Holy Frauds

Have you watched colleges and universities getting slammed recently?

It all started with a question, "How can the degrees offered to students be valid if the syllabus they study is being prepared by ineligible teachers at the time of appointment (those who have not cleared NET or SET nor have a PhD before 2009 as the policies demand), the syllabus is later unapproved by the University while the same ineligible teachers go on to teach the same unapproved syllabus, who go further on to set questions and evaluate the papers... how on Earth can the degrees of the students coming through such an institution even desire to deserve an University degree... why must Universities consider it obligatory to provide a degree after so much of violations?" 

Now the Departments and Ministry in charge for higher education have taken note of these incidents and are taking stringent steps to curtail this loophole in appointments especially seen in autonomous institutions and some frivolous educational institutions functioning on mountain tops basking for cover to be protected as 'minority' institutions as soon as they come under the radar for their scrupulous attempt to commit as many academic and financial violations and frauds as possible that are recently being exposed and uncovered. The media too, is clever, closely watching and reporting these issues. State departments in charge of higher (collegiate) education, are taking measures to snip these snakes which have escaped the snare so far. 

Recently while talking to a Vice Chancellor who addressed a bunch of catholic priests, said during the address that it was time that the priests stop educating students after appointing their kith and kin and fellows who bend their backs in their parish in the name of some fantasy quota or the other and it was time for the priests to get re-educated about the changing world around them and learn that they are obligated to follow policies of higher education in the country. This VC, I told, hit the nail right and proper in the head by passing this message to a crowd that needed it the most, since most of the educational institutions still operating and still committing these unmentionable frauds in India are sadly the so-called "Christian" institutions; to which he mentioned that now he has the priests fuming at him rather than accept the case and learn their lesson. 

It is not often unheard of about some colleges run merely for the heck of collecting fees and fines - swindling students and parents without missing an opportunity, colleges that run that provide marks in exchange for 'little favours' expected from students without assessments - just because these institutions now have exams under their control in the name of autonomy, appointment of ineligible teachers, running of bogus Research Centers ordered to be closed long ago still functioning with ineligible guides, stealing government grants given to researchers and to teachers undertaking research, stealing public money in the name of organizing programs that never are organized, approving and facilitating plagiarism to just create an illusion of carrying on academic undertakings and countless other cheap tricks that seem to come off the hat of only these kinds - and would you believe that all these can happen in just one educational institution supposedly run by Christian priests? Perhaps it wouldn't be that hard to believe this since these kinds have been exposed quite frequently and are in the NEWS quite often for rape, child abuse, murder and everything that can deemed fit to keep a third-rated criminal in confinement and far away from society. 

It is time to teach. Teach lessons often unheard. Time to teach a few lessons to these fellows I suppose. And I am at it.

Related NEWS:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/steps-to-address-academic-downfall-of-autonomous-colleges/article27401021.ece

2. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/autonomy-for-more-colleges-put-on-the-back-burner/article27401915.ece

3. https://tv.mathrubhumi.com/en/news/kerala/autonomy-1.20008 

4. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/madurai/scores-of-mku-teachers-left-in-lurch/articleshow/69683037.cms

5. http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2019/jun/06/madurai-kamaraj-varsity-to-sack-teaching-staff-lacking-ugc-qualifications-1986591.html

6. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/mku-puts-pressure-on-affiliated-colleges-to-comply-with-ugc-norms/article27698740.ece 

Go Forth and Multiply

While contemplating on the issues that have polluted and has corrupted the world, above all else, it is the moral pollution and the subsequent corruption of the human spirit that must top today's civil society.

This tendency probably began the day we stopped speaking what we thought and carefully spoke what we never meant in our earnest fear/effort to survive. If there was a place to begin cleaning, it probably begins within.

Perhaps we can go on blaming the western education system - implemented in most parts of the world - through the famous 'Macaulayism' in the colonies of the Brits to make the common native obediently nod with humble submission and say loud and clear to any and all demands, 'Yes! Sirs' to their white sahibs in order to fit into their roles of servitude, shedding the last limping link of dignity and respect rested within to remain in positions to serve their white-skinned western masters, by training in rhetoric rote learning rituals that seasonally and willfully condition us to become glorified and dignified clerks - nothing more and nothing less. Yet, despite realizing this simple fact, on many occasions, by (m)any thinker(s) and possible change makers, we still insist on making people - the same old way - by deliberating them to understand and to fit into the role requirements of the job market with unquestioning obedience - just as our English Baboos trained us to be - file carrying donkeys then for the monarch to 'B'school-bred rats for the corporate (for) now.

At times, our brown masters -for who we render this same delightful service with more angst than agony - must feel proud for having outdone our colonial masters in their game of oppression - perhaps only twice or more worse, bitter and sinister than the white man him/herself who they try to emulate. 

