दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

If I ask many well-educated Indians, “Who was Hemu?” I am sure to get a blank look on their faces. Unfortunately, he has not been the darling of the historians too. Was it because he had a lowly parentage or because he didn’t belong to one of the higher castes? Was it because of his disadvantages of a wretchedly puny physique to rise from being a saltpeter pedlar in a provincial bazzar to chief minister to one of the principal Sur claimants, after Sher Shah Suri? YK Singh, my neighbour and advocate friend vested last evening, and as usual, knowing my interest in Indian history, asked me about Hemu and expressed his amazement that even traders backed governments of India never tried to honour this great son of India.

Shershah’s short but illustrious reign was over because of his sudden demise in Kalinjhar. On January 24, 1556 Mughal ruler Humayun slipped while climbing down the steps of his library and fell to his death. On February 14, 1556, in a garden at Kalanaur, Akbar was enthroned as emperor. He was in teens at that time. The other rivals for the throne of Delhi were the three Afghan princes of Sher Shah. However the main threat to Akbar’s future came not from the Afghan princes but from a Hindu, Hemu. I wished to find out what John Keay in his ‘India-A History’ writes about Hemu.

“Yet more surprisingly for one who could not even ride a horse, he had acquired a reputation for inspired generalship. Twenty-two consecutive battles is Hemu said to have won against assorted adversaries. To this tally, he added a twenty-third when, soon after Humayun’s death, he stormed Delhi and put its Mughal garrison to flight. Not surprisingly even his mainly Afgan, and so Muslim, troops regarded their ‘Shah h Hemu’ as an inspirational commander.” After the capture of Delhi, Hemu set up himself as an independent ruler under the Hindu title of ‘Raja Vikramaditya’. How many of us know that Hemu, the ruler of Delhi?

At Panipat, on November 1556 Hemu faced Bayaram Khan, Akbar’s guardian. According to Abu’l-Fazal, the enemy had assembled a corps of fifteen hundred of the largest and most athletic beasts ever seen-elephants. For once victory looked to be going the way of the elephants. Hemu, to whose abilities even Abu’l Fazal bears grudging testimony, commanded operations from a gigantic beast called ‘Hawai’ (‘Windy’, or possibly ‘Rocket’). ‘he made powerful onsets and performed many valarious acts.’ Indeed the Mughals were wavering when ‘suddenly an arrow from the bended bow of divine wrath reached Hemu’s eye and, piercing the socket, came out at the back of his head.’ Seeing Hemu collapse into his howdah, his troops lost heart. It was now the sublime army, swords flashing and epithets flying, which closed for the kill. Hawai was captured; Hemu extracted from his howdah and dragged before the young victor (Akbar), was quickly beheaded. Mughals were third time lucky.

And a great hero vanished.

As per one another account,

“Shah Quli Khan captured the Hawai elephant with its prize occupant, and took it directly to Akbar. Hemu was brought unconscious before Akbar and Bairam. Bairam pleaded Akbar to perform the holy duty of slaying the infidel and earn the Islamic holy title of ‘Ghazi’. Among much self-congratulation AKBAR THEN SEVERED THE HEAD OF UNCONSCIOUS HEMU WITH HIS SABER (2,3,4). Some historians claim that Akbar did not kill Hemu himself, but just touched the infidel’s head with his sword and his associates finished the gory ‘holy’ work. However the latter version seems inconsistent with the events that followed. After the battle Hemu’s head was sent to Kabul as a sign of victory to the ladies of Humayun’s harem, and Hemu’s torso was sent to Delhi for exposure on a gibbet.”

One does not wonder if the court historians of Mughals didn’t write much about Hemu. But why have our historians even after independence not done justice by giving Hemu his right place? Is it because we wish to keep our secular image in tact. Don’t the people of India expect a well-done research about Hemu (an aam aadami) who could become the emperor of India just by his unique leadership qualities?

Right from our school days, we knew of 1857 Sepoy Mutiny as the first war of independence. My teacher in village primary school narrated the story of Babu Kunwar Singh of Jagdishpur in our district of that time as one of the heroes of the mutiny. In high school days, my grandfather took me to show the historical movie Jhansi Ki Rani and I heard the local queen declaring ‘Main Apani Jhansi Nahin Doongi (I shall not hand over my Jhansi).’ Next year, India will be celebrating the 150 th anniversary of 1857 the first war for an Independence of India from British rule. However, recently, I read an article in ‘Outlook’ about the mutiny at Vellore Fort.

