Category Archives: Published Stuff

Callous officials, wasted efforts

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The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
—Aristotle

With the declaration of results, Bangalore University students are finding the fruits as bitter as the roots.

Every year, the examination results bring some new complications for students who have slogged mercilessly throughout the year. This year it is the passing-out final year degree students of Bangalore University who are in deep trouble.

The results were out so late (they were expected June-end, but came only in August) that many couldn’t join the post-graduation courses they had applied for as the time for admission had elapsed. There are many students who have cleared the Indian Institute of Management MBA entrance examination and many other competitive exams, but now, because of the delay, all their efforts have simply gone down the drain.

Not only has a year been lost, but there is no certainty about the same competitive examinations being cleared in the subsequent attempts. Hence even bright students find their careers in jeopardy.

How much money you have to shell out and where, to get your work done, seems to be an open secret. A newspaper report once busted a racket in a college where you could “hire” your paper for a couple of days for Rs 5000. In this way, you could change your answers and make additions long after submitting your paper on the day of the examination. Some might find this process too tedious. They simply pay to pass directly.

A girl student was shocked to find that she had failed, but on cross-checking with the university, she found that she was actually a rank holder! In another case, a bundle of answer papers wasn’t dispatched from the examination to the valuation centre. This was discovered after the results were out.

Last year’s degree results had really gone haywire. Insiders had taken money and tampered with the annual examination results. An example is a student who had got 08 marks in a subject. He had it changed to 80. We have heard of students failing narrowly in subjects and paying money to pass. But this was a case of bribery in which someone who hadn’t even got double digits had ended up with distinction.

When the students started receiving their mark sheets in mid-1991, there were shock waves in the degree colleges. Some students had got through in subjects they had not even studied. Kannada students passed in Hindi. And Hindi students failed in Kannada. The examinations might have taken place in 1991, but many had passed in 1981! The confusion of the subjects and the years was bad enough, but studying hard for an examination, writing it and finding oneself marked absent was more frustrating. On the other hand, absent students found themselves passing out with flying colours.

Such mix-ups create havoc in a student’s life. If you thought having your subject changed was the limit, how about a change of faculty. This is just what happened after a certain “scrutiny” had taken place in the university. One shudders to think what the picture might have been before the scrutiny.

The reports on the goings-on in the university were many. Tampering had taken place at all stages from evaluation to tabulation. At places 3 was made 8, while 1 had become 9. Hence 35 could easily be made 85 and so on. Such alterations can be detected, but what if the answer booklet itself had been altered.

The university officials said they were inquiring into the matter. The result of the inquiry was that 3,002 errors were detected. Great! But how many undetected? Maybe tens of thousands. How many hours of hard work down the drain? Lakhs and lakhs…

Students went on strike. Rasta rokos. Cries for autonomy. Demands for justice. Articles and letters in newspapers. The result? A big naught.

Sending your papers for revaluation means losing a hundred rupees. Retotalling means twenty lost. A student had got first class and sent one of his papers for revaluation. The result was an increase of one mark. The remarks? Failed! This engineering student took his case to the newspapers which published both his mark sheets.

Such errors cause great hardship and come in the way of further studies. Another engineering student, who got a first class, was taken aback to find that the official concerned had entered his class as second. He went to the States for a post-graduate course. The institute there demanded a first division and rejected the faulty certificate. The student’s father gave the certificate for correction. The university lost it. Time was lost and the student even faced the prospect of repatriation.

The university has a penchant for losing important documents. This is just another example of carelessness where one wrong word on a certificate can result in the destruction of a career. With rising frustration, students are losing faith in the system.

In 1990, the “Year of the Engineering Student”, future engineers saw their results go topsy-turvy. Batches of students were marked absent in certain papers. A survey was done and it was found that about 30 per cent of the students had received incorrect mark sheets. Three out of ten is quite high.

The whole incident took an unexpected turn when the Vice Chancellor nullified the results of more than a hundred students. A hundred careers knocked down in a single stroke.

Bangalore University is not a stray case. It is an integral part of the whole education system which is decaying.

Till the eighties, there was faith left at least in the civil services, the IITs and the IIMs. The civil services papers are now being leaked regularly while the latest IIT-JEE, it was reported, had six faulty questions in a total of 40. With thousands taking the examination, a single question can cause a massive swing in the merit list. What do you make of six wrong questions?

One incident shows that at least the average student hasn’t lost his sense of humour.

There was a poster, with three bold words: Jesus never fails.
To this, someone had scribbled as addition:
…because he never was a student of Bangalore University

(This article appeared in Deccan Herald newspaper on October 16, 1992)

What’s in a name did you say?