'Don't question! Just do your job. Don't worry about what happens to others; just do your job.' being the mantra if not schooled by our teachers, that our parents try to rote us to understand and sincerely adapt as our way of life - our only way of life. This that shall be our ruin to be so selfish, self-obsessed and self-centered that the goddess of vanity may bless us with the curse of not bothering about any one more than we constantly and so compellingly care about our self. Well, somehow, though silent, we have systematically and successfully created the nightmare of our own fate by enshrining the thoughts of immortality compromising on our morality to attain this lucid idea of creating the self by removing others from our vocabulary. - by every demons right that shall be the penalty we so rightfully deserve - a world that spins so fast around the self so much so that it even doesn't pause to care to speak for others... especially for those voiceless by succeeding to live a meaningless life of servitude eventually. For those who still wish to differ, in God's own words, 'Go forth and multiply' or whatever it could mean in short.    

The Mount on Which We Stand

Speaking to a few students, I am humbled to understand the difficulties they and at times their family face. We as teachers often just see the student's face; never beyond... (in a way it is good). "Who they are? Where they come from? From what (kind of situation) they come?" we do not know... often we don't care to know. 

When you ask someone, 'What do you get to see from top of the mountain?' of all probability, s/he would tell you about everything from the canopy to the flora and fauna EXCEPT the mountain on which they stand. 

Teachers are in no way different. Very often from those high pedestal on which we stand, we see everything in and around the classroom except the human lives - so fragile - right in front of us. 

Delicate balance this...

The Truth About India

India has been a lot more than a country of slums, snake charmers, street magicians doing rope tricks, men with turbans, women with pots on their head and hungry children-no matter how hard the world tries to project or stereotype it to make it fit into the limitations of their taste and mental capacity. India has always been and will be a land filled with wonders and surprises: The founding father of surgery may be traced to Sushruta-a man who taught and practiced surgery on the banks of the river Ganga, who also authored the Sushruta Samhita which had volumes consisting of procedures to perform complicated surgeries 2600 years ago;  our contribution to the field of math is mentionable too-from giving zero its value to calculating the value of pi and by introducing the concepts of trigonometry, algebra and calculus, place value, the decimal system and quadratic equations, we have counted ourselves in; Spices, herbs, ayurveda and yoga have helped in the prevention and curing of illnesses at its root cause for centuries in India; even most of the religious customs followed in India are science-backed; like sitting cross-legged with a straight back that helps in digestion or the early morning ritual of drawing kolams (geometrical designs) at the entrance of the house that helps aid hand-eye coordination; every character that has ever been portrayed and will be in audio, visual or print, are said to be traced to fit into a character that appears in the two great Indian epics-Ramayana and Mahabharata. India was home to the Indus valley civilization, a group of settlers over 5000 years ago when most of the rest of the world were still nomads. The world’s first university flourished in Takshila in India in 600 B.C with over 10, 500 students learning over 68 subjects that included Vedas, languages, philosophy, politics, astronomy and medicine besides other interesting ones as well. The first residential university in the world with over 10, 000 students, 200 teachers and 300 lecture halls is the Nalanda University which was started in the fifth century in India. With its strong value and belief system established on non-violence, India has never attempted to invade any country so far and further provides safety to refugees escaping religious and political prosecution from Sri Lanka, Tibet, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. From Aryabhatta’s revelations about astronomy to Chanakya’s revelations about state administration-from Vatsayana’s Kamasutra to Tagore’s Gitanjali-from ideas of Dharm, Gnaya and Neethi to the concept of Ahimsa and Nirvana (ideas that will lose its meaning and essence if attempted to be translated)-from dance to drama-from methods of agriculture to methods of irrigation-from logic to reasoning-from emphasis on the rationale to the emphasis on the emotional-from management to administration-from ethics to values-from philosophy to astronomy-from medicine to games and sports-from music to martial arts-from art and literature to culinary taste-India has a bounty of information hidden within the safe threshold of its vernacular limitation. It is a land rich in diversity and a true Union of States with every State having the capacity to serve its array of intelligence, knowledge and wisdom in its own unique way.

Despite all these, India still struggles to break free from the shadows of colonialism. Even the first and world-renowned Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur was set up in the Hijli Detention Camp where many patriots were imprisoned during the British rule in India-which may be an ample metaphor for the context. Indian’s obsession with cricket, a game left over by the colonial masters, happens over the repudiation of its own games such as kabaddi and hockey-which is analogous to the way western educational models have been taken up, upheld and glorified while renouncing their own system of education. If only and only if India like Finland chose to alter its course and set right its path and return to the basics and took pride in its own design that would hold its uniqueness and identity that may find contextual value and relevance and decides not to submit to universal confirmation to authority...

Said Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosopher and President-whose birthday on September 5^th is celebrated as Teacher’s Day, ‘Nations, like individuals, are made, not only by what they acquire but by what they resign.’

