Desicritics Author: madhukar

Thank You, Government of India, for Blocking the Blogs/Websites!

madhukar — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:03:56 EDT

3-4 days back, when it became apparent that the Govt. of India had once again asked India's 153 ISPs to block some internet sites, I had thought that I will start this post with a quote often attributed to Voltaire:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Unfortunately, I found soon that quoting Voltaire in this situation will be an anticlimax.

I realised that one was up against, not a conspiracy against freedom of speech/information, but plain ignorance and stupidity!!!

But before we go to other things, a basic question:

Can the GOI Legitimately Block Certain Websites?
Apparently, it can.... through a chain of developments that unfolded over last 6 years:

The Information Technology Act was passed in 2000.

Under the provisions of Article 67 and 68 of the Act, in February 2003, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was set up to function under the Union Government's Department of Information Technology (DoT).

In July 2003, through an order GSR529(E), CERT-In was empowered to "take on the spot decision on whether the website is to be blocked or not." GSR529(E) permits blocking out of "websites promoting hate content, slander or defamation of others, promoting gambling, promoting racism, violence and terrorism and other such material, in addition to promoting pornography, including child pornography and violent sex."

Moreover, according to the Order, "Blocking of such websites may be equated to balanced flow of information and not censorship."

Which, at the face of it, is fair enough. All countries that provide for freedom of speech also have laws to temper the freedom within limits - in the freest of countries one can't use "free speech" to put national security at stake, indulge in personal slander, or publicly incite people to murder (unless you happen to be Pat Robertson calling for assassination of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, or people of that ilk;0), etc.

That same year in Sept 2003, CERT-In had used its prerogative, and asked the ISPs to block a yahoogroup, Kynhun, a Meghalaya-based group consisting of around 20 members (it was described as a "separatist movement"). Its sole "anti-national" activity was to bring out a newsletter "The Voice", which voiced its opinions on issues like mining in ecologically sensitive areas, or transfer of a government hosital to a trust owned by the present Chief Minister, etc...

Since the ISPs could not block one single yahoogroups, the entire yahoogroups site was off-access for about 2 weeks, when access and sanity got restored.

... Quite clearly, CERT-In did not learn from its blunder, and so, we have another similar blanket blocking. According to reports, the GOI wanted to block 18-20 websites, but in one massive sweep, blogspot.com, typepad.com and geocities.com are off the net in India.

So What Does/Did CERT-In Want To Ban/Block?
I mean, which were these "websites promoting hate content, slander or defamation of others, promoting gambling, promoting racism, violence and terrorism and other such material, in addition to promoting pornography, including child pornography and violent sex"?

Since the GOI's order is a hush-hush affair, the following partial list is compiled from news reports from media reports, e.g., The Financial Express, BBC, The Hindu, etc.

It was fun - and insightful - going through these sites/blogs (if in India, use any of the proxy servers, listed later in the post, to visit these)...

If this list is in any way indicative of the threats CERT-In takes seriously and responds to, then we sure have a huge problem in this country - not so much from violence and hatred, but from plain and simple stupidity...

Here goes...

http://www.bloodspot.org - The URL opens to "Welcome to the Specialist Practitioners Of Transfusion website" - and I can assure you, they are not vampires

http://www.clickatell.com - The URL takes one to "the world's leading provider of Bulk SMS messaging services and SMS Gateway connectivity with reliable coverage to 569 networks in 183 countries worldwide."... etc.

Across the various reports, there was some mix up about commonsense.blospot.com and commonfolks.blogspot.com, so I tried the combinations:

http://commonsense.blogspot.com - A blog with no entry, but just an introduction "I am a intelligent man, with an extreme sense of the common, the things that should be thought, or seen that just aren't. Although my content is good, my spelling usually does suck, i do not ask for corrections, but I do ask for people to read it, and send me back responces. Thank you"

http://common-sense.blogspot.com/ - which took me to a blog whose last entry was in June, 2003 - previous postings were on varied topics ranging from Saddam Hussein not being found to the Honda ad that took 606 takes to shoot.

http://commonfolks.blogspot.com - someone with a solo entry on how much s/he loves Scandinavia

http://commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com - a chinese blog in chinese script (Now, this site can perhaps be a threat to national security! ;0)

http://dalitstan.org - The site reads "The Dalitstan Organization is a Human Rights Organization working for the Upliftment of Dalits, the Black Untouchables of India. These form one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the World, enduring the 2000-year Sudra Holocaust."... There are some critical articles/section that do highlight the oppression, Bahujan Samaj, etc., but nothing that meets the CERT-In's criteria of blocking a website.

