Single words and their expansions printed on 20/12
One words

Agenda - Item of business to be considered at a meeting.
Aggressor - One who attacks first.
Amateur - One who does something for pleasure.
Amnesty - A general pardon of political offenders.
Anarchist - One who plans to destroy governments.
Anniversary - The yearly return of a date.
Antidote - A substance that acts against the effects of poison.
Anonymous - That which of unknown authorship.
Arbitrator - One appointed to settle disputes.
Atheist - One who doesn’t believe in the existence of God.
Autobiography - The story of a person’s life, written by that person.
Bankrupt - Unable to pay one’s debts.
Bigamy - Having two wives/ husbands at a time.
Bigot - One with narrow religious thoughts.
Biography - The story of a person’s life, written by another.
Bilingual - One who speaks two languages.
Brittle - That which can easily broken.
Catalogue - List of books/ articles.
Cannibal - One who eats human flesh.
Carnivorous - One who eats meat/ flesh.
Cemetery - A place of burial.
Colleagues - Those who work in the same office/ dept.
Coach - One who trains sportsmen.
Contemporary - Living at the same time as another.
Conductor - A person who collects fare on public vehicles.
Conscription - Compulsory enrolment for military services.
Congregation - An assembly of worshippers.
Cosmopolitan - That which belongs to the whole world.
Credulous - One who easily believes.
Democracy - Govt. by representatives of the people.
Detective - One whose business is to find out criminals.
Diplomacy - The art practiced by statesmen.
Dictatorship - Govt. by an absolute leader.
Egoist - One who thinks only of oneself.
Edible - That which is fit to be eaten.
Efficacious - That which produces the desired effect.
Effeminate - Behaving more like woman than a man.
Exchange - Giving and receiving in return.
Extempore - A speech without preparation.
Emigrant - One who leaves one’s country to settle elsewhere.
Epidemic - A disease that spreads over a large area.
Fratricide - Killing of one’s brother.
Fastidious - Hard to satisfy one’s taste.
Germicide - That which kills germs.
Herbivorous - That which lives on herbs.
Honorary - An office without any pay.
Homicide - Killing of a human being.
Hospitable - Fond of entertaining guests.
Impenetrable - That which can’t be penetrated.
Impregnable - That which can’t be taken by force.

How to present data on survey results in IELTS exams.

Over 60 percent of employees in India ready to quit
Even if the going is tough in the market, more than half of the people surveyed are ready to quit job, switch the professions or take break. 62 percent of the respondents were ready to consider quitting; taking a career break or shifting to a firm with flexi-work options in order to handle the family responsibilities better, said a survey.

According to the findings of the survey conducted by Outlook Business and Avtar Career Creators, the high competition at work place, lead employees towards extreme job conditions and they are gradually realising the need for family life. The survey was conducted on 745 private sector employees between November and December 2009, and was done across seven cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune across varied sector, including FMCG, IT, ITES, consulting and telecom.Also, the survey found that as many as 40 respondents felt that internal issues of the company are responsible for unhealthy work life balance and an equal number said they know people who took a break or resigned last year due to their responsibilities at home. There is a crying need for work-life balance measures. Hyper competition has meant all the stops are being pulled out for customer service, which leads to extreme jobs. There is a renewed awareness and interest in personal life, the survey said.According to the survey, while 38 percent of the respondents blamed the location of the workplace for bad work-life balance, 44 percent believed a balanced life would give them time to study or train further."In a society filled with conflicting responsibilities and commitments, work-life balance has become a predominant issue in the workplace," Avtar Career Creators' Founder-President Saundarya Rajesh said.

Humans are exploiting the existing resources far beyond their needs causing huge ecological deficit. How is this situation going to affect our future life? Suggest your own ways to cut down on this ever-increasing deficit.

A write up
by Ms. Bindu K. Joy

Since time immemorial, man has been depending on the environment for most of his basic needs. But, because of the Industrial Revolution, the machines and factories of the western world changed production forever. According to Worldwide Fund for Nature’s bi-anneal report, our over-consumption is threatening ourselves and all our species with extinction. 50 words

There is a decline in the Planet’s capacity to provide food, fibre and timber and absorb carbon monoxide. We are using 25% more resources than are renewed naturally in a year. Uncontrolled deforestation and habitat destruction is the cause for the world’s man-animal conflict. This growing pressure on ecosystem may threaten both biodiversity and human life. For example, the deforestation endangered the biodiversity of the Amazon rain forests. According to some Environmental Groups’ latest findings, the ecological ‘overshoot’ will be 100% by 2050, making the likelihood of large scale ecosystem collapse likely and conflict and political tension certain. 100 words

There are many ways to cut down on this ecological deficit. The increasing population can be slowed down by having smaller families. Thus we can improve the equality of life and reduce consumption. Using excessive resources for the production of goods should be prevented. Reclamation of land through better management and protection of soils, fisheries and forest will help lot. Cooperative Societies and Self Help Groups can do great service in this direction. And above all, instead of demanding exotic foods we need to learn to make do with locally available foods. 90 words

In short, all growth must be sustainable by the environment and brought about in a manner that seeks to nurture nature. This can be achieved by factoring the environment in all our projects, and proper assessment of the environmental impact of all such ventures. 45 words

285 words.
Typeset by Jaypee. 13/12/08

1.

