Ideas & Lessons from Experience

Which do you think is the single biggest challenge India/your community (choose any one) will face in the next decade?

2011-08-04T07:05:00.001-07:00

Next big challenge for India is Education. India's population is huge. But we don't have sufficient employment opportunities to allow sustaining livelihoods for mass. From farming sector to highly technology driven manufacturing sector, we lack skilled manpower. This is mainly because of the lack of proper education and/or lack of opportunities to develop skills.

For example, farmers are not trained to choose best fertilizer for their soil and crop. Most farmers chose fertilizer based on its price ("cheaper is best") and not on its properties. They are not even trained to know what quantity to use. This is responsible for degradation of soil properties required for agricultural activities.

Similarly, in mining sector, there is fast advancement in technology used to reap the minerals at faster rate to meet demands. But the training of manpower is not keeping pace with these advancements. The sophisticated technology has come to the doors, but its efficient utilization and maintenance remains a challenge. To address this challenge, one of the solutions may be to form an Association which will check the trend of present skills and skill demands. It will unite respective education fields with the industries to enhance employability.

Building National Character

2010-07-29T23:17:00.000-07:00

Cambridge dictionary defines 'nation' as "a country, especially when thought as a large group of people living in one area with their own government, language, tradition, etc." So by 'National Character' it means the character exhibited by people or group of individuals in that nation. When we talk about India, its national character is defined by its unity in diversity making it a largest democracy in the world. But still, India faces many challenges and national character needs to be improved.

National character is nothing but just a reflection of ‘majority character’ of people. The way an individual behaves and acts in society, defines his character which is reflected at society level in particular and at national level at large. As an individual grows from infancy to adulthood, a national character is developed.

According to me, there are six major factors that guide the character building of an individual.
1.Parents
2.Teachers
3.National Leaders
4.Opportunities
5.Resources Available
6.Social Position

Parents and teachers are key factors, which develop the basic characteristics of an individual as he grows from infancy to adulthood. Once a person becomes an adult, rest of the factors contribute more in shaping his societal character which defines national character.

Unlike other animals, man’s survival is dependent on his behaviour pattern. Man does not have any genetically programmed instincts like, for example, birds to build nest. Birds depend on parents only for physical support during infancy. All the characteristics required for its survival are written in its genetic codes. But in human beings, a new born is helpless without dependency on elders. Human infant has lot to learn in order to survive. He has to learn language, human values, food habits, and culture of the society he lives in. These basic characteristics of survival are learnt mainly from Parents and Teachers. Talking in modern terms – drive for survival is learnt from home and school where a new born learns the basic sciences and history of the society and human civilisation. One of the best examples of parent-teacher-built-character is Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Jijamata was a source of motivation and guidance to him, to fight and eradicate slavery, injustice, inequality and create a sense of ‘swaraj’ in minds of his followers. And Shri Ramdas Swami, his guru, guided him through planning and strategies. Both, mata and guru, created ‘Chhatrapati’ Shivaji Maharaj.

Once an infant becomes adult, he begins to comprehend society and culture. He now has to decide his path of survival based on his knowledge and interest. During this phase, he senses the world around and tries to interpret every aspect of life to lead his path. In this process, mainly four factors drive shaping of an individual’s character –

1.National Leaders
By National Leaders, I don’t mean only political leaders, but all the leading personalities in their respective profession like Lata Mangeshkar, Sachin Tendulkar, Dr.APJ Kalam, some corporate leaders like Ratan Tata, Dhirubhai Ambani, Narayan Murthy, etc. When a person learns his own line of interest, he develops curiosity to know and learn from life of such leading persons. Such leaders become his role models. He gains motivation and indirect moral support from such famous personalities.

In movie “Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon (2003)”, it is very lucidly shown how Chutki tries to learn and act/dance like Madhuri Dixit. For Chutki, Madhura Dixit was her ultimate aim and only role model in her life. Similarly, every person tries to implement his role model’s way of thinking and living in his own life. In short, the character of such leading personalities slowly gets embedded in an individual and it defines his character.

2.Opportunities
Apart from gaining motivation and moral support from National Leaders, every individual requires opportunities to drive his interest in life. In large mass of human beings, it is rarest possibility of everyone enjoying equal opportunity. For example, with the advantage of south-westerly and north-easterly winds during ‘sail-trade-period’, Gujarat became a business hub in ancient India. It was mere advantage of natural course of winds which provided an opportunity for Gujarat to become a major business hub in ancient India. With time, people started realising this opportunity and character of Gujarat became business oriented.

