Road safety at the times of school opening

Road safety at the times of school opening
A Jayaprakash Kovilloor

Yet another academic year is around the corner, and as usual, so is south west monsoon. Our kids are going out again to pursue their next levels and a great number of toddlers are going to attend schools for the first time. Their fears and the apprehensions of their parents are not unfounded because they are going to have tough times ahead when they think about the roads and the transport infrastructure these kids are going to depend upon.

Have we done the ground work to accommodate the fresh school goers along with the regulars this time at least? We have the notorious tendency to act upon something only when we taste the bitter aftermath of a tragedy. Our kids are going to face a lot of difficulties on the roads and we need to do lot many things to avert eventualities. What shall we do to ensure a smooth ride to our children to school?

· Parents have to be strict in not cramming their kids in auto rikshaws and similar precarious modes of transports.
· When private bus operators are found to be skipping bus stops, the responsible citizens should raise their voice against it.
· If the same is found repeated, the best thing the elders could do is to boycott such buses on a regular basis. We have to tell them, if they fail to be considerate with our kids, they are not going to get passengers.
· The state owned transport corporation may run enough buses during peak hours, say between eight and ten and three and five.
· The staff of these buses need to be given strict instruction to take maximum number of children and take them safely to their destinations.
· Those nasty road abusers need to be nabbed and brought to book, and their licensed cancelled outright.
· Heavy vehicles like those notorious killer tippers need to be banned from roads during peak hours.
· Traffic officials may ensure that traffic is moving smoothly. They may deploy enough staff at strategic places so that drivers, pedestrians and passengers will enjoy smooth flow.
· All electric powered traffic signals should to serviced and kept in good condition because monsoon is around and repair work may not be possible once it is raining.
· All major bus bays need to be fitted with quequeing facilities so that children can queue up to their buses and thus we may avoid stop-and-run accidents. We have plenty of such stories to our credit.
· All school authorities who own their fleet of buses have to train their drivers and cleaners so that children will get better movement to and fro.
· The telephone service providers who periodically dig drenches and canals by the roads should be asked to do their job responsibly.
· All private vehicles owners may take time off to take their vehicles to the work shop and have a check up and fix those sensitive spots like brakes, tires, wipers, horn, indicators and head lights.
· School authorities may deploy a few teachers in front of the school before and after the school hours to ensure that their children cross the road safely.
· School children should not be allowed to take two wheelers in the school compound.
· Parents may be given instructions not to let their kids travel by bikes.
· Bicycling to school is a good idea, but students need to give strict instructions to follow all traffic rules.
· School children should not be allowed to travel pinion on bicycles, and cycling to school in groups, at times, is dangerous.
· And parents who take their kids to school on their way to office must remember one thing. When they take two kids and their bags and baggage along, they are taking their whole life with them. Be careful and do not cram your two wheeler with more than it can afford.
· And parents, please don’t be over ambitious with your kids. Let them travel freely, let them play out, let them climb, run, go under sun and get wet during rains. This will do them good.
· The notorious school bags that include, Tiffin box(es), water bottle, even oxygen cylinders are a big problem to growing kids. Let these bags be small and handy enough to carry.
· Children may be given the freedom to walk up to their school if the same is located nearby say a few kilometers away. A street conscious student will grow healthier than comfort-conscious one.
· And finally we the grown up ones will have to (man)handle those eve teasers and female mongers who pry on growing school girls.
· Female police officer can be deployed in buses and bus bays and they may be given enough leeway to handle such menaces with iron hands.
· Political leaders and the so-called social reformers need to stay off the cases registered against traffic offenders.
· The police need to be pupil-friendly and public servants, and school children should feel free to approach them whenever their service is needed.
· The private bus operators who grease the hands of the police must understand one thing that they are playing with the lives of innocent kids and the great expectations of their parents.
· And finally, even if everything is said and one, the department of health need to stay prepared to manage any eventuality that may occur, of course, accidentally.
· All road users must remain calm and decent on the road and when they pass by a school, please sound horn, slow down and show respect to road using kids.

If we can do our due shares in this direction, a lot many accidents could be avoided and our children will enjoy better schooling this time. The education department is doing everything possible to keep the confidence level of kids at new highs at every new result, and it is the responsibility of the ministry too to make things work in such a way that this academic year is going to be free from accidents and accident related traumas.

The Parent Teachers Association, Teachers Assocations, students’ wings of political parties and all those ones who have a boy or girl studying somewhere need to be concerned about the well being of all the kids on the road.

THE media and fake advertisements: Surveillance needed

A. Jayaprakash. Kovilloor

Newspapers and similar press mediums are overflowing with advertisements offering higher education opportunities. Both the parents and their children are equally confused about the authenticity of the claims these ads make when it comes to a crucial decision making; say, what is after Plus two, what is after SSLC or after graduation for that matter. This is much more confusing today than at any time of the year, for this is the time when students pass out and go for higher studies.

