It is not possible that you grew up without getting spanked or punished ever in your childhood.

This morning, when I read the newspaper, the article written by Prof Rajendar Kachroo, father of late Aman Kachroo, brought tears in my eyes.

I am not launching a long diatribe against “Indian education system “but my concern is towards many young toddlers who are going to grapple next 22 years of their life under the Diktat of their parent

When i read this,it sounded so simple,yet so introspective,and thought why not put it across the board for all to do the same,for, A carrot, an egg, and a cup of coffee...You will never look at a cup

The A to Z of a Best Friend:

(A)ccepts you as you are
(B)elieves in you
(C)razy friend
(D)oesn't give up on you
(E)nvisions the whole of you(even the unfinished parts)

This last week was a very eventful week for the high school students all around India. The results of 10th and 12 standard from different systems were announced.

Nitin Nohria, alumunus of IIT-Mumbai, has been named as the 10th dean of Harvard Business School.

Here is a very sensitive story about our children which caught my eye and set me into an introspective mode:

"A teacher from Primary School asks her students to write a essay about

Globally renowned Universities take a lot of effort to be created. They are not built around one or two disciplines or locations.

India is planning to spend Rs 9 billion ($189 million) on education programs which will leverage IT and Communications network within the country to reach the poorest. The budget laid this out.

Although for India's size this is paltry. If I take India's population as 1.5 billion, then this amounts to Rs 6 per person. Which isn't a whole lot to begin within. But given the other expenses of Government schools and NGO funding over the year, one would assume that some of this will benefit the poorest of the kids.

There will be a hike of Rs 20 billion in spending on higher education including setting up the new IITs and spending on existing IITs. I certainly do not understand this race to create more IITs. As if just by calling it an "IIT", it will somehow become "great"!

Yash Pal graduated with a degree in physics from Punjab University in 1949 and was awarded a PhD degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. During a long academic and research career he served as a visiting professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, the California Institute of Technology and the Danish Space Research Institute. Yash Pal has held several prominent positions during his career which includes Chief Consultant, Planning Commission (1983-84), Secretary, Department of Science & Technology (1984-86) and Chairman, University Grants Commission (1986-91).

Yesterday, Yashpal Committee report on Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education (embedded below) was accepted by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal. It is an interesting document and a well times one. According to the foreword, this document has full backing of PM Dr. Singh and the HR Minister Sibal.

A lot of years back, I had once watched in interview with Prof. Yashpal. He is a scientist with interests in arts. So, the interviewer asked him about his varied interests to which he replied that at the end of his life he did not want to look back and see only one road on which he had walked. He wanted to wander on the sideways and smell the beautiful flowers and watch the streams also that were away from the main road. That one answer of his has impacted me a lot over my years of growing up.

I think this report includes that thinking. The report is very wide ranging - from structure of the Indian education to the examination system to the inequities to how a good and high level University should be structured. He has taken his learnings from MIT and Caltech to fashion the next generation of the Indian Universities. There is also an admittance on the peripheral education structure of donation colleges that proliferate the Indian landscape. There is also the acceptance of the uselessness of the traditional Undergraduation degree courses - which has taken a long time coming. There is also the push to a more robust and meaningful vocational strata of education.

Entry of law graduates from Common law countries has become easier into Canada as lawyers.

"The National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) has decided that three-year full-time law degrees from Common Law Countries including India, England and Australia should be treated equivalently regardless of their country of origin. It is a substantial reduction in barrier to entry into legal profession," Vern Krishna, outgoing executive director of the NCA, said on Sunday.

This means that Law degrees from India, Australia, Bangladesh, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, USA, Wales and West Indies will be treated equally.

Now grads from these countries will have to (i) qualify exams in about six subjects, depending on their past education and expertise and (ii) write bar exam in Canada for equivalence.

Phase-I: I remember our boards in Xth and XII boards. The immense pressure to perform and then the agonizing wait for the result. Then the bus ride to the Basketball courts to see the writing on the wall,are yaar the result pasted there. Then the turn around and out of the pushing and pulling of the mates and the ride through the emotions of ecstasy and dismay on seeing the result. Our times were of "Doctors/engineers/CAs/architects",....baki sab bekar tha.