Let us consider another example of cricket. In India, it is the most popular game. In mass of crores, there are very bright chances of tracing few more Sachin Tendulkars. Success of such budding Sachins remain culminated at ‘gali-cricket-board’ due to lack of infrastructural opportunities, though being most popular game. They end up becoming star gali-cricketer, but never get chance/opportunity to climb up ladder for national team.

Thus, with opportunities, enthused character is developed and is realized by mass. But with lack of opportunities, it might lead to suppression of talent, hypertension, frustration, unstable behaviour, violence, and sense of despair. Thus, opportunity plays a critical role in building character.

3.Resources Available
Analogous with opportunities, if resources are available as per requirement, decent character is reflected in individual. Whereas lack of same leads to stealing, robbing, violence, regionalism, sense of insecurity, etc. Drinking water problems has been, and is still, a prominent problem in many parts of India, leading to unproductive arguments and disparity. But one of the major deciding resources is funds. Money plays a very critical role in ‘generating’ opportunities and ‘fulfilling’ the requirement of other resources. For majority of Indians, money is the key problem.

4.Social Position
In ancient India, social position of a person was mainly defined by his caste. But in modern India, I would say, it is no more dependent on caste. By social position, I mean - reputation and quality of network of family relations in society that an individual’s family enjoys resting on the efforts of ancestors. For example, Tatas and Ambanis. Of course, they themselves are great personalities, but the social status of their ancestors was driving their character building.

If all the above factors are positively driving interest of a person, then his character pushes national development not only economically but also morally. If people achieve what they want to, then nation develops a very good knowledge and experience bank, which helps next generations to improve further. So to build an effective national character, policy makers and nation guardians shall consider –

i. India experiences maximum teacher absentees in whole world. This is a major obstacle in building basic character of a person. So proper training, awareness and incentive scheme needs to be defined to motivate teachers to build national character.

ii. Promotions similar to “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” for generating awareness in parents and guardians can also be a very effective way of improving parenting in India.

iii. Every individual has his own role model. He definitely copies, at least some part of, his role model’s character. So care should be taken that good personalities are promoted through some interactive sessions or through promotional ads for national building.

iv. Having all above, will develop the character, but final endorsement is done by opportunities and resources available. So through surveys and proper research, the requirements and means to achieve them, shall be identified and acted upon.

-Anup Sheshadri
(all views are personal)

Veggie vs Nonnie

2010-07-14T07:41:00.000-07:00

Once, I was debating with my two self – one supporting the veg food and the other supporting non-veg food. I will call my first self as Veggie and the second one as Nonnie.

Veggie – you people are the monsters. You kill a living creature, and make him suffer through the process of killing. You take someone’s life for filling your own stomach. The victim cries for help, for its wonderful life. But you just rip off and relish the blood. How fair is this for you?

Nonnie – well Veggie. Plants are also proven to be the living creatures and also proved to perform all the functions a living creature performs. What do you do then? Aren’t you killing a living creature for your stomach? Aren’t you making it suffer?

Veggie – No. You at least see the pain in your prey. But still you kill it. We don’t see the sufferings in vegetation. It is meant for the survival of other living creatures - unlike slaughtering mass of animals for food.

Nonnie – you don’t see the signs of sufferings, so you would enjoy it as your “right of survival”? It will be one of the greatest inhuman acts of exploitation. You exploit the innocence of the living creature failing to show signs of emotions.

1. Isn’t an agriculture lands an open slaughter house? You have acres of land cultivating crops (living creatures) and then ripping off the life from it in cycles. We at least have closed slaughters.

2. I would like to take an example of our national fruit Mango. What do you believe mango to be? I would say, it is a womb of a mango tree. It is meant to provide nourishment for the seed (baby) inside. Don’t you enjoy the juice of this womb? Don’t you try to suck all the sweetness of this womb and then through off the baby (seed)? It is only a fortunate fact that the baby can still grow and reproduce more.

3. Apart from that, don’t we offer sexual organs of plants (flowers) to worshiping idols? How do you explain that?

With this debate, I don’t want you to misunderstand me in favour of anyone. I am not trying to persuade anyone to eat veg/nonveg or leave eating veg/nonveg. I am not at all trying to show faourism to either Veggie or Nonnie. What I am trying to show is just the way we look at things. We as living creatures require food for survival. And its merely for this survival, we have adopted various options for fulfilling our needs. Some of us adopted vegetarian food and some adopted non-vegetarian food. If you put sentiments aside and think based on logic, both groups of people are killers. I won’t say murderers. Because murder means – killing just as an act of revenge or adventure & without any purpose. Nature is designed with balance of things. Overexploitation of resources available to us, will lead to an unstable environment with chaos all around. So don’t exploit resources so much that it becomes a luxurious item for future generations.

