"Marks for sports" -- I don't think so

Today while scanning the news websites, I came across a campaign launched by NDTV called "Marks for Sports". While details can be found on their website and facebook page, their main intention behind this campaign can be summarized by the following "We believe that if schools and education boards were to include Sports as a part of the main curriculum, parents as well as children will devote more time to sports, setting them on the path of a lifetime of fitness. On the basis of this thought and in keeping with the NDTV’s philosophy of promoting critical issues, to launch the NDTV-Nirmal Lifestyle Fit India Movement with our mission in the first year being - MARKS for Sports." While it would no doubt be good to see sports other than Cricket flourish in India, I do not agree that assigning marks for sports would help much.


There is no arguing the fact that kids in India could use more exercise. However, that can be addressed by having regular and mandatory physical education hours each week whereby the entire class gets the required exercise under the strict observation of the Physical Ed. teachers. If required, a fitness test can be held at the end of the semester simply to make sure that students make the mark in terms of physical fitness. There need not be any quantitative evaluation of a student's fitness that feeds into academic records. 


As far as students' involvement in sports is concerned, whatever voluntary involvement we see today is due to participating students' interest in these sports. They like to take part in these due to their liking for the sports and because they symbolize some amount of freedom. There is no requirement to meet specific numbers as such and they can have fun while playing even if they are not very good at it. By quantifying sports in terms of MARKS, the educational system would take all fun and freedom out of it and students would no longer enjoy playing. They would look upon sports as yet another requirement in the rat-race for MARKS and achieve the bare minimums to move along. This could potentially kill their desire to pursue the sport after they graduate from school and could be disastrous for India's professional sports scene.


Moreover, students' performance in sports depends on physical abilities and not every student is born with the same physical abilities. Assigning MARKS to sports puts to a great disadvantage those students who are unfortunately impaired lets say due to poor vision (glasses), asthma, genetic obesity issues etc. In fact, this is true even wrt academic performance whereby not everybody is born with the same mental ability and aptitude. Bottom line is that a grading system assigning MARKS for performance is not appropriate.


If schools do want to encourage sports, they can have a system of scholarships or some kind of optional academic benefits to those who participate in a sport. Such a system would not only reward and encourage participation in sports but would do so without sucking the fun out of it. Also, there needs to be a differentiation between physical education and sports. While each kid needs a good amount of exercise, it can be achieved through physical education classes without forcing sports onto those who are unable or uninterested in participation.

Contradiction in news reporting

These days, getting reliable, unbiased news reports has become a real challenge. There used to be a time when there was a difference between a viewpoint and a news article and you could quote a news article as the truth. Unfortunately, news reports these days are so skewed by perspective that you can't get a true picture until you visit a variety of news websites that span the entire spectrum of political views. What you see below is just one such example. While the BBC claims that Russia and India failed to extend the deal, The Hindu claims that some sort of agreement  had been reached. On one hand we have a global media behemoth which claims to be neutral (though at times, they don't appear very sympathetic to the "third world") while on the other hand we have an Indian newspaper (which many consider to be one of the last few reliable news agencies in India) trying to paint a positive picture. One can understand that different news agencies can have different opinions or views about an event but it is baffling that the facts about the event themselves contradict each other.

Courtsey : The BBC 

Courtsey : The Hindu

Ever heard of Hiware Bazaar ?

Today, I noticed a video posted by one of my friends on Facebook about a miracle water project. I initially thought this was yet another BBC or Nat Geo video about a successful program undertaken by an environmental campaigner. However, I was mistaken. It had been produced by an independent media company out of New Delhi and the subject matter involved Hivre Bazaar, a previously unheard of village in Ahmadnagar district of Maharashtra State in India. (After running a few Google searches, I realized that this village wasn't all that obscure and that they have actually been reported in many journals. Off course the Indian mainstream media conveniently decided to ignore or maybe dedicate an insignificant corner of the website to them.)


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At a time when the world is rife with discussions about climate change, droughts etc, this video seems like a breath of fresh air. For a change, it involves a solution to a problem rather than an endless discussion about an issue. Even more inspiring is the fact that this  program was implemented by the local villagers themselves, on a co-operative basis, without waiting for any government program or NGO sponsorship. Necessity is the mother of invention (and also innovation) and this innovation seems to have paid off huge dividends for the villagers.  Hopefully many other drought prone villages in India can draw inspiration from Hiwre Bazaar and find solutions to their problems. I'm sure there are already many other unreported projects out there.

