Guru Govind dou khare, Kaake lagun paye ! Balihaari Guru apno, Govind Diyo dikhaye.

All of us have read this doha in our schools, I could not agree to it more. I would like to share a letter, from a dedicated and committed teacher to a national daily "The Hindu".

Till last year, I was working in an aided higher secondary school with a good reputation. But I opted for voluntary retirement for a variety of reasons, among them the workload of handling unwieldy classes. The school produces excellent results in the board exams and so the demand for admissions is always high. The management has to yield to the tears and pressures of parents. The result is an overflowing population in each classroom and we teachers are helpless witnesses to the phenomenon. An overcrowded class drains the physical and even mental strength of the teacher. This is what happened in my career spanning 25 years. Since I was handling classes X and XII, I was under constant pressure to produce cent per cent results. A language teacher has to correct double the number of answer papers, of Language Paper I & II. I held special classes on most Saturdays and, on many occasions, I could not manage time for personal work. I was travelling almost two hours daily to reach my school. So it would be very late when I returned home after completing the special class and I had to concentrate on class work late into the night. All this told on my health. My voice got abused by the necessity of speaking loud to reach out to all students. My forefinger thickened with continuous correction work. In fact, my correction work consumed all my Dasara and Christmas vacations and at the end of every vacation, I returned to school with irritation in the eyes and pain in the neck and back. Social commitments and entertainment were next to non-existent. Inspirational teachers like Dr. Radhakrishnan could not help me either when I had to face a class of 80 to 90 students. Eye contact with every student was not possible as by the time my eyes surveyed half of the class one period would be over! Practically, it became impossible to look at everyone. That my myopic vision couldn't register faces from the last rows was another matter! I am not boasting, I have all through been a teacher with commitment. In all my service, I availed myself of only 10 days of medical leave for a surgical operation. I had never exhausted my CL or EL. I say all this only to stress how demanding a teacher's job is, especially when the strength of the class is unreasonably large. You are exhausted and you call it quits.

Bullets for the living, dignity for the Dead

This picture appeared in The Hindu Newspaper on 17th June 2010.The following day readers recorded there strong reaction in letters to editor column

That the body of a person — Maoistor no Maoist, male or female — can be carried like that of an animal is appalling. Dignity in death is a human right. Every such act of in humanness shames us collectively.

Sandhya Sundar,

Chennai

The photograph not only brings to mind the image of pre-historic hunters but also points to the disregard for the dignity of the dead. No doubt the security forces face a difficult task in tackling Maoists. But they ought to remember that they represent a superior moral order on which the state power is legitimised.

Saurav Jhalli,

New Delhi

The photo of the security forces carrying the body of the woman Maoist with her hands and feet tied to a pole can be viewed only with revulsion. They could have used a makeshift stretcher with bamboos.They should be instructed to avoid insulting the dead, at least in future.

M.K.B. Nambiar,

Mahe

The photograph speaks volumes of how the Indian state views all those it considers a threat to internal security. The other photo of the captured Adivasi, barely past his adolescence, bears the face that could stand in for a large number of disenfranchised, poor and desperate tribals, treated as enemies of the state for merely wanting to lead a life of dignity.

S.V. Rajadurai & V. Geetha,

Kotagiri

I was shocked beyond words to seethe photograph of the security personnel carrying the body of the Maoist woman.This is perhaps how they are trained to work. Probably, this is how they carry their own colleagues killed in such encounters.

N. Nagarajan,

Secunderabad

The security forces were aware that they were hunting down the ultras. Should they not have kept stretchers with them to carry the dead and the injured?

