Let them fly!

Do you know how people manage to make pets out of birds like doves, parrots, etc., without keeping them inside a cage? They clip the wings of the birds to keep them on ground. When they think that the birds are accustomed to them, they let them fly and the birds mostly do come back to them, keeping their faith. Well, it has been the same case with the children in our (largely middle-class) society who are blindfolded till they land in an engineering or medicine college. Their wings of freedom to think on their own to choose a course are clipped early in the current education system.

An education system is intended to guide the constantly evolving new breed of children. But I am afraid, all the education in current form doing is narrowing down their thinking abilities. There is no imagination going into the aspect of teaching. The skills of teachers as well as the practicality of the curriculum had been constantly under scrutiny. No emphasis has been made on moral, democratic values or gender-sensitization. Various committee reports on the reforms that are needed in the same are yet to see the light of the day.  Surely, why should the children need, what we ourselves know nothing of! 

Besides, the disregard of the state towards the education in government schools has forced the parents to move to private organizations, which do demand hefty sums of money. When there are hefty sums involved, everything comes down to demand and supply. These hefty sums put a lot of pressure on the teachers, who will apply the same on to the children in order to supply the demanded marks and ranks. And generally, It doesn't matter what genuine skill a particular kid, possesses or is passionate about.

The anxiety of parents in making sure that their child is in a trusted path, which assures a settled job and career, has also become an obstacle in producing honest and sensuous citizens. The parents(most probably the father) set the goal for the young one, as early as (s)he borns. Any deviation from that goal gets discouraged at the faintest hint of it. Most of the children's dreams remain as dreams under the safeguard of their parents until its too late.

Also today's schools, colleges and universities have limited the education to a small group of popular courses with little or no real research, producing politically immature and only-job oriented professionals. The quality of education in highest institutions like IITs is also getting diluted due to various reasons. A lot of graduates have been switching over to careers that are irrelevant to the course that they actually graduated in.

Its already time for the Indian State to seriously consider a revamp of education policies in order to ensure that every child gets quality education in government institutions at each level along with an exposure to various fields of arts and sciences early in their life. And its high time the parents stop rubbing their dreams on to the children and start helping them chase their own dreams. Let them fly, I say...

Honesty: the new 'cool'

The amalgamation of corruption, favoritism, misgovernance, especially in the recent years has resulted in a plague that is spreading to various organs of our nation. This plague is spreading fast, transforming into a vicious cycle of dis-functioning systems that compliment each other resulting in the shrinking of basic human values of our society. It has already consumed most of the systems in place: political, police, bureaucratic, business, broadcasting, publishing and judicial systems.

According to some of these reports, the corruption in judiciary is not a new phenomena. But, the practice of judiciary saving its own is certainly on the rise with the recent developments of not one case, but number of cases. This is a dangerous phenomena as it effects number of other judgements by those involved in such cases. Even the post of Attorney General of India(AGI) seems to have compromised. Certainly the current AGI proved it more than once. And all other highest government offices and organizations like CBI, CAG , etc., are following the suit like mad.

As there wasn't any credible alternative political establishment, the people had been effectively left out of the Cycle of Democracy, turning it into the above mentioned vicious cycle. This cycle formed out of the corrupt systems has already started kicking(or killing) out the honest(who don't keep their silence about the fraudulent deals), and rewarding the corrupt and bystanders(who keep their silence on the deals). 

When one of their corrupt collaborators gets into trouble(latest example), all other mates in different systems of this unscrupulous cycle collude and try to bail him out at different levels starting from registering  of a complaint and through various levels like FIR registration, Investigation, formation of charges, court trial, re-trials, appeals, etc. In case if he somehow crosses all these barricades and gets a jail sentence(after 20-30 years), even then, there are processes that makes him feel like at home with special cells in the jail and with paroles almost whenever he wants.

Its very hard to break this cycle now, which seems to have reached its full spin. The key to break this cycle, lies with the political system, which is the at the core of this cycle, and in the hands of voters when an honest alternative do present. To stop this cycle, there's the need for a constant force to act against the spin, involving both honest political leaders and honest voters. This combination is the basic working principle for a democracy to progress, which can even make the existing corrupt political outfits gets renovated or replaced to good enough proportions for the cycle of democracy to start functioning again.

The recent Delhi elections prove that the people are ready to back a credible alternative at least for once. But, can this trigger a national political revolution that we are desperately in need of? There is no doubt that, to an extent, the political awareness among the general public is gradually increasing, especially among the young citizens, most of whom had been keeping their distance from politics and there by from voting. Some heated debates among the youth is always promising, but honest, unselfish, sensitive and dynamic youth represent the real progress of a nation.

As Chetan Bhagat said in a recent animated discussion on NDTV, goodness, or rather Integrity, must become the new cool (style statement).

Mango Politics

"Who are these people who won? 

Rakhi Birla, a small time woman journalist, whom no one knows, defeated the cabinet minister Rajkumar Chauhan, 

Ashok Chauhan, whom no one know either, defeated Chaudhary Prem Singh, who has been winning for the last 40 years,

and I defeated Sheila Dikshit by a margin of 25000 votes,

Who are we? 

We are common people, we can't stand against them in any way,

But, these vote margins aren't our victory, they show the anger of people against the corrupt system," (translated from hindi to english)

says AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in his first interview after the sensational Delhi Assembly Elections, 2013.

The historical white gandhian caps of freedom movement were back in politics, hardly a year back. They even called it as the second freedom movement, but against corruption and misgovernance, this time. The aam aadmi of the Aam Aadmi Party are all set to put their first steps into the Delhi assembly in an unprecedented manner, wiping out the Congress and keeping the BJP at a safe enough distance from getting the simple majority. How did it happen? What made the people of Delhi trust the AAP more than BJP?

One can observe that the dynamic chief of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal, his past and his unminced words, impressed upon the different sections of the people of Delhi. He and AAP never left any stone unturned to expose the similarities between BJP and Congress, when it comes to corruption. Especially, the fact that both the youth and the old from various parts of the country and NRIs from various other countries, donated their time and money, put their careers on hold, shows, how desperate they were for a change in the existing political system. 

They became volunteers, went door to door and covered most of Delhi in teams as part of the AAP campaign, sharing their genuine concerns with the voters of Delhi. Also with the youth came some innovative and economic ways of reaching out to people. They held posters manually on flyovers for hours daily. The supporters who can't reach Delhi were asked to call people of Delhi, or reach out to people on Delhi bound trains.

The genuineness is amazing thing. The people who had been disgusted with dispassionate speeches, promises and apathy of the existing politicians have found solace in the genuineness of the AAP leaders, candidates and volunteers. This leaves not only the Congress, but also the BJP with a need to re-examine their strategies for the General Elections, 2014.

There is still uncertainty over who'll form the government in Delhi, with BJP, restraining themselves from trying out any gimmicks, eyeing the General Elections, and AAP sticking to its stand of not aligning with any of the traditional parties. Meanwhile, AAP is conducting classes to its brand new MLAs on how to dispense their duties.