ctrl.altered.mind

My alma mater, the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been placed 34th worldwide (and 26th nationwide) in a new ranking of world universities conducted by the Center for World-Class Universities at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Indian universities, on the other hand, trail far behind along in the world ranking, with the IISc and IIT-Kharagpur sharing 303rd place with ninety-eight other universities around the globe.
With the Beijing Olympics basking in the spotlight, a typical sports discussion lamenting the absence of a billion-strong nation from the world’s largest competitive event quickly turns to a consolation about how Indian graduates are making their mark elsewhere. Unfortunately, world rankings of universities such as this latest one highlight a different story.

The Indian government’s education expenditure as a percentage of GDP has remained constantly under roughly 4.3%, despite a recommended target of 6% set first by the Kothari Commission in 1968. In recent years, the country’s GDP has risen quite exponentially thanks to a multitude of economic factors - however, investment in educational resources has grown rather linearly at a lackluster pace.

Our grim performance in the world rankings report does have a silver lining, in that higher education in India has seen rapid growth by evolving into divergent streams with the private sector playing a stronger role (partly due to the Government’s concentrated efforts towards achieving literacy goals and maximizing retention in elementary education). Restructuring this growth to place emphasis on quality over quantity, however, is what is sorely desired to rejuvenate the landscape of post-graduate education.

Setting aside political agendas when it comes to utilizing taxpayer money is a primary requirement before great strides can be made in bootstrapping India’s tiered education structure to meritorious thresholds. We as a nation should channelize efforts diverted in overcoming barriers posed by linguistic and ethno-social differences, towards building competencies in the form of strong educational institutions and support organizations (such as improved public libraries). Bringing forth scalable solutions to defeat this social inertia would be a welcome step forward in this race for dominance in education.

Among the mostly crappy commercials on television, every once in a while there is an ad that comes along and makes you chuckle. Virgin Mobile’s (India) new advertisements such as these ones do manage to strike a chord with those amused by deviant teen humor
Their tag phrase, ‘Think zara hatke‘, however, seems to have been directly inspired by Apple’s long-standing Think Different slogan.

The cheapest production vehicle in the world was unveiled this week by Tata Motors, part of India’s Tata Group and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of commercial vehicles. From the company that presented India with its first indigenous vehicle (the Tata Indica - my parents own one), comes the Tata Nano. This new car breaks new ground by breaking the pricing barrier in India’s relatively premium automobile market. The Nano will sell for approximately Rs. 1,00,000 (or just $2500, before taxes and other charges). In comparison, vehicles in a similar class carry a price tag in the vicinity of Rs. 3,00,000 - three times as much as the Nano. AutoBlog has a short video of the launch along with a picture gallery.

The Nano will essentially answer the desire of millions of Indian households that aspire to own an inexpensive car, but have had to make do with a scooter or motorcycle. Anyone who has been on the streets of a major Indian city, Mumbai included, has seen a family of two adults and their two children remarkably balanced on a two-wheeler amidst crazy traffic. The Nano’s affordable price tag ensures that such commuters would now have a cosy seat each and an exponentially stronger chance of completing their trips safely.

While this point alone is enough to justify the Nano for its supporters, the car has quite the share of detractors who make equally (if not more) powerful points. Indian city roads are congested beyond belief already, and public transportation is already seeing severe strain. Empowering every person and his secretary to own an inexpensive car is only going to make those conditions much worse. As Mumbai city desperately tries to cope with its burgeoning fleet of cars by adding new highways and flyovers, the country will soon see this problem escalate across even its smaller cities and towns. It is not just the problem of traffic congestion - more cars with relatively inexperienced drivers spells out a recipe for chaos through accidents and rampant disregard for traffic laws.

The New York Times has a bleak report on the unveiling of the Nano. An excerpt from the article:

With a population of nearly 16.5 million, New Delhi now adds 650 vehicles to its roads each day. At last count, there were 5.4 million vehicles in all, a more than fivefold increase in 20 years; scooters and motorbikes still outnumber cars two to one.

Pity the walker in the city. Half of all fatal road accident victims are pedestrians, according to the police. Every now and then, a homeless person sleeping on the street is run over. Last week, a speeding car banged into a policeman standing at a traffic checkpoint and didn’t bother to stop; the officer was critically injured.

While I am excited to see India’s economical growth make an impact on the standard of living of its people, the viral nature of this growth is equally concerning.

I found this little gem online. Did you know Sonia Gandhi’s maiden name was Sonia Antonia Maino? I didn’t.

“Sonia Antonia Maino (Gandhi)” rearranges to become “Oh god! I am in an Asian nation!”

Brilliant.

Anu Garg’s Internet Anagram Server (which coincidentally works out to ‘I, Rearrangement Servant’) is a fun tool when you’re in the mood to play around with letters.

Sweet Child o’ Mine, as made famous by Guns N’ Roses - in an Indian classical version. Will this be featured on, um, Sitar Hero?

To the uninitiated, the video is a Channel V network ad.

(video link)

A local environmentalist group has called for residents of Mumbai to observe an hour of abstinence from the use of electricity on December 15 from 7:30pm to 8:30pm, in a bid to increase awareness about global warming.

The city has been constantly battling an ever-increasing demand for energy, given its constant strain on resources. Residential areas across the city have had to endure rationing of electric supply for decades, in order to accommodate for load sharing with industrial zones. This problem has been aggravated even further by the exponential demand for energy resources over the past couple of years, as the city witnesses a surge in conspicuous consumption. The mushrooming of malls all over Mumbai, and the increasing demand for motor vehicles by the burgeoning middle class, are factors spearheading the onward march towards increased pollution and the depletion of precious resources.