On July 10, 1806 at 2 a.m. at the Vellore fort, exactly two hundred years ago, Indian sepoys rose in a revolt against the East India Company’s garrison. Discontent over poor treatment, loss of erstwhile status, and poor pay, got provocated here again because of the introduction of a controversial new turban, viewed by Indians as a firangi topi (hat), and the implementation of new regulations over the sporting of caste marks on foreheads, earrings and facial hair.

Many members of Tipu Sultan’s family — twelve sons and eight daughters – were stationed in various mahals within the fort precincts since the fall of Srirangapatnam in 1799. A sizeable number were Tipu’s former soldiers, especially of officer rank had also joined the East India Company. They had not forgotten their attachment for their former masters. Some Mohammedan fakirs through puppet shows in Vellore Fort were lampooning the English and proclaiming their impending doom. The fakirs mocked the Hindus and Muslims in the army for accepting the new regulations, for sporting the turban, which comprised a leather cockade — thus inviting caste and religious ‘pollution’– and a turn screw resembling a cross to be worn next to the heart. The fakirs proclaimed that these would lead to the eventual conversion of all sepoys to Christianity.
At the time of the revolt, 1500 Indian sepoys and 370 Englishmen were located in the fort.

Fatteh Hyder, Tipu’s first son, was perceived to be of one of the key architects of the rebellion, besides Mohiuddin and Moizuddin, the third and fourth sons. Soon after the rebels took control of the Vellore fort on 10 July, they hoisted the flag of Tipu Sultan on the fort and Moizuddin promised to double the salary of the sepoys when the rebellion was completed. While Colonel Fancourt, commanding officer of the Vellore garrison, and Lieutenant Kerras, commanding officer of the 23rd Regiment, were shot at pointblank range, several officers escaped and hid themselves and passed word to the nearest British military station at Arcot. The revolt left 14 British officers and 100 soldiers dead.

Colonel Robert Rollo Gillespie’from Arcot led the 19th Dragoons and the 7th cavalry quite easily since three of the four outer gates of the fort were left unattended. With Col. Kennedy arriving with more reinforcements and the Indian sepoys running out of ammunition, the fort was as easily taken back as had been won by the mutineers. In under eight hours, the entire drama was over. Gillespie and his men spared the princes and others of Tipu’s family; the entire princely retinue was shifted to faraway Calcutta by January 1807.

In the counterattack, some 350, or 800 as per some account, Indian sepoys were killed. And the first major rebellion against the emerging British Empire in colonial India fizzled out.

Was the mutiny on July 10, 1806 at Vellore Fort was the first against the British? And the question seems to be pertinent. Why have we not given much importance to that mutiny?

I think many other small little mutiniest must have gone unnoticed by our historians till date. But the more noticeable are the controversies that relate to the government plans for celebrating the 150th anniversary of the 1857 revolution next year. The national committee is falling apart. Interestingly, the 68-member committee had two historians and the rest were politicians. Now, the only two historians on board have decided to opt out. Historian Ramchandra Guha says, “Historians who are an authority on the 1857 revolution have been kept out of it. I don’t understand that and I have decided not to be part of the committee.”

This is the way the government operates. Politicians wish to occupy the center stage everywhere. Unless the people revolt, the things will go their ways. They will make historians write the history in their own way as it used to happen in Mugal period.

Some Other Interesting Readings

India must discover elements of ‘soft power’
Emperor of steel

Open defecation has shamed me time and again. The memory on the night we were proceeding toward our village while returning from Gaya after once-in-life shradh performed for all dead in the family in Gaya just haunts me. It was a September evening getting dark. As soon as the driver would put on the headlight for safety, hoards and hoards of women and girls of the villages, defecating on the sides of the road would stand up in hurry. I do also remember the shameful situation when I visited Khajuraho, a heritage tourist destination. I was out for my morning walk towards the village. I could proceed further out of the shame.
One Anjaali Puri has provided a report on the new initiatives to stop open defecation in Outlook’s latest edition. It is freshening effort. And the minister leads the way.

