- WHO raises the alert level of Swine flu(H1N1) to its highest level, declaring it as global pandemic.The last flu pandemic was declared 41 years ago, when H3N1 virus strain killed an estimated 1 million people in 1968.
- Iran incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad returns to power, amidst riots by opposition supporters and complaints of cheating from his rivals.
- Satyam decided to send home 7,000 to 10,000 of its employees for six months with immediate effect.They will receive their basic pay (40 per cent of the gross salary) in addition to provident fund and medical insurance.Based on business requirements, they may be recalled to work on full pay and benefits
- Richest Lord of kaliyuga, Lord Venkateshwara, was offered his seventh crown as a gift.
The staggering Rs 42 crore diamond-studded 2.5 feet tall crown was gifted by Karnataka tourism minister Gali Janardhan Reddy. - The Producers Council of Tollywood has asked film-makers not to shoot in Australia in immediate future, in the wake of recent attacks against Indians.
- Apple unveiled its new iPhone.
iPhone 3G S claims to be much faster than its previous versions and comes with some 100 new features. The 3GS will cost $199 for 16 GB of memory, and $299 for 32 GB of memory.The existing iPhone 3G will get an immediate price cut to $99.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Week Gone By
Higher Education in India
India has the highest percentage of youth in the world. Only 10% of the University-age population is enrolled in the colleges. India accounts for 13% of the total 100 million people enrolled for higher education all over the world. But, significant quality problems exist in our higher education system. According to Mckinsey report, it is said that about 75% of the Engineering Graduates are too poorly educated to function effectively in economy without additional on the job training.
There are many factors which make the Education sector complex to reform. Most effective Universities have Self Governance and autonomy. This feature is absent in Indian Higher education system. Political interference with Academic decisions plays the spoilsport in making of a better institution. There is a significant degree of corruption in academic appointments. India faces significant challenges in funding. It spends about 0.37% of GDP on Higher Education. UGC (centrally funded institution) allots some funding to top notch universities but the remaining does not get sufficient funding. Some are dependant on state govts. Many are unaided. So, there is no real scope of research in most of the colleges.
India has a widely respected specialized institutions like IIT’s, IIM’s, IIIT’s. Govt has recently declared that it will establish 8 IIT’s, 7 IIM’s, and 30 research oriented central universities, 10 NIT’s, 2 IISc’s and 1000 Polytechnic institutes. Current Govt plans to establish number of research oriented universities will not serve the purpose unless the traditional universities take a reformed path. It is actually comparatively easy to turn these traditional universities to global standards than to build from scratch. It is shame that none of our universities are in the top 100 universities. Although IIT’s are having international standards, they are just technical institutions. They are not universities.
Our Universities and colleges are lacking Doctoral scholars. As a matter of fact according to the statistics, since 1970, 70 to 80% of the doctoral and highly educated Indians who had their education in the west got settled and never returned to their homeland. Govt should think of a policy for the returning scholars. They should be taken care properly. With their inputs, the country will prosper at a faster rate.
Knowledge commission has given some recommendations in 2006 to the govt in improving the condition of the higher education. So, with proper strategy, good policy, insulation from political bodies, eradicating corruption, proper funding and proper restructuring of the existing traditional universities and providing opportunities to the Indian Brainpower who are working for some other countries by offering high salaries and benefits to them, the system can be improved to large extent.
- Optimistic Indian
There are many factors which make the Education sector complex to reform. Most effective Universities have Self Governance and autonomy. This feature is absent in Indian Higher education system. Political interference with Academic decisions plays the spoilsport in making of a better institution. There is a significant degree of corruption in academic appointments. India faces significant challenges in funding. It spends about 0.37% of GDP on Higher Education. UGC (centrally funded institution) allots some funding to top notch universities but the remaining does not get sufficient funding. Some are dependant on state govts. Many are unaided. So, there is no real scope of research in most of the colleges.
India has a widely respected specialized institutions like IIT’s, IIM’s, IIIT’s. Govt has recently declared that it will establish 8 IIT’s, 7 IIM’s, and 30 research oriented central universities, 10 NIT’s, 2 IISc’s and 1000 Polytechnic institutes. Current Govt plans to establish number of research oriented universities will not serve the purpose unless the traditional universities take a reformed path. It is actually comparatively easy to turn these traditional universities to global standards than to build from scratch. It is shame that none of our universities are in the top 100 universities. Although IIT’s are having international standards, they are just technical institutions. They are not universities.
