Friday, December 5, 2008
life as mba
Joined MBA school in June .. writing about the time here is a like a cathartic exercise... The starting period that shall not be talked about and the secret taken to grave was certainly a tradition ingrained with stupidity, immaturity and totally idiotic ... Even now I can't believe that guys/gals of more than 22 years of age can engage in such a grand childish behavior .... and then starts the funda session.. it seemed like people come for an MBA course to learn how to give fundas to others... After observing people around you at that time and even now, I have this fear that is management only about giving fundas to others.. I sincerely hope that is not the case or I am certainly in the wrong profession .. or I have to become the exception to the rule....
Thursday, June 19, 2008
reasons why iraq war happened
Everyone knew it from the starting now its official ---the major reason why iraq war happened ....
It has been reported that US OIL majors will get the oil contracts for IRAQ oil fieldsfor one-two years with no-bid. The no-bid stuff is a rarity in this field as there are large oil companies outside US like in russia, india. But the victors are gathering the spoils of sacrifices of US army men and murder of thousands of IRAQIs in the immoral war.
The other reason of war --
a)psychological ::: showing the countries to be in their place or you will be crushed
b) making the CEOs of the war and re-establishment industries super-rich
has been well documented. Now it is the official announcement of getting the oil.
referenced from the article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
It has been reported that US OIL majors will get the oil contracts for IRAQ oil fieldsfor one-two years with no-bid. The no-bid stuff is a rarity in this field as there are large oil companies outside US like in russia, india. But the victors are gathering the spoils of sacrifices of US army men and murder of thousands of IRAQIs in the immoral war.
The other reason of war --
a)psychological ::: showing the countries to be in their place or you will be crushed
b) making the CEOs of the war and re-establishment industries super-rich
has been well documented. Now it is the official announcement of getting the oil.
referenced from the article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Definition of merit
There has been intense debate about reservations and we do have majority of people voicing their opinion strongly on this topic. It is nice to see that the politically disinterested age group of 18-28 also coming strongly either pro or against and have their presences felt. Though this is mainly because that the reservation issue affects this group the most, this is a sign of the things to come where debates will be online and dispassionate enough not to cause violence but meaningful enough to cause changes in policies i.e. exclusion of creamy layer.
But this is not what this blog is for. This is for contribution to defining what merit means. Because that is the most important criteria on which the opposition against reservation base their reasonings. The merit as stated is the marks obtained in JEE or CAT or medical entrance examination. This view though prevalent is a very narrow perspective towards a question of high importance. And I am surprised that so many well qualified people in this debate also hold this view.
My definition of merit is the transfer function as it is called in the case of a filter. Output/Input is the merit where output is the marks obtained in entrance examination and Input is what everything a person is when he is appearing for examination.
Here is a list of factors that may go as input:-
a) Economic Condition: Whether the candidate is studying in the candlelight or in an air-conditioned room with all his needs taken care by a servant does matter what marks do one get. The availability of required books, personalized tuition does matter.
The logic of giving scholarship is a bogus one since the difficulty lies in entering these institutions of high learning more than paying for the tuitions.
b) Primary and Secondary Education : It does matter where the candidate has gone through his primary and secondary education. A person who has studied in village in the midst of mediocre teacher and competitions when compared to people who are taught in best schools in cities is certainly at a disadvantage. Vernacular education compared to English one will always be disadvantageous in competition for top seats.
c) Home conditions : Conditions at home i.e. abusing or uneducated parents, non-culture of education at home, need to contribute to family revenue by working or in business does play an important role in psychological development of a child and certainly that is an important factor in any competition.
d) Caste: This the tricky one. How does caste can play an important role? It is very difficult for city living people how could this play any role at all. I am also not clear about the significance but I would like to state a way how this plays an important role. We human place a very important bond to the social structure that we live in. This structure can be world that is earth, country , region, religion or caste. Ideally we all shall place that importance to the earth or the country but in reality majority of Indians do place lots of significance to caste. How does this work a sociologist may explain better but in my view, this is what people relate to, where the help comes from , where they find their ideals and hope to emulate them.
An OBC person will see his ideal as Lalu Yadav or Mulayam not Manmohan. He will find that all his relatives, friends or the people that he meet are not high flying engineers or doctors but farmers or shopkeepers. A very bright OBC may think that as Manmohan singh has achieved success in this land, so can I if I put in much extra effort. But the mediocre OBC when compared to mediocre general category student will not have the same confidence in facing the world since he doesn't have enough examples to look upto. He neither has the exposure what being connected how feeble it may be to an IAS officer, an IITian etc brings that the general category student may(the emphasis is on may) have.
And this thing matters , a small bit:: a marks or two and is not only one or two marks is the difference in the competitive IIT and possibly other exams?