And we were tutored for only those two emotions. Phase -I was over.

This is a rather interesting chart of how the students in the different departments fare in terms of virginity rates in Wellesley College. It is regarded as arguably the best women's college in the US. It also has a very diverse student population frm 66 countries and probably all 50 states.

• 0% of students with 'studio arts' major are virgins
• Virginity rates for Spanish major (43%) is much lower than virginity rates for English and French majors (50%)
• Nerds from Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics lose their virginity the least.
• Interestingly, the geeks in perhaps the toughest of them all "Computer Science" have an unusually high promiscuity!

Do you agree with this picture?

There are a lot of books - great ones at that - in public domain. You can find them at Project Gutenberg or Google Books. But how do you know if their copyright has expired or not? Well, here is a detailed and informative answer from a person who wanted to publish a book from early 1900s.

This is, of course, a very late answer, but it may help other people who stumble across this question. Any work that was printed before January 1, 1923 is in the public domain. January 1, 1923 is the cutoff for the first change that took place in copyright law. Any work before this date could only be copyrighted for a maximum of 56 years. Works printed from 1923 to 1963 only fall under the extended copyright laws if their copyright was renewed for a second 28 year term. Works printed before 1978 that were printed without a valid copyright notice are also in the public domain.

This is how this needlessly complicated law is written. Because of loopholes that isn't always the way it works. The only way to be safe with any work printed after December 31, 1922 is to perform a copyright search. Otherwise you can get into a lot of trouble. The only safe area is on works printed before January 1, 1923.

The Japanese want to learn English and they seem to have hit upon a great tool - Speeches by US Presidents and Presidential candidates. Hopefully they haven't been learning from George Bush and some others before him! [1]

Well, the compilation of speeches by Barack Obama has sold more than 400,000 copies as the Japs find in his speeches simple but powerful vocabulary... and "Moving" that even the ordinary Japs can memorize!! Like what? Well, words like "Yes we can" and "Change" or "Hope". I guess nice words to memorize if George Bush was your last "instructor"!!!

In an article in the Times of India, Arif Mohammad Khan, a former Union Minister cites some interesting instances from the school text books in Pakistan that try to inculcate hatred towards India and Hindus in particular.

- The British had the objective to take over India and to achieve this, they made Hindus join them and Hindus were very glad to side with the British. After capturing the subcontinent, the British began on the one hand the loot of all things produced in this area, and on the other, in conjunction with Hindus, to greatly suppress the Muslims. (Class V text book on History)

- "Their (Muslim saints) teachings dispelled many superstitions of the Hindus and reformed their bad practices. Thereby Hindu religion of the olden times came to an end." (Class VIII text book)

Investment in the schools and institutions of higher learning has been one of the smartest things that India did. For many years, the graduates from these schools have been leaving Indian shores after their studies and benefiting the economies of the other countries. Or so it seemed to all. But for graduates like from the IITs, world at large was the playground!

In a new study (go to the bottom of the post for more findings), the IITians real contribution to the world economy has come out.. as well as their contribution to the Indian economy.

What is most interesting finding is that - for every rupee spent on an IIT-ian has 'created an economic impact of Rs 50 at the global level, half of which is India's share'.

That is significant. But its not that the IITians should stop here. They can actively engage with the society at large and mentor people.

As Nandan Nilekani, co-Chairman and co-Founder of Infosys suggested during the weekend - mentorship, creation of jobs and broader wealth creation - are some of the things that IITians could engage in.

It is true that for many decades it was pretty frustrating for the Government which had invested a lot in the IITs and saw the graduates leave the country in hordes. In fact between 1964 and 2001, 35% of graduates from the seven IITs moved to America for work or studies. In fact some studies say that in the 1980s over 80% graduates used to leave for foreign shores.

This is a picture of students walking all the way to their school in China in Gulu village, Sichuan province. It lies halfway up a mountain and climbing up from the base takes five hours.

At the narrowest point the path is 1 ft and 4 in and there is a very acute and sheer drop on one side.. Needless to say that the zig-zagging path to the school makes the kids dizzy and sick at times!

