Smelly CAT

Though this post comes late but the severity of the discussion cannot be undermined. Indeed, CAT 2009- the admission test to the prestigious IIMs- has been a disaster. And no amount of argument will change the fact. Prometric, the organization, which had been given the contract for conducting the first ever computerized CAT, for a whopping $40 million sum, had failed miserably, though not quite understandably, to deliver their promise.

Right from day one of the CAT, news channels had quite a blast covering the server failure at so many centers across India. Students whose exams had got cancelled due to so-called “technical” glitches called foul and had a lot to say about the negligence in conducting CAT and the ignorance of the proctors about their own systems. Indeed, yes, the proctors had no idea whatsoever about how the systems work. And they were there to invigilate the examination! Phew…! Most interestingly, there was no official word from either the IIMs or the Prometric-wallahs. Guess they were themselves in a daze about what went wrong. Nevertheless, it was the just the first day and some problems were excepted. But no, the same “server-problem” again cropped on the second and the third day. Good heavens, what complacency! Were the Prometric guys supposed to work throughout the night and fix the problem on the first day itself? The answer is no, they were not, as it sadly turned out to be.

Some days later, the “server problem” was not the actual reason anymore. Word had it that the server was virus infected and that the anti-virus was unable to detect and clean it. Given the magnitude and importance attached with the CAT exam, this excuse seems nothing but lame. The rest of the days of the CAT went more or less smoothly. But this was not the end of all. Supposedly, the questions on subsequent days were getting allegedly repeated. This enraged the coaching institutes, in particular, and demands for a re-test in the conventional format had cropped up. The IIM directors didn’t take any decision at that moment and deferred it to after the CAT.

Now, some days before the IIM directors had met for a decision but there could have been none. Can this go anymore haywire? The fairness of the test could not be decided as some IIMs wanted the test to be done away with as such while others wanted a conventional re-test. Finally, they have come to a decision that the students who could not appear for the test will be tested in January.

But, this still a lot of questions unanswered. What about the questions getting repeated? What about the waste of time of so many people? And when you are conducting a test again in January, it means that some students are getting a month more for their preparation. Is this not unfair? Why was a mock CAT not conducted before the actual one to dispel of any glitches that could have appeared? The answer is, sadly, whatever be done, CAT 2009 was unfair and was not the CAT exam after all. And people used to say, “Mirror, mirror which is the fairest of all?” Mirror: “The CAT exam!”

But no more.

Someone’s got flu!

Yes, you guessed it right. This concerns the H1N1 virus outbreak in India and the rest of the world and the hullabaloo it has shown as side-effects mainly in India as not so much in the rest of the world. It's not rare a sight people stepping out of their homes wearing masks or eyeing everyone who sneezes with suspicion, while instantly using their handkerchiefs to cover their nose and mouth. Neither is it rare to hit upon a discussion in hostels regarding the massive spread of the disease. It's actually funny to hear when people don't actually remember their GPA last semester but will describe to you, with marvelous accuracy, all the statistics, with the exact numbers, the mortality rate in percentage, the changes in the daily figures of deaths caused by swine flu, correlation parameters with other kinds of flu, the standard deviation comparison of all other countries affected and what not. Sometimes it just gets onto the nerves.

And the flu-patronizing people have some more reason to give no excuse to that mouth from blabbering. And once again, you guessed it right! A guy from our college has contracted the disease- the reports are now confirmed and official. Panic has struck people on campus and no one is leaving any chance to talk upon the subject and chip in with their expert comments. A sneeze as expected, now, draws a lot of expectations and a lot of actions which, does nothing more, gives a false sense of security. People have left no arena untouched to let people know that the first case of swine flu in the state started from our college. On second thoughts, isn't it great?! Our college will be in news for some days to come till the media doesn't get some other hot news- like Pervez Musharaff getting detained or Mayawati making more statues of her own. Make hay while the sun shines. Gtalk status messages, orkut taglines, tweets all carry the same message: "Swine flu in NIT Rourkela."