The list is not complete but does include the major factors.I am neither a supporter or in opposition to reservation. A hard thing to find as everyone is either one of them. My point here is just a discussion on what may be the definition of merit . Certainly it is not only the marks in the exam but a combination of many factors.
But this is not what this blog is for. This is for contribution to defining what merit means. Because that is the most important criteria on which the opposition against reservation base their reasonings. The merit as stated is the marks obtained in JEE or CAT or medical entrance examination. This view though prevalent is a very narrow perspective towards a question of high importance. And I am surprised that so many well qualified people in this debate also hold this view.
My definition of merit is the transfer function as it is called in the case of a filter. Output/Input is the merit where output is the marks obtained in entrance examination and Input is what everything a person is when he is appearing for examination.
Here is a list of factors that may go as input:-
a) Economic Condition: Whether the candidate is studying in the candlelight or in an air-conditioned room with all his needs taken care by a servant does matter what marks do one get. The availability of required books, personalized tuition does matter.
The logic of giving scholarship is a bogus one since the difficulty lies in entering these institutions of high learning more than paying for the tuitions.
b) Primary and Secondary Education : It does matter where the candidate has gone through his primary and secondary education. A person who has studied in village in the midst of mediocre teacher and competitions when compared to people who are taught in best schools in cities is certainly at a disadvantage. Vernacular education compared to English one will always be disadvantageous in competition for top seats.
c) Home conditions : Conditions at home i.e. abusing or uneducated parents, non-culture of education at home, need to contribute to family revenue by working or in business does play an important role in psychological development of a child and certainly that is an important factor in any competition.
d) Caste: This the tricky one. How does caste can play an important role? It is very difficult for city living people how could this play any role at all. I am also not clear about the significance but I would like to state a way how this plays an important role. We human place a very important bond to the social structure that we live in. This structure can be world that is earth, country , region, religion or caste. Ideally we all shall place that importance to the earth or the country but in reality majority of Indians do place lots of significance to caste. How does this work a sociologist may explain better but in my view, this is what people relate to, where the help comes from , where they find their ideals and hope to emulate them.
An OBC person will see his ideal as Lalu Yadav or Mulayam not Manmohan. He will find that all his relatives, friends or the people that he meet are not high flying engineers or doctors but farmers or shopkeepers. A very bright OBC may think that as Manmohan singh has achieved success in this land, so can I if I put in much extra effort. But the mediocre OBC when compared to mediocre general category student will not have the same confidence in facing the world since he doesn't have enough examples to look upto. He neither has the exposure what being connected how feeble it may be to an IAS officer, an IITian etc brings that the general category student may(the emphasis is on may) have.
And this thing matters , a small bit:: a marks or two and is not only one or two marks is the difference in the competitive IIT and possibly other exams?
The list is not complete but does include the major factors.I am neither a supporter or in opposition to reservation. A hard thing to find as everyone is either one of them. My point here is just a discussion on what may be the definition of merit . Certainly it is not only the marks in the exam but a combination of many factors.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Taare zameen par ...trial review
This is the first review and for that sake anything I am writing.
First the apology.
To make things clear, I am not a movie expert and neither I claim to watch even 1% of the movies produced in the world. But I believe that movies are creative expression of a director's ideas and views and everyone - the viewer, critic has the right to interpret and criticize it in his own way. The criticism from a movie reviewer may be more relevant only for the reason that the perspective he brings from watching more and different types of movies and not from the depth of analysis that he/she brings. The depth of analysis is always viewer dependent and its my option what are the criteria I want to judge the movie upon. And since I am a novice, the criteria may not be clearly defined and may not be defined at all.
What do I think of taare zameen par? The good part first... An original story in the maze of remakes and ripoffs from the hollywood or the near south cousin is a brave effort in itself. And to top it to make the movie on the plight of a dyslexic child and show it in a sensible way is a superlative effort. No praise for Amir Khan is big for even after being a superstar, he choose to act in these small and social message oriented movies. Acting wise, the kid is great but so are all kids . This is certainly an amazing fact that I have always found that the percentage of bad acting as a kid is much smaller than what is found in adult. May be the directors have a way to get the best out of people when they are innocent unaware of the trappings of the real world and the children are just there to have fun. Amir khan as usual is very good though he has a very small part to play.
On the story representation, the movie is good on the representation of so many grey characters right from the father, mother and brother of the troubled child. Its not like the stories of the earlier decades in bollywood when everyone was either a bad guy or a good guy. Lets not get confused by anti-hero which though represented criminal characters on the screen always were the good guys being there due to the exploiting society. Of course there are other examples but lets not get into that. In the story, the family is sympathetic to the child and is pushing the child to go ahead because that is what the best for the child also.
