme of relief to restore and multiply their self-respect and dignity is announced with the features mentioned below:

1. This comes into force from the date and time of publication in the Gazette.
2. This scheme, in the present form, closes after its 100th day and is non-extendable.
3. A two-tier rewards are announced for the disclosures: (a) Top (by the value of disclosed amount) 1% will be awarded the nation’s highest reward Bharat Ratna; next 10% with Padma Vibhushan; next 40% with Padma Bhushan and the rest 49% with Padma Shri.
(b) Government of India, will also honor its citizens/political parties/associations by way of crediting the amount equal to their disclosed amount directly into their Swiss accounts within seven working days from the date of closure of this scheme.
(c) Both the amount disclosed and the amount rewarded by GOI, are fully exempted from all forms of taxes.
4. Those who made partial disclosure under the present scheme may be given a second chance by the GOI, solely on its discretion, after the Phase-I which is time bound. In such cases, GOI retains the right to avoid double credit mentioned in 3(b) above. Purpose of this scheme is also to attract those who have not disclosed in the first Phase; to rope in during the next phase by the demonstration of success of its first phase. Their eligibility for rewards under 3(a) shall be reworked suitably.
5. By bringing suitable amendments to the constitution, making any comments in any form on the disclosures, by media, public and bloggers, will be made punishable.

Rags to Rags Stories

All over the world, storybooks are replete with the Rags to Riches Stories. Riches to Rags stories are far too dull to publish or read. Rich to Rich stories are monotonous. It turns out that the Rags to Rags stories are the only ones worth disclosing voluntarily!

Setting a nice precedent recently, few people of eminence have made voluntary disclosure. The disheartening part of it is there is nothing to behold! No wonder they came forward to show what they do not have. Hope the Government does not institute a CBI inquiry to investigate how they got disproportionate poverty and leaves them alone. I request their colleagues to forgive and leave these poor people, who are a blot on their society, alone.

How can everyone voluntarily disclose private wealth? It would be obscene, is it not? Disclosing something that is purely private on a web site is no fun. If it is for the cover page of Playboy or Playgirl, it is a different matter altogether.

One journalist recently interviewed several notable people of P(oltical)-Class, B(abus)-Class, CBS (Contractors, Black-marketers, Smugglers et. al.) category people. The motif of the interviews is their collective view on disclosures. Apparently, all these honest people are eager to disclose voluntarily. Here are some of their concerns:

- Absence of suitable award systems, say Bharat Ratna, for disclosing the highest amount
- Doubts like: to show the tip or disclose the entire iceberg
- Absence of clarity on what to disclose and what not to
- Some are eager to give very precise data but are uncomfortable with the fluctuations in the Swiss franc to Rupee conversion rates
- Most of these people have so much, they do not know the exact value of their assets and they are eager to avoid giving wrong information.
- Some people want to have clarity on whether the disclosure should include what they kept in benami names, in the names of kith and kin and relatives and also their pet animals.

Place of Living

During early ‘70s, I held strong views on issue of brain-drain and people leaving India for greener pastures - admittedly, influenced by peer-level views and also, to an extent by a movement which had started off in late ‘60s (not the Hippie culture of early ‘60s) which had some influence on the minds of people at impressionable age. It was conscious decision on my part, rightly or wrongly, to stay back in India despite better opportunities available in the outside world. While I am not the habit of wasting much time regretting/rejoicing the past, I do feel that I am not justified in expecting the same from the next generation.

The choice of a place to live is very personal. At least the right thinking ones make a choice of where to live based on numerous factors - not just on emotional factors or attachment to country of birth or family roots or some other personal reasons that clip their wings of freedom. Some critical point could be whether the society one elects to live in will accept him/her or not; give opportunities to demonstrate capabilities and lead a respectful life like the person next door, provide a space to grow and so on. In addition, one takes a decision based on the level of confidence in his/her ability to make adjustments necessary to bond with the society of his choice to live in harmony. Not everyone is blessed with such a freedom of choice but some of those who have it, will think aloud and exercise. Migrations have happened since time immemorial, are happening now and will happen tomorrow and day after. The history of migration of living species is much older than the entire human history! Now that availability of water on Moon is established, people will start going to Moon for shorter durations, much earlier than expected. Once the other inhabitable places are identified, some explorers will start migrating to other planets in not too distant a future. Nothing stops the human spirit to explore. Obviously all the seven billion do not dare, it starts with a first one like Columbus or Hillary or Gagarin or Armstrong…

My India is Great, undoubtedly. Am I not equally correct in saying: My Mother Earth is Great? Tomorrow, coming generations will call it a narrow view and might say My Universe is Great. Perceptions vary with time and space.

