In a wiered incident at Khargone a mother died of shock after she was shown her newly born baby. The baby took birth with terrible deformities. She had no legs, an out of proprtion & large head and palm, scaringly big eyes and abnormal body shape. It pained the mother so much that she fell unconscious after seeing her & then never came back.
Thats not all, the family members considered her under influence of a bad spirit & hence burried the child alive.
Some random thoughts -
It is possible that the child with such major deformities might herself not survive on her own for long - but burrying somebody alive - sends shivers down my spine. On the other hand one wonders had the child survived - what would life be like to her, her parents and those around her. I guess that would have been worse than death.
Another scary thought - can this happen more often when technologies like cloning, stem cell research, genetic engineering misfires and delivers deformed babies?
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
"Blind" Justice
Came across this curious news - that a 76 year blind, almost deaf person who has been a heart patient and used a wheel chair to move was delivered the death penalty soon after he completed his 76 years on this tuesday - 17th of Jan 2006. Here is the confirmation that the death sentence has been executed.
I write curious because after reading of the details of the case - I don't carry any doubt that he deserves to be severely punished. Apprantly our men killed his son's girlfriend to prevent her to report to police a shop theft that he was involved in. After he was jailed for the case he planned for murder of eight witnesses to the crime and actually got three of them murdered. If the facts of the case are what they are - these were cold blooded, planned murders. What does the society do to such people?
However the guy spent 23 years in jail before he was finally delivered the penalty, he met a heart attack during his incarceration, and went almost deaf and grew too weak even to walk. One does think - was the death sentence serving any need at all? Is this case & the conviction going to serve as a deterrant to future criminals? One wonders!!!
Did humanity deliver justice in this case or was it revenge? The age old question rings yet again.
I write curious because after reading of the details of the case - I don't carry any doubt that he deserves to be severely punished. Apprantly our men killed his son's girlfriend to prevent her to report to police a shop theft that he was involved in. After he was jailed for the case he planned for murder of eight witnesses to the crime and actually got three of them murdered. If the facts of the case are what they are - these were cold blooded, planned murders. What does the society do to such people?
However the guy spent 23 years in jail before he was finally delivered the penalty, he met a heart attack during his incarceration, and went almost deaf and grew too weak even to walk. One does think - was the death sentence serving any need at all? Is this case & the conviction going to serve as a deterrant to future criminals? One wonders!!!
Did humanity deliver justice in this case or was it revenge? The age old question rings yet again.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Analysing CAT - GD/PI calls
As someone who graduated out of an IIM (and one who cruised through those two years with a lot of jest), one feels nostalgic with every CAT result and one follows it with a lot of personal interest. And dare I say, CAT results do follow interesting trend, that is if they follow a trend.
It has grown tougher
May be I am saying the obvious. CAT has grown tougher. No, I don't mean it comprises tougher questions - that ofcourse it does. I am referring to the fact that getting a good rank in CAT has become tougher. And this is NOT because the toughness of questions have grown. Let me explain.
CAT has reduced from being a 240 question test (mid 1990s) to 90 question test (CAT 2005). However it has remained a test that a normal human being will not be able to complete in 120 minutes - thus the question content has grown tougher & thats no big deal.
However, this year CAT was taken by more than 1,75,000 people. The average score in the test was expected to be around 50 marks. This would mean on every 1/3 of mark their could be on an average more than 300 students. Thus a difference of 1 mark between two aspirants could mean a rank difference of more than a thousand. This means that every second (& I mean every second) lost becomes fatal to one's chances of making it to the list.
Multiple attempts
A surprisingly large number of students who are getting GD/PI calls are second, third even fourth time takers of CAT. Gone are the days when you would meet sharp students suggesting I worked my ass up for about three months & whoosh I had a call in hand. No more, even the sharpest of the lot generally do not get a call if they do not groom themselves up for the two hours.
The explanation though is simpler. People - in their first attempts often do not understand the depth or extent of application & focus that CAT now a days demands. Secondly, most are not able to strike a balance between either their graduation studies or their jobs and their CAT preparations. Last, a very large number of CAT aspirants who are doing well during their preparations - are often unable to take the pressure of the D-day - those 120 minutes of real test time.