Our Universities and colleges are lacking Doctoral scholars. As a matter of fact according to the statistics, since 1970, 70 to 80% of the doctoral and highly educated Indians who had their education in the west got settled and never returned to their homeland. Govt should think of a policy for the returning scholars. They should be taken care properly. With their inputs, the country will prosper at a faster rate.
Knowledge commission has given some recommendations in 2006 to the govt in improving the condition of the higher education. So, with proper strategy, good policy, insulation from political bodies, eradicating corruption, proper funding and proper restructuring of the existing traditional universities and providing opportunities to the Indian Brainpower who are working for some other countries by offering high salaries and benefits to them, the system can be improved to large extent.
- Optimistic Indian
The Business of Fear
What is the world's biggest industry? Oil? Armaments? Religion? Terrorism? All of these, in one way or another, are subservient to one single industry which since the dawn of civilisation has been humankind's biggest motivator and money-spinner: fear.
It is fear that gave rise to religion, with all its vast booty, from the wealth of the Vatican to the treasure troves of Tirupati. Fear is the obvious instigator of wars and the arms industries they have spawned. The booming health industry - or, more appropriately disease industry - is also fuelled by fear.
While the world's health prognosis continues to be grim in reality - particularly in countries like India, where to take just one index, infant mortality rates are an appalling 32 per 1,000 - fear of actual or imagined disease acts as a spur to huge resource mobilisation (and almost equally huge misappropriation), as in the case of the international campaigns against AIDS which critics claim is one of the biggest and cruellest con games in history. And now we have the swine flu pandemic.
Fear is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, as in the case of rising food prices: anticipatory fears of further price rises by themselves ensure those rises, thanks to overbuying, hoarding and black-marketeering. Fear sells an awful lot of ancillary products, from climate change to murder.
Crime, particularly violent crime like murder, becomes a saleable commodity - an object of voyeuristic gloating rather than a bestial aberration to be shunned - marketed by fear.
Why is fear so endemic to humankind? Obviously, in that it promotes self-preservation, it has evolutionary value. But with equal validity it could be argued that fear can also be counter-evolutionary: if you resign yourself to fearing dark caves, you'll never invent fire to light them up; if you fear falling over the edge of the world you'll never discover that it's round by sailing across it.
Like any other major industry, the industry of fear (as represented by governments, religion, economists, health and environment experts, and, last but far from least, the media) requires regulation, with periodic cost-benefit analyses. How much should you really be scared of contracting swine flu? How much real risk do you run of being murdered? Does global warming really spell inevitable doom for the planet (it doesn't; the planet will survive, it's only we as a species who'll die out)? In short, we need to figure out just how influenced we are by that final sum of all fears: the fear of fear itself.
This is an excerpt from a blog by Jag Suriya.
It is fear that gave rise to religion, with all its vast booty, from the wealth of the Vatican to the treasure troves of Tirupati. Fear is the obvious instigator of wars and the arms industries they have spawned. The booming health industry - or, more appropriately disease industry - is also fuelled by fear.
While the world's health prognosis continues to be grim in reality - particularly in countries like India, where to take just one index, infant mortality rates are an appalling 32 per 1,000 - fear of actual or imagined disease acts as a spur to huge resource mobilisation (and almost equally huge misappropriation), as in the case of the international campaigns against AIDS which critics claim is one of the biggest and cruellest con games in history. And now we have the swine flu pandemic.
Fear is often a self-fulfilling prophecy, as in the case of rising food prices: anticipatory fears of further price rises by themselves ensure those rises, thanks to overbuying, hoarding and black-marketeering. Fear sells an awful lot of ancillary products, from climate change to murder.
Crime, particularly violent crime like murder, becomes a saleable commodity - an object of voyeuristic gloating rather than a bestial aberration to be shunned - marketed by fear.
Why is fear so endemic to humankind? Obviously, in that it promotes self-preservation, it has evolutionary value. But with equal validity it could be argued that fear can also be counter-evolutionary: if you resign yourself to fearing dark caves, you'll never invent fire to light them up; if you fear falling over the edge of the world you'll never discover that it's round by sailing across it.
Like any other major industry, the industry of fear (as represented by governments, religion, economists, health and environment experts, and, last but far from least, the media) requires regulation, with periodic cost-benefit analyses. How much should you really be scared of contracting swine flu? How much real risk do you run of being murdered? Does global warming really spell inevitable doom for the planet (it doesn't; the planet will survive, it's only we as a species who'll die out)? In short, we need to figure out just how influenced we are by that final sum of all fears: the fear of fear itself.
This is an excerpt from a blog by Jag Suriya.
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