Dr. Abdul Kalam

I am an admirer of Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam. I have read his book Wings of Fire. I follow news related to him. I keenly follow his interaction with children and enjoy. Yes, he is a role model worth emulating.

If I get an opportunity to meet and chat with him anywhere, I will ask him two simple questions: a) What he felt like when politicians denied him second term as President, which he so richly deserved b) Treatment given to him by Politicians other than two PMs he worked with as President of India. I look forward to hear his frank answer straight from his heart looking right into my eyes - not just a polite answer for media and public consumption.

Whose Life is at Risk?

It is an enormous strain on the exchequer to provide security to so many politicians and their kith and kin. What goes into it is the hard earned and honest money of taxpayers; mostly from salaried class. There are some levels of security and it is a status symbol to get the highest. The official figures probably run into several hundreds of crores. Most of the expenses would have been conveniently booked under some other expenses to show smaller figures to public – a normal accounting jugglery. Like the low or even negative inflation figures when all prices double every year.

What one fails to understand is why security at all? In some developed countries politicians and ministers (including Prime Minister) travel without any security and carry their own briefcase to office. Even some Kings, ceremonial equivalent of our President, are known to travel by public transport. Local people who recognize the face of such an important person might leave the seat next to him unoccupied as a matter of courtesy and some visitor, who is not so familiar, might even occupy the next seat.

What are our politicians afraid of? Who are they afraid of? PEOPLE? If so, why do they SERVE people 365x24? If people of the country are out to murder them at next opportunity, what makes them serve the prospective murderers so sincerely? This defies all logic. On the contrary, if they are afraid of their own political rivals, party dissidents, goondas, mafia, smugglers and so on, who are their one-time or current or future bedfellows, coalition partners and allies, why should public pay for their security?

Given an argument that some functionaries are important as they are constitutionally key figures, people will accept some reasonable security for their PM and President and no one else.

In reality, in the name of high-level security to these politicians, few thousands of trained people becoming sacrificial goats and if at all something happens, it is these low paid highly trained security personnel who lose their life and their family gets pittance and virtually die of hunger and without any reasonable means to survive in the absence of bread winner. Public apathy is not understandable as it feels that these security people are paid to die, so what is so great about the lives these people? In our country the lives of politicians, cricketers and film personalities are very important and not the lives of 1.2 billion common people who comprise the real India. In the name of providing employment as security staff, government is putting the lives of thousands of people at Risk.

Brief History of Murder and Morals

This is not a sequel to any works of Stephen Hawking or Bertrand Russell. With due apologies to Toynbee, the entire human history can be aptly sub-divided into few major chapters based on the progress it has made in the area of morality of murder.

- To start with, there was a period when the concept of murder was unknown
- The concept slowly took shape in the minds of people and they were afraid that entertaining a mere thought of murder is as heinous as the murder itself
- People have started committing murders here and there but were soon feeling remorse and used to plead guilty
- People have started committing murders on larger scale without feeling any remorse; invent ways and means of escaping punishment. The feudal lords of pre-independence era, if it is inevitable, used to bestow the privilege of surrendering on one of their trusted servants or someone innocent in exchange of taking care of their family for rest of the life. A proxy used to take the punishment.
- People started committing murders with impunity and use sophisticated techniques to erase all evidence.
- People started committing murders and implicate the innocent (two birds at one shot technique)
- People started outsourcing murders so that they are free to focus on their core competence areas.
- The Corporate Sector started making foray (ex: Bhopal); administrators are busy picking up dollars strewn all over for decades and forget all about the murderers and the victims.
- Gradual nationalization is taking place – (ex: state governments have started murdering people by supplying so called drinking water with abundant E.coli enough to kill few hundred people in few days flat by way of cholera. They maintain fictitious records as though the water is treated and tested before supplying.
- National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) indulging in mass genocide in style; by way of not warning the people and ordering evacuation in time to save at least some souls during floods.