These people after doing relatively poorer understand that theyr were quite close to success & have missed it narrowly. Their focus as a result increases & their determination to crack the test multiplies. Thats when they get into a now or never mode.
Work Experience
Again this might be repeating the obvious. But, increasingly the B-Schools seem to be toeing the line that MBA is better done after a few years in the industry. The call patterns - with more than 50% calls to people with work experience - seem to be consolidating that line of thought.
Increasingly - people with work experience are getting calls at relatively low percentile.
The individual matters
Increasingly - coaching classes and the strategies they seem to build seem to be getting irrelevant. The CAT has followed such erratic movements in its character that year on year these strategies actually harm the student more than they help. The coaching classes have become, at best, a tool to provide an aspirant a regularity in their work and a group/environment to prepare for. What has mattered the most in the people who finally received a call is their self drive to make it and also the fact they have learnt from their experiences.
However, everyone is invited
A word of caution here - all type of people are recieving calls, fresh under graduates, people who have taken drop to prepare, people with work ex, people with diverse backgrounds, people with hindi medium education. One is only trying to look at the larger trends in a structured manner. The above criteria does not necessarily bring success. One is in touch with people who did not make it after working for many years or after many trials.
The trend is that the percentage of people in the overall call getters seem to be growing in the above directions.
It has grown tougher
May be I am saying the obvious. CAT has grown tougher. No, I don't mean it comprises tougher questions - that ofcourse it does. I am referring to the fact that getting a good rank in CAT has become tougher. And this is NOT because the toughness of questions have grown. Let me explain.
CAT has reduced from being a 240 question test (mid 1990s) to 90 question test (CAT 2005). However it has remained a test that a normal human being will not be able to complete in 120 minutes - thus the question content has grown tougher & thats no big deal.
However, this year CAT was taken by more than 1,75,000 people. The average score in the test was expected to be around 50 marks. This would mean on every 1/3 of mark their could be on an average more than 300 students. Thus a difference of 1 mark between two aspirants could mean a rank difference of more than a thousand. This means that every second (& I mean every second) lost becomes fatal to one's chances of making it to the list.
Multiple attempts
A surprisingly large number of students who are getting GD/PI calls are second, third even fourth time takers of CAT. Gone are the days when you would meet sharp students suggesting I worked my ass up for about three months & whoosh I had a call in hand. No more, even the sharpest of the lot generally do not get a call if they do not groom themselves up for the two hours.
The explanation though is simpler. People - in their first attempts often do not understand the depth or extent of application & focus that CAT now a days demands. Secondly, most are not able to strike a balance between either their graduation studies or their jobs and their CAT preparations. Last, a very large number of CAT aspirants who are doing well during their preparations - are often unable to take the pressure of the D-day - those 120 minutes of real test time.
These people after doing relatively poorer understand that theyr were quite close to success & have missed it narrowly. Their focus as a result increases & their determination to crack the test multiplies. Thats when they get into a now or never mode.
Work Experience
Again this might be repeating the obvious. But, increasingly the B-Schools seem to be toeing the line that MBA is better done after a few years in the industry. The call patterns - with more than 50% calls to people with work experience - seem to be consolidating that line of thought.
Increasingly - people with work experience are getting calls at relatively low percentile.
The individual matters
Increasingly - coaching classes and the strategies they seem to build seem to be getting irrelevant. The CAT has followed such erratic movements in its character that year on year these strategies actually harm the student more than they help. The coaching classes have become, at best, a tool to provide an aspirant a regularity in their work and a group/environment to prepare for. What has mattered the most in the people who finally received a call is their self drive to make it and also the fact they have learnt from their experiences.
However, everyone is invited
A word of caution here - all type of people are recieving calls, fresh under graduates, people who have taken drop to prepare, people with work ex, people with diverse backgrounds, people with hindi medium education. One is only trying to look at the larger trends in a structured manner. The above criteria does not necessarily bring success. One is in touch with people who did not make it after working for many years or after many trials.
