DHAR DHAR

The Right to Education becomes a fundamental right today. This is a momentous step for the whole nation as it has the potential to unleash the tremendous talent holed-up behind the vale of poverty in Indian cities, towns and villages. It took us more than 60 years of freedom and a couple of decades of mind numbing growth to come to this juncture, but as they say, “der aaye par durust aaye” (Though you are late but you have reached safely). We have finally reached the destination. However, this is not the end but only the beginning.

Now starts the long process of ironing out all the loop holes and implementing the law with an iron fist. The use of education as a highly profitable business, but without the corresponding returns has fixed its roots very deep into the psyche of the population. That has to change.  It really matters a lot as to who is at the helm of affairs in the education ministry. A minister like Mr. Sibal can do wonders for the entire country, where as someone like Mr. Arjun Singh can very easily drag it to the bottom of the pits.

A lot of us (as a matter of fact, an entire generation or two) can very easily relate to what Mr. Manmohan Singh said last night in his address, “I am what I am today because of education“. Now that I am in London studying at the London School of Economics, I sometimes reflect back and wonder about the progression my family has made from humble umbrella traders in a small town of undivided India, through the perils of partition, the initial uncertain years in independent India, to the place where I am now. Over a course of two generation, the entire family has been catapulted out of the clutches of poverty and into relative affluence. As a member of the third generation, we are nothing but consolidating the position. All this has been possible because of the investment my family has made in education. It might not be possible for the poor families to make such an investment at the outset. This law will come to the rescue of such improvised people.

Education has the power to transform, to change a person from within. Knowledge bring with it rewards far greater than any other product of human ingenuity can bring. I am proud to say that this is a right step in the right direction by the Government.

Image courtesy: University of Minnesota

The recent decision by the Human Resource Ministry of the Government of India to de-recognise 44 “Deemed to be” Universities came as a shock for everyone, let alone the 200,000 students directly affected by it.

Most of these now ‘doomed’ universities are run by private business men and politicians like money making machines rather than educational institutions.  However, so as not to jeopardize the lives of the affected students, the government has allowed to institutes to revert back to their pre- deemed university status as affiliate colleges of the respective state universities.

In my opinion, the government is on the right track in its goal of educational reforms in India. During Arjun Singh’s tenure as the HRD minister, the deemed university status was virtually up for grabs with anybody having sufficient cash and connections able to acquire one for his/her institution.

However, I find this entire procedure of granting the deemed university status somewhat flawed and useless. Instead of doling out this half baked status the Government should start using mandatory and very strict accredition process and grant those institutions that are fit to be one, full university status.

Many of these institutions face severe shortages of faculty. India produces 300,000 engineers and many more science graduates each year. Most of these people go to the private sector in hopes of earning huge salaries and having a secured life there after. The incentives are the huge pay packages here. Educational institutions also should start paying out salaries equivalent to the private sector to attract the best of the lot. However  noble and satisfying the job of teaching may be, those days where the school teacher used to teach for peanuts has long gone. In today’s world, money matters.

Another important factor plaguing Indian education system is the lack of research in relevant and cutting edge topics. Even the IITs and IIMs have a tough time in getting their hold in the international research arena. Due to some unexplained reason, Indian universities always fall into “teaching universities” syndrome as distinct from the “research universities” such as Harvard or LSE or MIT.  To attract the best minds, money along with research infrastructure is important…

The HRD Ministry has taken a small but right step in the proper direction… However, It has still a long way to g … Keep marching…

Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

Another demand accepted!!! The Indian government’s nod for creating Telangana out of Andhra Pradesh is a step forward  in the right direction to fulfill the long held dream of the people of the country – splitting India into a thousand pieces. Why not do it all together? Take your scalpel and start dissecting states on the map of the country. That will limit the bloodshed and destruction that follows every such decision. What say, my sire?

Sarcasm aside, we really should stop doing this anymore. I understand that the lack of development in a particular region of a state fuels the fire for a new state, but one has to consider that in a country like India where there are thousands of languages, castes and all other such stuff, division and more division based on these criteria are not the solutions. Instead equitable development is the need of the day.

A nod to Telangana is indirectly an invitation to all other statehood movements such as Vidharva, Gorkhaland, Harit Pradesh, Bundelkhand etc. This might result in a domino effect whereby everybody starts demanding a separate state based on their own linguistic preferences. This will create a huge problem for governance and might result in further weakening of the fabric of the nation.

The Government should stay away from such radical decisions and instead should concentrate on equal development throughout the country.

Have you ever wondered how easier it would have been if all the countries of the World had perfectly geometrical shapes. India would have been a rhombus, Pakistan a triangle and China a big trapezium. Geography students, school going kids and the big shot cartographers would have been a much happier lot.

But, simple is a word most of the human kind has never learned. We have this habit of making everything complex. If somehthing you have proposed is understood by all, then your intellect is not worth proposing.  It has to be difficult and if only its’ complexity reaches heights bordering absurdity, you gain entry into the mile high intellectual club.