http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com - ah, finally here is a site that is critical: of Tony Snow, Hizbullah and Hamas, Iran, ban on same-sex mariage. Currently, its author was quite thrilled about being banned by GOI.

http://www.hinduunity.org - One more. This site is "Promoting and supporting the ideals of Bajrang Dal: VHP, Youth Wing."... It is critical of Islam, Pakistan, Pseudo-Secularism, communists, christians, Bangladeshis, caste system, Gandhi, family planning, etc., and blames all of them for the woes of the world and India. One may disagree with the content of the site (I do!), but nowhere it come near to inciting violence. One may perhaps even interpret some of the writings on the site as "promoting racism", but that will always be subject to once subjective interpretation.

http://www.hinduhumanrights.org - one more "pro-Hindu" site - this one is UK-based, which is critical of the victimisation of Hindus across the world. But again, nothing so objectionable/threatening/inciting in it to merit blocking it.

Like with commonsense/commonfolks, for princesskimberley as well, I tried the following variations:

http://www.princesskimberley.com - the URL leads to "http://www.geocities.com/princess_leia_rebel_leader" but "page not found". Of course, if a site is named "Princess Leia Rebel Leader", then quite likely it would have contents about Star Wars!!!

http://princesskimberley.blogspot.com - a blog maintained/started by "Tony"; so far not a single entry

http://princesskimberly.blogspot.com - a blog with just two entries made in March, 2004. The first one talks about watching "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and the other starts with "My life is extremely boring"... Hardly the earth-shattering kind of matter that requires CERT-In intervention!!

http://pajamaeditors.blogspot.com - According to The Hindu, "Only two webblogs -- pyjamaeditors.blogspot.com and exposingtheleft.blogspot.com -- have been blocked," Gulshan Rai, head of cyber security agency Computer Emergency Response Team, told AFP.... So here is the culprit. The "editors in pajama" are currently quite kicked about being banned in India! - the previous post is about "intragalectic warning"...

http://www.rahulyadav.com - Rahul Yadav's resume says that he is "a student in the MIS (Masters in Information Science) program at the School of Library & Information Science, Indiana University Bloomington... currently enrolled in my 3rd semester of the MIS program and I expect to graduate this December."

Rahul is clearly not very amused about being blocked: "The government of India has blocked my website for some unknown reason. I am guessing that it may have been due to the links to various political groups in the Links section of my website. These groups are the main opposition to the current Congress Party government. For this reason, I believe I am being blocked. India has no right to claim the title "world's largest democracy" if they are going to tell people what they can and can't view on the internet..."

[Note: this adds to one more of my reasons why we live in a crazy world...]

...and, therefore, Thank You, GOI, CERT-In!...

because, during these last few days, the blocking helped many bloggers to discover ways of circumventing the ban by using anonymous sufing sites, e.g., http://www.boreproxy.com/
http://www.secure-tunnel.com/
http://www.anonymizer.com/
http://www.the-cloak.com/
http://proxify.com/
http://www.shysurfer.com/
Etc...

because, the Indian bloggers also discovered the pkblog - a happy irony that this is hosted by Pakistani bloggers http://www.pkblogs.com/

because many found (and helped each other to find) that if you use firefax as a browser, and then download and install Torpark 1.5 v, you can surf through any cyberblock http://torpark.nfshost.com/download.html

...and more importantly, because they once again discovered each other, and became aware of being part of a community.

Business Today's B-School Ranking Survey gets "F" Grade

madhukar — Thu, 6 Jul 2006 02:37:41 EDT

The annual media ritual has started. Like earlier years, Business Today (BT) (July 16, 2006) has come out with the annual Business School Survey Ranking.

It is called "perception survey" based on the ACNielsen ORG-MARG BEI (Brand Equity Index) model.

In 2003, when BT had decided to do away with facts and rely on perceptions, and had adapted this methodology, it had explained:

It is based on ACNielsen's trademarked Brand Equity Model, and it involves a perceptual survey of (list of dimensions), etc.... By not depending on questionable factual information, and focusing exclusively on subjective information, the BT survey ends up being most objective of them all.

Yes, you read it correctly!

This year, the survey results come with a "word of caution". The survey is,

...based on the perceptions of B-school stakeholders, comprising recruiters, functional heads, MBA wannabes, MBA students and young executives... the survey works like an exit poll - the B-school ranks reveal how our 526 respondents voted on each of the 30 schools. Unfortunately, that also means some high-decibel B-School advertisers end up garnering higher salience, while some others (better schools, but not as aggressive advertisers) rank lower on popular perception...

One surely appreciates this candidness, and the appeal to the reader's rational caution. Reminds one of the statutary warning on the cigarette packets.