The trend is that the percentage of people in the overall call getters seem to be growing in the above directions.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Education !! at what cost??
I attended a concert by the flute mastero Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, this sunday. Now, thats no news. The news is he was in Indore for a launch of a new school & the concert was a part of the launch function of the school at one of the best known hotels of the city.
Yes ! Panditji was roped in, to rope in a crowd that would then be roped in to admit their wards in the said school.
Getting a guru of the stature of panditji means a use of substantial amount of personal clout (influence) and also money - specially because getting a minimum audience for such a function itself could be dicey (sure enough there were less than 100 odd people in a hall prepared to accomodate more than five times that number).
Money
Education (& I am talking about education of kids) is big business now a days. In Indore alone - not yet a metro city - there are seven schools charging a fee of more than 25000 Rs. a year. (with half of them charging more than 30000). The figures do not in general include transportation - that adds another 6000 a year. In some cases this is even exclusive of lunch/snacks served to children. Most of these schools have sprung up in the last three years.
There are about five prep schools (pre primary) that charge in the range of Rs. 20000+ a year for keepping children involved in educational & developmental activities for three hours a day. They also promise to train (?) these two plus years old kids for admissions to the coveted schools.
Ofcourse these figures sounds like peanuts when compared to some schools based in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore etc. However they are astronomical if one looks at the economy of the city - and living standards of the people. The developments are a function of the increasing metro like population that is resident of this city now.
Infrastructure
One of the reasons for the high fee is the infrastructure that modern day schools are offering. It beats some of the best hotels/clubs in the city. You can easily get seperate cricket, football fields in all schools. Now count - an international standard swimming pool with another for younger kids thrown in, skating ring, well equipped gymnesium, Basket ball, volleyball, badminton &/or tennis courts, open air labs in physics & mathematics, huge and very well equipped mess, full blown auditoriums, outdoor trips almost every month, seminars for parents on parenting & associated issues.
One of the schools offered special lab for kids with learning disabilities, another offers after class support for problem solving, yet another promises no tution needed programme. Kids have never had so good ever.
They are proliferating
The high fee has not prevented people from admitting their children to these schools on the contrary it is difficult to get admission in a few of them - primarily because of two reasons.
One, its a status symbol to get one's children educated in one such school. How else can one prove that they are doing their best for their children. Its a mob effect - one family in a locality gets their ward admitted & then talks about it - others soon follow.
Two, early results seem to be very promising. The kids from these schools apparantly are more confident, develope a wider vocbulary faster, have a greater general knowledge, is more communicative & assertive, developes motor & recognition skills faster and is also, in general, a happier child when compared to similar kids getting educated at the conventional missionary school which is cheaper. This is largely because these schools use interactive fun to learn tools for development of child instead of the conventional classroom classwork - homework routine.
The Challenge
This is not just an interesting trend but also one that needs to be analysed for its impact. The challenge for these schools is to show that despite the variety stuff that provide in educating children they can deliver to serve the traditional model as well. At the end of the day - given the way our system is the child has to do well in exams. As the child eneters high school - the percentages in his marksheet becomes rather important. It is here that most experimentative schools have finally failed to deliver.
There is a challenge for parents too. They need to plan investments rather well if they hope to support the study of their children rather well. A simple comparison says that the amount I paid for my son's prep school in one year was double the amount that I paid to my engineering college - my hostel stay included. Higher education is becoming increasingly expensive and during high school the tution cost of a child is almost equal to, if not more, than the school fee.
Yes ! Panditji was roped in, to rope in a crowd that would then be roped in to admit their wards in the said school.
Getting a guru of the stature of panditji means a use of substantial amount of personal clout (influence) and also money - specially because getting a minimum audience for such a function itself could be dicey (sure enough there were less than 100 odd people in a hall prepared to accomodate more than five times that number).
