Happy Republic Day

Happy Republic Day!

Merriam Websters dictionary describes Republic as :- A government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.

The officers and representatives are responsible and accountable to us. Often its the accountability which is lacking because they think these representatives are invincible and answerable to none.

A step is the right direction is increasing the efficiency of the Grievance Redress system. By bringing it online Government of India has made it easier for all citizens to file our grievances (Portal for Public Grievance - http://pgportal.gov.in/). It does not become easier than this.
Also you can track the action status on your grievance and escalate in case the action taken is not satisfactory.

I am sure though, that the utilization of such portals will be very dismal. Well I guess apart from spreading the news about portal government has done its job. Now, we need to reciprocate.
So, lets help make this endeavor work. Please use the portal whenever you have any grievance against any government authority rather than shying away from hassles because now they are none. It believe we owe this much to our country.

I have updated the link in my bookmarks. Have you?

Taare Zameen Par

Most of us have seen “Taare Zameen Par” this post was supposed to come out then but better late than never. The meaning the movie is trying to bring to the fore cannot be over emphasized. It has been my observation since the beginning, that we are really good at praising things but really bad at learning from them. Be it a great lecture by APJ Abul Kalam, an appeal from Dr. Manmohan Singh, an act of resilience by Medha Patkar, a movie of Shahrukh Khan or by Amir Khan. There is so much left to be desired with regards to this issue but I am afraid that all the reviews I get from my peers and others restrict themselves to the acting part and the emotional outburst they had. I fear the crux is getting lost somewhere amidst the laurels.

The movie shows how a child suffering from dyslexia is a genius in his own right. It deals with the problems the boy faces and how a school teacher helps him emerge. The movie emphasizes on how without the help of the teacher, the talent of the protagonist would have waned away into oblivion. I think the scope of this problem is not confined to children who suffer from disorders like dyslexia but rather extends to all the children who are living their lives unnoticed and bogged down by the one track education system.

Give a thought to one of the most sought after trait in today’s world and the word comes screeching out – CREATIVITY a major part of which entails thinking differently.The problem is that there are not enough people who can think differently because our educational system does not churn out such people owing to its old-fashioned ways of teaching. If nothing changes, Nothing changes. The system teaches best how to maintain the status -quo, follow orders, how to do things conventional way.

Economically speaking, even children are a kind of resources and we will get the competitive advantage by utilizing the best of what we have. Just imagine if instead of the small group responsible for innovation, we facilitate more and more people to innovate, think differently and do what they love.

Instead what essentially we are doing is converting these amazing resources into a machine which can do things the way they are already happening. But moving forward we don’t need machines, we have enough of them and probably with high levels of automation these resources will become redundant. We need people who can be radical, can think unconventional. We need people whose mind has not been corrupted by things they don't want to learn but are learning anyways out of compulsion.

Each child has its own liking and his but still we shove up to them the same stuff thinking it is best for them. How can “one size fits all” strategy work in education. Sir Ken Robinson gave a TED talk in which he has explained why today’s educational system will not work for what we will face in future. It is an amazing talk and highly recommended for everyone.

"Every child is special" and every child has some thing or the other to contribute towards the development of the country and mankind. Effectiveness of the educational system should be measured by the extent to which it facilitates this contribution and not by the number of graduates it churns out every year.