Indra’s Drishtikona (Viewpoint)

Pratul Birla commented on “Ashamed Bihar and Terrorism in Assembly”:

“good one @”Chandi act ” . They do not get worried about drought because they never intended to do that when they filed their nomination papers. Is it also not a pity that our people cannot see through such politicians and political parties ? “

Posted by: Indra at 07/23/2010 @ 8:06 pm for entry Ashamed Bihar and Terrorism in Assembly

Pratul Birla’s comment on “My Dilemma: Forward and Backward Castes”:

“People would be surprised to know the amount of education that is imparted when a project work is in progress in any rural area . It creates excitement amongst the rural people and also creates desires to be more educated. If at the same time avenues are available to them , there can be a huge success in implementing education. So companies awarded large contracts ( say beyond 500 crores ) should be obliged to provide such facilities of education at any level to the areas adjoining their site. “

Posted by: Indra at 07/08/2010 @ 12:09 pm for entry My Dilemma: Forward and Backward Castes

Pratul Birla commented on “Are Indian Billionaires Insensitive?”:

“Such is the force of the American Media that what Bill Gates and Warren Buffet did in their country is now known in every corner of the world.
I am not suggesting that they did this charity to gain media attention. But in the Indian context Media attention is needed. Gates and Buffet are legendary and enlightened people . They can hardly envy anyone in the field of business. Their craving to acquire more influence by gaining material wealth would have dissipated. (Also , one may recall that Microsoft was embroiled in many law suits a few years back and that may have indirectly influenced Gates and his spouse .) Having seen since childhood, the extreme of partying in America , they and their spouses must have understood the futility of it.
Business should be transferred to the next generation only if they are capable of handling it. Every big business has a lot of people involved in it . They develop trust in an institution and some of them stake their lives for it. This realization is certainly lacking in the Marwari business community.
“

Posted by: Indra at 06/30/2010 @ 8:35 am for entry Are Indian Billionaires Insensitive?

Pratul Birla commented on “Are Indian Billionaires Insensitive?”:

“There were some incentives of doing this kind of work for the previous generations.

1) It was considered pious work and at some point of time there will be rewards. In marwari it was said to be ” ye dharam ko kaam hai ”
2) Building such institutions as dharamshala, schools, temples etc brought a lot of recognition to the patron. There were indirect benefits in business as they provided a substantial image building. It helped in recruiting talent and also doing business transactions word of mouth. Such people were considered to honor their word. It also resulted in gaining political influence.
3) In those days , it provided a continuous mental diversification . In days when business was low , these things provided satisfaction that they are nonetheless doing good work elsewhere and God will help bring business back
4) It provided in some cases ,an occupation for the spouse.

Today , the mindset is different.
1) People do not care about religion .
2) Media attention is high for high level consumers and low for people doing pious work.
3) Leaders want to party rather than doing social work.
4) Spouses want to have a good time shopping and partying too.

I feel the whole equation would change if media attention becomes high for doing social work and negative for such parties. “

Posted by: Indra at 06/30/2010 @ 8:32 am for entry Are Indian Billionaires Insensitive?

Rajesh Sharma’s comment on “Education in Rural Region: Some Additional Thoughts”:

“I can’t agree more with you on two of the biggest stumbling blocks in the spread of effective education across the masses:

(1) The inability to impart education in a medium that is the natural language of communication for the students…especially the early age students. Looking back I can say with a lot of conviction that our infatuation with English as a medium to incorporate education *and* as a benchmark of being educated is a big handicap. I mean after having spent a good amount of time among students and professionals from various nationalities and culture who can hardly utter a complete English sentence the one thing that is obvious is that it just doesn’t matter what language you express you ideas in. If you are passionate about what you are trying to express then folks will understand the idea irrespective of the language. Imparting knowledge doesn’t require language, it requires articulation of ideas that is comprehensible by others. Einstein learnt his maths and physics in German, Aryabhatt and Bhaskar learnt their maths in Sanskrit and Musa Ibn Khwarzimi learnt his maths, astronomy and geography in Persian.

(2) Any education policy, framework and/or guidelines has to recognize that education is a community driven initiative. We can build the most state-of-the-art school in some remote village of Bihar and Arunachal Pradesh. But it amounts to nothing if we can’t get good educators for such a school. And good educators can not be imported to remote and far flung villages. So, you are on the money when you talk about the “role of locals” in rural and suburban education. But there obviously has to be the right incentives in place for students to want to go to school, for the parents to send their kids to school and for individuals to invest in pursuing the profession of an educator to meet that kind of demand. And, as we all know, the incentives are economic in nature.

