State of Media

While going through the news channels and the anchors in it,i feel bad at the quality of media and am concerned about the effects that this kind of media activism can bring in to the country. Other than a handful of journalists (and probably no mainstream press or TV channels) are there in our country who exists in the true spirit of journalism. Rather than bringing in the facts on an issue to the audience, they bring in their particular opinions also in to these and thus affecting the public's thoughts on such a matter. What is more annoying is the purposeful efforts from these entities to create a public opinion in favor or disfavor of a particular person or organisation (paid news scandal is an annoying example to depict this fact). PTI cheif Justice Markandey Katju, in an interview with Karan Thapar has argued that the intellectual level of the Indian media is very poor and it deliberately creates divide among the people. He says that this part of history, where India is moving out from feudal system to a more liberal system, media has a powerful role to play. He is also concerned about the illiteracy among media activists on economics, politics,literature, sociology etc.Well,these concerns on media has been highlighted by many people in recent years and there is no great meaning in repeating those arguments here. What we have to muse upon is a solution to this problem.

I thought on superimposing a different story to this state of media in our country. The story of the growth of quality of movies in our country. It has widely been accepted that the quality of our main stream movies has increased in the past couple of years. Though we have a long way ahead before getting at par with the Hollywood and French movies,the future of the film industry in terms of quality seems to be hopeful. What has been the factors contributing to this change? The film makers who used to take those "masala" movies with stereotype dialogues and songs are still out there. What has changed is the quality of audience. The demand for "masala" has decreased and the demand for better quality movies has increased. The exposure that the Indian audience got to the Hollywood and other industries,especially after the liberalization policies of 1991 have heightened the standard of audience of the country. The efforts by some channels to bring in more 'film-literacy' to the audience through subtitles and translation of foreign movies needs to appreciated. This has kept film makers on toes and has forced them to come out of their 'formula' films.

Similarly, a decrease in the demand for the less quality news and analysis is probably the only way through which we can reduce the negative media- activism. This can arise only through educating the masses on good journalism and exposing them to the quality programmes available elsewhere. Such an educated masses can keep the media on toes and to bring in contents which are really helpful for the masses. It also has lot of backward and forward linkages. It can also affect the quality of politics and political institutions in our country and lead us to a better democracy.

Celebrate your Uniqueness

Courtesy:- Sri Sri Ravishankar

A plum once said, 'just because a banana lover came by, I converted myself into a banana. Unfortunately, his taste changed after a few months and so I became an orange. ... When he said I was bitter I became an apple, but he went in search of grapes.

Yielding to the opinions of so many people, I have changed so many times that I no more know who I am.

How I wish I had remained a plum and waited for a plum lover.'

Just because a group of people do not accept you as you are, there is no necessity for you to strip yourself of your originality.

You need to think good of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate. Never stoop down in order to gain recognition.

Never let go of your true self to win a relationship. In the long run,you will regret that you traded your greatest glory - your uniqueness, for momentary validation.

Even Gandhi was not accepted by many people. The group that does not accept you as you is not your world.

THE UNSUNG MUGHAL HERO

I came across an often forgotten story from the annals of Indian History, which touched my heart and soaked my eyes and I would like to share it with you. The human emotions that are depicted in the story, like jealousy, thirst for power, opportunism etc. still holds good in our society. It also underlines the statement that ‘History is written by the victors’. It forces us to rethink on our perceptions about many historical personalities. I also wonder why this story has not caught the imagination of our major writers and film makers. I also hope to call their attention to this chapter of history through spreading it through this post.

The 'Bloody' Mughal Throne

                            Origins of this story can be traced to the times of the Great Mughal emperor Akbar. Towards the end of his reign Akbar was deeply concerned about his successor because two of his three sons died of addiction to alcohol and opium. His 3^rd son Salim(later known as Jahangir), was also addicted to these and was notorious for his mood swings. Several revolts lead by him also angered Akbar. Akbar’s mind turned to the young son of Jahangir – Khusrau, the hero of our story. Khusrau was equally loved by the courtiers and the clergy. He had an admirable personality, was efficient, talented and brave and was a brilliant commander. With time, he became the favorite prince of the countrymen.