Money
Education (& I am talking about education of kids) is big business now a days. In Indore alone - not yet a metro city - there are seven schools charging a fee of more than 25000 Rs. a year. (with half of them charging more than 30000). The figures do not in general include transportation - that adds another 6000 a year. In some cases this is even exclusive of lunch/snacks served to children. Most of these schools have sprung up in the last three years.
There are about five prep schools (pre primary) that charge in the range of Rs. 20000+ a year for keepping children involved in educational & developmental activities for three hours a day. They also promise to train (?) these two plus years old kids for admissions to the coveted schools.
Ofcourse these figures sounds like peanuts when compared to some schools based in metros like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore etc. However they are astronomical if one looks at the economy of the city - and living standards of the people. The developments are a function of the increasing metro like population that is resident of this city now.
Infrastructure
One of the reasons for the high fee is the infrastructure that modern day schools are offering. It beats some of the best hotels/clubs in the city. You can easily get seperate cricket, football fields in all schools. Now count - an international standard swimming pool with another for younger kids thrown in, skating ring, well equipped gymnesium, Basket ball, volleyball, badminton &/or tennis courts, open air labs in physics & mathematics, huge and very well equipped mess, full blown auditoriums, outdoor trips almost every month, seminars for parents on parenting & associated issues.
One of the schools offered special lab for kids with learning disabilities, another offers after class support for problem solving, yet another promises no tution needed programme. Kids have never had so good ever.
They are proliferating
The high fee has not prevented people from admitting their children to these schools on the contrary it is difficult to get admission in a few of them - primarily because of two reasons.
One, its a status symbol to get one's children educated in one such school. How else can one prove that they are doing their best for their children. Its a mob effect - one family in a locality gets their ward admitted & then talks about it - others soon follow.
Two, early results seem to be very promising. The kids from these schools apparantly are more confident, develope a wider vocbulary faster, have a greater general knowledge, is more communicative & assertive, developes motor & recognition skills faster and is also, in general, a happier child when compared to similar kids getting educated at the conventional missionary school which is cheaper. This is largely because these schools use interactive fun to learn tools for development of child instead of the conventional classroom classwork - homework routine.
The Challenge
This is not just an interesting trend but also one that needs to be analysed for its impact. The challenge for these schools is to show that despite the variety stuff that provide in educating children they can deliver to serve the traditional model as well. At the end of the day - given the way our system is the child has to do well in exams. As the child eneters high school - the percentages in his marksheet becomes rather important. It is here that most experimentative schools have finally failed to deliver.
There is a challenge for parents too. They need to plan investments rather well if they hope to support the study of their children rather well. A simple comparison says that the amount I paid for my son's prep school in one year was double the amount that I paid to my engineering college - my hostel stay included. Higher education is becoming increasingly expensive and during high school the tution cost of a child is almost equal to, if not more, than the school fee.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
New Year Observation
On a new year day, it is customary to write about past year's glory and disapoointments and is fashionable to make new resolves . So, I had decided not to write yet another of those new year articles.
As luck would have it - On the 31st Evening, I travelled from Indore to Mandsaur on a meter gauage train(yes, you read that right - in this part of MP - one still finds those lazy meter gauage trains, which will take 7 hours to travel a distance of just 250 km). This patience testing 7 hours that too with eight other passengers in a cramped compartment, made me write my first post in the new year.
Four fellow passengers - two males; educated, muslims, mid-40s and their wives so obviously illiterate (or at best primary schools dropouts) discussed a host of topics which dominates typical middle class muslim households in this part of the country.
Some snippets
** Marriage is a business {they said its true of all communities not just ours(muslims)}. A female born in a family would mean planning for a few lakhs of rupees for her "dahej"(dowry) while a male child means a cheque to be encashed in 18-20 years. They referred to cases where the parents of grooms look for "eklauti aulad" (only daughter) as a match for their sons.
** Some sure signs of changes in the muslim mindsets
They shared that we(muslims) now have "parichay Sammelan" (a confrence where prospective grooms & bridegrooms are paraded for possible nupital tie ups) once every year & the trend is catching on. There were initial resistence - people claimed it to be wrong, against their religion - however economics finally won over.
