People started lining up at around 10 PM last night to be able to receive the free gas money. In an age where people camp out for hours to get hold of a gaming console, why I am not surprised?

इतना अासान होगा कभी सोचा न था!

- सौरभ

1. India got her first female President.
2. Television got some really great new shows.
3. The US still tried to force-feed its way of life and governance to countries worldwide, only at the cost of national pride, credibility, and the economy.
4. Lots of school shootings, including one in India.
5. The resurgence of Apple Inc. as a dominant force in the computing industry.
6. The year of the iPhone. (This needed special mention)
7. India got some leeway from the insurgency efforts of neighboring Pakistan, who was busy trying to clean its own mess.
8. The job market actually improved a lot.
9. USCIS messed up and people got their GCs in record time for a month.
10. The year it started being really cool to be an Indian.

And then:

1. The year I changed my attitude towards people and ideas.
2. The year I realized I could do anything I wanted.
3. The year that actually made me a whole lot wiser.
4. The year I got rid of the mildew on my friends list.
5. The year I added a tame 19,000 miles to my car’s odometer.

I am sure there’s more I could think of, but this is all my sleep-deprived-shindig-stricken mind could come up with this early Tuesday morning.

Have a Wonderful New Year ‘08 !

There’s the usual reporting of live precincts, live interviews, the usual anxiety, and the usual rejoicing by the winners. I am a big fan of the statistics and graphical analysis, and it seems that not much is different in the way newscasters and reporters function in India and the US.

Now, if only I could vote in this country…

The article made me really think. What is it about developed countries that makes them so less economically elastic to population growth? Why are baby boomers suddenly becoming a concern here in the US, even though immigration has always helped bring the young to this country? Already, the US economy is reeling under the effects of unemployment, excessive military diversion of funds meant for education, excessive dependance on foreign energy reserves, and the such. All in all, I believe the problem lies in the fact that these developed countries usually have very few natural resources, but are the biggest consumers.

Now, compare the US to India. Population has already crossed a billion, making it home to about 18 percent of the world’s population in 2.5 percent of the world’s total land mass. India’s population density exceeds that of any other nation of similar size! Yet, because of its natural wealth, India is still prospering and looking forward to becoming a truly developed nation very soon.

Now, the main point of my post is not to highlight the differences in the American way of life/consumerism to that of India in order to explain why population growth is such a terrible thing in developed countries. Rather, the grim “calamity” possiblity made me wonder about cultural differences between the western world and my country. Is it really hard for less than half a million people to co-exist peacefully on land the size of America?

I think the best description of such a “peaceful” existence in India of a billion people is described in the novel “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. A gay French character named Didier says about India, “This is India. Everyone who comes here falls in love – most of us fall in love many times over. And the Indians, they love most of all”. He continues, “This is how they manage to live together, a billion of them, in reasonable peace. They are not perfect, of course. They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other, and all the things that all of us do. But more than any other people in the world, the Indians know how to love one another.” Dider then says, “India is about six times the size of France. But it has almost twenty times the population. Twenty times! Believe me, if there were a billion Frenchmen living in such a crowded space, there would be rivers of blood. Rivers of blood! And, as everyone knows, we French are the most civilised people in Europe. Indeed, in the whole world. No, no, without love, India would be impossible.”

Isn’t that true? Now, I would like to quote two paragraphs from the novel.

Now, long years and many journeys after that first ride on a crowded rural train, I know that the scrambled fighting and courteous deference were both expressions of the one philosophy: the doctrine of necessity. The amount of force and violence necessary to board the train, for example, was no less and no more than the amount of politeness and consideration necessary to ensure that the cramped journey was as pleasant as possible afterwards. What is necessary? That was the unspoken but implied and unavoidable question everywhere in India. When I understood that, a great many of the characteristically perplexing aspects of public life became comprehensible: from the toleration of beggars on the streets, to the concatenate complexity of the bureaucracies; and from the gorgeous, unashamed escapism of Bollywood movies, to the accomodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Tibet, Iran, Afghanistan, Africa, and Bangladesh, in a country that was already too crowded with sorrows and needs of its own.

The real hypocrisy, I came to realise, was in the eyes and minds and criticisms of those who came from lands of plenty, where no-one had to fight for a seat on a train. Even on that first train ride, I knew in my heart that Didier had been right when he’d compared India and its billion souls to France. I had an intuition, echoing his thought, that if there were a billion Frenchmen or Australians or Americans living in such a small space, the fighting to board the train would be much more, and the courtesy afterwards much less.

What’s needed is love among people to drive the nation to prosperity. And, it’s not just about space. Look what’s happening in the Middle East. Compare that to India – people of all faiths and religions trying to get by with as few self-generated problems as possible. Sure, there are disputes, poverty, needs, excesses, corruption, but the nation is still sovereign. There is no “calamity”.

What remains to be seen is how the developed countries learn their lesson in love from a country like India.

I think the most I have spent for textbooks at NC State on books over a single semester is about $400. I had to cave in and get the book(s) simply because they were so well “endorsed” by the professor that any attempt to get by without buying them started to prove futile. So, who do we blame? Teachers for recommending those expensive textbooks, publishers for pricing them exorbitantly, or the students for not creating a market big enough to get economies of scale into action?