                        The time just prior to Akbar’s death (1604-1605) saw a lot of political struggles inside the palace between Jahangir faction and Khusrau faction. It was so intense that Rajput princess ManBhai(Jahangir’s wife and Khusrau’s mother) committed suicide. Though Khusrau was favored by many influential nobles like Man Singh, the Jahangir factions led by Akbar’s senior wives were successful in influencing the senior umra on a decisive meeting. Thus, Jahangir came to throne.

                        Khurram was in house arrest after Jahangir’s ascendance, and only his wife, the daughter of Aziz khan Koka was allowed to meet him. During this period Jahangir tried to spread false allegations about his son, but his popularity did not decrease.

                        Meanwhile, Khurram escaped with a small band of his loyal soldiers and went to Lahore where he tried to raise an army. But, Jahangir was quick to react for the first time and perhaps for the only time as he send a big army under the able Dilwar Khan to fight Khusru. Khusru had to fight with a small army and was subsequently captured.

                        Khusru’s popularity was still so high that killing him would evoke anger among the masses. This was adviced to Jahangir, even by Khusru’s strongest critics. After capturing, Jahangir treated Khusru very cruelly. He was dragged between the cries of his soldiers whose skins were peeled off. Khusru was blinded by inserting a wire in to his eyes!

                        Later, Jahangir too felt affection for his son and tried to regain his vision but it was of little use. But, he was still afraid of Khusru’s popularity and used to tie or imprison Khusru when he moves out of the palace. Khusru’s wife was allowed to do anything freely due to Khusru’s ailing condition, but she stayed with him and gave him all support she could.

                        In 1615, Nur Jahan, Jahangir’s wife and the real head of Mughal Empire then, again looked to the still popular Khusru to oppose the rising status of Prince Khurram(later known as Shah Jahan). Shah Jahan was the son of Jahangir, but was born to his another wife. To continue her dominance, Nur Jahan asked Khusru to marry her daughter Ladli Beegum. Khusru knew that this was his ticket to get everything that he lost. If he marries her, he could eventually become the Mughal Emperor. He also knew that refusing it was the end of even all the little status that he enjoys now. But, he refused it, even after repeated attempts of persuasion by Nur Jahan and her brother Asaf Khan, who was a powerful noble then. For Khusru, his wife was his only love. She was the only one who supported him during all his bad times and he could not think of anybody else as his wife. It may be noted that this was a time when polygamy was very common and even kings of small kingdoms had large harems.

                        Later in 1617, Shah Jahan requested Jahangir to send Khusru to Deccan to assist him for a political mission there. But, his real intention was to not to allow Khusru to be at the Palace or capital as he knew that Khusru can be a threat to his ascendence to the Mughal throne.

                        In 1622 the conspiracy to kill Khusru was fully planned. A slave of Shah Jahan-RazaBahadur, asked permission to enter Khusru’s chamber at mid night. Khusru felt awkwardness in this and he refused permission. But,Raza forcefully entered the chamber and attacked Khusru. Khusru, inspite of his blindness fought him bravely and shouted at his soldiers to come, who did not come. After killing him, he was arranged well in the bed to make it feel as a natural death. Nobody appeared to know about Khusru’s death until his wife’s cries told them.

Khusro's Tomb

                        Shah Jahan reported that Khusru’s death was a natural one and so was the official statement. But, people knew that their favorite prince was murdered and sentiments in his support came from far extremes of the Empire like Gujarat and Lahore.

                        Khusru’s story forces us to rethink on our perceived images of the historical personalities.

Jahangir- a person notorious of his mood shifts and useless after thoughts (showing lack of vision) is known as “Great” Mugahal. The Mughal Empire decreased during his time and the practice when the wives and their relatives became the real head also started during his time. If Jahangir was “GREAT”, WHAT WAS KHUSRU?

Shah Jahan, who conspired to kill Khusru is known as a “Great Lover”, as he made the beautiful Taj Mahal fulfilling his wife’s last wish, which also banned him to marry any more. But, Shah Jahn had relations with many women till his death. But the love between Khusru and his wife is more pious. His wife thought that she married a future Emperor but stood selflessly with him during his periods of difficulties. Khusru also was completely loyal to his love. This can be observed when he refused to marry anyone else even when all the prosperity was offered to him against it. If Shah Jahan was a “GREAT LOVER”, WHO WAS KHUSRU?

