my origami boats

Well, You are in this really neat restaurant – one of those where the waiters wear uniforms and you have your water in glass(!) cup. Of course, You are hungry and need something fast. Naturally, for some reason, – may be, because the kitchen is as dimly lit as your table – the Chef takes way too much time to get your “Hyderabadi Prawn Biriyani” done. Now what do you do ? Apart from offering a Phillips energy-saving light bulb for the supposedly dimly lit restaurant’s Kitchen, you can of course yell at the waiter three or four times. But this is not really going to make things better. Every one seem to expect this reaction, especially those restaurants, where it is a habit to serve you late. They have grown insulated to such yelling. I guess, may be, even dancing won’t work there. So, my answer is Origami!

Yes, really. They have paper napkins on every table in such restaurants – at least in the restaurant I went to.(If its not there ask for a few paper napkins.) Do origami with paper napkins. Well, the only thing I know how to make out of a paper is the lame ‘Origami Boat’. So, I start to make boats out of paper napkins, and place it every where on my table. (I was planning get down the floor, when the table fills up -or- Ask for more paper napkins from the next table). It worked! Probably the waiter was worried about cleaning the mess I am happily and willfully generating. I saw him head for the kitchen at my 4th boat. And Tada! There is my Biriyani. Try it(Of course, I didn’t mean the biriyani. Not that I don’t want you to have Biriyani) and let me know, if it works for you.

in the news

This is probably old news. But I just found it today on BBC : Hindu gods get summons from court. As the story goes

Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in the eastern state of Jharkhand has issued adverts in newspapers asking the gods to “appear before the court personally”.

Further below,

The two Hindu gods have been summoned as the defence claimed that they were owners of the disputed land.

“Since the land has been donated to the gods, it is necessary to make them a party to the case,” local lawyer Bijan Rawani said.

Hopefully, the Gods answer our prayers notices.

two percent

I don’t know how far I would get with this line of thought. I have just started writing this without any idea of how is it going to go. It started with a light bulb. I had to replace the light bulb, the one thats right in front of my house. Well, it was the kid who had been the guest for or neighbors. The switch was right by our door, and He was just playing with it – switching on and off, again and again, and When he switched the bulb on for the 378th time, it blew the filament off. The last time I had to buy a bulb, as I could remember, the price was the same as that of petrol (gasoline). No, not at today’s price tag of 49 rupees/liter. I don’t remember the date or year, but the price of both the bulb and a liter of petrol costing somewhere around 15 rupees. I also guess, at that time the exchange rate for a dollar was just around 18 rupees. I may be wrong about exchange rate, but I am sure about the price of bulb and a liter of petrol.

Today a bulb a the ‘Lakshmi hardware store’, here on the Madhapur main road, just costs just 10 rupees. What ever the inflation is doing to everything else, it ain’t doing nothing to the bulb. I had a conversation with my room mate. Both of us work for IT companies. Here I go…

“Do you know, the bulb costs only 10 rupees ? Now a days, you don’t even get a kilo of rice for that price” (Unless, of course, there is a government’s subsidy. You can get a kilo of rice for two rupees. Or thats just part of our politicians rhetoric. My point is – You don’t get that price in a “free” market)

“You sound quite positive about the trend. But I don’t think its really positive”

“Uh, Ohh. A lot of times, my modulation deceives my intention. No. No, its not your ears. I am just bad ‘punching’ my dialogues at the proper moment. I was, in fact, trying to sound negative. I mean, look at this irony. Our GDP has grown to 9%, primarily because of growth in Industry and Services. But our agricultural growth in just around 2%, driving prices of agricultural commodities. Both, you and me work in services industries actually driving growth in services, which is already growing at 11%. Hence, If you really want to contribute to our economy, I advice you this – Get some land and start farming.” (OK. The actual number is 2.7%)

My intention was to sound sarcastic about the role of our jobs in our economy, and probably sound it as a pun. But my room mate, whose father is a farmer, took my words seriously, and replied “You are right”. I wasn’t surprised. He often wonders about the future of their farm and their farming, after his father is done with it. He belongs to that generation in his family, that departed from farming, and chose an option for the only reason that is economically sexier to be some executive in an IT company, than be one of the few farmers in his village. He reflects about it a lot. Accidentally, I had found the serious audience for my satire.

But I wonder, what is that I can really do, other than just paying taxes, to improve that 2.7%. In a sense, it is true that just by working in a services industry, and learning, discussing about the 2.7%, I am indirectly contributing for the paltry growth of agriculture. Looking beyond this observer-observed philosophical dilemma, What can I really do ? I thought I would get some ideas if I look further in this year’s Economic Survey of India. Hey, look at that !! Services account to 55% of our GDP! When we were studying at school, we were told that India is an agriculture based economy. If some one is still telling you that, they are lying. We have already become a services based economy. I wonder, what they are teaching in Schools, now a days. Probably that a student should learn Java/C++ and make himself/herself “employable” by Infosys/TCS/Wipro ? (Yeah, I learnt the same thing at college.)

Probably a little bit of history would make me wise! If I knew the growth rates of agriculture, and overall GDP, probably I could know where we went wrong. Well, there are too many resources on the internet to analyze Virendar Sehwag’s past batting averages and make suggestions, but are very little resources when it comes to analyze our country’s economic indicators. Irony is that – I think I can make a real and direct contribution to the Indian Economy, than to Virendar Sehwag. So lets go for the official web site of Indian Economic Survey to learn some numbers.