The rural development ministry with its Total Sanitation Campaign is out to solve the problem. Union minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh with the first hand experience of the shame for the society has promised, rashly many would say, to make every Indian village free of “open defecation” by 2012. Singh has earned more middle-class approval for declaring that only contestants with toilets in their homes should be allowed to stand for gram panchayat elections. “A toilet or the lack of it,” he says, “is the indicator of a country’s health, not the GDP or the Sensex.” This is not about toilet manners, but about 30 million people in rural areas suffering from sanitation-related diseases, and four to five lakh children dying of diarrhoea every year. And daughters and daughters-in-law being assaulted in open fields. “Izzat aur maryada ka sawal hai,” the minister exhorts their unconvinced men folk, who rather like the rush of fresh morning air on their posteriors. Meanwhile, his publicity machine comes up with advertisements showing grooms shopping for brides, and turning down those who don’t have toilets in their homes

Under the Nirmal Gram Puruskar, the government is giving cash award to “open defecation-free” zones, ranging from Rs 2 lakh for the smallest panchayat to Rs 50 lakh for the biggest district. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam handed out awards to 760 panchayats and nine blocks that qualified in 2006.

The number of awardees is expected to multiply manifold next year. In 2007, Midnapore or South Tripura is a front-runner to become India’s first open defecation-free district. The inspections have been farmed out to social research organisations and market research outfits like ORG-Marg, are rigorous.

And the list of award winning states presents some surprises. Maharashtra tops. Tamil Nadu closely follows West Bengal closely. Thirteen other states have opened their accounts, including “bimarus” like Bihar and UP. The missing include IT hub Karnataka and rich Haryana and Punjab. And the minister Singh fumes, “See, 70 per cent of rural homes in some states have TVs but not even 40 per cent have toilets.”

The success of an experiment in Midnapore in the ’90s, involving UNICEF, the Ramakrishna Mission and voluntary groups, contributed to a more on-the-ground, campaign-oriented approach to rural sanitation. Research for the government by ad agency Ogilvy and Mather showed that appeals to local pride, women’s personal dignity and health and hygiene would work best.

Diarrhoea among tribals made health arguments work in Tripura, whereas in an industrialised state like Maharashtra appeals to pride and development work best. “We asked an elderly lady in Midnapore why she installed a toilet, and the answer was, to stop her daughter-in-law from going out so often, and avoiding housework.”
As claimed, with the new strategies, rural sanitation coverage has increased from 22 per cent in 2001 (as recorded by the census) to about 38 per cent in 2006. But even if all the people for whom the crores of new toilets have been built are using them, that still leaves about 500 million rural Indians out there squatting, everyday.

And that is not all. Urban areas are even the worse. Even after my numerous letters to Noida authority, the huge plot in front of our houses meant for some big hospital is a nuisance for the residents. And if you travel by ordinary class in rail, you just can’t see outside in the early morning as the train approaches some small or big urban areas.

It is certainly the lack of facilities, but it also is because of the rural mentality to a certain extent. But the change is coming fast.

For many years, the AGM report of ITC has been an educating document for all managers. Since Deveshwar started its rural initiatives with e-choupal as main theme, I look for this report to find out what progress the company has made on this revolution initiative to meet its social responsibility. This year report has the progress report on Choupal Saagars too.

The ITC e-choupal as a village digital kiosk with a human interface within walking distance from the farm gate is supplemented through physical infrastructure – the ITC Choupal Saagar – which functions as a hub for a cluster of villages within tractor able distance. These made-to-design hubs also serve as warehouses, and as rural hypermarkets for a variety of goods. In fact, the e-Choupal infrastructure provides an efficient delivery channel for rural development and an instrument for converting village populations into vibrant economic organisations.

This infrastructure project now comprises about 6000 installations covering nearly 36,000 villages and serving over 3.5 million farmers. Over the next 7-10 years ITC envisions to create a network of 20,000 e-choupals and over 700 Choupal Saagars entailing investments of nearly Rs.5000 crores, thereby extending coverage to 100,000 villages – representing one sixth of rural India. This networked rural delivery system can contribute significantly towards addressing the ‘knowledge deficit’ highlighted so forcefully by the National Commission on Farmers. It can also meaningfully complement the Bharat Nirman initiative of the government, towards truly securing a ‘new deal for rural India’. The latest recognition for the transformational impact of this pioneering initiative is the Stockholm Challenge Award 2006.

While 10 Choupal Saagars are already operational, 9 more are in an advanced stage of completion. Another 40 Choupal Saagars will scale the rural retailing initiative up in the next 12 to 18 months. This hub and spoke model is being energised at the village level through sanchalaks and samyojaks drawn from the farming community, who represent the extended enterprise.