K. Bala Sundram,

Dharmapuri

The respect for human lives is an essential characteristics required for society to be called civilized. However the demand of readers in this case in unreasonable and not good for the morale of our security forces. The turmoil our security forces go through is unparalleled, with limited resources our force has to fight the naxals who are well trained in guirella warfare and at the same time they have to keep their morale high against local people criticisms. The success of security forces are largely dependent on public support, when they should be appreciated for their courage and valour few ladies attending kitty parties call them murderers. The trauma of mass killing of 71 security personnel is still fresh, though entire nation was gripped in grief after Dantewada blast(71 CRPF were killed in one attack) but the security personnel pain and trauma is different. Those who are serving in chattisgarh know it very well that any battalion could have met such fate. The security forces are groomed to protect sovereignty an integrity of nation, they are not human rights watchdog. One hand we expect them to kill enemy and at the same time demands respect for the dead,(few may argue that those killed were not enemy, i prefer to call them enemy) It is the policy of every state to keep security forces in intellectual deprivation, because intellectuals cant kill. Feelings of brotherhood and respect for human beings/dead are food for intellectual consumption in places far from combat zone, unfortunately very few Indians can afford such luxury. We must not forget that security Personnel are ordinary men under extraordinary pressure. Situation in naxal affected area is far from inhabitable, logistic support are ill developed so security forces have to carry huge supplies. A combat may extend for weeks, they have to ensure that they carry sufficient supplies into jungle. Expecting them to carry stretcher will put too much pressure on them.

The readers demand is strange

Carry bullets for the living and stretcher for the dead.

Death for the living and dignity for the dead.

Dreams of my Daughter

Sociologists consider education as the most potent tool for social mobility, because in a fragmented compartmentalized society like India degrees and tags(IITian, IAS, IPS) can get you things which are hard to get otherwise. In all society a few things are valued more than others, hierarchical arrangement of occupation is prevalent in all societies and India is no exception. However, in our society there are very few occupations that has been considered worthy enough to find a place in the list. In western societies the list is endless but here the list stops after engineering and Medicine. Educational and occupational decision are taken up by family, what college, which branch, which company, which city all these are decided by family and individual is reduced to "agent smith" who simply executes the order. Our society values education not for the wisdom that education provides us but for the salary that education from a premier institute guarantees. Educational institute are perceived as mint making industry where best of minds are shaped into mints of different denomination. The goal of any educational institute should be to develop skills and survival strategies. The mind set of parents should change. Indian Child rearing practices needs an overhaul, even after a child crosses 25 years it is the parents who take their decisions. Even after graduation the Indians remains child of their parents rather than becoming a grownup son. Parents impose their view on children. Its true that the amount of pain and sacrifice Indian parents make for their child is unparalleled. However, parents child relationship are ought not to be reciprocal. Today's middle class youth has only one dream, they all want to fulfill dreams of their parents', hardly anyone talks about their own vision and the dreams they would like to realized, truly there exist no other land where so much sacrifices are made. What happens to our dreams goals and aspiration, will they ever be realized?if you are not impotent then there is no need to be disheartened, your child will fulfill your dream. He will take his gf to high mountain where you wanted to make honeymoon, he will marry girl of his choice the freedom you were denied, he will join animation program and will give shape to your's high school imagination. Why to worry dear your child will fulfill your dream. Then why to f**K, let your child to fulfill even that dream. The fate of child is decided long before she is born, the injustice done by the previous generation is perpetuated thus, and the future generation is made slave of previous generation.

Independence and autonomy are the virtues which are least inculcated by Indian CRPs(child rearing practices), the Indian CRPs consist of many dont's and very few do's the child is frequently punished for mistakes and rarely rewarded for right behavior. This punishment laden learning makes us risk averse and initiatives are curbed before they can germinate. For society to become self sufficient in technology we need to take risk, make innovation and all these are directly linked to CRPs.