It is a fact that all media are by-products of advertisements, and we cannot expect a press organization to offer us 25/30 pages for three or four rupees on a daily basis. So is the case with electronic media. We get some 100 channels on 24/7 basis and we pay a hundred or a little more for these channels. The major chunk of press revenue comes from column centimeters and commercial seconds split out in various time slots. These centimeters and air times are meticulously calculated and billed and finally the public is left with the option ‘believe it or not’, you have everything plattered out on a daily basis.

A great number of ads on higher education that appear in today’s Dailies make false claims and sport fake recognitions, and these institutions have their own networks all over the nation to entice unsuspecting parents and their kids to their nets. And once they are in, it is going to be a matter of mercy of institutions not the merit of the candidate that is going to decide the future.

Many parents blindly believe and follow the instructions given by these ads and they come to know of the pitfalls only when their wards complete a few semesters of their studies. This is dangerous, and there needs to be surveillance mechanism in place to monitor and authenticate the operations of these institutions and there should be provisions in the law to bring these culprits to book who pray on the future of the younger generation and the hopes of their parents.

The fourth Estate, Press, has a crucial role to play. When an ad enquiry reaches its office or its franchisee office, there needs to be a system in place to verify the credentials of these institutions and ascertain that the claims made in the ad are genuine and the recognition is valid. Once an institution is found fabricating or providing misleading leads to parents and students, the issue needs to directed to the academia and education authorizes like State Board of Studies, Medical Council, AICTE, UGC or such bodies and alert them of these fakes. This would enable them to publish the list of such fake-listed institutions so that the general public would not get cheated. In the meantime, they may take time off to list out those institutions and courses that are authentic and publish those lists at certain intervals every year.

The most powerful democratic tool, press, can do a great job in this direction and if this practice is continued for some time, there would be marked fall in the number of such institutes and higher studies conglomerates in the future. Since newspaper is taken as an authentic platform, people will take this information too, i.e. the list of fakes, in the same attitude and they will shun such organizations.

That these ads keep the press organizations survive does not make the latter accept whatever rubbish they bring out to be published. The Press has to have a say in finding out the credibility of the ads, though it is not always possible, it is worthwhile doing it at a time when hundreds of thousands of students pass out and go for higher studies.

The Press must act. The public must stand with the Press when one such fake case is brought to light thanks to the intervention of the press. The people should shun these institutions and let them die their normal deaths out of neglect and rejection.

What is Bush good for?

What is Bush good for?
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
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For all the deeds of Bush, the world community would record in their respective histories that there was an American president who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.

THOUGH THE world is not worried much about its continued existence, thanks to the interference of an ordinary mortal like George Bush, it is a good idea to ask an individual question to each one of us – what is Bush good for? The question may sound simple enough, but answering the question may demand a little sense of humour and a tinge of cynicism.

The former requirement, sense of humour, is what the world comes to experience as and when Bush makes a statement on international affairs, and the second requirement, cynicism, is what goes into the making of such comments. See some of his comments and suggestions on international affairs.

“The US would help the oil giant Saudi Arabia to protect its oil reserves.” What does the world understand when it listens to such a comment? A comment is made by whom? And what is he commenting on? When was he making the comment? Where does price of oil per barrel stand in the international market?

“We are happy to assist Saudi Arabia to generate nuclear energy.” What does Saudi Arabia need more than this? Are not the Arabs powerful enough now to dictate oil terms with the rest of the world? They are. Still as Bush needs to be good for the world, he is offering a little help to the ’king’.

When it is of Palestine, Bush cannot resist making a comment that ’independent statehood is what is needed to keep peace in this part of the world’. Since the rest of the world is left with lasting peace, thanks to Bush incorporated, and as Iran is staying in where it has always been, now it is time and the same is ripe for Palestine and then Egypt. Again Bush is becoming of some good to the world order.

Closely following the comment that it is Indian middle-class that is eating away the due food shares of the rest of the world, he had come up with yet another comment on Kashmir the other day. “It is time India and Pakistan found a solution to Kashmir issue.” Are we not going to respond to that comment? A brokerage from America would work wonders in bringing peace in the borders.

His West Asian regional tour focussing on peace comes to close this week, he would have made himself good to a lot of communities around the world, and by the time he leaves office not very soon, the world community would, including those bereaved families of thousands of American marines who got killed around the world, record in their respective histories that there was a president in America who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.

And this President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute not only to the US but to the rest of the world too. What, an ordinary mortal like Bush, is good for after all? Good for not a good thing!

Managing water: the domestic route

Both social scientists and environmentalist warn that there is going to be war for water in the future, and the available water resources are unable to be sustaining life in this planet if the attitude of the whole world does not change for good. That we have enough water gives us the false impression that we can waste water or use water the way we like. But it is not the real case when water is taken in a holistic perspective. Yes, the water security an individual currently enjoys gives him/her a notion that the water s/he has is his/her water and nobody has any claim over it and no one can question the way s/he utilizes the water.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Whenever there is water shortage, the same individuals who had had the luxury of enjoying water to their full for long would turn to the society and government and demand for alternative measures. They may claim that it is the responsibility of the state to supply its populace with enough water. But we hardly think of how precious each drop of water we waste in innumerable indigenous ways in our homes. We have no water management policy in our families. I think we all need to have a water culture to be able to lead a water-secure life today and tomorrow.