Why Caste matters more than Family ?

2010-04-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

Today, I was having discussion on some national issues with Mr. Vipin (one of the BIOM Kirandul complex` mine shift-incharge). In the discussion, he posed a very simple question whose answer can be very sophisticated. - "When a person uses abusing words for your mother, father and sister, you may tolerate it to some extent. But when a person talks abusing about your caste, creed, locality, nationality, or religion - you don't give a room for tolerance. You are retaliated much quickly. You start counter-reacting as soon you listen. Your parents have fostered you since your birth, but still you are more hurt when you are abused in name of your caste/creed/religion rather than parents. Why so??"

I started wondering searching for answer. It was very interesting behavior of man he made me realize. Generally, most of the people are more sensitive to these issues leading to "kshetra-vaad", communism, linguistic fights, etc. There are many current examples to support the fact- "Marathi manus", "aamchi Mumbai & UP/Bihar", "Hindu-Muslim", "India-Pakistan", etc. But can you give, at least few, examples for national issues resulting from abusing ones family?

Through brain-storming, what he interpreted is - when one is abused for his caste/creed/religion, along with him, the whole community gets abused and hence he gets support to fight against that person. In this fight, the community generalizes their enemy to be the opposite community rather than the individual or group that abused. This "generalized abuse" then goes on and ultimately becomes a national or international issue. Whereas, if a person is abused for family, only you and your family is hurt. Who is going to risk themselves for you and your family? No one. It becomes a personal fight. So in this case, even if you are strongly retaliated, the issue dies down at local society level and doesn't make a state or national issue.

After discussing this issue, I threw light on the strong motivation of terrorist giving birth to "suicide bombers". These days, this term has become so common that the terrorist now seem more like 'terror robots' than human-beings. And it was extremely surprising for me, when I read that the recent suicide-bombers in Russia (March 2010) were females. How strong must be the motivation of such individuals giving up their life? It is definitely detrimental to society, but it can be a good case study to learn how terrorists manage to do it. It is also a false tracked motivation. But it makes me appreciate terrorists, because its the kind of motivation, over which no security can have a control. The best example - 9/11 terrorist attack. It serves the purpose of terrorist and we can do nothing but just read the death count next day in newspaper. How can an individual be so motivated to give up his (now - also her) life??

He gave a very simple answer - "This operating system, what we call as brain, can be easily corrupted by inserting viruses. If a person is educated, his antivirus is strong; but there can be a virus, customized to corrupt that too. For an uneducated person, you may throw any virus to corrupt him, because his antivirus is almost outdated."

"Lets take an example. A gang takes hold of young children of age group 10-15, who have either studied up to 10th or not at all. The gang leader assures them - I will pay your family 5 lakh rupees if you kill this person. Can a family survive on that amount for more than 2 years or at most 5 years? For that poor little kid, 5 lakh rupees seems a huge amount to take care of his family for lifetime. But is that so? He is unaware of his family's monetary requirements. This virus of "5 lakh rupees" shuts down the noble path in his operating system and kills the person hoping to survive his family. In the end, the virus has not only shut down the noble path, but has totally erased it from his system. He continues doing it whenever he or his family requires money."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a very nice discussion with him. It made me realize how things at personal level can become a national or international issue. The reasons for this can be many - improper education, family background, local culture, past events (history), monetary pressure, etc. All these reasons are so much criss-crossed that its almost impossible to eradicate such happenings from societies. At some level, these events are bound to occur. Its a challenge for leaders to minimize such events.

Reservation with Purpose

2009-11-01T01:00:00.000-07:00

These days, all the schools, colleges, institutes, and universities are under pressure to develop infrastructure for accommodating increased reservation seats. Why we need to increase the reservation quota? What is its purpose after all?