Austin and Pune

I am often asked by my Indian friends living in USA about Austin. Usually I give an answer like "If Houston is Mumbai, then Austin is Pune." After considering the size of Austin and comparing it with that of Houston, that's the one line answer I had developed without much thought. Thankfully nobody asked what Dallas would be in that case. I would have probably said Nagpur though Nagpur is actually much smaller than Pune. Recently however, I was asked about Austin by someone from India and I couldn't give him the Houston example. That prompted me to give some thought to this comparison and I discovered that the two cities are indeed very similar.

To begin with, both are university "towns". While Austin has the renowned Univ. of Texas (which, being an Aggie, I must refer to as t.u.) and some other smaller universities, Pune has a score of great colleges and universities including Univ. of Pune, COEP, Fergusson College, BJ Medical etc. Being such excellent centers of learning both the cities have a large and educated young crowd including people from over the world.

With respect to live music and performing arts, Austin, with its live comedies and live music and cultural festivals is referred to as the live music capital of the world. At the same time, Pune too is the cultural capital of Maharashtra and is well known for its music and performing arts. Bal Gandharv Rangmandir, Tilak Smarak Mandir, Y. Chawan Natyagriha etc. of Pune match the various performing arts centers in Austin. In addition, just like Austin has the South-by-Southwest(SXSW) music festival, Pune also has the Sawai Gandharv Music Festival. Moreover, the Pune International Marathon and Austin Marathon are two famous annual events held in both the cities.

Geographically speaking, similar to Pune being 3 hrs away from Mumbai which is on the coast, Austin too is 3 hrs. away from Houston which is a coastal metro. Again, both cities are at a higher altitude though Pune is quite a bit higher than Austin. But I guess that can be overlooked since Maharashtra State isn't as flat as Texas. Moreover, Austin and Pune both have a hilly terrain in parts of the city and both also have a river flowing right through the middle of the city. The climate of the two cities is also roughly similar though the seasons differ due to being on different continents.

Being university towns, both cities also have many high-tech companies. Austin's Dell, IBM, Qualcomm, National Instruments, Intel, Samsung, AMD etc. are matched by Pune's Infosys, TCS, Wipro, BMC, Symantec, NVIDIA, IBM, Persistent, Geometric, TATA, Bajaj, Thermax etc. Just like Pune has the industrial township of Pimpri-Chinchwad to its north, Austin too has the town of Round Rock just north of it.

People in Pune and Austin are friendly in general as compared to the big cities in both countries. Besides, both these cities are also considered safe for people of all ages and genders. While the slogan "Keep Austin Wierd" is common in Austin, the slogan "Pune tithey kaay Une ?" ("पुणे तिथे काय उणे ?")(meaning: "In Pune, which is so rich and plentiful, what can there be a shortage of ?") is common in Pune too.

There are many more points of similarity which I can now think of, but I guess for now, I have already exceded my expectations of similarity between these two wonderful cities. I guess I no longer need to bluntly issue a one line answer if someone from India asks me about Austin; and if the person asking this lives in Pune, he / she probably is living in a very similar city separated just by the country, culture and ethics!!

A Gadgeted Lifestyle

Off late, I am sometimes required to carry some office work load home or login from home to resolve a critical situation. Yesterday was one such situation. Just after I completed what was required of me and shut my laptop, the craziness of what I did just occurred to me. This may be a bit heavy for computer illiterate people, but I am sure even they will be able to appreciate the "geekiness" of the process that follows. I had to change some configuration and so I firstly connected to the internet via my 802.11b/g wireless card and then connected to my company's network via a secure VPN. Next, I needed to remotely log into one of the servers which would gave me access to its virtual desktop. Having done that, I then opened the GUI of the controller on this virtual desktop, made changes, saved settings, closed the nested connections that I had established and could have gone to sleep. However, at that point, as I have mentioned a few lines above, it occurred to me how technology was affecting me.

While I am pleasantly awed by the above convoluted process , at the same time, I am also greatly thankful for its existence as well. Without it, I would have to get out of the comfort of my home in the middle of the night, burn some valuable fuel driving to office just to select/unselect some options on a GUI in the middle of the commotion created by the janitors' vacuum cleaners. Just like the remote access process above, other technologies/gadgets are impacting my lifestyle too.