What are we doing towards this on the contrary?

· Good water habit, like any other good habit, begins at home. Our kids are not taught to pick up that habit.
· Unfortunately, unlike in the past, now we do not have separate water for washing purposes and drinking. We have one source and we use that source for everything: from washing our cars and carpets to drinking, bathing and flushing the toilets.
· How many of us know that when we flush our toilet once, minimum six to ten litters of drinking water goes down the drain.
· When we do our dishes, we keep the tap running so that we can wash and drain at the same time. It takes four to five times more water than what is actually needed.
· When we do our teeth, we keep the water tap on so that we can use it in between; the time we start brushing and the time we spit out the last spray of water. We could save one to two litters of water if we could use a mug or container at the time brushing.
· Our toilets are no longer a places for ‘that thing’ alone. They are now glamourooms where the hindwares we use consume ten times more water than required.
· Our luxury takes lusty connotations and dimensions and we spend much of our time in our glamourooms, indulging in nobody knows what.
· Taking bath is an indulgence and the shower does not have any idea how much water, both cold and hot, it should spray down on us. And the person takes bath gets into a frenzy of freshness at the cost of some hundred litres of water.
· Our wells near our homes, water tanks under ground and up above, are supposed to be full all day long. The electric pumps attached to these are doing more harm than good to our water sources.
· If people are made to draw water manually, their interest in spending hours in the bathroom will die out in a few baths. We need to get a minimum five hours’ power outage to understand this.
· When it comes to washing clothes, we do it with detergents that form into buckets and buckets and the amount of water needed to wash out this soap and suds could be better managed if we use washing cakes and do it manually.
· Cleanliness is next to godliness. But it need not be at the cost of life. One can be godly only if one lives a healthy life. Wasting water excessively for personal cleanliness need to be controlled. Cleanliness need not be an obsession.
· Personal possessions like cars and motor bikes need to be kept neat and tidy. The frequency of their washing increases according to the availability of time and water. If these isn’t enough water, we are happy to drive out our car with some dirt and grit on it.
· Going to a service center and washing the car once in while will do to keep a car in good stead. Washing it with drinking water every other day is an obsession.
· Raising garden of flowers or vegetables is good idea. The water used for watering the garden need not be drinking water. The water we spend for washing vegetable, rice, fruits and similar edibles could be reused for gardening.
· And when we raise concrete edifices, let there be a little open space around so that a little rain would seep down our own soil. How many of us do it? We marble the whole area and let the rain water go its way back to the rivers and seas.

Unless we make amends in the way we look at this precious natural resource, we will come to have water related tussles, both internal and international, in the coming days. We need to inculcate in our kids a healthy water culture so that their future will be water secure and the coming generation will live their life drinking enough water at least, not taking three square meals a day.

As educated, informed individuals, we all have a moral responsibility to sustain the available resources and ensure that every drop of water we spend is well spent. The rivers and similar public water reserves need to be kept neat and healthy, and they need to be declared pristine properties of humanity to be maintained the same way by every one who comes to harvest its benefits. The MNCs that flourish on aerated beverages and bottled water need to be kept off the bay. They are terminators of life.

The time for paid email ids has come

The time for paid email ids has come

LOOKING AT the way people take email services these days, I think it is a good idea to impose a small fee on all the email ID holders. Such a move will create ripples in the net operated software world of today. This is more so when it comes to the individuals having multiple email IDs. In this virtual digital place, or cyberspace, everyone comes to have their own electronic presence and the same is being uploaded and downloaded innumerable times in one’s lifetime and the process is endless.

Unfortunately, this virtual communication network is being widely misused more by email users than by anyone. Net, as a free space, is free for all. Anyone can get in and out of it without an email ID. Many email ID holders use their address just to keep themselves connected with the rest of the world. But the number of people, who exploit this communication platform for asocial purposes, is increasing by the day and email platforms are becoming breeding grounds for all sorts of crimes, threats and challenges.

Of course, there is a system in place to track and locate the ID holders and their credentials, but the time and effort involved in this could be saved if we could make this service a paid one. Or there could be a separate digital platform for all those, who are ready to pay a subscription so that they will be viewed by the service providers as promoters and they could be given special services. The one, that could be called space-for-all Netscape, can be a platform with minimum facilities.

These two sets of net users will utilise their individual spaces according to their needs. When a free user finds that a paid subscription is going to give him a little extra edge on services, more and more people will subscribe to it. The service providers, on their part, can earmark a share of the subscription money for development activities in their operational areas.