This warning about the validity of results is even more appreciated, since the shortlisted Top 30 "Best" B-Schools of India in the list also includes at least two "high decibel" advertisers:

Two campuses of a ponytail B-school, which carries out full-page ads - with a small print at the bottom mentioning that it is beyond the "purview of AICTE and UGC"... or something of that nature, meaning that its degree/diploma will not be accepted as a post-graduate qualification in India or abroad (and, perhaps also to get a work visa in some of the countries); and

A certain B-School in the NCR region which advertises itself as the "No-1 Private B-School" on TV, whose accredition for its MBA course was revoked last year.

Which brings one to how the survey was conducted:

SAMPLE:
The section describing the methodology of the survey highlights that this year's survey is "more ambitious than the ones before" - which is good news (someone had commented on my post last year that the ranking is an evolving process and one should bear with it).

So how ambitious?

To quote, in the same paragaph: "While our previous survey polled 449 respondents... across eight cities, this year's tapped into a larger universe of 526 respondents in 11 cities."

That's great!! - an increase of 77 respondents to assess the "perceptions" about (quoting from the same issue of the magazine) 1257 B-Schools!

The break-up of the sample is as below:

[Please note that the HR recruiters represented "a mix of managers from companies with annual revenues less than Rs 500 crore and more than Rs 500 crore" - I am sure this clarification must mean something quite significant, but can't figure out what.]

This will remain one of the unsolved mysteries of sampling techniques - i.e., the perception these chosen 526 is supposed to reflect the views of a population consisting of 130,000 aspirants for CAT (and some 60,000 for XAT, and similar more thousands for MAT, etc.)!

METHODOLOGY:
About how the survey was conducted, the magazine describes:

In the first phase, we shortlisted the 30 B-schools that were to be ranked. How? By asking MBA wannabes and recruiters to list the B-schools they would consider applying to (in the case of former) and recruiting from (for the latter).

Hmm... er... Uh??

Isn't there some circular logic here? Or am I missing something?

I mean, aren't these surveys meant to help the "MBA wannabes" to make a rational choice? And maybe even the "recruiters" to decide on the B-Schools to source from?

But this survey asks them to list the B-Schools they would "consider applying to" or "recruiting from", so that it can tell them which B-Schools they should "consider applying to" or "recruiting from"!

I guess there is a time one should maintain a stoic calm, give up one's attempts to make sense out of glossy charts and bar-diagram, and feel grateful that in any decent B-School, such a survey will get an 'F' grade.

Cont... Whither B-School Rankings!

Victims Of Development..."For the Larger Good"

madhukar — Sun, 2 Jul 2006 18:15:15 EDT

In some of the pages of Narmada Dammed, Dilip D'Souza's makes an observation, which so very cogently captures what I have often felt about our model of 'development' and 'progress', that it is worth sharing.

But first, let me quote him about the cost-benefit analysis of our socio-economic model of development:

"I suspect the reason is that many of us believe implicitly in a most appealing little equation. If the country is to 'progress' and 'develop', it goes, 'some people' will have to 'sacrifice'. 'Some people' must pay a price so that many others - many more others, we can presume - can 'benefit'."

What goes along with this belief is an acceptance that a Prosperous India can only be built on the sacrifices/lives of some of its (apparently, dispensable) citizens... For the "larger good"!

(On the other hand, anyone questioning this implicit paradigm - this "trade-off" - of development, is discounted as "anti-development", "anti-India", "anti-nation-building", someone who wants to take India to stone-ages, "socialist", "JNU jhola-walla type" (take your pick), etc... )

Though Dilip D'Souza's focus is specifically on Narmada Project and its dams, but the points are equally relevant for many other kinds of "developmental projects" which stipulate making a "sacrifice" a fait accompli for many of India's lesser citizens (for the larger good of a few), e.g.:

land-acquisition in tribal/rural areas for industrial development,

beautification of metropolitan cities requiring removal of slums,

building the super-highways (expressways) across the cities

agricultural produce becoming "non-competitive" due to India's getting "integrated" into global economy

mega-dams

So what is the contradiction in logic?

1. Somehow, all these grand plans to create benefit for the larger society never include a clause that ensures that the worst-affected by these plans will be the first beneficiaries of the benefits... This is perhaps because those who claim to represent the "larger society" (politicians, corporates, intelligentsia) actually are not the ones who really are the "victims of development".

2. Somehow, those who talk about the "need for some to sacrifice for the larger good" are not really those who actually sacrifice their lives/ homes/ livelihoods for the "development of the country"

3. Somehow, those who are supposed to make this magnificent sacrifice for the sake of the country are the same set of people - and they do it time and again!!!...You lose your land because of an irrigation project/industrial development, and become a slum-dweller - and then you lose your slum because you are part of the urban squalor that needs to be removed, etc.