But should swine flu really attract so much of attention and panic. For a country like India, yes, it does. The situation, here, in India is different from that in US. Health-care facilities in India are not as good as it is in the US. That means the number of deaths per 10 people who have contracted the disease may be significantly more. And this fact does not go without reason. Taking examples from the home, the guy who has contracted the disease had, reportedly, been showing symptoms for a few days and had been to the hospital as well for checkup. Although, the doctor admitted that he was showing symptoms of the hyped flu let him off after taking his swab to send for tests. Later, it was confirmed yesterday that he had the flu when the test reports came back. The thing that is really baffling is that the hospital, instead of keeping the guy, who has been showing symptoms, let off and not kept under supervision. Secondly, newspaper reports say that hygiene and cleanliness is the way to avoid contracting the disease. If so, then the flu can have serious impacts in our country keeping in mind that the hygiene levels in our nation is far worse than that in western countries. This gives the virus easy means to spread further instead of getting contained. Now, no one can deny that global hygiene standards can be met anytime soon, if we ever meet it. Thirdly, in a country where the population is so great, it is next to inevitable to avoid large gatherings, more so in the case of a residential college. So, the probability graph of people coming in contact with the virus is somewhat skewed.

And thus, we are running out of N95 masks and all the panic results. But many of the precautions we are taking are unfounded and based on self beliefs which give a false sense of security. N95 masks cannot prevent the flu virus from getting in as their size is lesser than 3 microns, which is the size for which the masks are designed. So that implies that not everyone needs to wear the masks. Flu victims must compulsorily use it to avoid their mucous from getting into the air and the virus settling on hard surfaces where it can live for the maximum time. Those who want to avoid the virus should wash hands frequently and avoid large groups where someone might have been infected. And, according to the TOI article, the chances of the virus actually showing catastrophic results are not very high, but not very low as well, and in many cases the flu gets unnoticed and gets cured by itself.

So, there is no reason to panic to the levels of Mount Everest but at the same time take precautions. Hoping that the virus gets contained at NIT Rourkela and does not spread further. And the same for the rest of the nation and the world. Though one regret remains- the director has announced that no holidays will be given because of swine flu. And I had stared making plans!

The fight against Progress

Ours is a funny country. Funnier are the people of this country, like you and me. But the funniest of all are the people who rule this nation - elected officials who are elected by people like you and me. Everyday we hear about innumerable policies being framed or being put forward by somebody in the House or Assembly for consideration to merge them into the current state of laws and guidelines. But what we encounter is something, which on even vague scrutiny, does not quite conform to what one should normally expect from a nation who is always super zealous for the introduction of new laws for better governance.

Take, for example, the recent spat over the Bundelkhand issue. Bundelkhand, which consists of districts of Jhansi, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Datia, Chattarpur etc. from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which was a prosperous region in the post-British era has been reduced to a region which can be described, without overdoing, as backward. There has been a constant call for a separate Bundelkhand state but all in futility. For the development of this region, and of course for political reasons as well, Rahul Gandhi and co., in their bid to strengthen Congress' hold and influence in UP and MP, drew the PM's attention to this region by demanding a separate Bundelkhand Development Authority (BDA). The role of BDA would be to plan and execute various action schemes for the development of this region. Everything was fine till the hue and cry started by the MP administration who called foul. According to the MP Assembly and the ruling party in the state, this proposal should be viewed as an intervention in state matters by the Centre and that it is nothing more than mere political game. It also stated that though they have been constantly pressing upon the Centre, since the time of UPA-1, for releasing of adequate funds to the state government for the development of this region but no action has been taken.

Now the problem here is, which is leading to the bottle neck, if the state government has always been so concerned about the development of this region then why is it opposing a novel idea that will ultimately achieve the goal- the progress of Bundelkhand. The answer is not difficult to apprehend. If the proposed BDA sees the light of the day and Bundelkhand witnesses some progress, then UPA's stance in MP and UP will become strong and this can prove dangerous in future state elections. Moreover, as BDA will be under the central government, the grant, of nearly Rs 4,900 crore, which the state would have received would have to be forgotten which will mean that the state ministers will not be able to stuff their pockets with as much money as they would have been able to do otherwise. In short, Bundelkhand was never the issue. The issue was, and is, the money. This fight against the formation of BDA by MP is nothing but a means to achieve self interests of the politicians- a fight against progress.