Wiser use of the net will make it a much more freer space without junks and those unwanted data loads that convert our inboxes into trash cans and dustbins. Managing unwanted mail takes a lot of time and the service providers do not seem to be giving any serious privacy policy to their address holders. Emails get leaked to unwanted people, who use it to send in mails of all sorts. Further, managing the stuff is a kind of forced labour. So, it is high time that we change our attitude towards emailing, and a small fee for getting a strictly personalised email ID would look attractive to many discerning netizens.

A paradise called Munnar

A paradise called Munnar

Munnar has emerged as one of the most popular tourist spots in the country. The serene beauty of the place can enchant anyone to ecstasy. It makes you want to fall in love with god's glory as its been bestowed upon this piece of land lavishly.

THE WINDING aura atop the hills in Munnar is like a virtual detour to sheer delight. The fragrance in the air is bound to kindle the very last spark of fire in one’s romantic life. The greens, the falls, the woods, gushes and sprays and showers of occasional rain on the way are excellently engineered by nature to give the whole landscape a unique character of its own. No wonder this pristine tea caped township has become a hot-spot in the tourism map of the nation.

It is the tourism capital of god’s own country, and god’s glory is in its best here with enormous opportunities left open for all to devour nature and get delighted day in and day out. You find a calm and quite ambiance at all hotels, resorts and stay-ins that make Munnar the most sought after destination for honeymooners and couples of all age groups. It is virtually a cut off from the hustle and bustle of today’s life.

As you go up high, you get a feeling that you are getting closer to a domain where you are bound to enjoy something otherworldly, something which you have never felt before. Only when you come face to face with the hillocks , mounts and crevices, will you be able to understand what you have missed all your life. You would wish that you had lived here in all your life and could live here in all the lives to come by your way as well.

The little time you happen to have at hand at Munnar would look like manna served in a platter made up of a rare mix of divinity, delight and tranquility. This delicious dish of time has a rare feature that it would not grow old, you wouldn’t have any scars left on your skin.. You would remain contented to the core and the same feeling will add extra energy to your soul. You will drive down the hills like a feather that just got severed from the wings of a soaring dove. Falling and soaring, long to remain aloft for as long as possible. The whole experience will leave in you in a kind of honeymoon, an extremely private one-to-one encounter: One is Munnar and the other is you, who and what and wherever you are from. Nature welcomes you at HoneyMunnar.

India needs to ink ‘present’ history

People are at their wit’s end. Power and politics make normal life of the common man miserable every passing day. The rich are getting richer and poor poorer. More and more people go to bed hungry and food security of the nation is threatened by myopic reform measures and hardhearted approach towards farmers and their pressing needs. And life goes on as usual with a lot of din and bustle and nowhere is a politician seen suffering from any sort of shortages. They are leaders and their deeds are recorded as history. That is the ‘most unkindest cut’ of all, the worst a nation could do to its future generation.

In this nation of millions and millions and millions, nothing great gets recorded or noticed, nor is anything getting abhorred either. Here everything goes. Look around and see for yourself how happy politicians and their henchmen are, how self sufficient they are when it comes to their positions and power sharing practices. They all have only one colour, the colour of power. They all have only one mission. It is election and its manipulations. Taking the nation forward is naturally done by the people who have the least say in what we call democratic participation. It is a kind of participation which means, one party or the other or a set of parties will come to rule the rest after every election.

How many elections have this nation seen so far? How many leaders worth the salt have passed by all these election processes? What has the proportion of their representation been? Are we going to have visionaries like Nehrus and Patels and Gandhis and Tilaks? Do we not have them around us? I strongly believe that we have plenty of such souls around us. Unfortunately, it is our nasty political order that keeps this nation undermined and underdeveloped. Cleansing is the need of the hour. Political cleansing. All other social, administrative and governmental evils will stop to exist if a few visionaries could be spotted from these millions and let the reins of the nation remain in their hands. Their deeds will have to be recorded as history. At present we have no history worth recording.

We do not need politics and politicians anymore. India needs true Indians. All these so called political leaders who claim to have their slots in the history of the nation need to be dumped in the bins or back burner of history, and thus redeem the nation from the clutches of corruption, red-tapism, nepotism and favouritism. These evils have done the nation enough damages, and these damages are their legacy. It is not history. We need to have a new history written by true Indians.

History need not be the record of actions that happened in the past. Rather history needs to be the record of the present. It is time our nation had some men and women of vision to ink its history as it happens day in and day out through their own words and their corresponding deeds. Power needs to be wrested from positions of all types, and positions of all types need to breathe in power to the populi. History is their words and deeds. India can hardly afford to have these ‘political brokers’ any longer.

Why not make everyday a holiday!

IT’S AN ‘away-from-it-all experience’. It’s staying ‘far away from the maddening crowd’. Some say, “It’s staying cut off from the din and bustle of the pestering duties and killing responsibilities,” There is yet another school of holidayers who believe that holidaying is going to places and encountering excitements and differences. The attitude towards holidaying keeps on changing, and in this process, its very purpose looks hijacked by many external forces that come to play the moment one thinks of taking a break for a while.