It’s a peculiar situation, and no matter how many bills are passed by the various Governments, the truth is that unless there’s an economic incentive for independent/big name publishers, there are going to be no textbooks. At the primary education level, I really like what India has done. Most, if not all, of my high school textbooks were written by exemplary writers in their fields, and subsidized heavily by the central (federal) Government to make them affordable. This type of thing is certainly very very ambitious at the higher education level simply because of the size and scope of the mission.

But, it’s a difficult situation. On the one hand there’s acute shortage of college enrollments in engineering/computer science in the US, while on the other hand it’s too expensive for the average American to afford books without economic aid. So, what’s the solution to this “mess”?

Many Universities are already working on a rental system, where they facilitate semester-long book rentals for almost all students. Then there’s the libraries.

Something else needs to be done, though, and in my opinion that something is reducing the dependance on textbooks, at least for technical courses. There’s so much change of technology happening, and most research is being done with Government money as it is. The professors need to make their teaching material available to the class in a manner that no supplemental material is necessary. Then, there are the various open courseware projects like MIT OpenCourseWare. More of these need to be developed, and used.

Everyone has a right to getting an education, and we should try our best to spread knowledge without an inherent price.

I have studied at Government schools for the most crucial years of my pre-college life. They are nowhere world class, or even good. The textbooks are more often than not, a complete waste of money, and are much more politically influenced than anywhere else. How can you forget the controversies surrounding them that crop up every year or so? In fact, I remember being taught the English language in Hindi!

Indian textbooks, atleast the official Government published ones, are designed basically to provide low cost education. They are really inexpensive. Most students know better and often purchase supplemental books to help them score higher in exams. If I spent Rs. 30 on a government textbook, I would be spending Rs. 300 or more on the supplemental book/guide written by more renowned authors.

I guess a very major difference between “here and there” is that in India, no one expects to be spoon-fed. There is so much competition that everyone is on their toes, perpetually, to figure out ways to outdo the other smart kid in school. At least I didn’t expect to get world class spoon-feeding at my Rs. 45 a month Government school. This is especially true in fields like science and math. Indians, by nature, stress a lot on both these subjects. It is acceptable to score in the 70s on your Hindi exam but anything less than a 90 on the science course calls for disciplinary action.

Then there’s this thing about choice. A lot of Americans are given the choice of what area/interests to pursue very early on during their schooling, whereas the earliest Indian students get a chance to make any type of choice is around the age of 16 when they decide if they want to be future engineers, doctors, artists, or writers.

Schooling doesn’t stop at the school. Almost everyone, especially the science and math majors, enrolls in post-school hours academic coaching which is often very rigorous. Coming back home at around 10PM after studying all day isn’t a rarity in India. You have to be a notch up than your neighbour if you want to succeed. There’s competition to even get into colleges, much less graduate from it.

In the end, I think it’s your personal motivation that matters more than textbooks or anything else. Sure, good schooling makes all the difference in life, but a good school system/books and poor students isn’t going to make anything happen. It’s all about imagining yourself at some position and then working your way to that position.

On the personal front, the previous year was quite eventful as well, with lots of everlasting memories and lessons in the game of life. I just hope that 2006 is a much better year for everyone, including myself.

Happy New Year, and may God bless us all !

Today marks the 58th anniversary of India’s successful freedom struggle. I would like to extend the warmest best wishes to the readers of my weblog on this occasion. At the same time, I salute the martyrs who laid down their lives to fulfill their dream of an independent and progressive Hindustan.

Click here to read the full text of the President of India’s speech to the nation on the eve of the Independence Day. The President of India is akin to the British Crown in that he “reigns” but does not “rule”. As such, the President is very politically neutral and has a respectable image. The current President, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is a very learned person and is responsible for spear-heading India’s space program as a scientist in his younger days. He is probably also one of the world’s most learned statesmen. In his speech, Dr. Kalam focussed mainly on employment generation and power self reliance. In fact, more than half of his speech was devoted to the necessity for improving power generation and distribution. India generates about 3% of the total global energy produced even though it is among the top three fastest growing economies. The President’s call for improvement in this area should certainly catalyse efforts in this area. I am glad that we have a scientist as a President of our country at this important juncture in India’s race towards becoming a developed country.

The Prime Minister of India is the most powerful man in the country. He addresses the nation from the historic Red Fort. In his speech, the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh reminded the country of the freedom struggle, and the reasons for which it was pursued by our forefathers. He stressed on the importance of chalking out newer programs to eradicate poverty, illiteracy, and diseases, something that has become a common theme of almost every I-Day PM speech over the years. Dr. Singh also lamented on the prevalent social inequality in parts of India, especially the villages and among the poorer sections of the Indian citizenry. Being the nation’s highest political figure, Dr. Singh also commented on the need for border peace and effective measures to curtail cross-border terrorism, especially from neighboring Pakistan.

I would like to re-iterate today that I am very proud to be an Indian. More so because I am fortunate enough to be a part of the Indian youth at a time when an Indian face reminds people of unprecedented growth rather than poverty and hunger.

Jai Hind