Life's Inspiration

On November 22, 2012, I happened to see the exhibition of 150th Birth Anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore on wheels arranged by Indian Railways that was stationed for three days in Chennai Central Railway Station for the public view. A great effort in memory of the great legend of India!

His was a saga of personal losses on the family life-front but the Guru lived a long life and guided the country for a few decades apart from establishing a world-renowned institution "Santhi Nikethan". He tried to live with and enjoy 'Nature' from close quarters. Hence a number of poems linking nature with the Almighty.

After leaving the platform (No. 11) my mind was engrossed with the Tagore days and asking myself:

"Where did I come from and what for ?

& 

 Where do I go from here now in this life?"

US Air Force Fails to Protect the Fair Sex

The latest news from Washington is disheartening and demoralizing. It is reported that some 50 women-trainees have been raped by the men officers in charge of training at the training Academy of US Air Force in Lakeland of Texas State. About 23 officials have been dismissed from service due to this misconduct and criminal activity. Out of this lot one person named Louis Walker seems to have raped as many as 35 women for which he has been sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, as indicated by the Training-in-charge General Edward Rice who conducted the enquiry into this affair.

Where is the human being proceeding to? A disciplined and organized force is committing such an inhuman activity?

Sex feeling enhanced by the current avalanche of literature and video shows on sex both in print, digital and website is playing a prominent role in shaping the unfortunate behavior of male adults. Any remedy? Society and the leaders are to take a note of this and find immediate and practical solution to this malady.

Residential Apartments in Multi-storeyed Buildings

A two-storey building collapsed in Triplicane area of Chennai city on October 3, 2012 resulting in the death of two persons. Despite the complaint of the tenants the owners failed to repair the building. It is reportedly a 50 year-old building. I have the feeling that it is just a starting point and such a calamity is likely to recur routinely in every major city like Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata where such old apartments are in plenty. A drive through those cities will reveal such a possibility in the near future. Unless a serious note is taken of these occurrences and a massive renovation and rebuilding of those old apartments is taken up in a systematic way many more lives are likely to be lost unfortunately. Who is to do this?

Gandhi Jayanthi

Today is 143rd Birth anniversary of Mohandas.K.Gandhi, the popular and powerful Mahatma of Indian politics. I saw the movie 'Gandhi' today on a local T.V channel in Chennai made on his life by Richard Attenborough. It is certainly a thought-provoking and inspiring life-story of a leader adored and venerated by millions of people not only in India but overseas as well. Two facts of his life were little twisted in the film: One- He sacrificed costly dress material and upper garment altogether near Madurai in South India during his study tour of the country but it was not depicted so in the film: Two- The title 'Mahatma' was given by Poet Rabindranath Tagore but in the film it was shown as given by Jawaharlal Nehru.

The great leader met with a violent death although he was a messiah of non-violence and lived & preached truth and non-violence throughout his life. It is a paradox of human life.

He died a disappointed and broken man with India being partitioned and people put to lot of hardships. He and his followers fought for one and united India accommodating all religions and communities. His social reforms and economic thoughts were not totally approved by his political followers in Congress Party after independence in 1947. Communal harmony and national allegiance are not strictly adhered to and ensured by certain groups of people in India even today.

As an administrator I used to celebrate the Gandhi Jayanthi wherever possible while in service - as Sub Divisional Officer, as Collector, as Divisional Commissioner, as Secretary to the government or Managing Director of a Corporation / Board / Society. Bur after retirement from active service I am finding difficult to repeat the same activity nowadays. For today (October 2, 2012) esp. I tried at four places:- 1) South Venganallur Panchayat in Rajapalayam Panchayat Union in Virudhunagar district, 2) Kisan Vikas Kendra at Krishnagiri district. 3) A village near Avadi in Tiruvallur District. 4) Stanley Medical College Hospital in Chennai. But the authorities concerned were not very enthusiastic about the idea and naturally some action programme on the occasion.

We are more formal these days in laying wreaths on the Samadhi of Gandhiji at Rajghat in New Delhi.