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Have you even wondered how the planets of our solar system have been named? Or the days of the week? Or, for that matter, the months of the year?

The planets were named after the Roman Gods. In Roman mythology, Mercury was the messenger god and hence the swiftest. The planet is fastest while going around the sun, taking just 88 earth days. Pluto, in contrast, takes 248 years for its revolution! Venus was the goddess of love and beauty. The planet is surrounded by white clouds giving it a mystique and a dreamy look. This ‘morning and evening star’ is also the brightest object in the night sky. Mars is the god of war. When we think of war, we think of bloodshed. Mars is ‘the Red Planet,’ red denoting the colour of blood.

Jupiter is the chief Roman God. It is also the largest planet of the solar system. Saturn, the god of agriculture is Jupiter’s father. It is the second largest planet. Uranus, the seventh planet is blue in colour and according to legend, lord of the sky. Neptune is the god of the oceans and is greenish-blue in colour like the sea.

Pluto is god of the underworld (hell), a place below the earth which is dark and dull. Pluto is so far away from the sun that it appears only like a bright star. Thus, it is always night in Pluto.

The days of the week are named after the Scandavian Gods.

Sunday is named after the sun and Monday after the moon. Tuesday after Tyr, the god of war. (In German mythology, it is Tiw, the dark god). Woden, the greatest Scandavian god had the fourth day of the week named after him and Thursday gets its name from Thor, the god of thunder.  Friday was Freya’s day. Legend has it that Freya’s husband was Woden, and their son was Thor. Both had days named after them and as they didn’t want her to be jealous, the next day, Friday, was her day. Finally, Saturday was ‘Saturn’s day.’

For the months of the year, we again have to look to Roman mythology and the Latin language.

January is named after Janus, the protector of the gateway of heaven. February, after februalia, a time when sacrifices are made for atoning sins. March after Mars, the god of war. The next two months being part of spring are named that way. April comes from ‘ap erire,’ Latin, meaning to open buds. May after Maia, goddess of growth of plants.

June comes from juvenis, Latin for youth. Some sources also say that April is named after Aprilis and that February and June are named after the gods Felruas and Juno respectively. July uis named after Julius Caeser while August after his grand-nephew Augustus Caeser.

September, October, November and December come from the Latin words Septem, Octo, Novem and Decem which mean 7,8,9 and 10. But September is the ninth month and December is the twelfth month in our calendar today. The reason why the above names are given is that at that time, the first month was March resulting in September being the seventh month. The same goes for the other three months.

So English is a hybrid of languages from all over the world, Latin and Greek having the greatest influence. More than 60 per cent of English words come directly from Latin and Greco-Latin or through French.

(This article appeared in the Young World section of The Hindu newspaper on October 10, 1992)

United we fall?

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“Divided we stand, united we fall.” That seems to be the motto of the new world. We talk so much of a new world order and a united globe, but events in Europe, the erstwhile USSR and Asia are contrary to all these ideas.

Europe is turning out to be a real paradox. On one hand there is great talk of Europe’s unification and a European Council, but on the other hand the continent’s individual nations do not appear to be staying in one piece.

The biggest example of this is Yugoslavia which for months has been in the world headlines. The situation there is deteriorating day by day and today a stalemate marks the country’s future. Even the special UN Peace Keeping Force for Yugoslavia does not seem to be making much headway.

The former Yugoslavia had six federal republics and the president was selected on a rota system. What started as a row over who the next president should be ended up as one of the bloodiest battles and secessions seen in recent times. Now everyone, right from the common populace is tired of the hatred and bloodshed that is prevalent there. Even in the breakaway republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is a lot of infighting between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims. A bitter battle was witnessed for the possession of its capital, Sarajevo, recently. So even if Yugoslavia breaks into all its former republics, peace will be prevalent.

Another European country that disintegrated was Czechoslovakia, though the process of division did not witness much bloodshed. Now we have the Czech and Slovak republics.

Even the United Kingdom does not seem to be so united. Ulster has been trying to break away for years with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) causing immense damage. Now even public opinion is Scotland is going strongly in favour of absolute independence. If things in Scotland get as bad as in Ulster, no one might be able to do anything about it. Hence Great Britain may not exist and England might be left all alone.

Even Helmut Kohl, the strongman of Germany (the other EEC power) does not seem to have his country under control. A united Germany has left a lot of disillusionment everywhere and most of the East Germans now wish that Germany should have stayed divided.