Murders committed by Nations in other nations are traditionally called wars and hence fall outside the purview of the present discussion. Similarly, causing extinction of other species, the global murders and attempts to exterminate human race in next few decades by not caring for the environment is a separate subject on its own.

Multiple Choice Questions

Soon after taking charge of HRD ministry, Kapil Sibal started seriously thinking: why, not all students are performing well in the examinations? He wanted to form a committee to go into the matter and come up with solutions within 100 days. He could not entrust it to academicians as they are not trust worthy for such an important task and besides there is always a fair chance that it is the academia, which is responsible. If such is the case, according to his HLS trained brilliant legal mind, truth will never come out and the very objective of forming a committee of academicians to investigate the faults of the system, to which they are a party, get vitiated. Hence he formed a committee comprising of all party parliamentarians to come up with recommendations.

Members have laboriously studied various types of question papers since 1947 pertaining to all types of examinations held in India. They have noted two startling lacunae in the examination systems in India. Being very responsible persons, they refrained from blame game; more so because some party or other was in power in some state or the other at one point or another. Hence, they have recommended that the examination system needs an urgent and thorough overhaul. HRD minister, who is impressed, requested the same committee to recommend a new system. However, the members hesitantly accepted the additional responsibilities with a clear understanding that such a task needs some more time and they shall endeavor to complete the assignment within additional 100 days.

In order to understand and appreciate the forthcoming changes, it is only fair that one should understand the observations of the committee first. They are as follows: (a) none of the regular question papers ever carried the answers: how can a student answer a question when no answer is given? (b) all the multiple choice questions, which have mostly carried four options, found to contain only one right answer as against all the remaining ones being wrong! Committee felt that this is a blatant way of misleading the already misguided youth and such a form of question papers should cease with immediate effect. They wanted a silent revolution in the Examination System of India.

After long deliberations, they have come up with a uniform system of examinations, for all purposes, across the length and breadth of the country. Have a glimpse of the model question paper under recommendation by the committee, which is expected to provide equal opportunity to score for all strata of society:

Q. When did India get independence from British Rule?

Answer: (A) On 15th August 1947 (B) One Day after 14th August 1947 (C) One Day before 16th August 1947 (D) All the above.

Q. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is:

Answer: (A) Daughter-in-law of Amitabh Bachchan (B) Wife of Abhishek Bachchan (C) Miss World in 1994 (D) All the Above.

Making it Difficult to Fail

There is interesting news at the following site of The Hindu:

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article39147.ece

This news item outlines the purpose of Kapil Sibal’s forthcoming visit to Howard, MIT, Yale and so on to coax them to set up campuses in India and assure them of adequate students under the government sponsored and constitutionally validated reservation system. What is not immediately clear and worrying is why he had not mentioned about Harvard, his alma mater, Stanford, Princeton and IAS. Apparently, there is a part of his agenda, which he wants to keep close to his chest. One must appreciate Kapil’s determination to see that India produces indigenous Harvard educated KSs in coming decades who ensure that newly reformed Indian Educational System gets a seamless migration into 22nd century without overseas dependence. Remarkable foresight, that is!

Today’s TOI published a front-page news item titled: “CBSE makes it tough to fail in Class IX & X”. Anonymous sources in HRD ministry have indicated that there is indeed a hidden agenda of Kapil Sibal, which has connection with the time-bound activity related to TOI news item. It is also reliably learnt that certain US mathematicians of both Indian and non-Indian origin (i.e., except un-Indian) are working hard on perfecting certain mathematical algorithms which are easy to understand and implement ahead of Kapil’s clandestine visit to some of the Universities which did not find a mention in his travel press release. Let us have a sneak preview of some of the models:

Absolute Value Model: This is perceived to be an excellent model which transforms a student with highly negative marks into highly positive. Ex: a student with -89% marks will now get 89%. After implementation, it is hoped that this model will get an unparalleled mass appeal to make SRT, AB (Big one) and KK turn green. This model is easy to implement. One has to just ignore '-ve' sign. Always be positive, an American attitude which made them successful. It is just that simple and not known to have side effects on students scoring +ve marks even when applied accidentally. This model is particularly helpful in examinations like CAT, where negative scoring is rampant; academically highly challenged need not depend on reservation system any longer!

