One of the comments I received for my previous posts was that the majority isnt always right!!Of course the majority is usually never right.Precisely because what is obvious to most eyes is just what is happening in front of their eyes-the present.
My last post was about how Chandrababu Naidu ended paying for his good governance.Yes people like chief ministers who give them free electricity,free seeds,free water,free insecticides-you name it.These chief ministers are always the more popular ones.But then let me put a question-Wont somebody have to pay for this?So who pays?The chief minister?The agricultural minister?The government?Naah.Its you and me-the working class who end up paying taxes which are used for giving subsidies.And to whom?To the rich farmers!!Yes I said rich farmers.
People who own more land,who have more land under agriculture will obviously profit more from these subsidies.And farmers with more land usually tend to be better off than most of their counterparts, except ofcourse during famines when perhaps larger land holdings might mean larger debts.And what finally comes out of these gross subsidies which in any ways dont reach out to the people actually in need thanks to rampant corruption, gross inefficiency and a lethargic bureaucratic approach-deficit!!The treasury runs out of cash that it cant even pay its own employees.But then our politicians make good out of even this-just blame the previous government.Like they say spend the first two years of your tenure giving media interviews on how the state was being inefficiently and corruptly managed by your predecessor,the next two years in trying to swindle as much as you can from the treasury and last one year thanking people for voting you, telling them how five years werent enough to wipe out all the bad that your predecessor had done and so requesting them to give you another five years for the business left unfinished.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Good Governance
There is this subject we have called Indian Society in Transition-where our guest faculty more or less talks about the great Indian urban-rural divide,how the poor grow more poorer while the rich get richer and....
And today we got to view this Assamese or Bengali or Oriyan short film-where this girl called Laali wants to go to school but her parents want her to graze goats.So she studies without her ppl knowing.When they find out they get angry.Then her mom falls sick and she doesnt take the proper dosage because her husband is illiterate and cant read the presciption.So they have to take her to the city hospital which will cost money hence warranting a trip to the mahajan.The mahajan tries to swindle the father which Laali manages to thwart.Father learns his lesson and Laali gets to attend school.
During the discussion our faculty talked about good governance and Corruption Vs. Inefficiency.And this was where this classmate of mine cited S.M.Krishna and Chandrababu Naidu.Vhandrababu Naidu was after all voted the best Chief Minister.So why wasnt he re-elected?Anti encumbancy factor did him in?Or was it that his over zealousness in projecting Hyderabad as Cyderabad that did him in.If my memory serves me right think I read in India Today as to how most ppl in the rural areas voted for the Congress-simply cos he did nothing for them!!
This set me thinking.Was Chandrababu Naidu's model wrong?After all you cant concentrate on all areas simultaneously.And not all areas will respond to these development works in a similar manner.So you would first start out with areas you think will respond more to whatever it is that you will carry out.And the trickle down effect works faster.Making a farmer or a craftsman rich and then making him buy computers will take long time.But make a software company rich,make the s/w engineer grow richer-he goes out , spends more money-perhaps more on mobiles and cars and such things but also on other things.He doesnt buy more food just because he earns more than he once did but then more money is in circulation and this money does reach the "lower rungs" of the society.And this takes comparativly less time to achieve.Isnt this just what Chandrababu Naidu was trying to do?
But then the ethical question is that can you always shrug and say this serves the majority and that the maximum good to the maximum people is always the right option?The rural community isnt the minority-after all most of the Indian population lives in villages.However there is more of money circulation in the cities and towns than in villages perhaps because there arent as many reasons and ways to spend in a village than in a city.Hence money passes more hands and more ppl are benefitted.And hence,though it may seem as if just one particular sector was being given more priority, in fact this model serves the purpose and for all!
And today we got to view this Assamese or Bengali or Oriyan short film-where this girl called Laali wants to go to school but her parents want her to graze goats.So she studies without her ppl knowing.When they find out they get angry.Then her mom falls sick and she doesnt take the proper dosage because her husband is illiterate and cant read the presciption.So they have to take her to the city hospital which will cost money hence warranting a trip to the mahajan.The mahajan tries to swindle the father which Laali manages to thwart.Father learns his lesson and Laali gets to attend school.
During the discussion our faculty talked about good governance and Corruption Vs. Inefficiency.And this was where this classmate of mine cited S.M.Krishna and Chandrababu Naidu.Vhandrababu Naidu was after all voted the best Chief Minister.So why wasnt he re-elected?Anti encumbancy factor did him in?Or was it that his over zealousness in projecting Hyderabad as Cyderabad that did him in.If my memory serves me right think I read in India Today as to how most ppl in the rural areas voted for the Congress-simply cos he did nothing for them!!
This set me thinking.Was Chandrababu Naidu's model wrong?After all you cant concentrate on all areas simultaneously.And not all areas will respond to these development works in a similar manner.So you would first start out with areas you think will respond more to whatever it is that you will carry out.And the trickle down effect works faster.Making a farmer or a craftsman rich and then making him buy computers will take long time.But make a software company rich,make the s/w engineer grow richer-he goes out , spends more money-perhaps more on mobiles and cars and such things but also on other things.He doesnt buy more food just because he earns more than he once did but then more money is in circulation and this money does reach the "lower rungs" of the society.And this takes comparativly less time to achieve.Isnt this just what Chandrababu Naidu was trying to do?