Coming to the boundary and border issue, look at India, China and Pakistan. However, the borders look in one country’s map, the truth is as follows:

1. Arunachal Pradesh in the far eastern part of India, which China claims to be its own is effectively and for all practical and theoritical purposes under the jurisdiction of India.

2. Askai Chin in the Xinjiang Autonomous region of China is claimed by India but is controlled by China as part of the Hotan County in the Hotan Prefacture.

3. Azad Kashmir /POK and Gilgit-Baltistan are under the control of Pakistan but are claimed by India as its own.

Check out these three Google maps. The differences are quite obvious.

Google China Map showing Askai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh within China

Google India Map showing Askai Chin, POK and Arunachal Pradesh within India

Google UK map showing all the disputed territories within dotted lines

Considering the fact that these three issues are responsible for most of the tensions in South Asia, isn’t it the duty of the people who are at the helm of affairs to correct these disputes and bring peace to the region? I know, it is very easy to say and very difficult to achieve, but why not try? And try we must, if we don’t want to see our future generations cut each other into peices, which by the looks of it seems highly likely at this juncture.

Why not declare the present boundaries as the actual borders? There will be no displacements, no riots, no killings and no partition. In a game among equals, everybody has to give up something to gain something more valuable. What is China deriving from Arunachal? nothing… no trade, no control. What is India’s interest in Azad Kashmir/ POK? nothing. These are just small adjustments in a piece of paper that the countries need to make to bring everlasting (not sure about that though) peace to the region.

I know this is a big deal for many people. But,after setting all the patriotic babble aside if you think logically then it is all about a zero-sum game.  So, why not realign these borders.

Life here in London is, whatz the right word… ahhh… dynamic… no… happening… no… ahhh… well, you get the picture… There is something going on somewhere, everyday all the time. LSE and its surroundings are no different.

Protests:

Protests are a way of life here. We all know how the Royal Mail workers went on a strike and caused a whole lot of inconvenience to all of us.  Just the other day, the Israeli Deputy foreign Minister Danny Ayalon came to the LSE to deliver a public lecture on “The Situation in the Middle East: The view from Israel” and it seemed as if the entire Scotland Yard and Mossad were there in the campus. I mean, com’on, when the Hungarian Prime Minster came to the campus, there wasn’t this kind of a security cordon. However, the anti-Israeli activists somehow found their way into the Sheikh Zayed theater and started protesting and chanting anti-Israeli slogans. Luckily, they were eventually brought under control by the students and the FM was able to present his point of view. Read more about it HERE

Yesterday, I was passing by the Indian Embassy in Aldwych and I saw these people protesting about the atrocities the Indian Army has committed in Kashmir and demanding that it vacates J&K as soon as possible. Now, considering all the wrong information and mis-understanding there is among the Indians and Pakistanis regarding the situation in Kashmir, who knows how justified their protest was? But, whatever it was, it lacked steam and soon the entire premises was cleared by the police.

Protesters near India House, London

Contests:

Well, there is no shortage of these either. Today morning, Ernst & Young was in the campus with their big yellow chubby piggy-bank and coin-shaped candies informing all the students about their Profitunity campaign. It is about coming up with a business plan, which if successful will be supported by E&Y and the entire proceeds will be donated to Prince’s Trust Charity. Check it out here.

E&Y Profitunity Piggy-bank

Then, LSE Student Union  Elections are going on currently. The voting is online and by tomorrow the fate of all the candidates standing for the various posts that are up for grabs will be decided by the students. I have already cast my vote but I wonder how many will participate in these elections. After all, almost half the students are from countries, which don’t follow any sort of democratic system. Anyways, we will know the outcome tomorrow and hopefully the best will win.

Google Image Search is awesome. I once read somewhere that the number of results Google Image Search returns for your query is directly proportional to the popularity of that query. So, I decided to do a mini experiment of mine based on that fact. I searched for the Head of the state of 15 different nations and created an excel sheet based on the number of results returned for each person. Here are the results.

No doubt Obama is the most famous. He gotta be. All other results show us how popular (or rather unpopular)the other leaders are. But the most striking result is for the Chinese Premiere. The extraordinary low result are surely a sign of censorship.

Our very own Manmohan Singh manages to hold ground amonng all these statesman. Kudos to the septuagenarian for still being able to inspire.

Barak Hussain Obama became the 44th President of the United States on the 21st of January, 2009. His presidency is unique in many ways, but the racial barriers that his election has surmounted is singular in its appeal. The struggle against slavery, discrimination and prejudice, which the Black and the Colored people have endured, has had many great heroes over the years and Obama is definitely the leader of the current pack, however, the greatest among them have to be Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

His famous “I have a dream” speech, delivered on the 28th of August, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C is perhaps one of the best motivational addresses of all times. He talks about hope, an eternal refuge of the positive at heart, he makes us believe in dreams, in dreams which seemed almost impossible back then, but call it the greatness of the American Dream or the irony of fate and hope, that dream has come true.

Let us join hands and listen to the Great man.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEMXaTktUfA&hl=en&fs=1]
Transcript of “I Have a Dream”

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the
slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!