Test Post

As I am planning to get back to blogging and post some serious stuff and that too regularly, I thought that it'd be great if I can publish my blogs without logging onto blogger and directly from my desktop without having to navigate to the blogger service on the web.

After doing some googling, I found out that this could specifically be done by using the native built-in feature in Microsoft Word 2007. So here I am trying to publish this post directly from MS Word. If this works fine, that is, without any formatting issues then, I think, I have found a great tool to help me keep blogging. I also had found an add-in for word from blogger for Word but that doesn't simply work. Researched that blogger has changed somewhat and no support has been channeled to the blogger add-in. Thus, had to discard it and moreover, it just wasn't even working.

I would find it more useful if someone informs about any such more things to help me blog from MS Word. Here the spell and grammar checks are much much better.

Let's hope that I do post regularly!

The "Sarkaari" prefix

There is something about the word “Sarkaari” in our nation. Whether it be primary education, high school, college or job- the “saarkari” prefix is everywhere, but maybe implies different connotations in different situations. Even maybe different connotations for different people as well. In some cases, the word adds glamour to the entity in question while in cases, it makes it so derogatory that people shun it away.

The government of India has been, from time immemorial, has been pressing upon the need for compulsory primary education for inclusive and long term growth of the nation. Undoubtedly, this has been on the agenda of every passing government. Making primary education compulsory-way back in I-don’t-know-when- brought up the question of how it should be accomplished. Thus started the sarkaari primary education schools. These addressed the issue of imparting primary education even in remote villages by setting up schools for anyone who wishes to enroll and that too free of cost. But to what effect? Even after so many years, these schools have been maintaining the rather notorious reputation of non-availability of teachers, insufficient classrooms, bad to very bad overall infrastructure and a strict no-no for any parent who can afford any other non-sarkaari school- even it be little better. Even the free education couldn’t attract well-to-do people to send their children to these schools. Thus, at this point of time, the special prefix doesn’t not only work but also presents a grim picture of the whole affair.

The story doesn’t end here. Even sarkaari high schools fails to attract children from families who have the resources to send their wards to private ICSE schools who charge exorbitant fees when compared to the nominal fee of the sarkaari high schools. But the picture improves here a little bit. Some sarkaari high schools have been in vogue and they have been doing well. The scenario gradually moves to the bright light. But any progress is negated by the unavailability to a very great extent of high schools in rural, even in semi-urban areas. Whatever high schools are available in rural areas beat the quality even of primary education resulting, generally, in the closure or a colossal inefficient school governance. It seems that primary education receives much more thrust from the sarkaar as compared to high school. If statistics appearing in magazines and newspaper are to be believed then one gets surprised on finding that more than 60% of the students who go to schools for their primary education drop out and never attend high school. The fact that this percentage includes all the rural, semi-urban and urban population makes it all the more alarming as one can simply do the math by approximation and find out the rather very high and disturbing percentage of drop-outs in rural areas.

Now when we come to the college education, let’s talk about the professional colleges. Not an ounce of doubt here. Sarkaari professional colleges are regarded with utmost respect. They are the best colleges in the nation. This fact cannot be more exemplified when we consider the world’s most tough competition to get into colleges offering courses in technology and medicine.