I dream of a Choupal Saagar at every 200 km on GQ and E-W and N-S corridors Expressway and it must serve as rural hub for all the villages in a circle of 100 kms. It will buy all that the people in the area will produce and sell to them all- products and services that the people in the area need. The scope of and facilities at Choupal Saagar can be expanded in all possible manners. It can network with all rural initiatives such as Project Jyoti of Microsoft India or MS Swaminathan Research foundation, SEWA in UP or Computers@Classrooms programme of Infosys.

As it appears, ITC has not yet covered Bihar and Orissa in its programme. Why should not it use some of its retired employees of the areas to take the lead and implement the projects of e-choupals and Choupal Saagars?

I have, time and again, expressed my views that other companies with rural projects may join these initiatives of ITC, so that this proven model covers 100% of the rural villages. CII and Assocham may coordinate with the other big companies that are its members. Even the projects of setting up Village Knowledge Centres connected to the Village Resource Centres of the central government can be a part of e-choupal and Choupal Saagar to get the best from the limited resources available for the rural India.

Rural business hubs hold a lot of promise

PS
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The amazing success story of K B Chandrasekhar

Nitish Kumar, the CM, Bihar must be in dilemma. His being engineer must have aggravated his worries. What should be his priorities? Can he talk of bringing in investors in IT or BPO sector, as Budhhadev Bhattacharya are going for? With not even a single college of technology or management or medicine in the top 20 institutes of the country, it is a difficult task to assure an investor about the availability of cheap, abundant, and quality human resources in the state. But let me confess this is just a myth. If the biggies in IT sector invest in Bihar, they will not find dearth of good engineers, as the students from Bihar have been filling up proportionately larger chunk of seats in engineering and management colleges in every part of the country. And many of them will love to come back to Bihar if they get a job there and may be at a lower salary. IT investors may take advantage of this aspect of Bihar’s strength.

Bihar is having a large number of unemployed graduates in age of 20 to 35. They might have been the part of the mass of unemployable graduates that our education system produces. Perhaps, Bihar will need some enthusiast educationists with innovative entrepreneurship to set up some institutes of employability for these graduates on the line of one set up in Tamil Nadu by Reliance as ‘The Reliance-NIS Sparta Academy’s School of Employability to provide the country’s corporate world with trained and skilled students who are ready to work in any industry.

Nitish at one time talked of making Bihar a manufacturing hub, but then what will he manufacture with all the minerals gone to Jharkhand? There are some sectors that can certainly attract investors. One is certainly sugar. Bihar can become the manufacturing hub of endless items coming out of sugar- from candies to ethanol or rum. And a special task force for sugar based sectors with a missionary chief can bring a revolution for rural Bihar with ideas ranging from contract farming to rural hubs on line of ITC’s choupal Sagar.

With a strong control on panchayats, Nitish can provide a unique leadership to change the rural Bihar with many initiatives that may not require that huge an investment. And he must emulate other states in this regard.

As the first priority, all the panchayats must work for massive plantations on government land along state roads, rural roads, irrigation canals, and grazing grounds. Family below poverty lines must be given the ownerships of the trees they plant and grow. Why can’t Bihar participate in plantations of Jatropa and other bio-diesel plants? President APJ Abdul Kalam had called for the national mission on bio-diesel to realise 60 million tonnes of production a year by 2030. And as a corollary, why can’t Bihar be a honey producing state that may provide extra earning and employment?

If Punjab can contributes 25 per cent of the total honey produced in the country and if its 23,000 beekeepers can earn Rs 15 crore by exporting nearly 3,000 tonnes of honey annually, worth Rs 15 crore, to countries like the USA, the UK and other countries of Europe, and the Middle East, why can’t it be Bihar? If Haryana can invest in a 100 percent export oriented and invite international player such as Yakult Danone to invest for producing world-class buttermilk at its state-of-the-art unit, why can’t Bihar have one milk-processing unit in each district headquarter? Why can’t Bihar set up an institute such as the National Institute of Food, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management (the first of its kind in the country) at Kundli (District Sonepat)?

Bihar can prosper only through its rural based industry. And there is huge potential. But it requires government policy and coordination that can bring entrepreneurs, farmers, and scientists together to achieve the goals.

We all hope and wish Nitish to succeed, but success demands innovative and sometimes harsh approaches. As one example, Nitish will have to ensure that ‘rangadaari’ (mafia group) is crushed and rangadaars- small or big, are behind the bar for ever, otherwise no investor will like to come to Bihar, and even the people for whom these investment are intended will not be benefited.

What should constitute a more representative Human Development Index?