100’s Complement Model: This state-of-the-art model is expected to be a KS’s gift to low scorers since it transforms them into high scorers. This model is applicable to those scoring below 50%, though. Ex: a student with 4% marks will now get 96% under this model. This model is akin to the highly successful and time-tested models like 2’s complement and 10’s complement which are familiar to Computer Scientists and they do not go wrong. The beauty lies in its simplicity: just subtract the low marks from 100 and lo presto, you get new marks!

Combo Model: While mathematical fraternity has recognized the absolute brilliance of the absolute value model, some purists are not too happy as this model does not address students with slightly negative marks, say, those getting -6%. To counter their valid criticism, a new Combo Model is being perfected where the first two models are applied exactly in that order. Ex: student with -6% marks scores 6% (after absolute value model) and then it works out to 94% marks (after the 100’s complement model).


In the present educational system, it is generally adequate to pass by scoring 30 or 35%, inclusive of grace marks, by fair or foul means. These new models are a sure fire to exceed avowed objectives of HRD ministry and make it nearly impossible to fail till the time some idiot ill-conceives the idea of increasing the cut off for pass to 85% or 90%.

Mother Teresa

Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (August 26, 1910 - September 5, 1997), better known as Mother Teresa all over the world, is in news. This time it is not in the context of taking forward her unfinished agenda or for eradicating poverty or for mitigating the suffering of millions. It is in the context of fight for her mortal remains, exhuming her body and relocating to another country!

What is baffling is why some of the Nations, their Governments, State Governments and other local bodies cannot allow Mother to take well-deserved rest in a place of her choice. She breathed her last twelve years back.

Yes, she is mother of all poor wherever they are in the world and also to millions of her admirers. However, vast majority of her children are in India. Her soul is Indian. She is in integral part of Mother Earth now. It is natural justice not to disturb her remains in India to remind the world of her unfinished work. People around the world, please stop bickering for her remains.

Birthday Gift

On October 9, 2009 when the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee met in Oslo, they faced an unusual question: What would be the world’s most appropriate Birthday gift?

Often the Nobel Prizes for Literature and Peace become contentious. No matter what the committee does, or for that matter does not, there is always some criticism. After some deliberations, in a relaxed environment, they have unanimously agreed that nothing beats a Nobel Peace Prize if it is subtly gift wrapped.

They have promptly given it to Barack Obama as a gift for the first birthday of Bo.

Stealing the Credit

Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, known to his friends as Venki, shared Nobel Prize for Chemistry with two others in 2009. In fact, he is the first person of Indian origin to get Nobel Prize in Chemistry. With this, Indians or people of Indian origin appear in all the six Nobel Prize categories. It is laudable since not too many Indians (to be more precise, including people of Indian origin) have won this coveted prize so far. In the field of Mathematics, there is no Nobel Prize although there are mathematicians who won Nobel Prize in some other field like John F. Nash Jr. in Economics. Fields Medal in Mathematics (regarded as Nobel Prize equivalent in Mathematics) is considered by many as far more difficult to get for two simple reasons, namely, it is awarded only once in four years unlike Nobel Prize which is awarded annually and there is an upper age limit of forty years for Fields Medal. So far, no Indian got this.

In the present post, I would like to discuss the topic: Is it right on the part of India to steal the credit for the work done elsewhere by people of Indian origin?

Venki had his early education in Baroda, Pre-university from Annamalai University and B.Sc from Baroda. He had his higher education in US and currently working in Cambridge, UK. He is a US citizen now. Both his parents being scientists and educationalists, their role in molding him and inculcating scientific temperament are understandable. Beyond this, what moral right India has in feeling as though an Indian had won a prize for the work done in India?

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, Sir C V Raman and Mother Teresa got recognition for their work done on Indian soil. Mother Teresa (Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu), an Albanian born elsewhere, Indian by citizenship, worked all over the world, having her base in Calcutta. She is an integral part of India.