I now carry around a touch screen 3G phone which apart from providing basic cell phone services, provides internet, live news service, TV shows, IMs, an array of applications and even live TV in certain regions. With that in my pocket, I am truly connected 24x7 via phone, email , TV and IM (as long as I don't end up in the middle of the Sundarbans or the Amazon rain forest). Not to mention the bluetooth hands-free thanks to which I don't even need to hold it. The other day while sitting in a cafe, someone discussed an interesting video on youtube which we hadn't seen. The video was immediately seen in the mood of the moment rather than exchanging links later on.

Then there's this HDTV sitting in my living room, which can, after some extra payment use my household wireless network to stream videos live from the internet. A GPS, which I once thought was a technological luxury rather than a necessity sits in my car thanks to the generosity of some good friends. Just 2 years ago I remember driving with friends through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada with the help of simply a road atlas and maps. However, in my latest trip to Florida, the GPS was consulted at every junction and turn which allowed our gray cells and our human directional sense to take a nap (I hope not forever). The treadmills at the fitness center at my office, whose primary aim is to simulate jogging too have some advanced inbuilt AI of their own. As if that's not enough, they also have their own LCD TV screens and cable TV connections. Believe it or not, the treadmill is getting more TV channels that my HDTV!!! I might as well go to the fitness center to watch my favorite shows. Currently I am hunting for a new car and looking at the features in cars too, I feel I might end up owning an automobile maybe not very inferior from James Bond's or Knight Rider's.

While the few gadgets I have mentioned form really a drop in the ocean of gadgets available in the market today, I am both awed and scared by the impact these are having. While all technologies definitely ease our way of life, many of them are also preventing us from using our brains and dumbing us. Nevertheless, I don't think my craving for gadgets will die because of that. I guess, the best way is to own them and use them judiciously when and where required and not become totally dependent on them!!

Orkutmania!!!!

ALOHAA!!!!....oops I'm not Hawaiian but maybe that was the effect of reading ELEN602-Communication Networks notes just before writing this (for the layman, believe it or not, ALOHA is a communication protocol ). Nevertheless, its again one of those really really rare moments when I decide to write a blog. But me writing a blog is rare not because I don't have topics to write blogs on or that I am too tired of typing long paragraphs. Its just that I am too occupied with something else. Something else on the internet; something that you know is wasting your time, but you would still stick to it; something due to which you may not talk with your friends who are right beside you, but has proved to be very powerful in contacting old friends from schools; something where your messages have no privacy, but you would still check it more frequently than your inbox; something where communications are not realtime, but still it has become a sybstitute for chat applications........well the list can go on and on but I guess those who have used this "something" would by now have definitely guessed that I am talking about none other than http://www.orkut.com

Nothing else has affected the people I know as much as this portal has. I dont see any obvious reasons as to why this portal is any better than myspace or facebook, but for some unknown reason, South-Asians (call them that coz i dont like the desi word too much) including me and South-Americans prefer this site to other socializing portals. The wikipedia definition says that its simply "an Internet social network service run by Google and named after its creator. It claims to be designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships." However, I believe there's much more to it than just this much; else you would not have people logged into it 24x7 refreshing the home page every 5 minutes checking if they have new scraps. A whole day can be wasted on orkut and the worst part is that you won't even realize it!! I choose to call this class of people as "orkutmaniacs" and unfortunately or maybe fortunately too, I used to be one (....which means that I now am able to control my "orkutting" ). I can use the word "fortunately" because the portal has definitely served the purpose outlined in the wikipedia definition. I have met old pals from school, college etc and have also met many new and interesting people around. Besides, you also get to wish and greet people on birthdays, festivals or special ocassions which you otherwise would never have ended up doing. It surely deserves a thumbs-up in these and many more aspects.

But that may still not justify what I would call "ORKUTMANIA". This orkutmania is related to almost every feature available to users on orkut. Scrapbooks have turned into chatbooks. Then once upon a time in the world of orkut, there was this fad of increasing one's scrapcounts and even engaging in a scrapcount competition. Again, if they are tired of increasing their scrapcount, orkutters will start joining communities and increase their community-count. After that comes the concept of starting a community either on a topic which nobody cares about or on a topic which already has say 537 communities dedicated to it. Its as if you are not a true orkutter unless you own a community. And the smart orkutters who dont make communities will simply go on the communities they have joined and will play a "number-count game" or "one word game" or "describe the person above you game" or "boys vs girls game"........and as if this much is not enough there are these annoying "messages" which people keep sending you irrespective of whether its relevant to you or not. The it may either be "XYZ wants you to join some damn champak bhumiya community" or "You can view your crush's name by sending this msg to all (and people actually do it!!!)" or "Send this to all your friends else you are doomed" kind of messages.