Who is better and whom do we, or should we, rate having better quality of life: a poor woman in Kerala who can decide what to do with her life or a richer woman who is told what she can or cannot do by her husband or father?

Some of the world’s most respected economists, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, World Bank chief economist Francois Bourguignon, WHO expert on violence indicators Alex Butchart and UN and International Labour Organisation head of statistics Francesca Perrucci and Sylvester Young, are helping in the world’s first concrete bid to measure individual happiness and well-being across countries and continents and to introduce a new measure of assessing poverty – in terms of happiness.

It is the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a new economic research centre within the department of international development at Oxford University. Accordingly, Sabina Alkire, director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), with the help of Amartya Sen, has designed a shortlist of questions on five topics radically to change the Human Development Index (HDI), the standard set of measures used by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to compare levels of development and the impact of economic policies for every country in the world. The five topics are: decent work; physical safety; empowerment; measure of shame; subjective humiliation. The questions could figure in the 2010 census worldwide if the benchmark International Household Survey network based in the World Bank agrees to the proposal.

According to Sabina Alkire, the move to introduce a Gross Well-being Index was to supplement the traditional international data on health, education, nutrition and income that would will help create a new measure of poverty. Thus, if dirt-poor people in the developing world display a general sense of well-being, international surveys would henceforth record their ‘wealth’ of happiness alongside their material poverty.

Alkire’s research in Kerala lasted from November 2005 to April 2006, and included destitute, non-destitute and “recentlypoor” women (those who were lifted out of dire straits by micro-credit). According to her, the Indian data was important in the creation of the new happiness and well-being index. “The Kerala study shows that there is a great range of empowerment. It was the first time we were looking at psychological indicators of empowerment. I found that the women felt very empowered as housewives and the sense of well-being was high.”

Bolivia may soon become the first country in the world to include questions on well-being in its census along the lines of OPHI’s proposed internationally comparable indicators. Will India follow? Perhaps, it can provide a measure that PM was referring to while addressing the CEOs of India Inc. in CII meet.

However, the main concern is very genuine, as the trickle down effect of even a higher GDP growth is not getting down to the people at the bottom of the pyramid that is essential for social harmony and continuity of the growth.

President Kalam wrote in ‘Outlook Business’, May 5, 2007 issue. He writes:

GDP is growing nearly 9% per annum and more. However, economic growth is not fully reflected in the quality of life of a large number of people, particularly in rural areas and even in urban areas. Kalam talked of a “National Prosperity Index (NPI)” that is a summation of (a) annual growth rate of GDP, plus (b) improvement in quality of life of the people, particularly of those living below the poverty line plus(c) the adoption of a value system derived from our civilisational heritage in every walk of life which is unique to India. That is NPI=a+b+c. Particularly, ‘b’ is a function of availability of housing, good water, nutrition, proper sanitation, quality education, quality health care and employment potential. ‘c’ is a function of promoting the joint family system, creation of a spirit of working together, leading a righteous way of life, removing social inequities, and above all promoting a conflict free, harmonious society.

Ultimately, the idea is to create a society where one can see a smile on the face of everyone, using whatever index we use.

Mumbai blasts killed about 200 people and seriously injured 800 more without making any distinction of the religious identities. It shocked the billion plus of the countrymen. We know, it’s enemy sponsored.

Am I wrong somewhere? Why are we not doing something that can stop these acts?

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Our great President has some clear solution to the problem of corruption that India is so famous or infamous for. Every one talks about it. Even in a TV programme from Davos World Economic Forum on January 28, one Chinese expert talked of the rampant corruption among the elected representatives of India. Bimal Jalan in his book ‘The Future of India’ says if we can somehow reduce corruption, our GDP growth can automatically jump into twodigit figure. But no one provides any solution. Hre is what our President said in his Republic Day Address:

On 21st November 2005, I had visited Adhichunchanagiri Math, attended a function of FUREC (Foundation for Unity of Religions and Enlightened Citizenship) and interacted with over 54,000 students of various schools and colleges of Karnataka.

A 10th class student Bhavani studying in Adichunchanagiri Composite High School, Shimoga asked me the following question. ” Dear Sir, What is the role of students to stop corruption, which is deeply rooted in our county just like cancer?”

