Saturday, October 27, 2007

Chennai 03:11 Pm

Its an initiative by a few friends. More at
their website.

What is this?

You have to capture what you're doing on Saturday, 03rd November at 03:11 Pm, on your camera and post it online. More at their website and on Suraksha's blog

Monday, October 22, 2007

The American Dream

No, not me ! I am still very much Indian and study in India as well. The title and the post itself is inspired by a comment made by a friend. We were generally having a conversation about future job opportunities and I was asking her where she would like to work. At this point, the reader is advised to note that the aforementioned friend resides in Uncle Sam's land and is studying towards a MS degree.

I asked her whether she intends coming back and she affirmatively said no. When asked why, she said I will wait till my kids are born so that they get American citizenship before coming back. The logic behind this being that higher education then becomes cheaper. Talk about long term planning !!

Anyway, it raised a couple of interesting questions in my mind. What do you think will be the state of Indian higher education twenty years from now? Will the country be subject to reservation of all kinds, or will we see a more open system which grants equal opportunity to everyone. What I like about the system abroad is the academic freedom and responsibility given to students. One is responsible for everything, right from choosing courses, to obtaining the required reading material, to preparing for exams and applying for a job. Sadly though, in India, the scene is different. There is still a certain amount of spoon feeding that still goes on in the system, well into graduate school. I would certainly like to see more institutes for other majors (apart from the IIMs, and the IITs). Maybe more institutes for Political Sciences, Economics and the like. We produce thousands of engineers each year, but very few graduates in other disciplines. We have only one NID, one IISc, one AIIMS, very few good law schools, one DSE for economics and hardly anything for Political Sciences and International Relations. Instead of opening more IIT's and IIM's, Dr.Manmohan Singh should be looking at other areas as well.

The other interesting question that popped up is that whether the craze to run abroad for higher education will be the same twenty years down the line as it is now? It is a very subjective question and a personal choice for many based on a variety of factors. I am thinking that the craze would still be there but people returning would be more simply because India is a great place to live and work in currently. The economy is growing at a healthy rate mainly due to IT and IT enabled services but slowly, I am hoping that manufacturing will contribute a lot more in the coming years. The standard of living in India is going up definitely and there is more opportunity than there was before.


Aakhir, Dil hai hindustani :)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Choosing a title

Whenever I start writing a post, the first text box is the title box. Now, I, being creatively challenged grope around for one and come up with very innovative ones likeRandom Thoughts or Tagged and then repeat the same title a year or so later so that the unassuming reader (if (s)he ever bothers to come back) is fooled.

Anyways, this evening, I decided that it was time to pay this dying web page some attention and clicked on new post. And then I sat. The cursor was on the title box and I was lost. I then decided to see if there were any draft posts worth completing but there weren't any that interested me. I then decided to write about choosing a title simply because, then, I could creatively call this post "Choosing a title". * Waits until the applause dies down *

I say that the title box should be kept at the end of the post. You, the smart and wise reader may argue that it is just way easier to omit the title, and come back to it at the end. I, the not so smart blogger would say no, because, I don't like to leave a task preceding the current one unfinished. In simpler words, I wouldn't want to proceed with writing unless I fill the title.

Or, you may just take the easy way out, write about titles, or simply call your post "Untitled" and increase your post count !!

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Physics Nobel

Announced today for some awesome work on nanotechnology. Interestingly, one of them was a German whose name was mentioned in a gathering of exchange students that I attended this evening.

These guys have used the spin of the electron instead of the charge to transport current and alter magnetic fields thereby allowing data to be written and erased on disks. Very interesting I must say!

Read more here

Thursday, October 04, 2007

I want to

- be able to cross the road wherever I please

- Eat street food (read as Pav Bhaji, Bhel Puri and Vada Pav) and enjoy them

- Go to a supermaket and be able to understand what the packaging says. Though, off late, it has been getting better.

- Be able to pick up the phone and call V whenever I want to

- Lie down on the couch at home and be pampered by Mom and Grandma

- Not having to worry about money, paying bills and cleaning, not to mention cooking

- Not stand in a line at every place possible

- Eat something that does not have cheese or butter in it.

Oh, the joys of being in India!! The best place in the world I say.

Cheers

Randomness

Another month goes by and it is time for another post on this blog. Yeah, I somehow post once a month like clockwork. Sometimes more, but definitely once a month. More recently however, I told myself that I will post more often. Lets see how that goes.

Anyways, the old saying goes, "
When in October, do Octoberfest
or something like that :) If I still have your attention after that, then read on.

I went to Octoberfest yesterday, one of those over hyped things like most of Europe is. Basically, it is just a big fair with rides, reminds me of fairs at Island Grounds in Madras. You get Cotton Candy, groundnuts, walnuts, juice, ice cream and all families come out in dressed in their Sunday best (Ok, it wasn't a sunday yesterday but it was a public holiday nevertheless) and roam about the fair grounds, kids all over the place, parents buying souvenirs and also denying kids their chocolates and things like that.

After a while, I decided to go off on my own exploring the fair grounds and found some innovative ways to make money. Wish I lived in Germany where I could make money like this. I realised that it was time for my train and rushed to the train station to board the last train to Koln. I slept intermittently on the train and as luck would have it, slept when Koln arrived and woke up after we passed Koln. Got off at Dusseldorf, which is about 25 minutes from here, took a slow train back home and reached at 2.30 in the morning. The perils of sleeping, I say !

Auf Wiedersehn