How many people come home holidaying? How many people feel that they are in a holiday mood when they are actually undergoing the same? Do our personal concerns leave us the day we pack up and move out for a holiday trip? Lucky are those who have a kind of attitude to look at things from a distance and enjoy a sort of vicarious holidaying. This is not possible for many because most of us do not try to differentiate ourselves from the differences we are surrounded by. The fact is that we get merged with the ambience we live in so indistinguishably that we feel at times that the days are getting unattractive and it is time we had a break. What happens when we take a break? Virtually, nothing. We desperately try to redeem ourselves from the ruts we are in.

So long as that rut remains, there in us to invite us again into its very same old ways, things are not going to change. All the extravaganzas and exoticas, the holiday industry offers us are but, propaganda and they are as desperate as the holidayers themselves because their very business is nothing but a groove, and they keep telling you the same, and the same is falsely endorsed by all those who happen to fall prey to their temptations. Once you are in and have spent a sizeable chunk of money from your pocket, would you tell the rest of the world that the time you had had at a holiday stint was as boring as the very days you were running away from? No. The best way out is to learn to live life like a holiday stint.
In this cosmic dimension, the time we are ordained with is not so long, and the very same time is rapt in a rigorous material regime where we are tools and dyes that get used either by others or by some external agencies or forces. One among them is this holiday hawkers and their temptations. Again we fall prey to this mysterious spell of the unknown and we go on holidaying, doing nothing to alter our mindset. Our days offer us nothing to worry about or get bored of. It is we who make things worse. What difference does it make when we make our things worse and go for holidaying thinking that the latter is going to offset the former?

Kerala Hr. Secondary Education is going to dogs

Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash

Higher Secondary Examination paper valuations camps are working in full key all over Kerala, and the results are expected to be out in record time. This year, the Higher Secondary result is bound to find a permanent place in the Guinness book of world records for its historic pass out percentage. This result is going to be manipulated in such a way as to make all other education ministries that have gone past the present one not only incompetent but most student-unfriendly also.

Prior to the valuation camps, the teachers have been given strict instructions not to fail any student who has the least chance to get through the exam. The instructions are funny as well as “Babyish”. The teaching community is all frustrated with these instructions, and they complain that the very system of examination is a mere mockery and there is no use working hard or making a mark in the result table.

All those hard working students are going to be deeply frustrated for their futile efforts to have an edge over others. All are going to have their own edges and not many can claim any meritorious position when it comes to marks and their positioning in a higher education entry-platform where unfortunately it is not going to be the merit or marks that make the real difference but the bales of money the parents vie hard to pay out for a seat.

The government is doing everything possible to help out the management education system to have their field days once the results get out. The most student friendly education environment offered by the education Minister Mr. M. A. Baby gives the following instructions to the teachers who camp in all major cities to value papers.

Let us see a few instructions given to teachers:
· There should not be any attempt to fail a student if he/she has the least quality to win. Examination is to make students win.
· When it comes to English questions, forget about spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. Teachers have no idea what English is without these three.
· Even if the student writes the key word or one of the words that constitute the answer to a question, he/she should be respected with some marks.
· Complete or incomplete are the sentences, if there is an effort to write some nonsense, the teacher should need to be considerate. The aim is to make the candidate pass out.
· Instructions given to Physics teachers are really funny. If there were out-of-the syllabus questions, the candidate should get full marks.
· If the candidate has just written the question number, that is enough to get him or her full marks for that question.
· And for extreme cases, even if the teacher finds the candidate not writing the question number, the teacher should write the number to the out-of-syllabus question and give him/her full marks.
· And finally when the pass and fail proposition is like a cup and lip affair, the candidate should be given enough marks to get him through the exam.
· If the cut off mark (minimum marks to pass-out) is 20 and the candidate gets only 15, the teacher can make it 20 and declare the candidate ‘passed’. So go the instructions.

Where are these children going to end up in? Is this present ministry prepared to give seats for all these students for higher education? Is it wrong to suspect that there is a nexus between higher education institutions and the government?

We all know that the most literate state in the nation is a huge market for higher education institutions in the neighbouring states and this new ‘marking spree’ is offering greater market potentials for these institutions. When the controversy over management seat allocation and fee structure last year was raging in the state for months, these private institutions outside the state had made millions out of paid seats, and now keralite parents have already started biting their nails thinking of their wards plight after these once-in-a-life-time pass-out exercise. Where are they going accommodate all these future aspirants in?

The poor quality curriculum, insufficient academic infrastructure, dilapidated examination exercise and the ridiculous valuation instructions together take the Kerala higher education to dogs for sure. The coming generation is destined to be good for nothing, and the preset Kerala government will be carving a niche for itself for churning out the maximum number of good-for-nothings in a single go. Let them go out passed and the Party is there to get them employment by way of pasting posters, writing graffiti, staging dharnas, shouting slogans and getting beaten by the police of the coming ministries.