Though after 21 years of age you can take political decision but we are not considered wise enough to take personal decisions. I was astonished to hear that after a road accident(in which one our friend died) my alma mater implemented blanket ban on possession of vehicles by student. Instead of banning vehicles, students should have been taught driving skills, and regarding drunk driving high penalty provision should have been made. But putting a ban was the most easiest thing. The focus is not on developing right behavior but rather eliminating the deviant behavior by eliminating complete behavior, after all elimination is easier than reorienting deviant behaviors. In my opinion too much attempt to shield us from vagaries of life makes us impotent and deprives us from opportunities where self regulation and self control can be learned. What will the institute do after one graduates and rides a bike after some shots of tequila or few puffs of charas on Pune expressway.

Why does society not expose us to harsh life gradually, why do they expects that one sudden day we will acquire enlightenment.

The society at large is against sex education being provided at school, in a way it either expects that children should learn mystery about sexuality form cheap literature or is it that on the eve of 21st birthday child suddenly acquires sex-knowledge. The human development is gradual and no skill or knowledge comes suddenly rather it is acquired gradually through practice, and for that prior exposure, some autonomy and respect for child's decision is necessary.

I only pray that our future generation should be given the opportunity to realized their own dream and we must ensure that we dont impose our will on them.

A Transparent Glass and Mirror are same for Blind

There generally exist general consensus among general people on general topic,one such general topic is corruption amongst politicians. Corruption is defined as use of public office for personal gains, this definition excludes corruption by private persons. What, if, to avoid traffic challan I offer Hawaldar a fifty rupee note or Travelling ticket examiner a hundred bucks. Am I not indulging in corruption. Many give excuse that they bribed because the hawaldar accepted their offer, it can be other way round, the Hawaldar accepted because you voluntarily offered. What stops us from paying full fines, its the corrupt corner of our soul that resides in all of us(though it may not be in you, but I am sure it is in me). Its equally true that many times we are compelled to pay bribe for getting a legitimate thing done, in these instances we are victims of corruption. Thus it can be concluded that there are three corners of corruption:

A corner occupied by an active agent of corruption.

A corner occupied by passive agent of corruption.

A corner on which a victim is forced to stand.

Very rarely a middle class citizen takes the victim's corner, its only when he is standing in this corner he complains about corruption, cries on apathy of elected officials, curses the country.Why were we mute when we occupied the other two corner?

The answer is given by Darwin.

Its an innate tendency of an individual to seek for ways to gain reproductive advantage over another so that the better gene survives. So this tendency is

innate its god gifted and we should respect this ability of ours. Had this tendency been not there

then right now you would have been sitting on some tree full and eating lice ...

Its not possible to find a gene which is not concerned about its own survival if you find one then believe me its definitely not the human gene. I am of the opinion that its not easy to find an honest, impartial, accountable, transparent man, but its easy to build a impartial, transparent, accountable office or institution. Many believe that govt leadership shapes the nation, but why do we forget that its the nation that elects the govt. A mirror and transparent glass is same for the blind, so why to take the pain of making govt transparent if we refuse to look through. Having and eye and lacking vision is worse than being blind. Its very rare to find anyone who is not critical of caste and religion based politics, but all these critics readily indulge in hall and progra

mme( Mtech-Btech) based politics. Voting preferences based on anything other than aptitude of candidate is sympotms of ill developed society( I am callinf it ill and not under developed because we are educated). The voting percentage in the best institute of India is merely fifty percent, one reason for this low turn out is decreasing role of elected officials in our daily life. If you accept this reason then we need to broaden you knowledge base, the fact is the food we eat(GM or Organic), the Air we breathe(polluted or fresh), the water we drink(conatminated or safe), the News we read(biased or unbiased) the books we read(photocopied or original).....are all decided by politics. The need is of more politics and fair politics. The election cant be fair if junta is not rational and awake, nation dont run on emotions but it moves on the wheel of rational. However what if junta dont get the oppurtunity to elects its leader, as the often the case has been at IITK. There can be two reason according to me:

The CEO refused to accept the nominations of candidate(I know at least one CEO who has done so) or the responsibilty of that post has been reduced to so little that its not worthy of taking 7 days pain.

