Saturday, June 27, 2009

Take a WALK

Take a walk... literally I took a walk today.
After leaving the car at the mechanic, I thought to kill the time (since it would take nearly 3 hours for the car to be ready) by going for a movie, then something struck me, I really dont know what, but I decided to walk from Minister road (this is hyderabad) till The central (Punjagutta), it was long long time since I had walked so much, (I used to do regularly when during my engineering days when there was just one bus during morning and if you miss, one had to walk for nearly 5 kms). All through the duration of walking I felt I was part of the city unlike when u are inside a car. I stopped almost at each and every nook and corner and found so many small shops that sell things which you need and wouldnt find otherwise. At punjagutta there are so many jewellery shop, I have seen earlier but this time counted, there are nearly 20 shops. During the walk I notice so many billboards, more than 60% were for Ads, the remaining was from political parties with Congress ruling the roost and found less sign boards to help the motorists.
I cant say that the walk was very comfortable or totally enjoyable, but it was something different and I liked it, it made me go back many years, feel much younger and felt that I could connect easily with the people (sounding philosophical... maybe).
I think it is a good idea for anyone to just leave the machines that carry us and take a walk, and feel the difference... it did to me and I believe it will for you also.
The walk was around 6 - 7 Km.

Friday, June 26, 2009

De-Traumatising the education system

We have done it again, tweaking the education system for the good.. I am not sure why there was not this much of tweaking or debate during my school days, I clearly remember that actually there was more complain that the syllabus was less tough and we are studying less.. so on and so forth....
I wish we had a Kapil Sibal during our time, who knows I could have had got into IIM without much tension and concentrating what is required at higher level rather than struggling at the 10th level.

I know there will be lot of debate whether this is actually good for our future or not, and I will be keenly reading all those, but personally for me this is a really good move to centralize the education system and ensure that a kid doesn't unnecessarily bother that there are students from other state who are having undue advantage because of the syllabus.

There are few issues like, in Karnataka most (95%) schools don't have 11th or 12th and this kind of rule is of no consequence for them, since they anyway have to take the 10th exam since the college wont accept them without exams... so in general it is benefiting only around 5% of the students.... I wish Mr Sibal fixes this also.

Thanks Mr Kapil Sibal, I hope your intentions is noble and you implement Yash Pal report in its entirety.

Some changes do matter.