Spending on defense is on the rise even when nations, both poor and rich around the world, have got several pressing domestic issues which need great financial outlay.

What do you think are the causes of this mounting defense expenditure?
Do you think defense spending can be cut down someway?

2.

Though poverty alleviation is said to be the responsibility of the State, some say, the richer section of the society can do a lot to do away with poverty. But it does not happen due to many factors.

What are the factors that stand on the way of poverty alleviation?
Do you think the rich can do something about it? If yes, how?

3.

Water shortage is going to grip the whole world very hard shortly, and life is going to be very difficult unless available water is wisely managed.

Is water shortage manmade or it is a natural development?
In what all ways can water be used optimum?

4.

Though security to life and property is safeguarded by the state for ages, many people suffer from insecurities of many sorts these days compared to the past.

How safe was human life and property in the past?
What difference do you see in today’s life with regard to security?

5.

Human society is currently witnessing unprecedented developments in all walks of life and, as a result, there are visible changes in social, personal and cultural life of the people.

What are the changes you see in your place?
Do you think these changes are for good?

Jaypees. 8.30 pm 9/12/09

Investing in education: the Indian intelligence
A. Jayaprakash.

It is money. It is investment. And it is returns, no matter what. This is the mindset of Indian parents. They go to any length and travel extra miles to find an intelligent investment option even when it is something pertaining to their children’s education. It starts much before a baby gets born, and this investment pursuit even goes up to the extent of blocking a Medical or Engineering seat in one of the premier colleges or institutes investing millions.

Some parents are ready to pay 3 to 4 million Indian rupees for a medical seat. But some parents are so intelligent that they beget intelligent children, and these wizkids forego all odds and grab the much coveted 4 million worth seats out of sheer intelligence and hard work. It is just wonderful to see brilliant children just doing it. The investment side of education is applicable more to those parents who stubbornly believe that their getting-to-be-bourn kids are wizards and they would make it to the Medical or Engineering seats.

This notion gets shattered when they come to terms the SSLC or Plus 2 results. Without realizing their potential and limitations, these parents identify high end schools, pay for the seat, and even register for an admission to upcoming courseware which would revolutionize the very way the world rotates. Their calculations come crashing and they go for seats that are hawked out for sale. They invest there. They wisely invest with their eyes set right on returns. Once their kids transform themselves into Docs and Execs, the parents find themselves on top of the world. Now it is time for returns. If they had paid three or four million for a seat, they are going to make millions all through their life using their kids.

Their market is so big. NRI dependent patients, obsessed with the fear of death, are out there to pay millions to keep themselves alive for a day or two more. Multinational business tycoons are whirling around our just-out candidates. They grab and offer them pay cheques big enough to make a few millions look much smaller in a few years’ time. So it is returns all the way. New, budding parents; invest in education and rest assured that your money is bound to get appreciated many times more than what your wildest imagination has ever expected.

Never ask your kids what they want to study. Never spare a minute to understand the fears and anxieties of your kids. Never bother if they commit suicide out of academic pressures. What our country needs are Docs. Execs. Artists, writers, danseuse, cartoonists, actors, novelists, journalists, scientists, thinkers, philosophers, reformers, social workers, teachers, guides, resource persons, intellectuals, administrators, humourists, comedians, creative artist and innumerable similar inevitable and highly rewarding social resources are not investment-friendly areas.

And if ever you find any traits of the above social human resources in your kids in their formative years, take all possible steps to nip that trait in the bud, and stuff your kids’ little brains with equations and information and thus lead your kids to the mesmerizing landscape of money, material and mammon worship.

jaypeesarefine@gmail.com

Feeding kids with lies and Lays alike
When it comes to parenting, we Indians have a rare flair of feeding our kids with all kinds of nonsense. The tradition of such parenting has started taking its toll and families have started experiencing untold miseries triggered by their own kids..