Year	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06
Growth in GDP %	8.5	7.5	9.0
Growth in Agri %	9.3	0.6	5.8

I got that numbers from Table 16, but I am not sure if it is right table. But one thing is sure that compared to our agricultural growth, Sehwag’s batting average seems consistent. I would love to dig deeper to really understand this numbers, but I am short of time.

And so, I went looking for ideas in our national budget. All over the forums, there has been insane amount of whining about 3% educational cess. Actually, that explains nothing but the demographic of bloggers and internet users in India. I just searched for the words “agri” in the highlights.

• Rs 100 crore for recognising excellence in the field of agricultural research.
• Manufacturing sector grows at 10.7 per cent, agriculture at 1.5 per cent during October-December 2006-07.
• A number of proposals to perk up agriculture to be announced.

100 crores seems to be real good money, some money the Ocean’s Thirteen would love to have their hands on. Of course, I do not have any credentials to receive even a rupee of that research fund. But neither does our country’s babu-dom has any credibility to deliver it where its due. Well, to know about other proposals, I would have to read the whole Budget, for which, I am short of time.

The only idea that really makes sense for now, even though it was intended as a joke, is to get some land and do agriculture. But my education is of no use to do that now, anything useful . But, a really big but here… BUT, hey, what if some one decides to build a car factory, to satisfy the nonexistent need for a car costing Rs. 100,000 ? They, then, probably would grab my land. Uh,Oh! That isn’t so encouraging. If not me, what about others, especially children, who might still be able to choose their profession. What should I answer if those people ask me ‘What would it take it do agriculture in India ?’ ? I guess I should answer them that they should be ready to give their life to protect their land, and their profession.

commerce, liberty and education

A few weeks ago there was an article in Outlook by P.M Bhargava titled Harvard @ Dhenkanal about foreign educational institutions setting up centers in India. Bhargava has made wonderful arguments against the move and is of opinion that they would harm the Indian Educational System. I was almost convinced that Harvard is the new “East India Company”, so much so that I would probably stop traffic for a “Dharna” against them all. But, two points of Bhargava’s argument made me wonder about some of the deeper problems of our educational system. One of them is commercialization. In his own words,

Their presence here could lead to a collapse of the entire educational system in the public sector, as happened with our excellent governmental school system when school education was commercialized.

And the second one is about “indoctrination of our young”.

..they get to ‘convert’ us to their country’s way of life and thinking—make us believe, for example, that US intervention in Iraq was absolutely right. We would, of course, have a regulatory system. But the endemic corruption means the FEPS will work around it.[…] […]no amount of regulation would prevent subtle indoctrination of our young.

Another article in NY Times about the state of education in India titled A College Education Without Job Prospects. Though I found this article too bent about the lack of talent development, rather than about problems of the system, some arguments were interesting.

India is that rare country where it seems to get harder to find a job the more educated you are.[…]
A deeper problem, specialists say, is a classroom environment that treats students like children even if they are in their mid-20’s. Teaching emphasizes silent note-taking and discipline at the expense of analysis and debate.

I think, there is a relation between the problem “classroom environment that treats students like children” observed by NY Times article and, Bhargava’s prediction of FEPS’s “subtle indoctrination of our young”. I think, the basic premise of Bhargava’s prognosis is the prevailing classroom environment that emphasis discipline and compliance, rather than, analysis and debate. Bhargava assumes that the role of educational systems is to indoctrinate and inculcate, rather than, counsel and guide. Education in India assumes the role of being a third parent. Of course, this thought stems from the Indian view that duty of our education systems to be another parent as in the maxim – “Matha, Pitha, Guru, Dev”.

I think, Bhargava’s other question about the collapse of education due to commercialization is just a cultural apprehension of commercialization. This fear is not just for education, but for anything that is realized as a service under our cultural context. Given a choice between private establishment and public establishment, we would, no doubt, choose the civil institution. The reason is that we automatically associate evil with anything associated with commerce. For us, Profit could mean just one thing – corruption.

I think both of these problems – patronizing classroom environment, and apprehension of commercialization – spring from the same source: They are the few of many elements that our culture necessitates to sustain its identity. I think, such elements are irrelevant in the goal and purpose of educational systems. Our educational systems should be farms of free thinking, devoid of a culture’s survival rules. Our educational systems should get rid of the patronizing role: stop teaching, in the literal sense.

I would actually suggest the kind of commercialization of our schools that they schools work with an entrepreneurial spirit. Schools still should, of course, be non-profit organizations, but they should financially accountable against their societal obligations. I don’t mean that all schools should charge a heavy fee to sustain itself. I think a school try to raise its own funds, if not all, at least a part of the funds.

Schools should be held accountable for their products, and their stake holders – their students. Every process: the recruitment, the development and their results, should be transparent and be audited. Their records should be available to public scrutiny (with some sort of Ombudsman). Such a liberal and free system of commercialization could actually develop talent better than placing our schools in a vacuum of financial responsibility. We need that kind of commercialization, that would get rid of the patronizing roles of our schools.

While Bhargava calls for democratizing and secularizing education to reach the massees, but what we really need is to liberate Indian education from its percived cultural roles by running them as entrepreunrial ventrures.