Once the most fought post now goes unopposed, thanks to bade and buddhe Neta, the bade and buddhe neta felt that people are not wise enough to elect cul secy who can appoint a responsible and accountable festi cordi (if you support the bifurcarion of responsibilty read public administration topic- unity of command in organization).They consider their judgement to be better than the wisdom of 5000 junta. After all they have spent more time than all others in the campus. I dont blame the bade and buddhe neta, they only exploited ignorance of the indifferent junta, in past I have also done so(though i was never a neta!!), I dont have any right to question the purity of their's soul when I know that a devil resides in me too. I am only trying to help others in realizing that a devil lies in all of us. In freudian terms this devil is called Id, those who know psychology also knows how to control this devil, this devil can be tamed only by our ego,

(not any more by super ego becoz superego got crystallized when we passed adoloscence), for lay person let me simplify, ego is the reality i.e if i know i will be beaten if i steal then its the ego that is preventing me from stealing. What if I am sure that I wont be caught, will I steal? that depends upon my superego that is moral value and principles.

There are broadly two types of values:

Instrumental values; Values related to mode of conduct that is the path to take for reaching goals, example path of non violence.

Terminal Values; The desired end state, example freedom from foreign rule.

The need of the hour is to build institution which are fair and honest, and gives preference to instrumental values over terminal values. Gandhi said that no

thing achieved through wrong means can be right. I earlier used to held the opposite view.The same things applies in bureaucracy too, now the UPSC is looking for people who are team player and can build institution which can sustain themselves, gone are the days of one man army, its not that K P S Gills are not born any more, the nature of governance has changed, the human rights has become active, now the change has to be through legitimate means only.

As earlier mentioned its the people that makes the institution, govt. Its in our hand to decide the nature of institution that govern us and that can be easily achieved through active and fair participation in politics.

More Politics and Fair Politics

The Bio-Myth

It was a jam packed hall, journalist from round the corner had arrived.In the next few minutes director of the "Immortal Men" institute arrived and excitedly he announced "Gentlemen we the Homo Sapiens are now immortal,we have devised a technology to transplant any organ with artificial organs." There was deafening clap.
After the celebration was over a man rose from his seat and said "Sir but in my country people die from hunger,malaria,T.B etc,cure for these disease are available but people are still dying,then how does your technology guarantee immortality to our men?"

Organized Effort is the only Key to Success

Its not easy to reamin unbiased and when somebody is unbiased then most probably he is also indifferent,and I am not indifferent.My views are open to criticism.

So, finally Mr. President has yielded, we would be having an Open House meeting for all the General Body members!!!

So, what is it all about – To listen to the views of the junta.But Do you feel that your voice will be given due respect in a crowd of 500???.No matter how hard they try, it wont be easy for you to express and them to comprehend.

No format has yet been mailed and I believe that nobody precisely knows what the format would be. What I have heard, they are planning to appoint a few speakers to speak on behalf of the entire junta(I feel so) representing different viewpoints. This might be wrong.It is also not known who they will be. Ideally this is the job of the senators to represent the views of the junta. This is what they are meant for. So, if you all want your voices to be heard, you need to organize yourself on a common platform before this Open House proves  another failure .

If you would have attended the last senate meeting, you know what happens when there are 50 individuals, each with a opinion of his own, trying to bring forth their views. There is more of noise and hardly any fruitful discussion. Now, guess the state the Open House would be in which is sure to get packed with an audience of more than 500. The general body is hardly ever heard by the senate and this Open House gives them another opportunity to turn it into a presentation of some views rather than a discussion forum. We should also understand that it is impossible to even initiate a conclusive discussion involving 500 equally intellectually capable minds.

Ideally, the Senate should have asked the senators to gather feedback from the junta upon this issue. which they are obviously not doing,maybe because of some constraint

So, what I suggest is that all like-minded people should come forward; assemble together;form a OPINION GROUP; have a discussion; compile their views; document them and make them available for the entire IIT community and send a copy to each of our senators with a card – “Get well soon,if you are not well”!!

