Tuesday, May 30, 2006

We made it.

No country in the world wants to be at the top of this list, but we made it!

5.7 million known cases of infection in 2005.
Overtaking South South Africa, now we stand at the top of the (un)glory peak. Rejoice !

So much for the talk of a stronger India in the 21st century ha!?

The 'land of Kamasutra' ,where ironically the topic of sex is still a taboo, has now became the land of HIV AIDS. And the most puzzling part is no one really talks about this in India, still !?

So the question now is why did the awareness campaign launched almost a decade back failed to take off? We need to realize that AIDS is such kinda pandemic that its toll cannot be reversed in short term and thus we need to have at least a 10 yr plan.

Let us hope the government wakes up and does something about this . A full pitched and intense awareness campaign from the side of the federal and state governments needs to be launched with more concentration on the rural side of the country. And it would also really help if we as Indians start talking about sex and the issues related to it more openly.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Who are they kidding?

According to ibnlive, after the late Saturday night meeting with the striking medicos .....

Mukherjee told a delegation of medical students that the government will implement the OBC quota in a phased manner and this will not lead to any reduction in the number of seats for the general category.

Wht the hell are they thinking? This is really insane.

Are they going to introduce more number of seats exclusively for the OBC students ? Do they mean this by saying that we are going to do justice for every community?

Holy fu@k! These people are really crazy. They are creating one problem after another just to secure their "vote banks".

Where the hell are they going to get the funds from? Already, major professional institutes in the country are suffering heavily due to lack of funds to sustain the present setup. How the hell are they going to deal with this extra influx then?Come on you pinheads at the center, wakeup first.....then you guys are going to realize that you are making one blunder after another. There are bigger and gigantic problems that the country is facing and you guys busy are (re)dividing the country now on caste as if the other divisive factors already present weren't enough.

Think different. Fund the students who are facing severe economical problems that constrain there education.........Don't Just Give A Free Ride to everyone. On this everyone agrees 100 percent.

Don't promote demerit at the cost of merit.....not at the cost of the future of an individual.....and not at the cost of the future of the nation.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Spread the word!

Came across some really interesting links on this anti-quota issue.....

Please spread the word. Tell your friends to join in the protests in their city/town/village or wherever it might be.

Came across these links over here.

Please do your share. The future of the nation depends on this.

And for a complete coverage of wht's happening, i suggest to you guys Ibnlive.com. It is the only mainstream media outlet in India that is giving due importance to this grave issue. Shame on the rest of the media outlets especially the other 24hr news channels.

Photo: Nidhi Aggarwal/reader ibnlive

Friday, May 19, 2006

Wht the hell are andhraites doing?

Wht's happening andhraites????
Why are we being so passive in our response to this policy and wht's with the tame response from the papers?

Come on.....the whole country is standing up......the anti-quota fire is spreading ........ and we are still sh#tin' in our pants or what? Even Chennai is up and running! (Wonder wht took them so long?!)

Image credit: REDIFF.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Free fall Thursday!

Well finally our markets too joined in the global free fall, recording the largest fall ever in their history.

Photo credit: IBNLIVE

P.S.: On a different note, India jst scraped through the first ODI of its series against WI. They shld somehow find a place for Laxman! I'm still a bit worried abt our middle order.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Update on my "screwed up" exam!

Well my grades are out today.....and to my relief i scored an A in tht exam . Apparently i did screw up my final, i scored only 75% of the total marks. But what saved me are actually two things........
  1. Though it was a comprehensive, the final's share in the total percentage of marks for the grade was just 19%.
  2. And i nailed my course project scoring around 97% of the total marks.

:)

But everything said and done despite of an A this sem,my cumulative GPA remained the same hovering around (3.56 / 4 ).

:-0)

Quota system: My experience

As a kid all that bothered me in my school days were things like...
  • Do I have to submit a home work the next day?
  • Are there any exams coming up next month?
  • When is mom going to cook the special sweet dish tht she promised me last time?
  • When is the next cricket match? or say
  • How many days till the next holidays?

Small things for a grown up, but for a school going kid like me it was life that i ever knew anything about.

Though I was very much interested in the current events back then, I wasn't bothered about the intricacies of politics let alone the crap pile of caste politics. Those things were non-existent to my young and naive mind.

It was not until my penultimate years of my school life tht I was exposed to the murky & unfair side of reservation policy in India. All i knew abt the quota system until then was that it was a brilliant conceptual work from the man who wrote our mildly flawed but nevertheless a fantastic constitution. A quota policy with a noble aim,in which i believe, but at the same time believe in its obsoleteness in today's India.

My first exposure to this 'bad' side of the whole reservation policy was in the early weeks of my 9th grade. My cousin had jst passed the engineering entrance and secured a rank well below 17 or 18 hundred out of the 80 to 100 thousand odd engineering students. That was and still is a damn gud rank to get in my state. All he wanted then was to study either computer science or electronics at the Osmania University (in HYD) . But that was not to be. Being an OC student, though he had the merit to crack the exam all he could get was a free seat in civil engineering stream at the same university. This hurt him a lot for some time from tht point, he felt that all his hard work went down the drain simply because of a really stupid legislation. It's an another story tht through his shear merit and some luck tht he was able to slide into a different stream of engineering in his second year( the luck part was tht some one dropped out of tht particular stream after the first year and also tht wasn't a reserved seat).

