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…sucks doesnt it?
Really, how can someone come up with such a poor design and colour combination? Our colour is light blue but looks like the new thing is a cross between blue and grey. And what are those triangles at their knees for?
…welcome the newest entrant to the blogosphere: Fleur-de-lis at Here, Now and Beyond!
Amit Varma writes:
Often when I argue with friends, or on the internet, I am dismayed by how intransigent some people are. No matter how many facts I throw before them, or how solid my reasoning is, I simply cannot convince them of my point of view. No doubt they feel the same about me. “He refuses to listen to reason,” they think, even as I bemoan how unreasonable they are.
This is not a phenomenon peculiar to me: we live in deeply polarised times, and around half the world believes that the other half ignores reason altogether. Well, it is my belief that we overestimate reason to begin with. The Scottish Philosopher David Hume once described reason as “the slave of the passions,” and I believe that much of the time when we feel we are being reasonable, we are actually rationalising conclusions we have already arrived at, positions that we already hold.
Absolutely. When we say we’re trying to be “openminded” and offer “facts” to show how our “reasoning” is “correct”, we’re merely trying to rationalize something that we’ve already concluded. Most debates on the Net and on TV are more of defence and counterdefence of opinion rather than the construction of the same leading to consensus.
Keeping your prejudices and moving on inspite of facts that may contradict your opinion is so much easier. We dont welcome facts that may challenge our basic belief system. Accepting those facts and changing our opinion is a very painful exercise. The process involves the initial shock (when presented with the fact), a long period of introspection (during which we wonder “how the hell can this be so?”) and then the painful conclusion (that our beliefs indeed dont withstand facts.)
Instead of going through all this, we’d rather keep our prejudices and move on.
Read the whole article. Really worth reading.
It is the 21st century, not the Stone Age. But even in the Stone Age, things like this wouldnt have happened. CNN-IBN reports:
Trampling children, jumping on them and swinging them violently is not sacred or divine. But that’s what a self-proclaimed godman is doing in Rai Barelli.
Ramanand Yadav was a worker with the National Thermal Power Corporation but decided there is much more money in performing miracles. His shows in Rai Barelli draws hundreds of people who seek his blessing and are spellbound by his tricks.
The highlight of the evening is crushing a baby. A woman hands over her six-month old daughter to Yadav who puts her on the ground and suddenly stands on her. And Yadav weights at least 100 kg. Yadav jumps on the baby and keeps jumping.
Yadav then swings the baby over his head; the audience laps it up and gives him a hearty applaud. This is the Yadav’s way of blessing his followers. The baby becomes unconscious for 30 minutes, but her parents don’t complain.
“Thanks to God, we got a child and today she got the baba’s blessings,” says the girl’s father Suneel Gupta.
Yadav says what he did to the child was public welfare. “I stand in the form of God and what follows that is all done by Him. My aim behind this is public welfare.
Well, what can I say? I’m angry not at the “baba” but all the idiots who gathered around that guy cheering him for trampling a baby. Yuck! If anyone is going to be punished, it should be the “baba” AND all the zero brained maniacs who came and participated in his “divine show”, especially the father of that child, Suneel Gupta.
Biryani for dogs rather…
Times of India reports:
An enterprising 38-year-old man here has begun an exclusive catering firm to supply steaming hot biryani , specially made for dogs, at people’s doorsteps.
“I am a dog lover and I know that in today’s busy life, a dog’s life too has become worse because no one has time for them. It is here that my service would be helpful to all people who love and care for dogs,” Venugopal said.
He has started a kitchen at his home in the Kerala capital and will deliver ‘dog biryani’ to dog owners at Rs.15 for a two-kg packet.
Wonderful.
Dogs must be the luckiest animals in the world. Kennels, dog biscuits, dog clothes, dog soaps, sunglasses and now dog biryani. One day, I guess there’ll be restaurants exclusively for dogs, serving exclusively-for-dogs delicacies like Tandoori Bone, Chicken Tikka Masala (canine version), Chicken Pizza topped with bone splinters etc.
I imagine cats getting envious and demanding their own share of restaurants and delicacies. Mouse Biryani Hyderabadi, Mouse Seekh Kabab, Mouse Do Pyaza etc. come to mind. Yummy meow yum 
The BBC is doing a special on India from Feb. 3 to Feb. 11. As part of this, Kaushik Basu, Professor of Economics at Cornell University, has written an article about “India’s faltering education system.”
Prof. Basu says that even though India has “over 300 universities and 15,600 colleges spewing out 2.5 million graduates each year” and “in terms of the volume of production India trails behind only the US and recently China,” “India is beginning to trail in comparison to other countries” in producing quality pure research. He says that India lags in comparision not just to other countries but with its own past. “The Indian universities, once alive with the hum of intellectual activity, are increasingly moribund”, he says.
Which is quite true. We create 2.5 million new graduates every year. Yet, we are unable to produce good amounts of quality pure research. The amount of pure knowledge that we add every year is miniscule in comparision to USA, EU and even China. Yes, we are quite good in applied research. Our private sector companies have good R&D establishments which churn out products tailored to compete in the domestic market. But this involves applying existing knowledge to provide solutions to the consumer. And it ends there.