Hargobind Khorana was born in Raipur village that is now in Pakistan. With his high credentials found it difficult to get even a small job in India. He was literally compelled to seek livelihood elsewhere and eventually got recognition for his work. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, after college, spent his life in UK and US. He was born in Lahore (now in Pakistan) before independence. Amartya Sen, barring a brief stint at Jadavpur University, worked in UK and US in his long illustrious career. Dalailama (Tenzin Gyatso) lives in exile in India, a country that has given him political asylum. For all practical purposes, he is a world citizen. Rudyard Kipling and Ronald Ross are British born in India. V S Naipaul is a British born elsewhere. Dr. Abdus Salam was born in today’s Pakistan during pre-independence era. Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, an Indian, received Nobel Prize for Peace in his capacity as chairperson of IPCC, which was shared with Al Gore. Dr. Pachauri did not get it in his individual capacity. Some of them did not hold Indian citizenship at the time of getting the Nobel Prize; nor were they awarded for their work done in India. We can only pray that an Indian gets Fields Medal this time which gets presented in ICM-2010 being held in Hyderabad during August 2010.

It is clear that only three Indian citizens received Nobel Prize for their work done India since its inception in 1901. Mother Teresa got it in post independent era while other two got long before independence. The whole point is, India does not have the infrastructure or ambience necessary for world-class scientific research to get world wide recognition. In the absence of funding, researchers can hardly hope to have facilities required for their work. In most of the Universities, the ambience required for research is missing. Despite the handicap, some scientists and academicians are showing results here and there but that is hardly adequate to get recognition at any international forum.

India can be truly proud only when India is in a position to retain its talent and attract fresh talent from outside world by establishing world-class facilities. Such organisations should get a free hand to work without political interference in any form. Someone has to dream big like Chanakya (Vishnugupta) did some 2,400 years ago: he dreamt of establishing a University near Patliputra (today's Patna) in direct competition with Takshashila (Taxila) where he taught Economics and Political Philosophy and shift the focal point of education at that time and made it happen.

Ragging

Ragging in educational institutions is an abuse prevalent in some commonwealth countries. Hence, my guess about its original roots is as good as yours. There are numerous forms of ragging, but in the present post, we shall confine to most notorious form viz., senior students ragging their juniors (usually freshers). Hereinafter, we shall use the word raggee to represent the person who got ragged and ragger to represent the person who is ragging. Your blogger intends to study history and current state of raggee-ragger relationship, as a true historian would do, by not indulging in taking sides, to make Toynbee proud.

In the ancient Indian educational methodology, this practice is non-existent. This practice must have started taking its roots in India with the advent of British occupation and gradually picked up. This has made most of its present day progress in post-independence era and particularly accelerated in last couple of decades. In the last few years it is coming to limelight for various reasons like i) omnipresence of media ii) awareness which dawned on the government in recent years and some of the ordinances promulgamated and so on iii) increasing judicial activism to curb this perceived menace and iv) considerable progress ragging has made both as a form of an art and science. It is always difficult to emulate the good practices of someone but easy to cultivate, emulate and institutionalize the bad ones. Ragging is no exception to this general rule.

Just as every dad is once a son, every ragger is a raggee once. They are two sides of the same coin. That is a law of nature. Raggee, having learnt the process through practical experience, perpetuates it with added innovations in the forthcoming years. He sets the bar to higher level. If a student is a raggee in his first year, he is a ragger for remaining years. This points to stages of a life cycle and certain genetic predisposition in the relationship between raggee and ragger.

No raggee ever wastes time thinking of the abuse he/she is going through for long. Past is past; he/she dreams of new era - there is always light at the end of the tunnel; awaits the privileges to come. One hears many complaints from raggees while they are passing through the process period of ragging. As soon as this process ends and is celebrated in the form of a Fresher’s Day or its equivalent, as the case may be, raggees of this year eagerly wait for the next year which comes with an automatic promotion to ragger class irrespective of their academic performance in the preceding year. This promotion does not have any qualifying requirements like minimum cut-off marks or CGPA. Metamorphosis takes place. Thus, the life goes on. It is an eternal cycle. Life's Truth (jeevansathy).

Parents complain about ragging when their ward is a fresher. How many parents have taught their children not to do the same unto their juniors? If anything, parents encourage the system, albeit in due course, with their silence. If all parents of freshers forbid their children from ragging their juniors in subsequent years, this institution would have been extint, as dead as a dodo, in three years flat! For an example, if you take an educational institute offering a four-year degree or a diploma, a fresher undergoes ragging in his first year but gets privileges for the remaining three years. Thrice blessed! If he/she manages to spend, more years in the same degree program, merrier are his/her days as someone said “the more the merrier”. In fact, raggee-ragger relationship, may not be as divine, but is so real and as eternal as devotee-God or student-teacher relationships.