The biggest example of disintegration is the former USSR which is currently in total disarray. The Baltic republics — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — have already broken away. What is left is the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) which is an uneasy alliance with little in common. This could break into 12 republics anytime. The tensions between the Russian Federation and Ukraine do not help matters. Again, Chechnya in the Russian Federation has witnessed cries of independence. So no one can really tell how many pieces the former USSR will break into in the years to come.

There are also many secessionists waiting like dormant volcanoes in various countries. One does not quite know when the eruptions will take place. The Kurds in West Asia have been nurturing dreams of a separate homeland for ages, waiting for the right chance. They got one when the US attacked and devastated Iraq in the Gulf War. The Kurds then started rebelling and fighting for a separate country. It was only the brute force of Saddam Hussein that stopped them.

Turmoil in Pakistan could result in Sindh, which is shouting for independence. The fall of communism in China will result in Tibet demanding autonomy.

Then India sadly faces a problem in this aspect too. In 1947, Pakistan broke away from India. Since then Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in 1971. India, however managed to stay in one piece. But for how long? Punjab and Kashmir are two states where there are militant uprisings in order to part ways with India. Now even international attention has been focuses on these two states.

The Punjab problem, with the cry of Khalistan, has been raging on for such a long time that people have finally got bored of it. It is a shame because so many innocent civilians are being killed endlessly day after day.

The problem has so far claimed the lives of a prime minister, a former army chief, umpteen high officials, a large number of security personnel and tens of thousands of innocent victims. On the whole, millions have been badly affected.

The Kashmir problem is different from the one in Punjab in the sense that less people are killed there. But then, the cry for independence (from India) is fast acquiring the dimensions of a mass movement.

We further have the problem of more and more groups asking for statehood, i.e., just as Punjab and Kashmir want to break away from India, these groups want to break away from their respective states. Prominent among these are cries for Jharkhand in Bihar, Bodoland in Assam and Gorkhaland in West Bengal. At present we have 25 states and if everyone has his way, we would end up with 40 states!

So, we still have a long way to go before we can seriously talk of a united world.

(This article appeared in Deccan Chronicle on September 13, 1992)

DD has you in tears

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tv-2619649_1280An American resident today has access to dozens of TV channels. A technique is now being devised to make 600 channels available, most of them specialized. This makes the Indian viewer feel that he is living the Stone Age.

Doordarshan cannot even give one channel of clean entertainment and an intolerable ennui is shelled out day after day. The metros prove no better than poor cousins of the national channel. For variety, there is Star TV but satellite TV in India is definitely not free viewing.

Doordarshan begins with its morning transmission service, which is a mundane affair. After hearing your national song, your host comes along with a puppet in tandem presenting you with an update of the population clock. In the next two hours or so, you are subjected to more moral lectures and world philosophies that your father could have ever hoped to give you.

One has to have considerable talent to view your ideas in a ten-minute serial and talent is one thing clearly lacking here. Most of the serials dwell on humour, but the jokes fall far short of making you smile, let alone laugh. One misses nothing if all these serials are missed. Upbeat are only the slick business serials. Now even this ‘light’ entertainment has been replaced by ‘Yesterday in Parliament’, making you wish that yesterday had stayed in yesterday.

If the morning transmission is bad, the afternoon is worse. The hosts in the hour that they are present talk nothing but unoriginal, flat and repetitive nonsense. Their artificiality is enough to get on your nerves.

In the children’s stories, the kids seem more involved in clapping, smiling and talking than in actually listening to the story. The subsequent serials for adults dwell too much on morals, are too goody-goody, too obvious and sans any creativity at all. The less said about the acting and direction, the better.

The quickness and frequency in showing repeats is also appalling. More than a year back, afternoon transmission had interviews with housewives on what programmes they liked.

The answer was unanimous, ‘film song’. No one said much about the serials on information and entertainment.

The 9’O clock serials are average with few good contributions here and there. But on reading that more than 300 serials are in the cans and 4000 plus in the files, one questions the selection procedure.

The Punjab and Co. serials have been shown ad nauseam. In fact Doordarshan has done a greater job that the government in pursuit of national integration.

The news presented is highly unprofessional. Sometimes the number of mistakes in a single bulletin cannot be counted on one’s fingers.

Many a time, the news narration and the picture on your screen do not coincide. Many a time, the wrong and very flustered announcer is shown.

Authorities had made it clear some time back that they preferred smiling faces to correct pronunciation and presentation. Serious Salma Sultan was booked and others, with all their faults were excused thanks to their smiles. The number of birth and death anniversaries announced is increasingly alarmingly day by day. Then there are other minor and major mistakes. Once, when one of them said ‘tragic tragedy’, one was left wondering, what else? Sabitini once beat Graf 5-4 in a tennis set. When the pre-World Cup triangular series cricket matches were on, DD announced one night that West Indies were out of the tournament. At that stage, it was possible for the Windies to even top the table! The file photographs of prominent personalities also seem to be limited in the news desk.