Vaatupura A Jayaprakash.
PARENTS HAVE always been role models for kids of all ages. This has been endorsed time and again, everywhere in the world. This is a similarity found in all cultures and when cultures communicate and exchange their niceties, naturally there will be polarisation in parenting too.
Howsoever hard and fast that polarisation might be, when it comes to real parenting, we Indians have a rare flair of feeding our kids with all kinds of nonsense, thinking that it is all for the children’s good. And the children, who have the rare faculty of not differentiating between what their parents are doing and what they are supposed to do, pick up wrong signals and precedents from a very early age, and become the chips of the old blocks by the time they come of age and be parents themselves.
The tradition of such parenting has started taking its toll, and families in this subcontinent have started experiencing untold miseries triggered by their own kids. It starts from basic human habits to telling lies and committing crimes. Eating too much, drinking, smoking, disclaiming and dishonouring, scaring and browbeating and so goes the list.
However, our children pick up these evils, don’ts and lies the same way they chip down fatty Lays chips, cookies, wafers and other confectionaries. What is the price the modern nuclear family pay for this? What is the risk the kids come to shoulder when they come of age? How is this going to put the society to ransom in the long run? We parents hardly take time off to think about it. We are obsessed with the welfare of our kids, and we feed them with flat lies and fatty Lays alike. The consequences are manifold.
The kids become the replicas of their parents; with everything attached, both good and bad.
They take things for granted thinking that if parents do, it must be right. A kid grown with a lot of browbeating turns out to be a bully.
If the parents tell lies or break their promises, or fail to keep their word, the kids of such parents will also have the same traits in the long run.
When parents are not able to imbibe qualities that last for a lifetime, children pick up the worst qualities from other social agencies, and these qualities last for a lifetime and beyond in the form of familial ignominy.
Mothers force-feed their kids. They do it as if the kid is going to die if he skips a meal. This feeding tendency leaves the kid fed up with food. He or she resorts to eating junk and drinking deadly beverages.
If the need is for maintaining restraint, attitudinal balance, being responsible etc are not taught in the family, kids naturally grow into wanton boys and girls.
Commitments like caring for the weak, elderly and lonely, either in the family or in the society, have to be nurtured in the family ambience itself, and as and when there is an occasion for the parents to be committed and responsible, they have to be so in such a way that their kids pick up this lesson at an early age itself. But do we do this?
What the parents do is that give some lame excuses and lie right in front of their children to free themselves of their responsibilities.
When someone seeks help from our family, we have to help him or her according to the nature of the help and our limitations. Instead, many parents play hide and seek when someone approaches for help. Can we expect our kids to be different when they grow up?
It is unhealthy to eat out for long, and it is hazardous to eat junk food. How many parents are ready to shun such habits? How many new parents have the tolerance to teach their kids the need for maintaining a healthy diet regime?
We feed our kids with all the junk available in the market, and we boast of their chubby size, tastes and the nowhere seen talents and skills. And the kids in turn happen to grow up in a world of illusionary achievements and false prides. Can they ever be what they actually are? We spoil our kids the same way we toil ourselves for their welfare.
Television eats on our health, wealth and happiness. Why are our kids too tip-toeing the same line? They are put in the rut by their own parents.
Consumerism is taking us to new lows everyday; still we take our kids to supermarkets and stuff them with all types of nasty tendencies like buying things we don’t want, buying much more than what we want, eating things that are hazardous, and finally feeding them with a regular doses of ‘use and throw culture’.
No wonder, modern materialistic and monitory criteria that reflects our social, personal and moral values are meticulously copied by our offspring, and they transform themselves into chronic insensible figurines, symbolising falsehood, lies, greed, hypocrisy and snobbery; the dirty and disastrous signs of modern parenting.
It is investment all the way, and the talk of the family is all about returns. The power of money is equated with prestige; and eventually the finer lines that demarcate good and bad, vice and virtue and modesty and malice, truth and falsehood are made to look non-existent and meaningless.
Thus, a generation slowly gets deprived of those humane values that have had much greater sway on human civilization and sustenance than any material or monetary possession ever had. The ugly face of modern parenting is visible in our families, day in and day out.

Will our kids ever be able to grow into beings of virtue and values?

Among us are innumerable parents who go that extra miles and ensure that their kids pick up good social, personal and cultural values from their parents themselves. There are parents who try to transform their kids into better beings than what the parents had been when they were kids. There are parents who dedicate their whole life carving a niche for their kids by the sweat of their blood. Some parents practice impeccable lifestyle so that their kids would follow their footsteps.

However, in a heterogeneous society like ours, their number is dwindling. Thanks to the pressures exerted by modern market, material and monitory forces, the alien cultures and civilisations that come to play in our society via our so-called modern world order, dictate new benchmarks. The consequences of this cultivated benchmarks of falsehood and felony are so ubiquitous that a little slice of it could be seen on the faces of our modern kids who are raised by lies and Lays alike: by their parents themselves.