Tailpiece: In Kerala education system, things have come to such a pass that it is humanly impossible not to get through an examination. If you sit an exam, you will have to shoulder a ‘passed’ certificate. We cannot complain. Some of our institutions have the rarest reputation for issuing ‘passed’ certificates to those who haven’t written the exam at all. Sitting the exam itself is enough to make one pass out.

Exam fears and the resultant fevers are passé and it is going to be pass, pass, pass all the way from the first standard to 12th standard. After that it is all about engineers and MBAs and doctors and, at times, door-to-door and street-to-street salesmen trying to sell themselves for some pittance.

way back i am my friends

I was travelling pals. it has been a week since i had a post for you. i was in trivandrum and busy with some personal schores and i will be going away for while a couple of weeks too.

it has been raining over there and the life was pritty defficult. wishing you all a great week ahead, i bid you bye for a while. take care and live life to the full. yours jaypee

Shouldn’t Indian politicians retire from active politics?

THERE ARE not going to be many takers for the demand that there should be a cut off age for politicians. A nation with a 100 plus crores people, is being run by octogenarians and nonagenarians and the visions these people have for the nation, is as old as themselves, and all their services to the nation, notwithstanding, they need to have a moral responsibility to leave the reins in the hands of younger bloods.

All political ideologies are fine, as so long as they do the business of “nation making”, but the moment they deviate into the realm for personal gains and powers, it is not the political parties that need to be blamed, it is the demagogic politicians. It is their incorrigible pettishness and ignominious attitude towards their voters that makes the whole nation suffer. When people cross certain age, they show some signs of retirement. Therefore, they need to be given a platform, so that they can live the rest of their life with dignity and impart advise and give counsel to the younger generation. This way the best of those, so-called political brains would not go waste, while the younger generation would carry the nation forward.

I feel that the upper house of our Parliament is the right place for all those politicians who have crossed, say, a retirement age of sixty. Our upper house is now a safe haven for all businessmen and one-time beauty queens. It is not the popular mandate that makes them sit on those chairs. It is nomination, internal voting process and outright purchase. So why can’t we convert our upper house into a haven for all those senior ‘politicians’, irrespective of their political party lines? We could be a little more democratic too, by offering them a same platform to act and interact. This would avoid a lot of inconveniences to the nation.

Primarily, they can maintain their honour; secondly, they all will work as ‘think tanks’ for guiding the upcoming political generation; thirdly, they all will be serving the nation in a different way. And finally these seniors would stay off our arterial roads. The last thing would be the biggest benefit for the common man. When a young leader moves out, the population takes up a liking for him and they accommodate him wholeheartedly, but when an old politician of70 or 80, who has been taxing on the exchequer for ages, goes out, he would not be treated by all, alike.

People are fed up with them, and no voter is ready to accommodate them any further in any of the houses, of the state or of the centre. Either, as a concession or as a collateral expenditure, many people may agree to find them in the upper house. And sitting up there, they can do minimal harm, only to the already harmed nation.
So what if we amend our Constitution, as to make provisions for converting our upper house as an old age home for our senior ‘politicians’, of all ‘hues and cries?’ The best thing these men can do to our nation is, retire when they are in their best and let young bloods hold the chairs. Are their any takers for this ‘natural initiative?’

Myanmar: the military (A)junta’ and human rights

It is quite common these days to find people fight for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. But it is no longer common in Burama where the Burmese military junta detain people who do such fights. Demonstrations of any such types may be staged provided the parties get prior official permission.The above scenario has come about when a group of 10 civilized Myamarese thought it right to seriously fight for their basic rights.
Carrying placards and chanting slogans, they staged the protest in Yangon’s Thingangyun township, calling for lower prices and improved healthcare, quality education and better utility services. The protest ended peacefully in an hour so, but plainclothes police took away eight demonstrators as some 100 onlookers watched.
That protest was one of the first such demonstrations in recent years to challenge the junta’s economic mismanagement rather than its legal right to rule. The protesters detained in the February rally were released after signing an acknowledgment of police orders that ‘they should not hold any future public demonstrations without first obtaining official permission’.
Then the Burmese military government stated its intention to crack down on these human rights activists in the country’s official press. The announcement, that comprised a full page of the official newspaper, followed calls by human rights advocacy groups, including London-based Amnesty International, for Burmese authorities to investigate recent violent attacks on rights activists in the country.