There are some common misconceptions and we expose and explode them now: a) this process of ragging is masculine; Nope – it is gender-free. Girls do engage in this process as much as boys do; genetic predispositions have no gender barriers b) Girls do not rag boys; Wrong again. Only this form of ragging does not make news, as any raggee would suffer it silently for obvious reasons, rather than allowing anyone to know about it c) This is non-existent in institutes of higher learning (Post-graduate institutions as Indians call them or Graduate School in US parlance); Wrong again - IIMs have an entire week - dedicated right from the date of registration for the freshers, which is known as orientation week. They manage to keep this culture/tradition a secret and perpetuate with aplomb - there lie their management skills.

Public Holidays

Shashi Tharoor is at it again. This time it is decidedly for the better. He tweeted his views against Gandhi Jayanthi being a National Holiday.

In fact, there is a need to debate whether India needs or can afford so many holidays. We can safely leave aside private and unorganized sectors. In private sector, HR mangers prepare holiday list carefully to ensure that at least two of the so-called holidays fall on a Sunday. Working late hours behind closed shutters is common. There are four mandatory holidays (Republic Day, Mayday, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanthi in a calendar year) and they have some flexibility in deciding about the festival holidays. Not many organizations declare more than 8 to 12holidays in a year, all included. In unionized sectors, management and the recognized union generally negotiate the holiday list without violating the upper limit. News paper industry has two or three holidays only in a year. Rules vary from organisation to organisation based on the Acts applicable to their sector.

If you take our nationalised Banks, for illustration, it is easier to count the working days than holidays. On the working days, actual official working hours, for public transaction purposes, are just about 4 hours/working-day. The concerned clerk/official will be engaged in different tasks of national importance during those hours meant for customers; to mention a few, discussing stock market trends, new public-issues (equity, debentures etc.), recent bank circulars and implications, pay revision, DA hike, new personal savings schemes, the purchases made on previous evening (restricted to female employees), movies just released, in-house shopping, additional coffee/tea/lunch break, cricket score etc. Consequently, they do not stay at counter for more than two hours on any working day. Another beautiful feature of banking system is out of the number of counters physically available in a branch, no more than 1/3rd operate at any time; upon inquiry, one usually gets answers like staff shortage, people are on leave, traffic jams, cricket matches going on, children's examinations, marriage season and such very valid reasons. Situations like power cut, non-availability of office boy etc. will bring transactions to a stand still. Whenever they want to yawn, they say system is down; how convenient! Latest fad is network is down. Officers and clerical staff go on strike in rotation to maximise effective holidays. All other State/Central government organizations follow remarkably similar techniques with minor changes to suit their transaction models. Mind you, we have not touched the topic of leave, whether they actually work or not with or without consideration.

How a country with a low economic growth as ours can afford so many holidays and such low working hours and productivity beats imagination. In addition, there will be several opportunities provided by Him such as strikes (sponsored by ruling parties in the govt., opposition parties and parties without representation in turns), bandhs, hartal, curphew, elections, state mourning, solar/lunar eclipses, H1N1, epidemics, rains, floods, cricket matches and so on and so forth.

Japanese people are not familiar with any type of work disruption. Long time back I read about an organization where employees had put in an extra hour a day as a mark of protest in a dispute with the management till it is amicably resolved. Yes, this method works where the society is not largely comprised of thick skinned. In some other organization, when their respected founder died, people had put in an extra hour and management erected a founder’s statue with the proceeds equivalent to employees’ extra hour’s wages and matching contribution from the management. How sensible of all of them; they have paid respects without declaring a holiday and their late founder had every reason to be happy, wherever he is.

Air India Pilots

Air India has its genesis when J R D Tata founded Tata Airlines in 1932. In the post World War II era it has become Air India, a plc. In post-independence era, Government of India purchased 49% stake; reserved its option to purchase additional 2%. It has become a national flag carrier and started international services under the name Air India International. In 1953, Government of India exercised its right for majority stake and nationalized air transportation in the country. At the same time, domestic operations were transferred to newly created Indian Airlines.