This one is a simple case, which exposes the flaws and unfairness of the quota system. Years of hardwork and diligence could be blown away simply because of a flawed policy. In this case, my cousin was lucky and able to recover from a career changing and life shattering experience. Tht too because of his shear merit aided by some luck and not because of anything else. Just think about the students in other streams like medical or accounting where the competition is 20 times higher than in the engineering stream. I know people who weren't able to make it to a higher education degree, inspite of securing a top rank, because there were only a handful seats in the open category............destroying years of hardwork. This policy is simply unfair because it shatters hopes, dreams and aspirations of not only the students involved but also their families. Just think about the repercussions of such a life shattering experience that the individual would have for the rest of his life. It would be really hard for the individual to recover from such an experience and to establish an identity for himself in life .

Especially, in a country where education is the only ticket for the middle class to lead a decent and honorable life.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Mandal II: Hope rekindles!

When this new proposal by Mr. Arjun Singh to introduce a 27% quota to OBCs in professional colleges came up at first, students took there time to come out against it. I mean literally.....it took some time for the student communities to come onto the street against this, though there was genuine shock and anger all around initially.

Frankly, i wasn't surprised yet all by this initial reaction from the student community. I thought that this generation of students like me have grown accepting this quota system as part of the "being an OC student in India" parcel. Well i now know that i'm wrong, i was thinking more from an engineering student view point from A.P. In andhra,where though this quota issue is a big hurdle for all the OC students in the engineering community, people got used to the painful fact tht even if u are a merit candidate you would probably end up in a second rate college. And this kinda is also aided by the fact that u have so many engineering seats over there now in andhra that almost everyone ends up with a seat in one college or the other.

So i assumed the same with every state in India and frankly with every education stream also( geee......how immature of me to do so). Also personally, i have given up the hope on the system in India a long time back.

But today, the hope rekindled in me again...............and surely would have in many like me overseas or in India. The student community in India, i believe, seem to have had enough of this reservation bullshit. There is now a talk in the student community of rethinking the whole reservation policy in India. I'm for it and i hope steam picks up on this real quick. We need to bring this government down on its knees on this issue and should really look to kill the "vote bank politics" demon once for all.

There is going to be a ghoonda style response from the government side and i think we are prepared for that. Time has really come to show this politicians wht there place is on this issue. These bastards at the center need to know wht the rest of the student community thinks.

Let us show them loud and clear that Mandal 2 isn't going to die like Mandal 1.

P.S. : IBNlive has a gud news story data base on this issue. Chk it out here.

**************
The views expressed here are out of anguish and not of hatred towards other communities......so pls don't take this as a vendetta against anyone else, except for the politicians.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Screwing up an exam......Retake.....immemorial!

I don't know wht it is with me and screwing up an exam every academic year!?

This kinda has been a far too familiar situation with me since......well let's say....immemorial......atleast to me. Just when i feel that i wld nail all the exams in that particular academic year, i always manage to screw up an exam......almost everytime.

And i did it this time too! Screwed up the only final that i had this sem...........damn......sh%t.......sucks/fuck........ ( my fav. "flavors" line...... :)...... ) .

And the worst part is that i was stuck for one whole hour on the first problem itself........i failed to realize tht i messed up some basic conversions ( my dad wld have kicked my arse for this....if i was in India..... :) .....)

It's not tht i have failed in any of them till now......i haven't........and neither am i going to fail in this . But it kinda leaves u a bit disappointed and down till sometime after the exams.

Ok.....i'm pretty messed up right now......i'll leave this ....here. Have a grt weekend everyone.

:)

Monday, May 08, 2006

Final week of the sem ahead &......blah blah.....

Felt like posting something today. So here goes a bit of gibberish.....

Well my penultimate sem is coming to an end this week. I have an exam this Thursday and then the big deadline....well actually it's not a big one....... :) ...jst have to submit my first chapter of thesis on the 19th. Almost done with tht......jst giving finishing touches to it. Hope to submit it a bit early and make the required corrections before starting on the rest of the chapters.

Planning to graduate by this july/august. Hoping for the best.

Update:
I've submitted the first chapter this morning i.e. may 9th!

Yahooooooo!

Pardon me for my lame celebratory rhetoric......I'm always like this! ;)

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Pramod Mahajan passes away


(1949 - 2006)

A real sad day to everyone who have come to admire this "back-room boy turned the face of the BJP" over the years. After 11 days of battle against serious bullet injuries inflicted by his own brother (wht an irony!), Mr. Mahajan passed away this evening.

This is becoming a far too familiar situation in Indian politics over the last few years where a couple of bright hopes for the next generation leadership of the country have lost their lives due to tragic events (Mr. Scindia, from a plane crash and Mr.Pilot, due to a car crash).

May his soul rest in peace! m:(

Update:
As i write this update @ 3:10 am in the morning here in Texas, Mr. Mahajan's funeral pyre is being consumed by the flames. It is a very sad day for everyone in the BJP and to those who have seen the growth of it as a national party.

A brilliant tribute by Rajdeep Sardesai during the final moments of the funeral.

Farewell Mr. Mahajan. India will miss you.