Yes, as you point out and Pratul bhaiya articulates, there are things beyond basic education that needs to be taken care off. Things like employability for example. But lets face it - there is a massive “Opportunity Divide” for all those rural and suburban students who want to capitalize on their knowledge and wares. I mean I saw so many folks during our student life…extremely brilliant students from village background who just cudn’t pursue higher ambitions just because they have to go back to their village or small town and stay close to their families. Now that’s sheer waste of human resource. And these are students who actually made it beyond the confines of their village and actually attended schools like IITs, BIT and RECs. Just imagine all those students who couldn’t even do that since they just can’t leave their village or town for obvious/not-so-obvious reasons.

Guess the point I’m trying to make is any education system has to be holistic enough to not only provide an infrastructure to impart education but also an ecosystem, close to homes and communities, where these students can practice their trade. Bottom line, we can’t forever expect huge swathes of educated rural India to emigrate to the 5 or 10 or 20 big cities in search of employment. Ultimately, education like any business enterprise follows a self-sustaining cycle. If any part of the cycle is missing or weak then we just end up with a lop-sided supply-demand mismatch. Yes, it is a chicken-and-egg problem. Rural India needs schools and colleges but it also needs industries, small and big businesses, entrepreneurs…a rich self-sustaining community that can generate its own supply and demand for goods, services…and innovation. “

Posted by: Indra at 06/28/2010 @ 5:07 pm for entry Education in Rural Region: Some Additional Thoughts

Pratul Birla commented on “Education in Rural Region: Some Additional Thoughts”:

“An article in Economic Times could be of interest to you. Sunil Mittal has taken a big initiative . He plans to have 550 free schools to target 100000 students . The article says that 200 plus have already been executed . I hope the governement at least has the courtesy to refund him the 2% education cess which they may have charged . Hopefully , many more big industrialists could take this lead.

My thinking has been that for true and sustainable enlightenment of the population the attainment of skills is as much necessary as education. It gives a sense of security and therefore independence. Employability also brings about a lot of self education. A skilled person is less likely to be a victim of corruption as well. On the other hand unemployment creates a lot of hazzards for the growth of the country. They are like a “chicken or egg first ? ” kind of thing. It is ironical that on the one hand it is difficult to get competent worksmen even in the cities and on the other , the government doles out so much money for NREGS just to create temporary employment and defer discontent.
I wish that the ruling party could be less populist and opportunist and used the money to create human capital. They could do well by overhauling and expanding the ITI program for example.”

Posted by: Indra at 06/28/2010 @ 11:31 am for entry Education in Rural Region: Some Additional Thoughts

Sarvesh Upadhyay comments on “Education in Rural Region”:

“Government has enough funds for school building and infrastructure including mid-day meal, thanks to us who paid 2% education cess couple of years imposed by Arjun Singh. It requires some active guy who can make few rounds to government establishments at district headquarter and bring those funds to his school. I am not surprised by the reaction shown by your uncle. Now a days schools are being run by a committee which includes headmaster, Mukhiya and few people from village. People are getting discouraged to get involved as you know who wins the Mukhiya election these days. Mukhiya and Headmaster has the power to utilize the fund with each others mutual consent. No need to tell here as how both are utilizing those funds (many times you may not know but on paper it would have been already utilized).
But I will suggest you still go ahead with your plan for a library and creativity centre in your village. School was the best place as you will get space and someone to look after it. But it will be more successful if you can detach it from school and make it independent. I am sure majority of your village kids will be going to some DAV school nearby rather than the village school.
I have seen the drawback of Shikshamitras. Some of the schools does not have permanent headmaster and those Shikhamitras are acting as Headmaster. As usual Mukhiya has right to select the Shikshamitra and he will appoint his own auqintance and make sure that no permanent headmaster comes to school (This is real scene of the primary school of my village). Again here fund and Headmaster (Shikshamitra) and Mukhiya has right to sign the bill.