Anti-government protests in Myanmar
Anti-government protests have been going on in Burma since mid August 2007, and on September 18 thousands of Buddhist monks took out protest demonstrations, and they were later given solidarity by Buddhist nuns on September 23. On September 24, 20,000 monks and nuns led 30,000 people in a protest march from the golden Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, past the offices of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. On September 22, monks marched to greet Aung San Suu Kyi. But things took a serious turn on September 25, when 2,000 people defied threats from Burma's junta and marched to Shwedagon Pagoda amid army trucks and warning of Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung not to violate Buddhist "rules and regulations." What followed was a series of arrests of prominent protesters, and matters went to the extent of troops barricading Shwedagon Pagoda and attacking the 700 people within.
Notwithstaning all these developments, 5,000 monks continued to protest in Yangon. Security forces began raiding monasteries and arresting monks throughout the country. The security forces resorted to even firing, killing nine people including Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai.
The junta’s cover up exercise, inteneded to keep things away from the international community, witnessed the blocking of Internet access to the country. If that was the case with international coverup, there were even arrests of people who carried mobile-bourne cameras. But the junta’s efforts to keep things under the carpet did neither succeed nor last for long. The violent way with which they treated the peaceful protesters invited strongly worded international condemnation leading to calls for an immediate halt to the violence.
The international comtemnation also took another dimension when Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fakuda demanded an explanation for killing their photojouranlist Nagai.
Despite increasingly strong calls for peace, the junta continued to attack monks and raid monasteries down the days. Now things have come to such a pass that thousands of monks are unaccounted for and their whereabouts unknown and more and more monasteries are being put under the military scanner. To cap it all, there are cases in which people testifying eyewitness accounts of injured protesters being burned alive by the military regime in a crematorium on the outskirts of Rangoon. And the story goes on and on.
Where do things stand internationally? When UN security council experts went for a Western-sponsored statement condemning the bloody military crackdown in Burma, China pressed for a softer and appeasing language and its Deputy UN Ambassador Liu Zhenmin prefered ‘consultations’ for a friendly and persuaive tone of language instead of the ones used in the draft submitted by the United States, Britain and France. The draft condemns "the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations" and urges the junta to "cease repressive measures" and release detainees and political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
When Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora stressed that it was urgent for the council to send a "strong, unified' message to Burma's ruling junta, the United States, finally, has threatened to push for UN sanctions against the military regime, including an arms embargo, if it refuses to halt its crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.
How do the world powers look at Burma and its internal problem? Are things likely to come under the controle of these so-called military powers when it comes to another military will, Junta or whatever? Lucky you poor Myanmars, your oppressive junta fortunately does not have any Weapons of Mass Destruction in their reserves.
So, you revered monks, you may keep on fighting till you succeed. Meanwhile, your spiritual intelligence should come to have the reason to fabricate some evidence to show the internatinal community that the Junta possesses some WMD in their military reserves. It would surely attract interntaional intervension. If you succeed at this, the big powers would reinstate peace and even democracy in Myanmar in the following months.
You all should understand that fighting for lower prices, improved healthcare, quality education, better utility services and the like are passe in these days of ‘war for peace’. jaypeesukham@yahoo.com

Leave Pakistan alone!

IT SEEMS that reason has started prevailing over the rhetoric in the US because the deputy secretary of the State, John Negroponte’s response to a query that the US was dictating anti-terrorism policy to Pakistan’s new government sounded so. He said that the US had no plan to interfere in the policy matters of the newly born government in Pakistan. It is more so when it comes to policies on anti-terrorism. But not many in Pakistan are going to buy these words, as they are very much aware of these men.

The presence of another senior state department official, Richard Boucher, has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.

The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the ‘unsolicited’ nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.

However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was already planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm the US’s support for the new Pakistani government.

“There is no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing,” Negroponte said. “This suggestion that we expect Pakistan to carry out activities on our behalf and at our behest that are not in Pakistan’s interest is simply wrong,” he added.

Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people, who believed that Negroponte’s visit was an attempt to shore up the President Pervez Musharraf, was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the White House are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Negroponte and Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with the elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others?

Cashing in on kids’ vacation is dangerous

Vaatupura A Jayaprakash

Where does a modern child suffer the most abuse from? Any idea? The English have a saying in this line: ‘there is virtually nothing that parents cannot do for their children”. Does it not sound good? Sure it does. But this saying has anther clause at the end. It is: “either good or bad”.

So, there is virtually nothing that parents cannot do for their children, either good or bad”. Again, where does a modern child suffer the most abuse from? You know by now. Yes, it is parents who pester their kids to do things they don’t want to. It is again parents who spoil their kids by stopping them from doing whatever they desperately want to do. These two propositions are equally dangerous.

As we are living in an age where everything is taken in terms of investment, educating the kids most cost-effectively and commercially viably is one of the biggest investment challenges faced by our nuclear parents. They go to any length to ensure that their kids get the best of education and, even if they find their otherwise brilliant kid become a moron engineer or an incorrigible doctor, not by any accident but by clear intent, the parents are not moved, neither are they able to perceive the danger it poses primarily to the child, secondly to the family, thirdly to the society and finally to the nation at large.

