Monday, December 31, 2007

Serious and honest soul searching is required

We lost again with a considerable margin in Boxing Day test against Australia. Getting defeated is not bad but habit of getting defeated is dangerous and I am sad to see that Team India is going in that mode. I still believe the biggest problem with the Indian team is larger than sport image of few Indian players. We (the fan) and Indian media unnecessarily make them hero with a modest performance. For example, in first inning Sachin scored 62 and that was enough for all the media (print and electronics) and fans to praise him heavily and start day dreaming about his performance in 2nd inning of the test to win the match. At the same time, poor chap Phil Jaques scored 2 fifties in two innings and has marvelous career records (till now) but no one knows him. Dada scores a 40+ and everywhere we start talking what a comeback dada? At the same time look at this guy ... Hussey. He almost averages 80 (Sachin and Dravid struggling to reach average of 60 and Dada is below 50 in test average) in test cricket but he doesn’t think he is bigger than game and go to field to just perform to the best. Talks less but perform well. That’s the story of all Australian players. But almost all STAR Indian players have attitude problem. Last Indian coach Greg Chappell has indeed raised this issue but no one gave a serious thought towards this. People started lambasting him and he was shown the door by BCCI. But its fact that the attitude of (STAR) cricketer has been always a problem and because of that team could never performs as a team. Even in today newspaper Indian cricket manager (Lalchand Rajput) accepted that Yuvraj Singh is having an attitude problem. Fortunately Anil Kumble is still not in the same league. Indian captain deserve lot more praise and media attention that some of the other Indian player (if compared) and he doesn’t have attitude problem. Whenever he is in filed, he tries to perform to his best. One more problem with the team is to avoid doing serious soul searching and always be in day dreaming mode. On the eve of 3rd day of Boxing Day test, Harbhajan singh told the media that getting 500 runs (in 4th inning of the test) might not be impossible and difficult for such a great batting lineup of India with so many big names. Poor sardar is also a pampered Indian cricketer who doesn’t know how deep we are in water.

unstable Pakistan

Last week Pakistan again faced a bomb blast and assassination attempt in which Benazir Bhutto died. Bomb blasts and assassination attempts have been now almost daily story in Pakistan and it clearly shows that how the law and order situation has deteriorated in Pakistan. With every terror attacks, hundreds of innocent civilians are dying and looks like Pakistan leadership is not even bothered or not enough strong to curb the terror attacks and networks. Looks like Pakistan is on same path as Afghanistan and Beirut had been earlier. It may lead for civil war. Pakistan's leadership and people have directly or indirectly encouraged the terror elements in last few decades and the side effects are now clearly visible. A highly unstable Pakistan is dangerous for neighboring nations specially India. India doesn’t enforce a VISA policy with Nepal and that’s the route most terror element can enter India without any problem. Anyway last week Rawalpindi attack has given good masala to our news channels and they are trying to repeatedly do unnecessary analysis of every angle related with this attack under different "BREAKING NEWS" headings. Yesterday I saw few channels had called some astrologer and numerologists and were trying to establish an astrology/numerology angle with Benazir Bhutto's assassination and also with future of Pakistan.

well done Aamir

Yesterday I watched "Tare Jameen Par". After watching this movie, I started feeling more and more bad that why did I go to watch a movie like "Om Shanti Om" in same multiplex about a month ago. Anyway coming back to movie, I read lots of movie reviews but I would just like to make a comment that this was a simplest story told in great way so that it kept me interested throughout the movie. This was (I guess) directorial debut for Aamir Khan and he truly has shown that why he always has difference of opinions with his movie directors. Movie direction is not just creating few scenes (in different flavors like music, romance, emotion) and present that to audience but its more than that where the director should first feel that he is not making this movie to fool the audience and then he should tell a story to the audience in his/her own way. "Tare Jameen Par" is a meaningful film which should be watched by every one of us to encourage such kind of movies. The child artiste (Darsheel) has been too good and I felt in some places he is better than Aamir in acting. I heard this movie got good opening and may become a super hit in near future. This will be good for Indian cinema. Aamir's star value also helped this movie to pull the crowd otherwise there has been some honest approach in meaningful cinema by less known names and the movie succumbed and some useless movies (with big star value) became huge hit.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