Students of the history of Air India and Indian Airlines will note two important aspects of this Organization(s), which is(are) Nation’s Pride. The first one, these two organs are routinely merged and de-merged, typically as a part of Strategic Management Initiatives taken by every new boss. It is the second learning that is most interesting.

The pilots of this national pride have created a unique patented culture of their own and it has become an accepted norm in our society. That is going on strike as frequently as practically feasible. The MTBS appears to be a shade less than 100 days. For the benefit of those uninitiated with civil airlines jargon, MTBS stands for Mean Time Between Strikes. In air force, this acronym has same expansion but means something else. This does not include the ones technically known as ‘flash strikes' which occur if any pilot drops his hat inadvertently anywhere between his house/5-star hotel and cockpit. Similary, mid-air strikes, runway strikes are also excluded for MTBS purposes. Each time they go on a strike, they routinely get a minimum monthly salary increase, which is about the full monthly salary of our beloved Prime Minister. They are high-flyers and they deserve hike for every take-off or landing us safely.

The management lesson here for all of us is, where MTBS is low, people and government do not raise their eyebrows and even get ready to meet the demands before they are made. Public does not react much as they are accustomed to that and already conditioned. Let us say a poor Postman goes on strike, not that it has ever happened in the long world history of Postal Service, entire 1.2 billion Indians will unanimously take up cudgels. The actual reason is MTBS is undefined as of now. Same thing happened in the case of IIT & IIM professors, as they did not study the techniques of our Pilots. There lies their fault.

PS: The rules of the game are different for private airline pilots; how can private sector pilots go on strike without paying royalty to Air India pilots?

Who is experiencing Trauma of Examinations?

Examinations are a really traumatic. It is a common misconception that the entire trauma of examination is experienced by the student i.e, examinee. This is not the whole truth. While banishing the Xth board examinations Kapil Sibal made a golden observation that parents also undergo trauma. I can not agree more. However, students and parents are not the only section of society undergoing the trauma of examination process. Behind the scenes there are several people undergoing the trauma as a mistake on their side might lead to some serious trouble for themselves. Just to mention a few, take the people who set the examination paper, person who is responsible for composing and printing the paper, people responsible for dispatching the right set of papers to the examination center and in fact the entire machinery involved in the process is under stress.

I am more concerned about invigilators. In my opinion they suffer maximum in some parts of the country as their job becomes most frightful. Few students come well prepared to tackle the examination not by studying well but by coming prepared with instruments of intimidation like daggers, pistols to name a few. Poor invigilator’s life during the examination period is worse than that of a condemned prisoner facing execution. Latter is certain about the date and time at which his life gets snuffed out by the executioner but the poor invigilator is never so certain; it may be at any moment and it may not happen at all. I have not heard of any murders in examination hall. If there is one, Agatha Christie, being a compulsive writer, would have surely written one more book; she wouldn’t let such a golden opportunity go. But it is the uncertainty which Kills - note the capital K; in fact one dies once every few micro-seconds, if not more frequently, during those three tense hours which actually feels like three hundred plus years in such a situation. Dying once is not bad at all; I have not heard of any dead complaining about death. But the continuous death is surely traumatic.

Yugratna Srivastava

Over last few decades, I became an admirer of some distinguished people from various walks of life. Latest is Yugratna Srivastava. She is youngest of all and unique. Three most populous countries in the world have a combined population of about 2.8 billion. She has represented over 3 billion youngsters at an important international forum.

What makes her distinct is her right to represent has not come through any dynastic succession. She earned her place through a global process. Her name Yugratna translates into gem-of-the-era or diamond-of-the-era. How true!

She is just 13; too young and is still a child. It is imperative on the part of media, more particularly TV reporters, to leave her alone and let her have childhood like girl next door. It should be left to her to decide on what extra-curricular activities she wants to take up.

We have seen what media glare and torture Budhia was subjected to and is being subjected. His coach, mentor and friend was shot dead by some criminals. All sorts of controversies have come up and things were blown out of proportion. Is it in the best interest of a promising child?

There is a need to learn lessons from mistakes and ensure Yugratna gets her right to lead a normal childhood and participate in additional activities of her choice. Society and media should desist from subjecting her to pressure of high expectations.