                        It may also be added that fate struck both Jahangir and Shah Jahan cruelly, later in their life, as both of them had to suffer from the hands of their own sons.

                        We also need to think why a brave commander, admiring personality and a popular hero does not get a space of more than a paragraph in our common history text books, in spite of all his heroics. History should not be just about the chronology of kings and their achievements; it should move forward to look at things from people’s eyes to learn more about personalities like Khusru

N.Gregory Mankiev's advice to Young Economists...

Nicholas Gregory "Greg" Mankiw(born February 3, 1958) is an American macroeconomist of Ukranian descent. He is perhaps one of the greatest living Economists.He did his graduation at Princeton and spend an year each at MIT and Harvard Law School for his Ph.D.Currently, he is a professor of economics at Harvard University, where he teaches introductory economics (ec 10) among other courses. From 2003 to 2005, Mankiw was the chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisors. His publications are ranked among the most influential publications.His books have been recommended as text books in many universities and is a very influential person in the Economic students community.The following are his main advices to aspiring Economists, who are at the just started tasting the subject(aimed especially for under graduates). I am sure that this would benefit many more students like me to give direction to their careers.

Higher Education!, Go Higher

As I thought of writing the first post in the blog, I felt that writing on the higher education of India would be a good idea as this is a field that is unarguably one of the greatest pillars of the development of the country and wide discussions are held on this subject these days.                                                                                                         

   Though the problems associated with this sector are multilayered, I had divided it broadly in to administrative and academic problems, with few subtitles under these as I feel that all other problems like, social, psychological etc. associated with this sector comes in the backdrop of these broad problems. Let us first look in to these problems before going in to the reforms required.

             CONCERNS                               

        I) ADMINISTRATIVE—

i)                      Reservation- Reservation and Privatization are perhaps the most debated topic in our higher educational sector, and hence I have listed it first in the list. Increased concern over reservation has negatively affected our higher educational system as it has taken away lime light from many other major concerns. Reservation in any sector (&especially I educational system), causes loss to society, as the brightest do not reach better institutes; but we still continue with it thinking  it would bring more good to the society than its losses. Though the need for a reservation still exists it is time to think of its re-allotment for more effectiveness. Sam Pitroda ,the chairman of National Knowledge Commission, “Reservation has probably set us back several years in our ability to carry out the reforms we need to.”

             The popular support that reservation gets had prompted many of our politicians to o on further with reservation (with a need for Supreme Court to intervene in the matter and cap reservation limit to maximum of 50Percent). The social tensions faced by the authorities against this policy is mainly managed by increasing the total number of seats and also because many among the upper class pursue foreign education.

              The proper implementation and gradual reduction of reservation in a democratic country like ours need strong political will, free of prejudices.

ii)                  Political intervention in universities- This takes place both in policy formation and implementation. Bureaucratic sluggishness, misconceptions and prejudices retard the growth of our higher education sector. The denial of visa for prominent global educationalists to come to India, the slow moving files in government offices on matters concerning collaboration of industry and institutes, the delays in allocation of new courses etc. are the finest examples of this aspect.

      Among the policy matters too, the absence of Political visionaries had been a problem while there were 5 IITs established during Nehru’s period, only 1 IIT was established prior to the recent establishment of5 new IITs. Unhealthy political among the teaching and the student community and the inefficient funding has also retarded the growth of this field. A prominent educationalist tells, “Our deans and administrators now hang on the spoken word of our politicians, and student unions and teachers beat to their drum. It’s so entrenched that asserting independence in appointments and day to day decision turns you in to a radical, a rebel in the system.” 

      As political elite and the government receive benefits of these negative aspects, they prefer a status-quo. Thus, in our higher educational system, we have this uncomfortable condition, as Nandan Nilekani puts it “the state interferes, rather than guiding; (play) politics rather than policy”.

iii)         Regulation-   In the regulatory aspect of higher education, we have a dual problem. On the one hand, we have a confusing array of different regulatory bodies like UGC and AICTE and on the other hand, neither the government, nor UGC or AICTE has an effective control over our Universities. The rating system of the UGC and AICTE is also one with many loop holes.

