tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:59:10 +0000EducationschoolstraveltrekkingcricketfoodreligiontrainsCivil SocietyCorruptionDevelopmentEconomicsMumbaiPhilosophyPuvidhamScienceTamil NaduadministrationarchesdogsgendermusicteacherAbout nothing in particular but everything in general...http://ulavu.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Ram)Blogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-1103728164801826506Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:39:00 +00002011-06-01T09:42:44.106+05:30traveltrekkingSo what did you expect? That I will be diligent and post the entire trip in consecutive days? I took 4 years to finish a 2 years M.A. Program on education from TISS (www.tiss.edu). This rate of blog output is far better than the assignment submissions that I did for the course. In any case, here goes the part V... May 5th Tadapani (2630m) to Sinuwa (2360m) Summary – Crazy ups and downs. http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/06/annapuran-base-camp-trek-part-v.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-7390138576566941805Tue, 24 May 2011 17:08:00 +00002011-05-24T22:59:25.580+05:30traveltrekkingApologies I have to first apologize for the delay in continuing the blog. I had jammed a finger of my right hand in the car door and it was badly injured. I was also away from Bangalore for 3 days. I was in Timbaktu (www.timbaktu.org) conducting training. Timbaktu has organized thrift cooperatives for women in the 3 blocks that it operates in Anantapur district of AP. These cooperatives http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/05/annapurna-base-camp-trek-part-iv.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-4327051756774632970Wed, 18 May 2011 12:46:00 +00002011-05-18T18:47:53.080+05:30traveltrekkingMay 3rd 2011 – Tikhedhunga to Ghorepani Summary – Altitude gain 1340m (tough day). A steep flight of steps from Tikhedhunga to Ulleri. Gradual climb from Ulleri to Ban Thanti. Steep climb on rocks and steps from Ban Thanti to Ghorepani. We had a lazy morning and a 3rd look at the ACAP menu made us decide that we should cook our own breakfast. We asked for permission to enter the kitchen and http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/05/annapurna-base-camp-trek-part-iii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-859353614401928693Tue, 17 May 2011 12:54:00 +00002011-05-17T18:50:20.599+05:30traveltrekkingMay 2nd 2011 – Pokhara to TikhedungaSummary – Altitude gain 500m. A short downhill from Naya Pul to Birethanti. A gradual uphill climb from Birethanti to Tikhedunga.We had an early breakfast in Lake View Resort and packed our bags and headed out for our trek. We had a 1.5 hours car journey to Naya Pul. It was a Maruti 800 and it handled 6 of us admirably with our bags too in the hilly slopes http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/05/annapurna-base-camp-trek-part-ii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-7019243442741026254Mon, 16 May 2011 13:40:00 +00002011-05-16T20:24:51.342+05:30traveltrekkingI had always wanted to do a long trek in the Himalayas ever since my taste for trekking got developed in the Sahyadris. My first trek there must have been in 1991 when I went for a trek to Bhimashankar during the monsoon with some of my PUCSD friends. It has been 20 years since and recent events gave me a reality check that I am not growing any younger and so I contacted Odati Adventures and http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/05/annapurna-base-camp-trek-part-i.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-1691756685300976685Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:57:00 +00002011-04-08T13:53:26.163+05:30Civil SocietyCorruptionI have been following the recent protests against corruption spearheaded by Anna Hazare with some confusion. The demand for participation of 'civil society' in anti-corruption vigilance is the cause of discomfort for me. Who decides who is a representative of civil society? In a democratic society, isn't all of us part of civil society and isn't our elected representatives the members http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/04/civil-society.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-5756844112782533940Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:51:00 +00002011-04-08T13:19:14.185+05:30DevelopmentEconomicsTamil NaduI have revived my blogging after eons. I would now use this space mainly to write or quote about Tamil Nadu. My information mostly comes from Economic & Political Weekly. To begin with I pick a longish quote from an article on Women's Empowerment through micro-finance in Tamil Nadu (http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/15883.pdf). The interesting part of this research is that the research http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2011/04/development-in-tamil-nadu.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-738186711870643586Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:48:00 +00002008-09-02T21:57:48.491+05:30EducationI was recently having a long conversation with one of my friends who is also teaching and is generally interested in education and related issues. We talked about Gandhi's Hind Swaraj and it that context he was wondering if by educating the children the way it is now, are we doing more damage. I was desperately trying to convince him that it is not so, that unlike Gandhi that I was fully http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/09/evolution-not-design.