Concept of reservation was started long back in the British rule, with a purpose to improve the standard of society. During that period, many communities, castes, tribes, and creed were depressed by the majority and/or upper castes. People belonging to such communities, castes, tribes, and creeds were deprived of opportunities to grow in society in any field. Looking to their plight, many thinkers started taking actions to improve their future and giving them opportunities to grow and compete the best. Considering the past brutal history, they decided to keep some reserved quota for such 'deprived-of-opportunities' people. With time it was expected that, all the communities, castes, tribes, and creeds will stand at the same level without differences to grab growth and development. But later, this became the political concept to capture votes & support of mass. Politicians eradicated the purpose of improving the education, and profession standards in society. They framed the policy exempting such people from paying fees and hard-work, reducing the actual possible competition and resulting cream product. These exemptions later became the "rights" of people falling in that category. Looking to the advantages they get, this made people to fight for getting "reservation tag" for their community, as seen recently in "Gujjar Agitation" in Rajasthan 2007'-08. People are now fighting to get the "rights" once designed to improve the society standards, but now being misused. Using this cheap advantage, now the politicians enjoy the diversity to win the votes. India - once known as "Unity in Diversity" is now becoming "Diversify to Unite Votes" - much equivalent with the British concept of "Divide and Rule".

Also, there is increase in the reservation quota year after year. This has accrued the need for allocating funds to maintain the quality of education. The expenses have increased in terms of -

1. building classrooms/labs with sufficient space to accommodate all the students,

2. purchase sufficient number of apparatus/equipments so that each student gets equal opportunity to learn,

3. more number of faculties to facilitate effective teaching

4. more hostels to accommodate the increased number of students

All these adding to substantial expenditures. So, there is increase in expenses if we are considering increased reservation quota. Apart from this, the government has provided relaxation in payment of fees and academic score for reserved candidates. The aftermath of such relaxations has to be borne by candidates from general category. This now deprives the general category candidate from equal opportunity to sustain. So the concept of improving society has not at all been fulfilled. Now the general category people are subject to depression.

Above all, the competitiveness has increased significantly in every field. But in such competitive world, we allow the leakage of some really smart and capable talents by giving way to someone who is not. At the competitive level, we shouldn't practice any reservations. We may follow it at primary education level, where all students stand almost on same grounds and not much infrastructure is needed to accommodate them. Once they get their primary education, every student should face same competition level without barring anyone with reservation rights. Sound primary education is must for everyone to have better opportunity to flourish in future.

If we really want the society to improve, we must divert the reservation quota from castes and communities. And even if we wish to continue with such reservations, it should be restricted only at the primary education level. Not later to that. Else it should be solely based on economic positions where the lower income class should be given opportunity to educate their wards at lower fees and other possible expenses. Purpose is to create a better society & talents, and not war for votes or rights.

-Anup Sheshadri

(all views are personal)

Leave the IITs alone!

2009-10-30T05:36:00.000-07:00

If students concentrate on IIT-JEE course, then they can have better clarification on almost all topics in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. IIT-JEE requires clear understanding of each topic in the subject. So, they have clear concepts and understanding of the subject rather than if they concentrate solely on Board Examination course. This forms their better "technical brain" than the Board Examination course. Thus setting a minimum limit on the 10+2 score is not advisable. As students may not score well in Board Exam, but they definitely have better technical mind if they clear IIT-JEE.

IIT-JEE has definitely caused increase in the competition in the coaching institutes. This creates a competition in the economic terms as well as creates competition amongst the IIT-JEE aspirants. Thus, improving the cream of India time to time.

-Anup Sheshadri

(all views are personal)

Varnas - The Management Teams of Vedic Society (previously - Origin of Vedic Society)

2009-09-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

Note - This article is completely based on personal perceptions and not interpreted from any literature.

With the lessons from his experiences, man evolved into a self dependent and strong creature on Earth. He learnt how to generate fire, how to make his food taste good, art of building houses for shelter, art of mining & metallurgy, and agriculture. So with time, there was a rise of society. Man started generating his own resources. But being nascent to the society life, he lacked experience in managing the society. With lack of proper management, there were lot of disorders in the early society - stealing of resources by neighboring societies, improper waste disposal, diseases, lack of education being bestowed to juniors, etc. So the leaders during the time, saw the need to bring in order to their societies. Thus giving rise to Vedic Society.

The leaders learnt, they needed security to their resources, transfer of knowledge bank from experienced elders to juniors, maintenance of cleanliness and hygiene to prevent diseases and to trade the resources they generate. Thus the leaders formed four different 'teams' (Varnas in Vedas - a Sanskrit term meaning 'color') for bringing in order in society.

1. Brahmins - the team of educators, scholars and preachers
2. Kshatriya - the military and political team
3. Vaishya - the team of merchants, cattle-rearers and artisans
4. Sudra - the farmers, craftsmen and sculptors

The Brahmins performed the duty of educating the mass, passing on the knowledge, literature and experience gained, and preparing the juniors for the new quests. Thus, Brahmins were given responsibility of preaching the contemporary theories, and beliefs in Science and Religion.