Agony of the young mind is reflected in this question. For me it was an important question, since it comes from a young mind. I was thinking what type of solutions we could give. My thought process was the following:

I said there are one billion people in the country and nearly 200 million homes. In general most of them are good people. However, if we find that people in few million houses are not transparent and not amenable to the laws of the country, what can we do? These houses apart from parents have one daughter or one son or both. If the parents in these houses are deviating from the transparent path the children can use the tool of love and affection and correct the parents to come back to the right path. I asked all the children assembled in that gathering, whether parents of a few children get deviated from transparency, will you children boldly tell your parents, father or mother you are not doing the right thing. That is what we are taught by you and in the school. Most of the children spontaneously responded. “We will do it.”

The confidence comes from them that they have love as a tool. Similarly I have also asked the parents in some other meeting, initially there was a silence, later, many of them hesitantly agreed that they would abide by the children’s suggestion since it is driven by love. The children took an oath. The oath was: I will lead an honest life free from all corruption and will set an example for others to adopt a transparent way of life. Finally I told the students that they should start a movement starting from their home.

Can we follow this route to end corruption? Perhaps this concept of appealing through the children is behind the new ad of the revenue department where the son asks his father- “Dad, you say honesty is the best policy. Then why are you suggesting your client to save by avoiding paying tax through cash payment?” Many would have opposed to the President’s suggestion to appeal the students in the task of removal of corruption. But perhaps his personality is such that no one can dare do that. I am myself of the opinion that the issue must be discussed in the school. If the students require lessons on sex, they should also get some lessons on the dangerous and contagious corruption.

As pointed out by a person no less than the imminent Narayana Murthy, there are 5.3 million unemployed graduates in the country.

Another news report says, IT and service sector industries are thinking to relocate abroad because of a skills crunch in India.

McKinsey and Nasscom study also talks of a shortage of 1,50,000 IT workers and 350,000 business process staffs.

Naturally these figures raise certain questions and also demand some solutions to the problem of shortages.

Before appreciating the solutions, you have to work for some questions.

How many men and women in ages up to 40 years you know are graduates, but not employed or may be marginally engaged?

What percentage of these people are interested to undergo some refreshing of their education or re-education to make them usefully employed?

What all they need to learn as students mature in age and may be, in a need for good living?

Industry beside the shortage is also complaining of the increasing demands of the existing workers in the industry. Iteration rates are very high. All these problems can find some solutions in one go even if just 50% of the unemployed graduates are made to re-educate themselves in skills required by the industries such as BPO and other service sectors such as hospitality and retails. If we can raise their self-confidence, the re-education can transform their lives.

I assume a 6 months-1 year of properly designed course will suffice, if the facility and faculty in the reeducation institutes are adequate.

What must be the part of the courses and skill buildup? It must contain:
1.Personality building education- manners, dressing, self presentation, etc
2.Skill in fluent English or another foreign language conversation refined to the level to meet the customers’ requirements
3.Knowledge of computer operation
4.A subject that the person feels himself comfortable with such as say, economics, law, or any other subject that may be useful for employability.

Even the older people can find the reeducation interesting and not very difficult. It will be for an improved quality of life as incentive. Institutes must provide the customized training as required by the enterprises in need of employees.

Who all can do it?

NIIT, Apple, and other smaller players in education can design the interesting and relevant courses. Can’t the government, local bodies, and community provide the reasonable support and incentives? Can’t Nasscom come out with some examinations to ensure the uniformity and its utility to the industry? Can’t the existing college of engineering, sciences, and technologies also initiate these courses?
However, beside the financial incentives, the government must provide the desired level of autonomy too to ensure the quality of education. It may mean some change in rules to make the passing out oldies good employment, such as entry age.

When the longevity of our people has gone up, all the willing population must have opportunity to work effectively with re-education.

And Thousands Blooming Roses

I love to go for my morning walk in ‘Ban Bitan’ (part of Central Park) of Salt Lake. With instrumental music on the public address system, it is apleasure to walk. Ban Bitan, as it appears, is equally popular for the people of all ages. Upto 7.30AM, it remains free for the morning walkers- generally elderly groups. Thereafter, one is to pay a small fee. And it becomes popular with the younger groups. The other day, I met an old gentle man who was very critical of the youths coming to the park. Perhaps it is a very typical complaint.

The walking track has been smoothened with bitumen layer. I wonder if it would last with the heavy rain in this place. The artificial water body is another attraction. Some professionals come regularly for fishing. I like to see them and observe their attention at work. But my main attraction is the garden of roses. It is large. The variety and size of the flowers are appealing. Many differently prepared flowers’ beds in different corners of the Park are also nice.