What all ways our parents adopt to achieve this fiat:

· It is studies all the way: from kindergarten to computer engineering. Students are supposed to study all the time.
· No play of any kind. If ever a child shows some inclination towards a game or a match or a leisure time activity, what the parents see is a catastrophe.
· Never meet or sit with pupils who are less privileged than thou. Socializing is taboo. Right to school and back to school bag and studies day in and day out is the regime.
· Short hours of the night are not meant for rejuvenating your body with a sound sleep. They are for bricking up the pillars of academic success.
· Kids ask for it, and parents have it for them no matter it is a two-wheeler for Rs. 50,000/- at the age of fifteen or an ATM card at the age of sixteen. Kids should never have any cares and worries. They are to make the life of their parents worth looked at enviously by the rest of the world.
· When the kid rams this two wheeler against a speeding lorry and ends up in four legs, the parents prove themselves again to be able to do anything to their kid, either good or bad. Forget it if a kid fires a few bullets at another.
· Today’s parents keep their kids fed (up) with any junk stuff that has an English or alien string attached even if the kid is going to swoon in the school assembly queue or collapse to death in an examination hall as result of this unhealthy food habit.
· Sun, rain, wind and mist are the most unhealthy of natural ‘discomforts’ our kids are exposed to and our parents keep their kids cocooned in, and they grow like broiler chicken. If the power fails for a couple of hours, you will find them either dead or worth culling.
· Running, walking, jumping up or down and falling in fours and threes and getting bruised, climbing trees and poking some fun up there, swimming down or upstream, playing in the mud or splashing in a rain-fed puddle, or getting wet in the rain or going cold in a winter evening are again unimaginable.
· The mother raises the kid and the cleaner of the school bus places it in a seat. In the evening, the cleaner raises the kid, and places it on the stretched hands of the waiting mother. In between these two times our kids are made to pick up the basics of what we call ‘the cutting edge’.
· When kids grow like this, we cannot expect them to be running or climbing up trees or stairs. If you read in the dailies that ‘engineering student got washed way, drowned to death, went missing, or even bitten by a stray dog’, don’t be surprised.
· Our kids know how to make money out of moth, but they do not know how to keep their breath in when they go under water or go up on a tree when a stray dog chases them.
· And come vacation, our kids are the worst affected. There is nothing called going to natal family, visiting friends, engaging in any kind of country games, sleeping for a few more hours, preparing for a personal interest, why should I say more, speaking the native language or showing some inherent signs of misbehavior or mischief. They are all anti-kid and are brutally shunned.
· And many of our kids grow into rogues of some rare orders. A few of them make it to the best of professional order, and the rest come to be called executors of crime and precipitators of many criminal tendencies.
· Snatching ornaments from unsuspecting women on the road, engaging in organized crimes like quotation work, donning some political clout and become a rogue politician, dealing in drugs or driving away stolen cars and two wheelers or taking pride in the worst forms of asocial activities like mafias.
· Our god’s own country has already become a perfect breeding ground for this rare breed of kids meticulously raised to meet the most severe test conditions. Another feather on the cap of those parents who prove again and again that there is nothing that they cannot do for their parents.

Summer vacation is round the corner. Vacation class industry has already started buying column centimeters in all major Dailies. These centres are out to catch them young and offer them the rare Midas touch in them in the long run. Private school managements and their precariously protected teachers have started hovering around families to grab the latest arrivals; infants and toddlers for future bookings. And our omnipotent parents are raking up their heads as how to find a better institution this time of the year so that their kids would make the best of hay when it shines in the long run. Where are our poor kids and their killing childhood liberties and interests going to end up in? Smoke!!!!!!

It is really difficult to be a kid. There was a time when kids were asked to live their life dangerously. Those times have gone. Now they are asked to live in perpetual dangers. These dangers include the ones pitted against them by their own parents.

Tailpiece: Summer vacation is to be made pressure-free for kids of all ages, and any effort, concerted or obvious, to make these two months tough for them, either by parents or by institutions, should be curtailed. The word ‘vacation’ includes a “vacat” in it. It needs to be defined as ‘vacate our kids from all their academic actions’. In the meantime, we need to include a lesson in our kids’ early curriculum elaborating on their own rights, privileges and responsibilities. It is this poor consciousness that makes our kids mere tools that help their parents fit themselves in the milieu they live in.

The presence of two US Officials irk Pakistanis

Vaatupura A. Jayaprakash
It seems that reason has started prevailing over rhetoric in the US, because the Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte’s response to a query that the US was dictating antiterrorism policy to Pakistan’s new government sounded so. He said that the US had no plan to interfere in the policy matters of the newly born government in Pakistan. It is more so when it comes to policies on anti-terrorism. Well and good. But not many in Pakistan are going to buy these words as they are very much aware of these men for long.
The presence of another Senior State Department official Richard Boucher has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.
The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Mr. Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some Dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the “unsolicited” nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as, “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.
However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm US support for the new Pakistani government.
"There was no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing," Negroponte said. "This suggestion that somehow we expect Pakistan to carry out activities, on our behalf and at our behest, that are not in Pakistan's interest is simply wrong."
Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people who believed that Mr. Negroponte's visit was an attempt to shore up President Pervez Musharraf was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the white house are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Mr. John Negroponte and Mr. Richard Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others? May reason prevail over rhetoric?