If we want to become a “knowledge superpower”, we cant just afford to ignore pure research. Apart from millions of engineers and technicians, we also need equal numbers of scientists, mathematicians, physicists, lawyers, social scientists, economists. As Basu says, the “benefits of good professional training are for all to see. What is less visible but, in the long run, just as important are the academic disciplines, like mathematics and the arts, which are meant to be taught and nurtured in the universities. These shape a citizenry’s mind, fertilise a nation’s intellect and provide the milieu out of which emerge the engineer, the lawyer and the computer technician. If India is to be a global economic powerhouse it is essential to nurture this pure knowledge sector.”
It is also true that we did once have an “intellectually active” university system. We have many names that we can boast of. But something went wrong. The numbers are going down. Prof. Basu feels it is because while “the organisation of international academe has changed”, “the Indian university has remained tradition-bound.” I’m not sure if it is completely true but yes… atleast partly true.
I remember my college days, during which going to college was considered a big pain in the butt, not because we didnt want to study or something but because of the boring nature of the classes and entire thing of coming and going to college but gaining nothing. The classes were so boring that we used to gang up in the last benches and fall asleep. There used to be a very few lecturers to whom we’d listen properly. Two or three names, that’s all. The rest were pathetic. It was completely mechanical. He’d read from his notes, scribble something on the board and later, dictate notes. Gain? Zero. We were supposed to read from those notes and answer the questions in the internal exams according to those notes. Anything creative would be frowned upon. “Dont act smart,” we’d be told. They were usually receptive to doubts but, except a few, were pathetic at clearing them. Gain? Zero. So, it is only natural for students to complain “when will college end?!”, “Ah! I’m sick of this college… I’m waiting for 4th year! Then USA!”
And when college ends, only two options are popular: CAT and GRE. Those who go take GRE and go to the USA actually go in search of a lucrative job in General Electric or Intel after the completion of Master of Science (which is a research degree) at the university, except a few. Many would go for jobs in nearby Cyberabad. Only a brave few would appear for GATE and get into the IITs and IISc. They’re usually the “top ten” heroes in the class.
But the problem is no one talks about DRDO or ISRO or TIFR or CPRI or CDAC. Instead, they go to the United States and work in equivalent institutions there! Yes! I have a friend who is studying at an American university and is working in a project funded by the US Department of Defense! Why? Is it because all these institutions are not “hep” enough? Maybe. Are they difficult to get into? Absolutely but getting into an IIM or an IIT is tougher. Then why? Prof. Basu tell us:
When India had a few universities treating them all alike, with the same travel and research funding, same salary and the same autonomy (or lack thereof) was fine. But in today’s India to tie all universities to the same level of support and rules is to commit them all to mediocrity.
With universities in research-active nations, including China, switching over to the “star system” – where for leading academics salaries and research funding are allowed to rise to match productivity – there is no choice for India.
Yup, the strongest reason I can find is that all the above mentioned options, IIT, IIM, USA, software are very lucrative options. They pay bloody well. In comparision, if you work at a DRDO or CPRI, you have to be satisfied with something around Rs. 15,000 a month, even if you are married. Call centre workers earn more than that. And guess what? The best and the worst earn the same. There is no performance based pay. In other words, there is a lack on incentives for people to get into and stay in these institutions. So what the hell? I’ll go to the USA where the incentives, facilities, exposure, faculty are much better and commensurate with my skills.
So what do we do?
Nothing short of a complete overhaul of the university system. We need to get more inventive. Make our classes more interesting. Discourage rote learning. Encourage creativity. Creativity should be rewarded instead of being stifled. Give grades instead of marks. Make pure research more hep. Have publicity campaigns encouraging people to become scientists, mathematicians, physicists, lawyers, economists, social scientists etc. I’m not an expert but I think we should do atleast some of these if we want to come remotely close to becoming a “knowledge superpower” and save our university system from degrading futher into a vegetative state.
The Terrorism Awareness Project aims to bring awareness to college students around the United States about the grave threat that they are facing today. It is relevant however to all civilized societies which believe in freedom and democracy, including India.
Remember, recently Osama Bin Laden has added India to his list of enemies that need to be obliterated. We are one of the only FOUR countries which Osama Bin Laden seeks to eliminate, the others being the USA, the UK and Israel. Remember, India never did something like the United States’ occupation of Iraq or Israel’s atrocities on Palestinians or the colonialism of the UK. Yet, we find ourselves bracketed along with these three entities as evil powers which need to be eliminated. And there are many people in our neighbourhood and within our country who hate us not because we did anything to them but simply because we are Indian and because India is not an Islamic state. The STATED objective of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) is to bring all of India under Islamic rule. In other words, they want to convert India from a secular and democratic nation into an Islamic state which will be guided by the Sharia (Islamic law.)
The events of September 11, 2000 were only the beginning of a long struggle against radicalism and terrorism. The first shot has been fired by the enemy on the fateful day and it has killed 3000 people from 90 countries, including India. We have been dragged into this mindless war. We have no choice but to fight it. And to defend ourselves successfully, we have to KNOW our enemy well.
The Terrorism Awareness Project intends to do just that. Here is the URL of their website: http://www.terrorismawareness.org/
PLEASE do watch the introductory (flash) video here: http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is heading an allout effort to deny the Jewish Holocaust, which resulted in the death of 6 million Jews and untold suffering to many others. Recently, he said that Israel should be wiped off the world map. And he’s not the only one. Not much unlike the Nazis, radical Islamic clerics around the world look down upon Jews as pigs and lowly animals and are bent on eliminating all of them.
Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Let us not make that mistake. Those who deny history WILL repeat it.
If you can, please forward this to as many people as possible. Spread awareness.
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