Kashitriyas constituted the military and ruling order of the society - protecting the society from stealing of their resources, maintaining discipline and protecting their people from foreign attacks. For this, they were required to be physical strong. So they were given extensive physical training, and were taught various fighting skills and use of weapons.

Since the societies lacked some of the resources required for their living, the concept of trading the excess of their resources to get the required resources started. This trading was controlled by the Vaishyas. Apart from this, Vaishyas consisted of artists, who traded their talents too.

And the last, the Sudras. They performed the duty of maintaining cleanliness and hygience in the society. This responsibility was mainly to prevent the diseases and maintain the hygienic environment in the society. Sudras were also required to maintain the asthetic values of their society. Thus, they were involved in cleaning the streets & important buildings, and proper disposal of all waste generated from the public places. To add in beauty to their society, they were also given job of sculpturing, building monuments, crafting wooden furniture, etc.

In the beginning, the Sudras were free to join the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, or Vaishyas depending on their interest and skill. Similarly, Brahmins were free to join with Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras. All the teams had equal importance in society building. But with time, Kshatriyas with their fighting skills and mastery in using powerful weapons, felt they are the most powerful amongst the other teams. Brahmins recognized the power of their brain-work and strong knowledge. Hence started considering themselves most intelligent of all. So these two teams - one being physically strong and other being intellectually strong, started to consider themselves as the supremes in the society, and deemed the Vaishyas and Sudras as lower in team grades. Slowly, these 'low grade' teams came to be known as 'lower class' (Sudra - the lowest), while the Brahmins and Kshatriyas were categorized in 'upper class'. There was exploitation by physical & mental power, making Sudras to serve the upper class (including Vaishyas), as labors and servants. The transition from Sudras to Brahmins, or to any of the upper class, ceased. Subsequently, 'class' was considered as inheritance. Son of Sudra will be Sudra, Son of Brahmin will be Brahmin, and so on. Thus, new ill concepts of untouchable people, restricting the talents of Sudras, no-interclass marriage rules and many more, got framed. So the upper class people exploited the lower class people, especially Sudras.

This is how the good motive of effective society management turned into the ill-social traditions that we still follow. The leaders of then, brought in fairly good management practice with the concept of 'division of karma (duty)' in four 'Varnas (colors)' for the welfare of society. But the modern man, with the thirst of power and supreme knowledge, perverted the very purpose of the team formations. This gave rise to inequality amongst the people of the same society itself.

In the modern world, the purpose of this noble 'division of duty' has been forgotten. We fight for reservations, rights, communal supremacy, etc. creating yet more differences in different class, castes, religions. Thus generating different states of worldly perception - never to unite! We, the educated people of modern world, talk a lot about leadership and management philosophies. Then why to believe in class, castes, and religions in the world of 'leaders and managers'? In this world, we should forget all the castes, class, creed, religions and communities. We just need to remember the noble purpose behind such actions taken by the past leaders.

So lets unite on the human grounds and make this world more peaceful and loving.

-Anup Sheshadri

(all views are personal)

Emotional Balance

2009-04-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

What are the team members to perceive when a leader is emotionally unstable? Will they follow their leader's instructions if he/she is sometimes arrogant, and sometimes polite; emotions totally unpredictable? Well, if you are working with such a leader, then you are surely to lose interest in the task. You will never understand how and what exactly the task is for.

Say, for instance, my boss bombards me due to some reasons. So I am obvious to get enraged or mentally disturbed. Now I carry the same enraged emotions to my team members when we are to decide on an important task. Fellows wait for my decision, but I belligerently respond - "Can't you people decide on your own? Do whatever you wish. Don't bother me for these simple tasks." At this point of time, I have certainly not thought about any consequences. After few days, I wish to check on the same task. It is not done as it should have been as per me. So I am again bitter on the fellow people working on it. "Don't you people have brains? Is this the way you work on this task? Silly brainless creatures..."

It is certainly my fault. When I should have participated in decision making, I was emotionally hit because of my boss. And when I left the decision on to the members, I couldn't accept their work because it was not the way I expected. So now I again have to instruct them for completing the task following my procedure. So time spent by them on working in their own way was wasted. Thus efficiency is lost. It is further reduced as now they are also emotionally disturbed. Contiguity of emotional unstability from top management to bottom-line is irresistible in such case. Thus making it very important that a leader remains emotionally stable. He/she shouldn't pass on the hindering emotions to his subordinates. Sometimes it becomes intense and you may need to postpone the decision to better emotional time - helping you avoid reduced efficiency.

-Anup Sheshadri

(all views are personal)