And then you have the photo on the profile which is a very powerful tool on orkut. Its the most noticeable feature on anybody's profile. Now you may classify orkutters on how they use this tool. Lets be a bit systematic here. There are
(a) those who are too shy to show their face (maybe because someone sent scraps saying photos are being used for pornography)
(b) those who upload their real photo once but never change it with age
(c) those who update their photo at decent regular intervals (these are probably non-addicts)
(d) those who change their photo everyday (I belonged here once upon a time !!!!!!!)
(e) those who put photos of cats n dogs n God only knows wot all
(f) those who put photos of babies (there are hate-communities on orkut for these kind of people)

So powerful is the photo on an orkut profile that it led to a new category of photographs being invented referred in orkut lingo as "Orkut Photos". It has become really common to hear phrases like "This is a good orkut photo" or "Hey listen up...take a good pic...it should be an orkut pic".... a new benchmark for photography indeed!! The next thing you may hear is Canon and Kodak claiming that their cameras are apt for taking great Orkut Photos!!
....and the saga of orkutmania continues. So far it was about how you can get addicted by being active on orkut. But we also have some inactive addicts. They won't scrap anyone or message anyone or won't play any games on communities. They will just derive some pleasure by eavesdropping upon others' scrapbooks.....maybe to see who's flirting with whom or to find someone to flirt with :P....or maybe just because they have nothing better to do. The interesting thing is that while just one account can cause addiction in active orkutters, these non-active addicts may even have more than one account on orkut......all this to do "nothing at all". Really amusing!!

Its no wonder thus that companies are having access to this portal blocked at workplaces......but its a pity too...coz the good things go as well......oops now I am really confused!! Anyways I better get back to my ELEN602 homework. I already wasted lots of time on orkut earlier in the day and now I devoted some more time to write this blog on orkut!!

Life in College Station

Its kinda odd that of all the things in my world, my first blog ever is about a not-so-significant place in the United States of America called College Station. Well, but thats the topic which I felt like writing bout a lot at this moment. So here goes.........

Though its not really significant for almost all the people in the world, it does hold an important place for all Texas A & M students, better known as Aggies. A small town whose existence is solely due to this great University, its a home mainly to students and faculty of this institute. Though this town failed to impress much while I was enrolled at the university, now in Dallas I realize the worth of this town.

A small town, its really austere. No complicated stuff here. Hardly any citibuses, no metro, no multi-layering of flyovers and you can happily forget bout downtowns. Also, not too many malls, no Indian restaurants and only 1 telephone company. Well the list of NOs can go on and on. Instead, let me be more positive and tell you what it has. Though not highly populated, most of the people here are young guys and gals. People are educated and ambitious. The shops, restaurants etc. are all designed to reflect the spirit of Aggieland, another name for this place. It feels kind of good to be a part of all this. Though not too many malls, there's one Post Oak Mall which is big enough to cater to the requirements and which many people love to visit. Northgate may not compare with 6th street in Austin of the clubs in Dallas, but on a Friday Night its flooded with guys and stunning gals from the university. The place though very small, comes alive on weekend nights. Simply walking through that road also feels great (except for the fear of being a victim of some drunkard). Restaurants are mainly the usual chains and a few more along this road called Texas Avenue which also houses shops like BestBuy, Office Depot, Barnes and Nobles etc. All this is just a walk out of the University area. The neighbouring city of Bryan does offer some other facilities and it also has the Easterwood Airstrip, but it still remains totally different from the big cities. It has its own charm. Its a small, simple, cozy and safe place to stay in, where almost all essentials are available within walking distance, a place free of the complications that can occur in bg cities, a place free of the threats that occur in downtowns, free of congested roads....in short, an ideal place for students to stay. Its developed but not crowded, populated but not too unsafe and small but not too lonely or boring!!! I must stay that though I like Dallas, I also miss the maroon charm of College Station. Its not as happening as Dallas or Austin, but its happening in its own way!!!