A blog post that I found interesting 

As a child, I thought this story very funny.........a man sells the Taj mahal to a rich tourist and other versions of this.

 It's not funny anymore since it is really happening. Sell forest land to mining compnies, sell farm lands to real estate promoters...  

village school

It educative to see what problems a small school faces. I went to this school run by a group of women who offer their services voluntarily. It is a free school with children in classes LKG to seventh. They do not have much money and run on donations received. They pay a small salary to about six teachers. They give the children a hot meal of kichidi cooked in the school kitchen. Other volunteers help them in teaching and with the administration. But the problem is, the school is approached through a village road. The long spells of rain have left pits up to 3 ft deep all along this road. No volunteer is willing  to visit them. I myself did not visit the school for the past few weeks, since I was afraid to drive my old car over those roads. So the ladies running the school are now trying to fill up the potholes in the roads themselves since the graam panchayat is not willing to so.
In addition to running the school, they are now into road building.

the business of politics

Today I met this person who seemed clued up about this Telangana issue. I asked him whether Ongole is really being considered as the capital city for Andhra. He said that influential people buy land in Ongole and then start a rumour that Ongole is going to be the new capital.  The real estate prices start soaring. They sell and move out. They then buy land in Vijayawada and start rumours about Vijayawada............This can be done quite a number of times......Vizag, Guntur, Cuddapah..........making a number of killings. 

politicians

I have two children, now grown up. When they were young, I was annoyed most days by their bickerings.......if I pull up one  of them for an offence, the defense would not be about that particular offence, but an accusation that when the other sibling did something comparable, I said nothing so why am I doing so now................Usually, I would not have any recollection of this previous offence, which would put me on the backfoot.
I am sure most parents of young children have the same experience.

Politicians do the same.........talk to BJP about Gujarat riots, they say what about Congress and the anti Sikh riots.  CM of UP says what about Mayawati ill-treating IAS officers? So if someone commits a crime, it's now open season on that particular crime.
My children's bickering comes to mind every time.

news

I think current events are becoming  a great source of entertainment. It's just like a farce or a cartoon.
I commit fraud, I investigate it myself, I clear myself of all charges and reinstate myself. Like being the king of an uninhabited island........we are just watching mouths agape!!

Telangana is not entertainment, however........it is worrisome wondering if they will make a mess of it,  or will the smaller states  indeed, be better governed.

A repeat post

I have already mentioned this before in this blog, but when the government introduces new institutions, there must be no disconnect. An example is this--
The criterion for employing faculty in  state universities and affiliated colleges is that the person must have an MSc in the subject that they are going to teach. They should  have scored at least 55% in the MSc. This is the basic criterion on which selection is made.
If a person has a PhD/MPhil, they get additional points or if they have cleared the NET/SLET exam, they get a few points. Teaching experience gives some more points.
If a person has an MSc in Botany, but a PhD with work done on a Microbiology topic, he/she can be employed only in the Botany department NOT the Microbiology department. (This  happened to a colleague who was told she could never be made a permanent employee in the Microbiology department). The university will not ratify the appointment even if the college makes it, and she is not entitled to the pay-scales approved by UGC.
Now, if the  government sets up institutions that give an integrated MS/MSc without a specialisation, then these graduates are not eligible for a post in state university or its affiliated colleges. They have to have  MSc Biochemistry or MSc Botany etc ...
While it may be true that none of  the graduates who pass from elite institutes will teach in a college affiliated to a state university, should the government itself  make it impossible for those few idealists who do wish to do so? If the government itself feels the state universities don't count, how will they improve?
Either introduce specialisation in all institutions or better still, remove this silly rule that MSc has to be in the same subject.  Surely the recruitment committee can determine if the person is knowledgeable in the subject she is going to teach !
This particular friend I mentioned, though with an MSc Botany, was definitely a Microbiologist and the requirement was for faculty in Microbiology.

A trip long ago.

During my school days, I used to live in this hill station where I had the good fortune to study at an excellent school.
One of my friends had heard that there was a vaccine production institute nearby........about 10 -15 km away. We were all keen to see this and decided to go and see how vaccines are made. One holiday, we packed some picnic lunch and walked down. It was all downhill, so we had a good walk down to the institute. There we saw how they produced anti rabies vaccine.............in retrospect, cruel and with no bio-hazard containment.....absolutely none, as far as I can remember. The infected sheep from whose spinal fluid the vaccine is made, were just kept in a pen in the garden.
We ate our picnic lunches and started walking back. Now this was all uphill obviously, and we were really tired. One of us pretended to be ill and lay on the grass beside the road while the rest tried to flag down a passing vehicle. After a lot of disappointments, we got a ride back in a tempo.