Now, the thing I wonder here is what happens. When we have our minds conditioned against the sarkaar when it comes to education-primary and high school- why is it that we suddenly crave for the sarkaari tag for our professional education. I can’t believe that the private players are incapable to penetrate into this sector and compete and even win against the sarkaar as they have been doing so comfortably in primary and high school education. If we seek the answer, then we get to a very uncomfortable truth. Government has been and probably will be, giving more importance to this sector of education rather than primary education- it doesn’t matter what they write in their election manifestos or argue over in the Parliament and Assembly. The difficult part to understand is why it has been doing this. Even if we see from the election point of view, it will be more rewarding to spend crores of country money on primary education and high schools rather than on world class professional courses. The reach of primary education and high schools will always be more than professional colleges. More people are affected by this and thus a sudden philanthropic spending on this part will lead to eventual rise in the number of people in favour of the ruling party and thus increase the chances of winning the next election. When considered from the utility factor and overall betterment of the nation, more spending and correct spending on primary education is also desirable. This will help bridge the gap between the rich and the poor when it comes to education till class-12. Then such matters as reservations for backward classes due their non-access to quality education will be done away with. As will be the case in the infamous quota system.

I don’t say that the huge spending on world-class professional institutes in India be stopped. But a substantial increase in spending in primary education and high schools in rural and semi-urban areas will eventually also increase the quality of these professional institutes as the quota system will have to be done away with as it will lose all relevance. Then the politicians who do not believe in quota system will have a very strong point on tilting the balance to their side.

Picnic Photos

Someone intelligent once said- "A picture speaks a thousand words."

Thanks to that supposedly intelligent person, he saved many people much labor of typing the words. With the ever expanding technology, people now can upload photos without going into writing so much stuff. You just upload the pics and ta...da it's done.

After the picnic post, people would really like to see what it exactly looked like and not only rely on my inexact description.

Just click here and you will be redirected.

Enjoy!

A day to be remembered forever...

Everyone of us CSE guys who started their day at 5:30 in the morning on 17th Jan, 2009 now knows that it was a day which will stay afresh in out hearts for the rest of our lives. For it was our branch picnic!

After a great deal of struggle and several calls and abuses from neighbors and friends, people got out of their rajai with an effort so great as to match that of Everest climbers. For it was an unusually chilly morning and the sun had not shown upon yet. Getting to the toilet was equally painful as the walk on the corridors looked rather unusual and not to forget the thought that most other(non-CSE guys) were still in deep slumber with fascinations running wild in their dreams. Once reaching the wash basin was equally painful. No water and we had to brush our teeth in the bathrooms with the cold water kissing our naked legs.

All done, it was now time to get ready to move to the bus. Groups from Hall-2 moved to Hall-5 where the bus was suppossed to be boarded. We were to start at 6:30 but the loading of amenities required took more time than expected and it was nearly 8 o' clock when we finally started.

The journey from Rourkela to Khandadhara in the bus was kind of slow for most of the guys still had their dreams to complete. For those who were not sleeping, it was a journey which could be briefed as songs-music system-commenting on girls-burning of amplifier-suttas-music on phones and shuffles-bad road-suttas-sceninc view-and more suttas.

Finally we all reached the spot and each one of us was found appreciating the amazing waterfall which could be seen from the distance, listening to the sound of the water, having a look of the forest and bathing their feet in the stream which took away any fatigue which might have persisted even after seeing the waterfall.

After unloading stuff and a light breakfast, the crowd was more than eager to explore places and looking an appropraite place to take a bath in the ice-cold water. It ended after 2kms of mountaineering with short breaks and then reaching a good place. Then diving into the cold and rather little dangerous looking water in underwears and shorts while the girls rested themselves talking among them looking at the semi-naked bodies playing merrily in the stream and smoking on their suttas. The sight of the waterfall was a lovely one and the bath was the best part of all.

After all that, the trip downhill began when after every 5 mins someone was heard shouting... "Careful....Steady!" If anyone slipped, many would exclaim- "Careful idiot. Can't you walk a lil slower beep....beep....beep". Finally the downhill journey ended and a badmiton match awaited it followed by GPLs to the winner. Tasty food was laid out and it was just an excellent lunch.

So the picnic dusked with group pics, dancing and coffee.

The return bus journey was marked with shayaris,Antakshari and more masti. So we reached the hostel thus, and which marked the end of an unforgettable picnic- a once-in-a-lifetime picnic!!!

Long live the CSE masti. Long live friends and friendship!