      Due to absence of good legislation, UGC and AICTE had reduced to regulatory bodies that stand helplessly by, as India’s university system crumbled, and thus half of India’s expanding colleges, as a Vice-chancellor remarked, “are intellectual and social slums”.

iv)         Funding-  India spends only 1.9 percent of its GDP on higher education, the lowest among any nations with GDP higher than $500 billion. Its spending on research activities at universities is also very low compared to both the developed and the emerging nations. Even the funds that are presently allotted are not efficient enough. But, it should be noted that higher funding or investment in higher education can lead to better results only with reforms in the total system.

OR   OR  ?

II)                ACADEMIC-

i)         Quality of the Higher education-   India is the 3^rd largest in the number of higher educational institutes after China and USA and is one of the largest degree producers in the world.

          But, quality of these is quite unsatisfactory. No worthwhile invention has been made here. Rote learning can identified as one of the factor behind this. India’s engineering and medical colleges, management schools and universities are facing a serious shortage of quality academic faculty by about 20 percent. Global competitiveness of Indian students is comparatively small and is still smaller if the top 10 institutes of India are taken out. India does not have more than 5 universities in the top 500 bracket of the academic ranking of world universities.

ii)      Number of Institutions for higher education-   Though India is one of the largest in terms of number of institutes for higher education; it is still short of them. This shortage is expected to be more by 2015, thanks to the efforts to improve the enrolment ratio. By 2015, we need at least 1500 universities, against 350 we have today. 

iii)     Research-  The research standards of our country has been poor, both in terms of quality and quantity. If we consider a particular area, say Computer Science, where we are assumed to be strong, we can see that annual PhDs in this field in our country is 25, while it exceeds 800 in USA and 2500 in China. IIT is granted 3-6 patents in a year, where as it is 64 for Stanford and 102 for MIT! We haven’t seen any technological adaptation after 1970s and 1980s and not a single major invention emerged from India over past 50 years!!!

iv)     Employability-   “75 percent of the Indian graduates are  unemployable for the work they are trained for”, was said by Shri. Narayana Murthy of Infosys. Many people prefer sub-standard engineering degree than good vocational skills, where as 90 percent of the employment opportunities require vocational skills. McKinsley estimates that only 10 percent of Indian students in arts and humanities and only 25 percent of Indian engineering graduates are globally competitive. 12 percent of the 41 million unemployed are either a graduate or a postgraduate!        

                               REFORMS                                      

       It is an agreed fact that reforms are required in the area of higher education. Many suggestions on this matter address many of the problems mentioned earlier. Some of them are a panacea for more than one of those problems.

       A ‘super regulator’ which forms a single independent regulatory body would eliminate the confusion prevailing over multiple arrays of regulatory bodies. This would also bring more transparency, setting up of uniform controls and better quality in higher education. We need independent regulatory body free from government or political intervention.

      Private participation, if properly propelled can bring out both qualitative and quantitative improvement in our higher educational sector. It is neither possible nor sensible for the government to invest the huge amount that is required for, in our higher educational sector. Private participation, from both inside and outside the country should be encouraged to make more institutes in our country. This will take away the deficit between the demand for higher education and the availability of institutes. This will avoid the instances like that which happened in Delhi University this year, when a 100percent cut-off was announced in a college under the university. Institutes like TISS, BITS, Lady Sriram College, Sriram Collge of Commerce, Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), CMC Vellore, St.Stephen’s College, etc. has taken away our doubts on the quality of private institutes.  

      The interactions between industries and institutions should be encouraged, taking necessary precautions, as this can increase the employability of the students.                                       

                                                                                                                        

      Reforms have taken in our country when visionaries came in to action, like it happened during Nehru’s times. When visionaries like M.S.Swaminathan, Vikram Sarabhai, Sam Pitroda, Verghese Kurien etc. acted, reforms required happened with direction. In the higher educational sector of our country, we have “ a Niagra of reports and a Sahara of actions”. Reforms required in higher educational sector requires controversial steps, as we are in a democracy. Infact, the market economy has been pushing us to the necessary reforms, to an extent. The question is, whether we can bring about these reforms fast enough to avail the opportunities that our country has today- domestically and globally???