Now the bad apart, if Amir Khan gets a filmfare for best direction for this movie its no great surprise he has boycotted these awards for such a long time. Certainly there are big holes in the direction and story development and to be fair to Amir, it is expected. My first problem with this movie is the number of songs in the movie. I didn't count but it will be more than 25% of the movies. I can understand songs in an out and out entertainer like Om Shanthi Om but in a serious movie like this, the sequence is broken and so is the interest. I had this feeling that the songs were put in there because the director didn't have dialogs for the actors and may be the movie had to be made for at least more than 2 hours to make it suitable for distributors.
Another thing missing was the point in the story where Amir start giving special lessons to the child so that the child can get over his problems of writing and reading. I felt that those scenes could have been made more interesting using comic prop like in the earlier case the child does the multiplication of 3*9 to get 3. This point in the story shall have been the showpiece of the movie to show what is the difference between a good and a bad teacher. But that was not the case. And in the end, the child comes first to prove what was shown earlier in the movie was just bakwaas and the message goes that you have to be at top in any field to be recognizable. This I believe negates the basic motive of the movie.
Now what could have made the movie a classic. If the movie has not been about a dyslexic child but about the teaching profession as a whole in India. How the rote learning is given preference over creativity, how the system is full of bad teachers who are there without any behavioral training at all, how the craze is to do well in vocational courses like maths, commerce etc and forgot about the other unimportant subjects like English, history etc and how excessive competition is destroying the true essence of education which is learning. A story revolving around this would have been more relevant to the present society . Watching this movie, people will feel sympathetic towards that specific disease, but will continue pressurizing their kids to be at the top as their child is not dyslexic.
First the apology.
To make things clear, I am not a movie expert and neither I claim to watch even 1% of the movies produced in the world. But I believe that movies are creative expression of a director's ideas and views and everyone - the viewer, critic has the right to interpret and criticize it in his own way. The criticism from a movie reviewer may be more relevant only for the reason that the perspective he brings from watching more and different types of movies and not from the depth of analysis that he/she brings. The depth of analysis is always viewer dependent and its my option what are the criteria I want to judge the movie upon. And since I am a novice, the criteria may not be clearly defined and may not be defined at all.
What do I think of taare zameen par? The good part first... An original story in the maze of remakes and ripoffs from the hollywood or the near south cousin is a brave effort in itself. And to top it to make the movie on the plight of a dyslexic child and show it in a sensible way is a superlative effort. No praise for Amir Khan is big for even after being a superstar, he choose to act in these small and social message oriented movies. Acting wise, the kid is great but so are all kids . This is certainly an amazing fact that I have always found that the percentage of bad acting as a kid is much smaller than what is found in adult. May be the directors have a way to get the best out of people when they are innocent unaware of the trappings of the real world and the children are just there to have fun. Amir khan as usual is very good though he has a very small part to play.
On the story representation, the movie is good on the representation of so many grey characters right from the father, mother and brother of the troubled child. Its not like the stories of the earlier decades in bollywood when everyone was either a bad guy or a good guy. Lets not get confused by anti-hero which though represented criminal characters on the screen always were the good guys being there due to the exploiting society. Of course there are other examples but lets not get into that. In the story, the family is sympathetic to the child and is pushing the child to go ahead because that is what the best for the child also.
Now the bad apart, if Amir Khan gets a filmfare for best direction for this movie its no great surprise he has boycotted these awards for such a long time. Certainly there are big holes in the direction and story development and to be fair to Amir, it is expected. My first problem with this movie is the number of songs in the movie. I didn't count but it will be more than 25% of the movies. I can understand songs in an out and out entertainer like Om Shanthi Om but in a serious movie like this, the sequence is broken and so is the interest. I had this feeling that the songs were put in there because the director didn't have dialogs for the actors and may be the movie had to be made for at least more than 2 hours to make it suitable for distributors.
Another thing missing was the point in the story where Amir start giving special lessons to the child so that the child can get over his problems of writing and reading. I felt that those scenes could have been made more interesting using comic prop like in the earlier case the child does the multiplication of 3*9 to get 3. This point in the story shall have been the showpiece of the movie to show what is the difference between a good and a bad teacher. But that was not the case. And in the end, the child comes first to prove what was shown earlier in the movie was just bakwaas and the message goes that you have to be at top in any field to be recognizable. This I believe negates the basic motive of the movie.
Now what could have made the movie a classic. If the movie has not been about a dyslexic child but about the teaching profession as a whole in India. How the rote learning is given preference over creativity, how the system is full of bad teachers who are there without any behavioral training at all, how the craze is to do well in vocational courses like maths, commerce etc and forgot about the other unimportant subjects like English, history etc and how excessive competition is destroying the true essence of education which is learning. A story revolving around this would have been more relevant to the present society . Watching this movie, people will feel sympathetic towards that specific disease, but will continue pressurizing their kids to be at the top as their child is not dyslexic.
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