Good Luck to you, Yugratna; enjoy what you want to do.

Link to her UN speech:

http://www.un.org/wcm/webdav/site/climatechange/shared/Documents/SpeechYugratna.pdf

Tarantula Reprimands Arachnid

While Pope Benedict XVI was addressing people of Prague on 26th September, 2009, a large Arachnid audaciously inched towards Pope’s neck as the journalists watching it on a giant screen flinched.

Your Tarantula reprimanded Arachnid immediately by e-mail and asked it to behave.

Popes are a respectable lot. Our Pope Benedict XVI is one of the finest. Arachnid has no business to be creeping on his robe. While Pope is preaching, one has to stay put and listen with reverence.

Spiders are not born equal. Every Arachnid cannot think like Tarantula, let alone sting. It should have known its place. Hope our Pope forgives the Arachnid.

Viswanathan Anand (Vishy)

Gaze into the firmament of Sports, you will notice thousands of bright meteors. As they pass through the atmosphere, most of the rapidly burn out. Very few reach the earth in the form meteorites. The impact made by of most of them is hardly visible. One or two in a decade make a lasting impact in the world of sports. Undoubtedly, one such is Viswanathan Anand, fondly known as Vishy.

My choice personalities from all forms of sports together number about a dozen. Each is distinctive in his/her own achievements, contribution to the sport and the impact they made on subsequent generations. Sergey Bubka demolished everything on his way in pole vault, started off by climbing peaks, believed to be impossible to scale during his time and then went on to scale peak after a peak. He had to challenge himself at every event since there is no one close to him challenge. He is a real Pole Star (dhruv tara) in the firmament of sports.

The landmarks (rough equivalent of records in cricketing terminology) set by a sportsman are not good enough criterion to be my sports hero. They are mere numbers. The membership count of their fan club does not impress me. Some super-heroes killed the entire next generation in team sports. True hallmark of a great sports-person depends on how many younger people inspired by him have taken up that sport seriously and surpassed him and set much higher standards than the earlier era. The legacy left behind – the good points alone. If you look at some Indian film personalities, they have a massive count of vulgar fans. Am I to go by their numbers?

Anand grabbed the attention of discerning chess world at a young age. Experts predicted he would be a World Champion in future. He did become World Champion not once but thrice; in three distinct formats against formidable opponents. His behavior on and off the stage is impeccable. He is a gentleman to the core; soft spoken outside the playing room and a silent assassin at the board.

When he first made his mark at a young age, in India and in fact, in most of Asian region, there were hardly any high-level chess players. During that period, high-level chess players mostly came from the erstwhile Soviet Union and some European Countries. Bobby Fisher, an eccentric genius from US was an exception. Several youngsters drew inspiration from Anand and now Asia has dozens of GMs, and hundreds of IMs and thousands of talented budding players. Chess standards have gone up to a remarkable level. Spain does not consider him as a foreigner. He is widely respected not only in the Chess World but also in the entire Sports World.

Is a Ban, Bane or Boon?

Once in a way we come to know that a book or a movie has been banned by the Governament or a Cleric or the Supremo of a Mumbai based organization. The word ban has synonyms like boycott and there is an Urdu word for it. These bans arise if there is an iota of offence or more importantly perceived offence to the banning party. Such bans, without exception, become a boon to the publisher/author or producer/director as the case may be.

Statistically 99.07% of all bans are stage-managed and banning parties are unaware of the manipulation by the banned party. This technique is very handy when a publisher/author or producer/director realizes that their work is going to be an utter flop on release. As a rule, every ban evokes immediate response from the media, which gives wide publicity from Flash News until Walk the Talk few days later (in media parlance, it is known as MHRC which means media hype retention cycle) and generates curiosity in public. Public is ready to derive the illicit pleasure and everyone wants to be the first to know why such and such thing is banned or what is there in it to attract a ban. It is something like biblical forbidden apple. They get their personal copy of the Book from black market or buy a pirated CD. Experts say that this technique has optimal efficacy when it is sparingly used and there is no more than one ban in any MHRC period. Well orchestrated proscription gets lifted soon after all the printed copies / pirated CDs are sold out thereby creating demand for re-print.

Arithmetically, in the remaining 0.93% cases, ban is a bane.