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-5208733808680330065Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:59:00 +00002008-08-08T21:43:57.231+05:30EducationschoolsThe arch is standing! Here is the evidenceMurthy, standing proudly under the Arch he helped build. Guna is getting busy to start on the next one. We actually use only mud and bricks, no cement at all. All construction in Puvidham uses very little cement. Mainly at the foundation level to prevent termites crawling up. Otherwise it is mostly mud. Here you can see Mani and Selva mixing mud http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/08/wait-is-over.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-9072499503477224346Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:27:00 +00002008-12-09T12:13:20.706+05:30archesEducationschoolsThe class 8th students of Puvidham are now building real arches in their hostel building. I did not know it was so goddamn difficult to build a wall straight. We had to bring down the walls 3 times before we got it right. It is really a lot of skilled work. In any case there was slow progress (5 days) and we now are at the stage of building arches. Thrilling, I must say. But wait till we http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/08/now-to-real-stuff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-8890940086982866612Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:18:00 +00002008-12-09T12:13:21.090+05:30Educationschools Was thrilled with my class in particular and education in general! The class 8th students built an arch with just bricks and stones. No mortar, not even mud! It was a wholesome educational experience. Meenaksi, our school principal wanted the children to participate in the construction work that is going on for the hostel building. We thought they can build an arch for one of the http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/07/blog-post.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-263248734242033719Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:08:00 +00002008-07-25T09:42:07.701+05:30EducationteacherI am reading this very interesting book Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (author of Angela's Ashes). It is autobiographical about his teaching career. I am now in the section where he teaches English to teenagers in a "vocational and technical school" in New York City. The students from this school are working class children and are never meant to go to college. McCourt is hauled up by the guidance http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/07/teacher-man.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-3975611103424163540Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:51:00 +00002008-07-23T21:30:05.298+05:30EducationschoolsIt has been more than a month since the new school year started and I am teaching 8th standard (the last class in our school). We in the school have decided this class is going to be the preparatory class for the children to get into 'mainstream' education and I have been given the hatchet job of executing it! This means more academic focus, homework and tests! Not so surprisingly it has been http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/07/tightening-of-screws.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-2927165928569185059Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:09:00 +00002008-12-09T12:13:21.322+05:30“...Run rabbit run,Dig that holeGet the sunWhen at last Your work is doneDon't sit down Its time to dig another one...” - Roger WatersI went with the 8th standard kids to dig mud from a nearby tank bed. We have clay activity in the school where children make things out of clay and we needed mud for that. Our school correspondent drove the tractor and we all sat in the trailor. The aim was to http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-am-i-digging-at.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-4858286268277374677Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:47:00 +00002008-06-13T11:01:08.976+05:30I guess most of the readers of this blog know that I have been working as a teacher in Puvidham. This year there has been a sudden surge in the number of children who want to be in the hostel. Last year two girls from a nearby village joined our hostel, and from this village now there are almost 20 kids who want to join too. The parents from this village go to Karnataka to work in stone quarries http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/06/appeal.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-2559332426925519529Wed, 28 May 2008 11:53:00 +00002008-05-28T17:33:01.887+05:30foodWhat should we do?1. Protest against the farming subsidies provided to the farmers in the first world. Yes this would increase the prices in the interim but would eventually make the markets efficient.2. Transfer these subsidies to food programs across the poor world especially in Africa.3. In India, stop subsidising fuel and transfer that savings to poor directly to compensate for the price http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/05/food-crisis.