Posted by: Indra at 06/26/2010 @ 4:04 am for entry Education in Rural Region

Pratul Birla’s comment on “Education in Rural Region”:

“The whole effort is ill conceived and without understanding of the ground situation and without using much insight
What do you do with those kids who go through a poorly administered conventional program when they just cannot match those kids who have done their schooling in the towns and cities ? How can they compete on the playing ground of the urban kids ?

I do not think the present thrust on education will serve any good to the country. Because it is purely a drive on literacy and not education at all. Also, why cannot we get over the idea that English should be a criteria for a useful and a creative population ?

First of all, we have to reduce dependence on teaching faculty and have extremely strong emphasis on mass communicating devices. All new teachers should be appointed with good salaries and having the ability to use those devices. We will have lesser number of discontent teachers.

Also, we must see the models adopted by other successul non - English speaking countries like China, and Japan and Russia for that matter.
Most of China hardly speaks any English.
For the large masses of our country we need only functional English and not English as a criteria for skill development. If we continue to bank on English to deliver the goods for us , I feel it is never going to happen. We loose a lot of skill because the kid cannot cope up with English. This has to be avoided anyhow.
In fact if I were given the responsibility of education , one of the first steps I would take is to stop subsidizing institutions like Regional Engineering Colleges if they do not immediately take steps to provide education in alternate Indian languages in the particular region that they belong too .We are simply loosing talent because of this encumberance of English.

Now coming to the rural psyche ,where basic survival is an everyday issue , how can we expect parents of children to encourage them to school education which does not help them resolve their immeditate crisis ? They cannot think so many years in advance and neither have the resources to sustain them for that period .They need hands to support them doing physical work. I am personally an advocate of child labour above the age of 12 . And it has to be done with proper regualtions. My grandfather got employed at the age of 10 in the shop of Raja Baldeodas Birla ( a distant cousin ). His education came along with work and is the architect of padta system. My maternall grandfather also started working at the age of 12 and rose to be the founder president of Sutlej Cotton Mills ( in Okada Pakistan now) . In those days there was a high degree of morality . Children at work were treated kindly . At least they were not abused.

In today’s immoral world of human trafficking , we can have separate factories who employ child labou rand have statutory committment to education of grown up children . These factories can be made responsible and place under such inspectors which oversee the education they impart to the children. We cannot be dictated by the whims of European society which advocates a ban on child labour but does not know what ( other than sexual abuse ) outcome will that unemployed child have !So many of their own people have been caught in paedophilic activities in Goa. I may sound totally out of date , but I stay in touch with reality.

We need a lot of technical schools where people can attain the skills of good workmanship . We need good fitters, welders,carpenters, fabricators , plumbers, nurses ,compounders, farmers , drivers, masons . The rural masses will get interested only if such education directly relates to better earnings. I think they will relate to occupational schools better than just the idea of attending school.
Once having established the credibility of technical/ occupational schools, we can gradually fix the entry requirements for those schools which provide that kind of occupational education. That will ensure that parents are interested in basic education. Vice versa, anyone who goes to a primary school should be guaranteed an admission into an occupational school of his ability.
In certain cases where primary education in the village is poor , the technical school can enroll the students at an earlier age and take care of the deficiency. I have seen glimpses of that in DonBosco Park Circus School ( Technical ) .The Christian kids unable to cope with conventional education are enrolled into the occupational school. They pass out with a diploma and some of them are doing a good job .
The ITIs are wonderful in concept but badly administered . They should be fully explored.

In certain cases , kids get totally demotivated in school because their parents cannot provide them the guidance to attend conventional school and on the other hand they see their going to school as totally a futile excerices. The theme should be Education for Jobs and Job is Fun and should be implemented that way .

My apologies for making my personal opinion longer than your blog. But I just cant resist writing on your blog. The topics which you touch are so dear to me.
Please provide me your phone number.
Alternately please call me at +919830106365 . Regards. “

Posted by: Indra at 06/25/2010 @ 4:34 pm for entry Education in Rural Region

Pratul Birla commented:

“Nitish should be mature enough to understand that he has achieved only when in association of BJP. Other than that phase of his political career , I do not think he has much of a track record to speak about. It will be good for Bihar if Nitish has at least Congress by its side . Else Bihar will go back to its old corrupt ways in the hands of Lalu and Paswan and the likes.
Its time that politicians do away with appeasement pol

Posted by: Indra at 06/21/2010 @ 11:19 am for entry Arrogant or Overconfident Nitish