If only India realizes…

(Excerpts from A paper I am working on to be presented at an International Conference in Korea this month.)

On Sex, Women etc.

Three thoughts just crossed my mind...

1. On Sex: There are reports from India that state that religious groups as well as the ministry of health are for deliberating constraint in introducing decent levels of acceptable sex education in school and choosing abstinence over promoting condoms. (As usual), there is supposed unrest amongst some of the elite members of the civil society who are bold enough to reprimand this loud and clear and their jingling ensured to be heard within the limits of spaces they find comfortable and absolutely safe and hardly anywhere beyond the coffee tables where these discussions take place. Either way, there is noise regarding this factor always doing its rounds.
A few celebrities, who take time to speak something sensible and though provoking (once in a great while) on this issue mention that, humans think of sex quite frequently because evolution constantly compels them to be creative. The moment an Indian hops on to this delicious topic, s/he/it can't resist bringing in the concept of the Kamasutra like it was his/her/it's birthright to talk about it even if s/he/it has not seen a single page from it... duh! fyi, the Kamasutra maybe a handy book and is not a hand-book for sex for Indians and we all don't abide or a-bed by it. During one seminar on sex, I remember a person in the panel (who happened to be gay,) when asked by someone from the audience whether they use condoms during the act, reply without haste, "Would you eat the chocolate with the wrapper?!" Golden thoughts like these do emerge once in a while, still amidst these chuckles and often visualization, man and woman, both, ideally fantasize a good amount of their share of this creative world if thats the least they can do when they can't indulge. 
Whether the restrainers want to prevent or the liberals want laissez-faire, either way once again, whether personally one wants to refrain or indulge, humans just don't seem to find it easy to get the thought of sex out of their head (and their beds).

2. On Ugly: Of late I have been reading and viewing some terrifically horrific stories and images of unbelievable and unacceptable violence. This ranges from boko haram slicing heads of people they think are bringing in an aped-culture, bodo militants on the rampage, 10-year-old kids torturing a 3-year old child to death, maids abusing children left to their care of busy-parents who are too occupied to take care of them, gun-crazy kids turning their dad's weapon on children who would return that evening in a coffin to their parents, military abusing and stripping women in the name of searching them, raping them later and labeling anyone who resents or dissents this as 'grave internal threats and/or terrorists', war criminals who have shattered peace and harmony of thousands of families and an entire country being invited and treated with reverence by their more hideous neighbours... and all sorts of violence in the form of speech from religious to political pulpits and the irresponsible action that follows therewith and the one's who walk around without the slightest clue of these things happening around the world or perhaps don't care a damn even if they do. Life is cruel, evil and wicked too...    

3. On Women: Listening to the kind of complaints women have especially (during and after and before) pregnancy, is it just me or is there anyone else out there who thinks that they deserve better treatment(?!) Homes are ill-equipped to cater to their "needs"; they sure deserve a reservation to check into the nearest mental health clinic for better treatment to reach them... Some (most), at times, most times, don't deserve to be at home. 

p.s: Just noticed, its my thought about sex that seems to have consumed a lot of space in this post. No wonder they say, "Intelligence is anything that a Man thinks besides sex." No wonder...   

Knowledge Reapers

People have different ways of interpreting 'goodness'. In the small community I live in, if one is a teetotaller, then goodness is crowned upon him... all this need for goodness comes into foreplay when finding the ideal match. Yet, I have seen superbly nurtured teetotallers who abuse the woMan they are with and smoking drinkers who are wonderfully good to their partner. Now whats goodness?!

Yesterday I told Arun that goodness is all about how you take care with genuine consideration sans any ulterior motive the person next to you... be it your partner or your friend or our neighbour or simply anyone next to us. Nish Kama Karma. Immediately he connected it to the movie '300' where the Spartans are adviced to fight for the one besides... to help him with further connections, I told him that in warfare, the military secret is to protect the comrade besides.

Information, knowledge and news we gather to curb ignorance, losing innocence, that which we rapidly search for at the end of the tunnel... Duh! However, History has taught us one thing and it sure has that we create more of what we consider is good for us and the excess of this produce is what will kill us at the end... applies to the hunger for knowledge as well. Probably thats why the knowledge gatherers resort to wisdom by opting to cut the noises and voices that clouds the brain and resort to silence as seen in the lives of many for whom climbing into the caves in the Himalayas becomes more important than frantically stepping on the corporate ladder or leading a kingdom... rendering to thoughtless thoughts.

It is often the lonely mind that tries to preoccupy itself with information, knowledge and opinion dumping; lest it suffer the burden of loneliness... often relaxing in books and more often surrendering to relationships to find solace in bodily comfort for diversion.

At the end of the day what do we carry? Nothing! Nothing at all... we leave a lot behind though. The more one gathers, the more he leaves behind. Simple, isn't it? Ces't la vie.

Bottomline: Yet it moves...