Then, a news editor is under constant pressure and may end up showing a news item or giving prominence to something he doesn’t want to.

One has often heard of news editors being shifted for insignificant reasons.

The Sunday World of Sports programme still lacks the élan and viewership had dropped dismal below 5 per cent at one stage. The presenters amaze you at times.

Boris ‘Bo-kaar’ was Wimbledon champ in ’86. Once the presenter was struggling to give the name of the fourth participant in the Women’s Asiad winners relay and simply ended with ‘she finished the race’. What really took the cake was a tremulous and red-eyed professional expert one Sunday afternoon. The suffering and nervousness would have put even an amateur to shame. A confused view of events was presented. After trial and error, three combinations of teams of the pre-World Cup triangular cricket series were given and all three were wrong!

Most of the current affairs programmes end up as boring discussions between participants and a really good serial ‘The World This Week’ with its breaks is off the air more Fridays than off it.

Doordarshan has its fair share of good and bad announcers, but quite a high number of mistakes are made. Occasionally the camera is focused too early. Once when a hostess was caught off-guard, she bit her tongue like a small child and at another time was found shouting at someone. Bangalore Doordarshan cameras once captured an announcer happily drinking water.

When Rajiv Gandhi got assassinated, the announcer was found sans make-up and one even had her eyes moistened with tears. This is just too much. In a professional set-up, there is no need to get sentimental.

However, what was really disastrous was one Saturday afternoon hostess. The day’s guest was a poetess of humour. After cracking umpteen jokes, no more that a faint smile came on the lips of the hostess. When the guest questioned the lack of laughter, the reason given was that there were many problems on the home front! One couldn’t believe one’s ears, for after all, this is national network and announcers can stuff their nonsense at home.

The CPC had started with a lot of fanfare and does concentrate on ‘slickness’, but even that hasn’t made much headway with mostly sing-song series being presented.

The family planning and immunization songs are being presented with such frequency and regularity, that they might soon become our national songs.

At the beginning of this year, Star TV viewership was no more than 4 per cent.

A recent survey shows figures shooting to 25 per cent with a similar percentage contemplating a connection. So once the Star TV Hindi channel is installed, DD will face extinction if it doesn’t improve itself considerably, as viewers will switch in large numbers, irrespective of the fact whether they have to pay for satellite TV or not.

(This article appeared in Deccan Herald newspaper in 1992)

Is there life after cricket?

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cricket-166794_1280Come the World Cup and a cricket-crazy nation like India is bound to go berserk. Now, with the World Cup reaching its climax, life’s a hollow emptiness without the willow. Nero might have fiddled while Rome was burning, but no one is going to budge from the TV room while cricket is being played.

Newspapers and magazines write cricket. Companies and business establishments think cricket. The TV buffs see nothing but cricket. And what about the cricket nuts? They see cricket, think cricket, talk cricket, walk cricket, eat cricket, sleep cricket and dream cricket. In fact, they breathe cricket and live cricket. Parks and open spaces are filled with crowds and heated debates. If there is anything mightier than the bat, it is the ball. Restaurants resonate with the names of cricket stars and offices reverberate with endless figures, statistics, numbers, overs, runs and matches.

Azhar doesn’t know a thing about field placing. Ask the bloke at the grocery store, he knows all that there is to know. Gooch doesn’t know what’s in store for him; the chap behind the restaurant counter smugly knows all. Shastri can’t understand what’s going wrong with him. The pan-patti wala can comprehend that quite easily. “Scindia can’t even select a team of the Nineties; I could choose one for the 21st century!”

“All this — and much more;
at your local grocery store.”

One ice-cream shop in Fraser Town proudly offers a 5 per cent discount the day India wins a match. Another shop in the same locality gives a similar discount when any ‘fan’ wants to talk to a ‘star’ Down Under. One innovative service centre on Langford Road declares in the paper” “Watch the World Cup live in AC comfort while you buy our tyres or get your wheel balancing, wheel alignment and engine tune up,” and hence the newspapers seem to be filled with little else, with most dailies devoting one full page to the pyjama game. Letters to the Editor are numerous on the rights and wrongs committed on and off the field. “Ah! Azhar could learn a few things from me!” Everyone seems to think.