The dedication of the students is worth seeing because all they are taught at the end of that 5 hour one side journey is Chinese and Math!

In the last 26 years only 2 students have reached the University. The school has one guy Shen Qijun, 45 years, who teaches and stays basically because of the pleas of the villagers. School is not very well endowed but is fairly impressive for the place it is at and has five concrete buildings and a playground with a basketball hoop made of two wooden poles and a broken blackboard.

We had read the story of an IIT grad and grandson of Indian freedom fighter, Veer Savarkar found begging on the streets.. and that IITs are not being able to pay their salaries now.

Of course, there are enough success stories of the IIT-ians who are the brightest of the bright that India produces that fuels the competition to get that coveted degree on one's resume.

The competition is so severe and the stakes so high that people can go to any length to get themseves past the finish line. Kota in Rajasthan has become the most important center for such training. Some of the teachers are paid as high as Rs. 50 lacs to Rs 1 crores. Quite obviously, it would seem that the establishments are making enough to pay that high sums as salaries!

Now, comes the estimation of the bounty that is being made - Rs.100 billion ($2.30 billion) a year! By some estimation that is enough money to run 30 to 40 IITs in the country! So, instead of using that money to provide the education.. the society is spending that money just to compete for that education!

When the existing IITs cannot even pay their professors the monthly salaries.. and small institutes preparing kids to study under those very professors are minting enough money to create 5-8 times more such institutes - salaries & infrastructure put together.... then quite obviously something is extremely wrong!

People often talk about the competition in education in India. Sometimes they do not appreciate the extent of it. The competition is high even for the University courses... which eventually lead you nowhere. There is no one out there hiring a person who has an undergrad degree in Commerce or English. Bachelors degree almost means nothing in India.. unless it is a B.Tech or a Bachelors in Engineering. Despite that, the competition for admission to such degrees is mind boggling! Here is an example:

Applicants with high grades have far outnumbered the number of seats. At least 223 applicants with scores above 95 per cent and 3,962 applicants scoring between 90 to 95 per cent have applied for the sought-after courses. The cut-offs for popular courses such as B.Com (H), B.A (H) Economics, B.A(H) English and B.Com (Programme) are set to rise from last year, officials say.

Here is another story along the lines of the work that has been done at Springdales. Super 30 is a school started by Anand Kumar, mathematics teacher; and Abhyanand (BIhar's Additional Director-General of Police), who teaches physics; for preparing 30 students from poor, low caste, minority families.

This year all 30 of their students made it through IIT-JEE. It is by far one of the toughest exam in India, probably the world for its level.

These handpicked students are given free education, food and accomodation. The success rate of this small effort has improved steadily and has now reached 100%.

Super 30 took shape five years ago and its success can serve as a model for other such institutes across India. 18 of its students cracked the IIT-JEE in 2003 the year Super 30 was set up. The number rose to 22 in 2004 and 26 in 2005 and has been steadily increasing over the years.

I feel that instead of having reservations in the highest institutions for the underprivileged, it is so much better to have special schools in the country to prepare the underprivileged students for their life ahead in institutions of higher learning.

It is a very simple scheme - kids from the weakest sections of the society, who are studying in the not so great environments of a Government school, are picked by teachers every other year based on a test. The kids' parent could be a helper in a garage or a peon in an office. 30 students in nursery and 30 in CLass V. Nothing special except the school they get to go to is one of the top three private schools in New Delhi. Springdales School.

These kids are given free education and are given free books, uniforms, medical aid and other facilities. By Class XII, these kids are completely integrated within the school environment. When they give their final HIgh School examination, they can take the toughest of Indian competitive exams confidently.

These students have gone on to become lawyers, doctors, teachers, Engineers, and even a Rhodes Scholar.

If it wasn't for the girls, we men would not have been able to do anything much! :-) Such is the refrain from the fairer side. Well, that may be true to a large extent now. A study by Tel Aviv University now says that Girls have a calming effect on the boys in a class and are a motivation for the boys to perform well.

If the boys weren't there, the behavior of the boys suffers tremendously!

