English language from First standard
It is heartening to know that Udupi Zilla Panchayat(Udupi is located in the western coast of India in the Karnataka state) has decided to introduce English as one of the subject from first standard in Government and aided Kannada medium schools of Udupi district from the next academic year.
Introduction of English was necessary as many Kannada medium schools are on the verge of closure in the district due to lack of students as parents are inclined to send their children to English medium schools. Also I feel another reason for the support of this move is that the children belonging to certain sections of the society should not be deprived of learning English only because they were studying in Kannada medium schools. English is a universal language and is a very important for any student's personal ambitions.
I congratulate Udupi Zilla Panchayat and I hope that rest of India will follow this model soon. Afterall, we can not live in an isolated world.!
Office of profit
'Office of profit' - is the buzz word these days....Jaya Bacchhan lost her Rajya Sabha seat beacuse of this... Sonia Gandhi, president of Indian National Congress resigned from her Lok Sabha seat as well as NAC Cairmanship because she felt it was the right thing to do as the controversy was on it's all-time high.But what is OOP ( Office of profit) for a common citizen of India ?
Office of profit is one more loop hole, which needs to be rectified. Most of the offices which falls under this Office of profit are under either central or state governments. The respective governments appoint distinguished people either to lead or chair high profile posts of these offices.As there was a concern that these offices could be misused for profit, there was a law defined in the 50's to counter such misuse.However there are so many loop holes that, this is becoming a laughing stock.
Defintely there has been either misunderstanding or poor implementation of this law. All the political parties should come together to define the 'Office of profit' so that there is no vagueness in it and people of India can take a breath of relief.!
Equality in education
A progressive country is the one which is wise enough dictate a secure future. To that effect it must educate its citizens and should take this as a serious priority than a mere plan. When it comes to education there should not be any compromise, for eventually this would help the country to cut down state dependency of its people and save the country from spending a fortune on issues like crime and health. In India the term education has been systematically exploited either by political parties or big educational trusts on the false pretext of serving the people.
In India we need a change whereupon the person who holds the merit should be the one who chooses. Education should be made for all, however, any group or caste shouldn’t be able to dictate the state of affairs and hijack the system.
The noble idea of reservation aimed at the most vulnerable section of the society in the early period of free India has lost its objective. The political outfits have distorted the idea so much so that the ordinary citizens just loath the term itself. The private educational trusts have successfully exploited the loopholes in the system to make more money. Today we need to adapt the reservation policy so that the beneficiary should be the one who is in financial distress. Or else, India will suffer hugely under this nightmare of a problem and the future India will still be struggling to fight inequality. There is a strong need for good citizens to spread the word and educate the fellow citizens of the reverberations of our current mess so that they too can rationalize the situation for themselves and support any meaningful amendments to reservation system.
We have no plans in place to do away with our reservation policies, say in the next 5, 10 or 20 years. If we do not start to down regulate quota system India can never be able to attain equality amongst its citizens. We need to instil some sense in the minds of our legislators so that they are obliged to form Laws to set uniform opportunities for all. Now and in the future, Governments should always try to help the poor in obtaining education but not spoon feed them. Political parties should come together to fight barriers based on religion, caste and sex to build a United Secular India.
China does a 'Googley'
Google has agreed to censor the websites on its search engines - which the Chinese government considers sensitive - so that they can speed up the service. So if the Chinese people want to search about which their Government thinks sensitive they will get a message saying “the access to this website is restricted”. It is not surprising to know the lengths Beijing would go to prevent its own people from learning about Taiwanese independence, democratic reforms or any such issues concerning freedom in conflict with communism. It is another of those authoritarian efforts to quell the spirit of freedom and right to choose. By giving into Chinese demands the company will share a dubious honor with other major firms like Yahoo and Microsoft who have been censoring in compliance with Beijing’s whim. What the Government of China and Google do not understand is that no regime however powerful can never suppress truth and what is in public domain. What is the rational of this act when they aren’t preventing their people from moving in and out of the country? Do they really think that the people of China would not come across those “sensitive issues” unless they find a way to blind them, block their mind and then stop the subsequent word of mouth?
Karnataka on a losing spree
In the light of recent political squabbling in Karnataka, one is not sure as to how one should trust political parties and their doctrine. After the 2004 assembly elections when no party had clear majority, the so called secular forces tried to keep BJP, the single largest party, at bay. That motive may have been noble but the alliance of likeminded (?) parties in a way hijacked the uncertain political mandate in the state resulting in the defeat of the system. The mixed result suggested that no party was able to win the trust of people. However, the action followed illustrated that if the secular forces have gained majority that in turn should be inferred as political directive wished by people.
However, within 20 months, the JD(S) not in compliance with its “secular” name has decided to support the same BJP. No dialogue with its ruling partner, no debate but simply the overthrow. The only reason given was that they would like to teach a lesson to ruling Congress for the humiliation granted to it, suggests simply the greed for power. For the Congress it could be said that they are not adept in living the coalition politics and for JD (S), the less said the better.
If rising from this power struggle, the resultant government resorts to J&K style power sharing then all three big political parties would get roughly 20 months in office, with JD(S) having the larger share. Nevertheless, all of them would be losers, for the time constraint will not allow any of them to achieve what they might have been able to. Besides, the people of Karnataka, by far would lose 5 years of genuine administration of the state. However, they might have the last laugh as they would have seen all the three in power and could decide on the right party to lead them after 2009. But in any case, for that to happen they will have to get rid of patronizing blind partisan politics and think only the best interest of the state.
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