Teacher & his tuition

Students of the Government Higher Secondary School, Belukurichy near Namakkal in TamilNadu resorted to a flash protest by boycotting classes on Monday, September 10, 2012 against a physics teacher who was not taking classes properly and was partial to those attending tuition with him.

Hey Ram! What sort of teachers are serving the student community these days. Hence a poem on such teachers written by the author of this blog which reads as follows:

Teacher

Sorry for expecting a teacher to be a guru

Standards are falling everywhere you see

Modern gurus are paid not less by the way

Modern & hard work can’t they teach, I say

Guru is supposed to be a good example but

Gurukul is seen nowhere now in our midst.

Education has truly become a paying business

Elite’s progeny expend a lot in such enterprise

Teachers are no doubt exploited in some places

Teachers at times teach less & practice politics

Students are now at their mercy for good marks

Students doubtless strain a lot for better results.

Impartial and motivated service is difficult to find

Inimical and irritating is the system for admission

Private coaching and tuition is a real phenomenon

Parental agony & ward’s anxiety end up in tyranny

How to set right and bring in discipline and decency

How to attract the best in the fraternity for teaching

Interchange of teachers & masters for certain tasks

Interaction of the current with the former almanac

Certainly would this improve their lot in the system

Cautiously could one effect the reform for the better

Teachers are in a different category & unlike others

Teachers are to mould the future generation as ever.

Let the State announce an education policy quickly

Let different sectors of education be defined clearly

Let the administrators learn a lesson from the past

Let the educationists be bold in their stand and test

Let the educational institutions be temples of learning

Let the businessmen make it not the means of earning.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

‘Guru’ refers to a principled and spiritual teacher whereas ‘gurukul’ refers to a residential school in a traditional set up in ancient India.

Procurement Price Up as Production Falls

Paddy was raised in about 13500 acres only as against the total cultivated area of 90000 acres under paddy due to non-release of water from Lower Bhavani Project dam (although promised to do so from August 15) in the ayacut of Tadapalli-Arakankottai canals forcing the traders from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh to buy paddy at a price higher than the official procurement price. In a way it helps the farmers to sell at their doorsteps but the state as a whole stands to lose in terms of normal production this year due to drought condition.

Paddy production is bound to decline in such circumstances and the state may be forced to import rice from other countries very soon, thanks to our inadequate planning, nature’s and the neighbor’s cooperation in terms of water and irrigation rights.

 

Going to town - Chinese Experience

Over half of China's people now live in urban areas

For a nation whose culture and society have been shaped over millennia by its rice-farming traditions, and whose ruling party rose to power in 1949 by mobilizing its traditional peasantry, China has just passed a remarkable milestone: its city-dwellers now outnumber its rural residents. New data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that of China’s 1.35 billion people, 51.3% lived in urban areas at the end of 2011. In 1980 less than a fifth of China’s population lived in cities, a smaller proportion than in India. What a transformation?

Over the next ten years the government remained wary of free movement, even as it made its peace with free enterprise. Touting a policy of “leaving the land but not the villages, entering the factories but not cities”, it sought industrialization without urbanization, only to discover it could not have one without the other. Even now, its ratio of city-dwellers is, if anything, low for an economy at its stage of development. America reached the 50% mark before 1920. Britain passed it in the 19th century. Go further back, however, and China’s cities dazzled the world. It is likely that one thousand years ago, the Song Dynasty capital of Kaifeng was the world’s most populous city. Marco Polo, who visited China in the 13th century, claimed that Hangzhou was “the most splendid city in the world” with 13,000 bridges—although later estimates suggest the true number was 347. In other words it could mean the report was either based on hearsay or wild guess. How Kaifeng could be the most splendid city unless the writer-traveler had personally seen at least a dozen of similar cities in the world. It could be an exaggerated statement on seeing a tolerably well built and populated city unlike the ones he had seen earlier to this.

The point to be noted here is the fact that China is growing faster on the same lines than other players on the globe and mesmerizing one and all undoubtedly.

A matter of deep satisfaction is that the state of Tamil Nadu has achieved 51% urban population as per 2011 Census. Urbanisation has its own disadvantages in Indian context at the moment.

(Jan 18th 2012, 15:09 by The Economist online)