new education trend -- more business less values and education

I started sending my daughter to play school in June 2007. School was reputed and they had good (not extra ordinary) facilities. The fee I was told to pay was INR 23,000 per anum. I felt bit uneasy but then I had no other option because most of the (so called) good schools had their fee in same range. The same school has recently announced the admission for next year (June 2008) batches and last week when I went to school to pick my daughter I was shocked to see on notice board that they have revised their fee from next year. Now parents need to pay INR 33,000 per anum for Play Group, nursery and KG. The fee was hiked more than 40%. I thought to change school for my daughter next year onward but then bouncer came that all of the schools (of same level and facilities) have revised their fee to INR 33,000 per anum. Means it was a collective decision and they may have some association to decide these things. I felt education is now purely a (fast growing) business in India.

At home I sat and did some calculation. Took out the school calendar and found that school only operates for around 200 days per year. Playgroup has just 2 hours timing so you will now pay INR 33,000/400 per hour and that comes INR 82.5 per hour. I completed my Bachelor of Technology from a reputed institute. I was there for 4 years and we had hectic schedule for classes. I paid around INR 9,000 for four years. This is 9 year back story. I am not sure how much my Alma meter charges now for four year B Tech courses. Even if they charge in tune of INR 50,000 per year, that is justified because that includes rich library and book bank setup with lots of lab instruments(hardware and software) and 7 hour per day classes. The school where my daughter goes just has PlayGroup to KG. It is running in a 2 flats setup in Aundh. They have limited set of kids playing facilities. They have around 6 teachers and 4 admin staff. They have some maids (around 8). They have around 50 students. Thus cumulative sum of fee is INR 1150000 per anum. For 3 hour school they won’t be paying a high some to their school staffs. I feel the management makes good some of money. This was all about the initial stage of education. Now I will let you know another story. Someone told me this story. Few months back, one of his college friends (in US) contacted him on chat and requested him to go in person to one of the reputed engineering institute in his city for collecting the admission forms (paid seat) for his sister who was not from that place. He told that he had visited the website of institute and the last date is in next week and it seems the paid seat fee is just around INR 1, 00000 and he can bear the expense. When that person went to institute and enquired, he came to know that for getting a paid seat admission, the candidate needs to pay extra INR 3,00000 (under the table) to the institute management apart from the usual fee (specified on the website and forms).

In India, education is converting rapidly as an industry. Institute has goals to create more profit (sometime white and sometime black) than to provide quality education and create role models for society. Most confusing part is that government is not giving any attention towards this. It is just interested in providing reservations in government/private institutes and taking back the autonomies of some institutes and universities. Government schools at different levels are dying. Either there is no teacher or if the teachers are there they don’t get salaries properly or they are not good enough.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A VIP cricketer and a (by default VIP) politician

Last month we traveled to our native. We took a flight to Delhi from Pune and then went to Patna and took a cab to reach Muzaffarpur. I was happy to see good quality road between Patna to Muzaffarpur. At Pune airport, while standing in security check queue, I observed the CISF officer (security in charge) invited someone who was standing behind me to get his security check done first and that gentleman politely refused and told him that he will come in queue. I was surprised. I was sure that person standing behind me is VIP and thought to find out who this gentleman is. I turned back and I saw he was Sunil Gavaskar. I talked with him a little while we were in queue. I felt happy that he didn’t exploit his VIP status.

While coming back, at Delhi airport, the GoIndiGo flight was late and my 3 year old daughter had lost her patience and started creating problems for me and my wife. We were waiting and then a long queue got formed to board the flight where a final security check was getting done. The queue was moving too slow and my daughter's was almost uncontrollable. All the passengers were getting frustrated and somehow they were waiting for their turn. All of the sudden we observed one airline official with one CISF personnel came with *someone* and bypassed the queue to board the flight. The gentleman was again a VIP. He was a MP from Maharashtra. I started feeling so bad and angry for the entire system. The passengers with small kids and family are suffering but Mr. VIP doesn’t have any problem in taking privilege of his status although he also knew that he has to fly in same plane so boarding first doesn’t make any difference.

I do know that all cricketers might not be like Mr. Gavaskar and also all politicians might not be like Mr. VIP but at least that day I felt like politicians are the most morally uncultured class in this country.