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-2968381441715176997Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:25:00 +00002008-12-09T12:13:21.682+05:30PuvidhamHere are some photos of the place where I have been spending time the last few months..This is the house where I liveThis is the school where I workhttp://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/04/puvidham-photos.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-8391612366906407489Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:41:00 +00002008-12-09T12:13:21.759+05:30EducationIt has been extremely difficult to do any kind of writing. I have fallen way behind my assignment schedules for my M.A. course and you all know that I have done no blogging. Something to this rural phenomenon that I feel knocked out by 8:30 at night. To keep at least an arms distance from the zillion bugs that have made my home their home too I sleep inside a tent inside my bedroom! It http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/04/settling-into-rural-rhythm.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-1201631622259278984Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:16:00 +00002008-02-01T20:56:12.136+05:30This is a ping post not to let the cynics conclude that all who wonder do get lost. I have shifted locale and am now teaching in a lovely school (www.puvidham.net) in the Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. It is about 150 kms from Bangalore. I live in a house that is 500m from the school and I teach Math, English, Science and Football (which I enjoy the most). I have 1 student in the 10th http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-3521774852334544512Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:59:00 +00002007-12-12T17:37:40.395+05:30EducationAny educational endevour should be clear about what its aims are. Here we look at some of the aims of popular efforts in India – Siksha-Satra propounded by Rabindranath Tagore, Nai Talim of Mahatma Gandhi, The National Curriculum Framework of 2005 and finally a list provided and justified by yours truly. In the coming Asha bi-annual conference I am planning to propose these aims and see how http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2007/12/aims-of-education.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-6248434314486490513Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:42:00 +00002007-11-28T21:37:13.642+05:30PhilosophyScienceThere was a marked turnaround in my attitude towards science ever since I read Consilience. You can now call me a "Running Dog of Science" and so you can imagine my annoyance when the usual riff-raff wail about how science is reductionist and so cannot solve some of the important problems we face like our health and such. Ha! Even before the critique was fully understood by the critics themselveshttp://ulavu.blogspot.com/2007/11/systems-biology.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-1362935724977135944Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:47:00 +00002007-11-26T21:28:15.223+05:30MumbaitravelThe taxi and auto drivers in Mumbai have always amazed me. Unlike other cities they are extremely professional. You can get an auto or taxi anytime without any fuss (except, of course, at the railways station and airports where they act up). I had come late from TISS, as late as 1 at night, and all I had to do was tell the taxi driver where I needed to be dropped off. Being conditioned by http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2007/11/maximum-city.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-4226753807081942547Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:07:00 +00002007-11-01T16:51:04.082+05:30Second semester already! Three courses again- Language, Mind and Society conducted by Rama Kant Agnihostri. Started off with linguistics and peek into the Indian constitution. Hindi is not a national language! Yo! Only an official language. I t was cute when a classmate claimed that 'There is no human being who has Hindi as a mother tongue'. Hmm.. what are the implications of such a http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-national-language.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-7700143949659969303Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:06:00 +00002008-12-09T12:13:22.241+05:30EducationschoolsAfter several years of deliberation on whether Asha Bangalore should fund physical infrastructure in government schools, it was finally decided to go ahead and build a compound wall around Chandranagar school and also fund for drinking water supply and additional bathrooms. The government funds were not sufficient to build the compound wall and further the money spent towards it was able to http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2007/10/constructivism.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32120694.post-7700736306001921442Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:35:00 +00002007-09-28T10:06:16.718+05:30EducationreligionschoolsYesterday I was so pissed off that I didn’t go to school! The Chandranagar school (where I teach) is a public space that is utilized for everything, including tying up cows, parking tourist vehicles (sometimes with music blearing out of them) and such. For the last 3 years Asha Bangalore has been trying to get a compound wall around the school so that there would be a sense of a separate http://ulavu.blogspot.com/2007/09/god-of-learning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Ram)3