A higher percentage of girls lowers the amount of classroom disruption and fosters a better relationship between pupils and their teacher, a study of the data suggests.

There is something wrong in the entire picture... in this term, Dr. Manmohan Singh has really disturbed my sensibility! Honestly. For a person who so highly values education, to have the highest institutions of one's own land go downhill so spectacularly is difficult to explain! This is what happened under his beat:

1. More and More IIMs and IITs were created, thus diluting the brand and the standards!
2. Reservations were pushed on the elitist of institutions!

and now the worst of all - IITs do not have enough money to pay the salaries of their teachers! In fact IIT-Bombay will not be able to pay its salaries NEXT MONTH!! Ask yourself, what is the incentive and motivation for these professors to keep teaching in these institutions? The guys who teach courses to GET INTO IITs in Kota make Rs 5 million to Rs 10 million a year.. just preparing students! Why would these teachers teach at fraction of those salaries? Doesn't it sound ludicrous?

We discussed the relation between language and culture, now lets discuss the connection between sciences and culture. Here, John Lienhard, discusses the construction of an algebraic equation and how it shows the cultural situaton in that era and society.

A $7500 estate is to be divided among a widow, two sons, and three daughters. Each son is to receive twice as much as each daughter, and the widow $500 more than all the children. Determine the share of each.

Two Indian Doctoral students at the Louisiana State University (LSU) were found dead - shot and strangled in their apartment complex. The deaths was found by the pregnant wife of one of them:

The two slain students, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, were found at Edward Gay apartment complex, on the edge of campus near a high-crime area of Baton Rouge. Komma, 31, of Kurnool, India, had been bound with a computer cable, and Allam, 33, of Hyderabad, India, was found near the door, said university spokesman Charles Zewe.

This is finally a good indicator.. when the leaders amongst the Muslims come forward to move the girls' education ahead!

THE NATIONAL Commission for Minority Educational Institution’s (NCMIM) recent view that Muslim girls should stay away from academic institutions where boys are studying has not found favour among elite Muslims and religious leaders, who feel such a view would prove detrimental to the real development of Muslim society.

Maolana Khalid Rashid, a religious leader and All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member based in Lucknow, said, “It is well established that Muslims are unable to develop their community because they lag behind in education.”

He added, “There are many areas where separate schools for girls are not available. If we decide to keep girls away from the coed schools, we shall not be able to improve the miserable condition of India’s Muslims.”

In 1990, I went to Insitute of Rural Management, Anand. It was and remains one of the premier Business School that caters to Rural Management specifically. It was started with a dream that since Indian MBA students need to understand villages as much as the corporate intricacies! Well, we did learn a lot about rural life. Yet it was an elitist institution of sorts.

THAT was revolutionary in terms of business school education.

Now, a lady called Chetna Gala Sinha has taken that concept to its logical conclusion - an MBA school for the rural poor - Mann Deshi Udyogini Business school ! The students are semi-literate who need education in business subjects to start using funds loaned via the micro-finance lenders. This school - for rural women - also helps in spreading empowerment to women.

Sagar of "Development through enterprise" introduces Mann Deshi Udyogini Business school thus:

MDU was started in December 2006 by the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank (MDMSB), which is a co-operative society providing micro-credit to rural women entrepreneurs in Satara district of Maharashtra state in India. Chetna Gala Sinha, the founder-chairperson of MDU, is an Ashoka fellow and she started the MDMSB in 1998 in order to cater to the credit needs of rural women. According to Chetna, the idea of starting a business school came from an enthusiastic semi-literate woman, who kept pestering her for know-how about the wholesale vegetable business and other startegies to improve her own vegetable business. MDU was started in December 2006 with a Rs. 7 lakh (about $17500) grant from HSBC.

There seems to be a divide amongst the Bschool graduates in India. Those from metros and top-tier MBA schools are going for the corporate jobs, while those in the second tier cities are opting for the public sector.

Students from those business schools which are located in tier-II cities, such as Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jaipur, Indore, Kochi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, expressed eagerness to join `scheduled A' public sector units (PSUs) like ONGC, NTPC, IOC, GAIL, HPCL, BPCL, SAIL, MTNL, said the survey by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).