The city of Sydney faded into black on March 31 this year with it’s event called Earth Hour (pdf), in a similar effort to send a message across Australia about climate change. I sincerely hope that this token move to achieve one hour of no power, will help in educating the masses in Mumbai and India, and increase awareness about the change each individual can bring forth.

Check out MumbaiUnplug.com for more details. Good luck Mumbai!

The BBC reports on a rather bizarre incident in the country’s capital, where a horde of marauding monkeys attacked the deputy mayor at his residence and caused his death as he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home.

The unfortunate incident illustrates a problem that has grown out of hand, in part due to the fact that monkeys are revered by Hindus as they represent Lord Hanuman, and perhaps more importantly due to the severe encroachment of urban development upon the monkeys’ natural habitat. Forest cover is an endangered resource in India, due to decades of poor regulation and feckless enforcement. While deforestation may have been arrested since the National Forestry Policy was adopted in 1988, cover still exists for just about 19.39% (the world average is 27%, and the policy ambitiously targets that 33% of India’s land mass be brought under forest cover).

While the rest of the world is just beginning to realize the importance of a conservationist attitude and the value of being green, this change in attitude becomes even more imperative for our country and it can only be hoped that extraordinary incidents such as this one would help draw focus towards the grave ecological issues at hand.

The euphoria surrounding the Indian cricket team’s breathtaking victory at the 20/20 World Cup series shows no signs of settling down, and the shower of gifts and accolades does not seem likely to cease any time soon. While the tournament final witnessed an ecstatic performance by the team against Pakistan on Sep 24th, the spoils of victory certainly eliminate even the slightest shadow of doubt that in India, cricket is not just a popular sport, but a prurient religion.

Each player gets a share of about Rs. 1,18,06,700 ($295,000) based on their apportionment of the team’s winnings - the prize money of Rs. 13,06,700 ($32,660), a BCCI prize of Rs. 80,00,000 ($200,000), and a flat worth Rs. 25,00,000 ($62,500) courtesy of Sahara. Most players will also be getting steep raises from their respective ‘employers’, as well as free flights for the next five years thanks to the Delhi government.

In addition, prizes that have been announced for individual players by state governments and corporations add up to tidy sums -

Yuvraj Singh: Rs. 1,00,00,000 ($250,000) and a Porsche
R P Singh : Rs. 10,00,000 ($25,000) and a Mercedes
Joginder Singh: Rs. 21,00,000 ($52,500)
Ajit Agarkar & Rohit Sharma: Rs. 10,00,000 ($25,000)
Irfan & Yusuf Pathan: Rs. 16,00,000 ($40,000)
Virendra Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, S Sreesanth & Robin Uthappa: Rs. 5,00,000 ($12,500)

Bowling Coach Venkatesh Prasad: Rs. 20,00,000 ($50,000)

Things are looking bright in the near future as well, as corporations have probably already begun their own contest for sponsorships and endorsements.

Boy, it must feel really good to be Yuvraj Singh right now!

(Update) Hockey (or field hockey to the Americans), despite being anointed India’s national sport, lags far behind in terms of the recognition that it should receive. In a big contrast to cricketers, hockey players are actually penalized for poor performance (Rs. 1,000 for each goal scored and Rs. 2,000 deducted for every goal conceded) and barely rewarded, if at all, for their achievements. As Murali aptly puts it, compared to cricket in India, other sports are given the proverbial step-motherly treatment.

The Government of India has recently set up an online grievance forum with the intention of opening up a more direct line of communication with citizens, who can use this tool to highlight problems faced when dealing with Government officials and/or departments. Avenues that immediately come to mind include (but are certainly not limited to) the Passport Office, Electricity Board, BSNL/MTNL, and the Railways.

Submissions to the forum may not be falling on blind eyes after all, if unconfirmed anecdotal evidence making the rounds on many online message boards and by email, is to be believed. It talks about a certain CSC employee in Faridabad who used the forum to log a complaint about the local municipal corporation digging up newly paved roads to install cables - an annoyance most of us in India have had to deal with. Apparently, this was successful, as the BSNL and the Faridabad Municipal Corporation were served a show-cause notice soon after. While it is not clear if the online forum played a vital role in bringing the two departments in sync with each other, it is definitely a tool that more of us can make use of.

Unfortunately, the website (as with most other government-controlled websites in India) suffers a great deal in the aesthetics department (I doubt that any sense of design even exists for the persons in charge of getting websites implemented). With a heterogenous mix of poorly selected html design elements and colors, spending too much time browsing the site can drive one to poke their eyeballs with a fork, in disgust. Alright, dramatic effects aside, I guess a complete redesign of the site (with a hint to derive some inspiration from other functional and spartanly designed administrative websites around the world) would be my choice for a grievance to be filed on the forum. Let’s see how that goes.

Mike found this Penn Masala video on Youtube, called The Facebook Skit. Its a parody of Enrique Iglesias’ Hero. Funny, and with complete desi authenticity as it features a Patel mentioned in the video.

Penn Masala is the world’s first and premier Hindi a cappella group formed in 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania. Their website even has a media player that features the most popular songs from the five albums that the group has produced in the last ten years. I didn’t realize that two of their songs were also featured in American Desi, a movie that most desis probably end up watching (through strong recommendation or otherwise), in their first week after stepping ‘off the boat‘ - well, I did anyway.

Penn Masala also has their newest song, ‘Aankhon Mein Tu Hai’, available as a free download. Its a good song with some north and southern Indian classical influence. Check it out.