It was simple & almost inexpensive for parents - just for Rs. 1000 (may vary upto 3000) they meet so many prospective candidates and sometimes "nikah" (marriage) happens on the spot. For Rs. 10, a book carrying the phone numbers of candidates is available for later conatacts. Lunch is made available by the organisors & even "Kazi Saheb" (religious guru who formalises the marriage) is made available by the organisors.
Ofcourse - the change comes with restrictions - female & male candidates in seperate halls - only "valdayien" (mothers) allowed in the female candidates' hall.
** There was a surprising trend visible in their discussions . There are cases galore where the boy wants to marry a girl who is at best "dasvi pass" (studied till tenth class only) while he himself might be a graduate or more and comes from a generally educated family. Egs. were sons of the two families I referred to. While one can discuss the root cause but a more important fact is that these boys are finding it difficult to get a match. Yes because generally the girls "BA ho jati hai" (they generally complete BA). The mother added "hamne samjhaya ki BA ki hui ladki bhi rotiya banati hai - magar manta hi nahi hai" (I explained that even girls with BA degree will cook but he fails to budge). Could this be true - female education seems to be catching on faster than male among muslims.
** In fact the parents seem to approve of a "padi likhi Ladki" more as she comes in handy in a lot of places - writing/reading for the largely uneducated older female population
It was amusing, the straightfordness with which they discussed it all - I sat wodering how much more will every new year surprise me.
As luck would have it - On the 31st Evening, I travelled from Indore to Mandsaur on a meter gauage train(yes, you read that right - in this part of MP - one still finds those lazy meter gauage trains, which will take 7 hours to travel a distance of just 250 km). This patience testing 7 hours that too with eight other passengers in a cramped compartment, made me write my first post in the new year.
Four fellow passengers - two males; educated, muslims, mid-40s and their wives so obviously illiterate (or at best primary schools dropouts) discussed a host of topics which dominates typical middle class muslim households in this part of the country.
Some snippets
** Marriage is a business {they said its true of all communities not just ours(muslims)}. A female born in a family would mean planning for a few lakhs of rupees for her "dahej"(dowry) while a male child means a cheque to be encashed in 18-20 years. They referred to cases where the parents of grooms look for "eklauti aulad" (only daughter) as a match for their sons.
** Some sure signs of changes in the muslim mindsets
They shared that we(muslims) now have "parichay Sammelan" (a confrence where prospective grooms & bridegrooms are paraded for possible nupital tie ups) once every year & the trend is catching on. There were initial resistence - people claimed it to be wrong, against their religion - however economics finally won over.
It was simple & almost inexpensive for parents - just for Rs. 1000 (may vary upto 3000) they meet so many prospective candidates and sometimes "nikah" (marriage) happens on the spot. For Rs. 10, a book carrying the phone numbers of candidates is available for later conatacts. Lunch is made available by the organisors & even "Kazi Saheb" (religious guru who formalises the marriage) is made available by the organisors.
Ofcourse - the change comes with restrictions - female & male candidates in seperate halls - only "valdayien" (mothers) allowed in the female candidates' hall.
** There was a surprising trend visible in their discussions . There are cases galore where the boy wants to marry a girl who is at best "dasvi pass" (studied till tenth class only) while he himself might be a graduate or more and comes from a generally educated family. Egs. were sons of the two families I referred to. While one can discuss the root cause but a more important fact is that these boys are finding it difficult to get a match. Yes because generally the girls "BA ho jati hai" (they generally complete BA). The mother added "hamne samjhaya ki BA ki hui ladki bhi rotiya banati hai - magar manta hi nahi hai" (I explained that even girls with BA degree will cook but he fails to budge). Could this be true - female education seems to be catching on faster than male among muslims.
** In fact the parents seem to approve of a "padi likhi Ladki" more as she comes in handy in a lot of places - writing/reading for the largely uneducated older female population
It was amusing, the straightfordness with which they discussed it all - I sat wodering how much more will every new year surprise me.
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