I don’t care what the name should be or would be but what I do care about is the process that goes into selecting this name because such festivals are a direct reflectance of the student’s community of an institute. At the end of the day, they have to sell the name to the junta.

Will like to sign off with these lines..People should understand that what is right remains right.............even if the majority thinks otherwise.........and an oppurtunist politician cares about people only at times of election and exploits loops in rule at rite time.....These lines are not entirely my creation but I do support the view expressed in these lines and my experience so far with  has tested this view.

Why this Split

When the student Gymkhana should have been concentrating on developing strategies to throw a great show in next golden jubilee year of IIT Kanpur,it has been caught in a controversy that whether the name Techkriti should be changed or not.(Our prez says that its a new festival).

It is quite clear that a large chunk of student body is not supporting the senate and few went on rage after gymkhana passed the bill, mired with controversy since the inception of the bill.

Why suddenly this outburst of sentiments in campus, why this strife.

As a General Body member I have all the right to criticize Sujania’s decision to form a committee without any representative of people (aam junta).There was hardly any senator in the committee(apart from convenor) ,so only the executives view were taken into consideration and aam junta concerns were left out. The senators are meant to express the view of the aam junta.

During the tenure of Sujania the senate decided to merge the two festivals ,The senate has  authority to decide fate of megabucks and Techkriti because the junta has trusted the senate that their concerns will be given due respect by senate and not because junta feel that the senators are intellectually more capable. The senate is a body representing the views and concerns of people.

But the senators feel that the junta has vested them with the power to decide on their behalf, this notion is dangerous and very detrimental to the legitimacy and the authority the senate commands.

Many people vote on the basis of caste because they feel that their leaders will voice the concern of their community, and the leaders do so(A Schedule caste leader speaks mainly for SC only). This attitude of leaders is bad ,but  our senate is  much worse than that .They represent particular electorate but speak only for themselves. They don’t speak junta’s voice but expresses what their stand is.

Today I heard that a senator has asked the convener asking him not to reconvene  the meeting because  no senator was against the decision and only junta is opposing, so why call another meeting.

I don’t know the name of that senator but few things can be concluded about him:

1. He has been elected unopposed because people like him who don’t respect junta’s view can’t get elected. (not her because all  the three female senators were elected)

2. He must be thinking of himself as too smart and he feels that junta can’t decide what is right for them and what he decides is right for the junta.

 

Whoever you are, own some moral responsibility and please resign, you are not supposed to be senator.

 

For all those who are not aware of the seat allotment to different programs let me inform you that the ratio of the size of a batch and senators from that batch should be 100.Our seniors made this wonderful piece of rule to ensure that the senators  are capable of reaching the entire electorate and capable of raising voice in the senate for the junta .But neither the President nor any senator has tried to know what the take of junta is on this issue.

This is a golden opportunity for all those senators who want to contest  next Presidential elections to speak for junta and not for themselves, try to meet people and I can guarantee, you will not have to request any idiots and few vote pimps to propose or second you .I have seen this happening with a guy who had raised voice for lottery during hall allocation, he became so much popular later on that nobody dared to contest elections against him, after all who wants his/her security money to be confiscated. Senators, this is a golden opportunity to meet people, know their concern and regain the lost authority of gymkhana. Vote in the interest of junta and not the in the interest of self declared elite members.

I don’t know what will be senate’s final decision, however I will respect any decision if it is taken in fair manner and without any abuse of power. But any decision they take must be acceptable to junta, that means either they convince junta which will be possible if junta buys their rationality behind their decision.

Will like to sign off with this lines..People should understand that what is right remains right.............even if the majority thinks otherwise.........and an oppurtunist politician cares about majority only at times of election and exploits loops in rule at rite time.....These lines are  not  entirely my creation but I do support the view expressed in these lines and my experience so far  has tested this view .