But then the ethical question is that can you always shrug and say this serves the majority and that the maximum good to the maximum people is always the right option?The rural community isnt the minority-after all most of the Indian population lives in villages.However there is more of money circulation in the cities and towns than in villages perhaps because there arent as many reasons and ways to spend in a village than in a city.Hence money passes more hands and more ppl are benefitted.And hence,though it may seem as if just one particular sector was being given more priority, in fact this model serves the purpose and for all!
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Intelligence Quotient
one lazy sunday afternoon.nothing much to do and i switched on my system and got to the yahoo page.And i typed intelligence quotient, dunno why but that was the first thing that came to my mind!And I came across this page which talks about how Jesus Christ has the highest iq ever recorded(by the way back then did they even have this concept of iq leave alone iq testing).
Mind you I amnt giving this any communal colour to this.But I just found this article outrageously humourous!!
Says this article
quote "Modern tests differentiate minute details, such as from one year of age to the next. We do not have those details, but do have that a child of 12, which can also be generally stated as 1/2 adult. A preliminary low estimate so far would then be the given age times 2, or 100 x 2 = 200 IQ Jesus interacted with the smartest people. Adults generally have a range of about 70 IQ to 130 IQ, with the smartest people of a representative community perhaps having an IQ of about 130 to 150. So we are looking at 300 IQ for a low estimate. But Jesus interacted with the smartest people. Adults generally have a range of about 70 IQ to 130 IQ, with the smartest people of a representative community perhaps having an IQ of about 130 to 150. So we are looking at 300 IQ for a low estimate." unquote
OK this sound ridiculous but do you know what is more ridiculous and outrageous.This article also talks about Galileo, how many people think him to be smart although he struggled with his own ideas.Yet if he were around today he would be in grade school because any modern 12 year old knows a helicopter doesn't look like his illustration.A 12 year knows how one looks like beacuse he's seen one!!again the article says
quote "IQ is to measure intelligence, not behavior or teaching patterns, therefore a high appraisal is figured at 300 as noted above, times subjective guesstimate 1.5 = 450Q."unquote
What was the logic behind this article??
And then ofcourse there was another one I found which talked about why Asians typically score more on an IQ test while most of the research work and innovation happens in the US.A guy replied IQ is a measure of your learning capabilities!(!!)And so they import all the technology from the US and use them in their backyard!But then arent most of the researchers in US of Asian origin.And who ever said that IQ was a measure of your learning capabilities??
Needless to say it was pretty much entertaining to go through all this stuff!!
Mind you I amnt giving this any communal colour to this.But I just found this article outrageously humourous!!
Says this article
quote "Modern tests differentiate minute details, such as from one year of age to the next. We do not have those details, but do have that a child of 12, which can also be generally stated as 1/2 adult. A preliminary low estimate so far would then be the given age times 2, or 100 x 2 = 200 IQ Jesus interacted with the smartest people. Adults generally have a range of about 70 IQ to 130 IQ, with the smartest people of a representative community perhaps having an IQ of about 130 to 150. So we are looking at 300 IQ for a low estimate. But Jesus interacted with the smartest people. Adults generally have a range of about 70 IQ to 130 IQ, with the smartest people of a representative community perhaps having an IQ of about 130 to 150. So we are looking at 300 IQ for a low estimate." unquote
OK this sound ridiculous but do you know what is more ridiculous and outrageous.This article also talks about Galileo, how many people think him to be smart although he struggled with his own ideas.Yet if he were around today he would be in grade school because any modern 12 year old knows a helicopter doesn't look like his illustration.A 12 year knows how one looks like beacuse he's seen one!!again the article says
quote "IQ is to measure intelligence, not behavior or teaching patterns, therefore a high appraisal is figured at 300 as noted above, times subjective guesstimate 1.5 = 450Q."unquote
What was the logic behind this article??
And then ofcourse there was another one I found which talked about why Asians typically score more on an IQ test while most of the research work and innovation happens in the US.A guy replied IQ is a measure of your learning capabilities!(!!)And so they import all the technology from the US and use them in their backyard!But then arent most of the researchers in US of Asian origin.And who ever said that IQ was a measure of your learning capabilities??
Needless to say it was pretty much entertaining to go through all this stuff!!
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Deadlines and Evaluations
Reading thru my blog and my diary all that I find are references to the exams,the presentations,the quizzes that I had and how I muffed up.Hasn’t anything else been happening in my life that I can even think about?All these five months that I have spent here have not entirely been academic centric and for that matter I haven’t ever been that kinda studo.But yet all that is constantly crossing my mind these days are my grades,my summer placement and final placement.But is that what a b-school is all about?
Or is that all that I want from my life?deadlines and performance appraisals?You need to have deadlines because there ought to be a definite time frame within which a job needs to be completed .Evaluations are indeed important because u need to know how well or how bad u have fared. But is that all to life?
Or is that all that I want from my life?deadlines and performance appraisals?You need to have deadlines because there ought to be a definite time frame within which a job needs to be completed .Evaluations are indeed important because u need to know how well or how bad u have fared. But is that all to life?
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