Can companies fall far behind? Kapil and Tendulkar prefer Boost while Manjrekar prefer Complan. From Complan boy and Complan girl to Complan star. Boy, you’ve come a long way. However, Kambli would settle for something new from Nestle. Power might be an old favourite and Action the official for the Indian squad in the World Cup, but Prabhakar clearly prefers Status from Lakhani.

Eveready changes its tune from ‘Give me red!’ to ‘Give them power’ ‘n ‘Charge ‘em up’, a scheme to courier messages to the Indian team Down Under with an autographed acknowledgement in return.
Another ad in the paper screams:
“Listen to Sunil Gavaskar’s views on India’s chances in the World Cup, call…”

The magazines too leave no stone unturned with the fullest tournament coverage and all sorts of ‘Guess who?’ contests. Bush is back yet again with its great catches, hooking everyone from Tom Alter to Kabir Bedi.

As one commentator keeps on saying in every match; “It’s all happening here.” Well, it’s all happening here too!

With the latest satellite TV witnessing a full boom, cricket maniacs shouted, fretted, fumed, and clamoured in the latter part of February to get their connections fitted on time, from the ‘friendly neighbourhood Star-man’, who instantly has become a superhero overnight. For in Star TV lies salvation from frustrating blanks like ‘Sorry for the interruption’ and ‘Break in satellite link is regretted’, hallmark of Doordarshan, India Ltd.

Come a win and jubilations and fairy lights all over, with merrymaking galore, but come a loss and gloom casts it pale shadow over the country. A newly married youth commits suicide in Surat “in total despair and frustration following India’s defeat.”

However, the cricket fanatics of this nation are always on the hunt for a scapegoat and Ravi J. Shastri, erstwhile ‘Champion of champions’ fits the bill perfectly. He is now ‘Slowcoach of slowcoaches’ and hence must go. Residents of Girgaum, Bombay, garland his cutout with chappal malas. The nation proves that it can raise any mortal to the pedestal of demi-God and bring him back down to earth with equal ease. Effigies of Shastri are burnt with the same zeal and enthusiasm and hatred as one would set ablaze dummies of political leaders.

Posters in Malleswaram advise Scindia to do away with Shastri. Four enterprising youths on two motorbikes ride through Bangalore with posters of ‘Shastri Down Down’ to make their point. Manmohan’s budget wouldn’t budge them. The Punjab polls won’t interest them. Bush’s pre-election jitters couldn’t shake them. Russia’s latest update can’t affect them. Shastri’s performance, however, is enough to give them sleepless nights and he must go.

Another cricket crazy nation appears to be South Africa, fresh after 20 years in the wilderness. Someone suggested that F.W. De Clerk hold his referendum on the day of the S. Africa-Australia tie as very few people would turn up to say no! One Cabinet Minister said at the beginning of a press conference, “Let’s keep this short, I want to get back to the commentary.” With the news of its victory over Australia, South Africa virtually came to a halt. Financial markets went on hold and radio stations broke into their normal programmes to announce the victory. Even the president himself was interrupted from a weekly Cabinet meeting, which he stopped and then sent a telegram, a congratulatory message to the team.

With the countdown to the World Cup final beginning, the question everyone must be asking is; “Is there life after cricket?”

(This article appeared in Deccan Herald newspaper on March 23, 1992)

Winds of change

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No head of Russia/USSR/CIS is safe and his ideologies are far from eternal. Lenin (who ruled from 1917-24) was the first head of state of the Soviet Union. When Stalin (1924-53) came to power, he disregarded most of Lenin’s ideologies and proved to be a solid dictator for 29 years. After that came Khrushchev (1953-64) who decried Stalin’s style of ruling and introduced glasnost and perestroika. Brezhnev (1964-82) was totally opposed to any such ideas and reacted with a coup when Khrushchev was holidaying in Crimea. He destroyed all the foundations of reform, which were laid by Khrushchev and was a Communist to the very depth of his soul. Then Yuri Andropov (1982-84) who was more or less a moderate, came, and after him Chernenko (1984-85) a staunch hardliner.

So the union had been alternating between a hardliner and reformist for most of its time and each leader attacked his immediate predecessor. Gorbochev (1985-91) went many steps further and attacked all of his predecessors right up to Lenin and was responsible for dismantling Communism in the Soviet Union. After that, for a very brief period a hardliner, Yanayev took over. Now we have Yelstin, who was supposed to be a champion democrat, but he is also in deep water and his position is far from safe, with everyone including his Vice-President attacking him.

Yesterday, today or tomorrow—no Russian leader is sure of respect and approval from his future generation.

(This appeared as a Letter to the Editor in The Times of India in 1991)