4. Somehow, in spite of whatever the grand GDP says, we - i.e., all of us - have not really "developed" at the same pace... in spite (or because of) our concept of "development", e.g.:

- though we have more number of millionaires and billionaires than ever before, we have also created as many people living in abject poverty (<$1) as was the population of India in 1947.

- though we have more number of mega-malls in our cities, the average availability of grains is to the level of the 1943 Bengal famine

- We have come a long way from being a country that used to survive on foreign food-aid. But, for a food-surplus country, we still have record of farmers' suicide @45/day (during 1998-03)...the list can go on..

Which raises a disturbing question:

Is our concept of "Development" warped?... merely a kind of brand-without-a-product that appeals to (and suits the aspirations of) a certain segment of society, who have nothing to give or lose?

If Media Is A "Business"...

madhukar — Sat, 1 Jul 2006 02:23:12 EDT

For a long time, I used to believe that media/press - specially the "news media" - is (or, at least, should be) a "social institution" which upholds and protects the basics of the society, it informs and alerts the populace, it provides an objective, balanced and multi-sided view on the issues, and is one of the key cornerstone of any democratic society.

But then this forenoon, I got converted!...

This happened while splitting a beer with a friend, who is almost an evangelist for the liberalised free-market economy.

Over a couple of bottles of beer, he convinced me that I am suffering from archaic delusions from the pre-free-market, suppressive socialist era. "Be realistic," he said, "media is just another business, which takes care of its shareholders/owners by serving the most lucrative customer segment."

"We should", he told me, "strive to ensure more privatisation and competition in this space, because it benefits the society by raising the awareness of people."

"Look at how within just one month", he argued, "the public knows so much about the internal details of Pramod and Rahul Mahajan's family, political affiliations, blood pressure, urine, relationships, heart condition, excreta, temperament, etc. And this is because of the competition - each TV channel competes to give the viewers a more accurate and detailed information to increase its TRP rating... this could not have been possible in the state-control media days...But for the liberalisation of media, would you have known about the kiss that Mika Singh gave to Rakhi Sawant? Or that Aishwarya Roy broke her toe on a movie set? Or about the mistress of XYZ minister? etc. etc...."

I conceded the point that in the earlier era, this kind of "information explosion" was just not possible...

[Note: I think it was around this point, when - either due to my friend's rant, or due to beer - I went into a reverie...]

...and, I thought, if the news media - specially the electronic one - is a "business", then the media companies are doing an un-imaginative drab job, and not leveraging on the opportunities (and obligations) they have...

For instance, if media is a business, then:

"news" can/should actually be treated like a consumable "information product". And like any other consumable item, business ethics/CSR demands that it must describe its ingredients (like on a bottle of coke - how much sugar, caffeine, etc.). So before actually watching/reading the news, we, the consumers, should know percentage-wise ingredients - facts, opinions, deceptions, sensationalism, etc. - the "news capsule" contains.
the media companies can offer the customer (who, as we know, is the king/emperor... Reference to missing clothes, notwithstanding) a variety of choices, such as "low-facts/high-sensation" news or "customised-to-your-prejudices" news or "only-for-the-feeble-minded" news etc.
innovations are possible: there is no need to unnecessarily get constrained by factual details in generating the news (imagine the launch of a news media channel/newspaper: "Bringing To You, First Time In The World, "The Synthetic News"!!" - wow! what a breakthrough!!!)
the regulatory authorities (e.g., FCC and Prasar Bharti, etc.) can be pressured to devise laws to issue A/U/X certificates (as they do for the movies) to news, e.g., "not recommended for secular/ activists/ pro-reservations/ anti-reservations/ republicans/ democrats, etc." kind of certificate.
there can also be disclaimers to news such as: "This presentation by Collin Powell to the UN Security Council is based on "intelligence" supplied by CIA/ Pentagon - any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental" etc. In fact, there can even be Statutory Warnings: "Watching this News Item is Injurious to your Pre-Conceived Notions."
such liberalisation of the media will open up opportunities for more entrepreneurial and innovative companies to make and supply customised news. Depending on customer choice, like the toppings on the pizza or concoctions at Starbuck, e.g.,

- if one wants Iraq "liberated", you get it; if you want it "invaded" that is also in the menu;)... and even WMDs can be made to be found, if that is what the customer wants!!!...
or
- you can see Karan Thapar interviewing Arjun Singh, and know how clueless the minister is... Or if you so desire, can also see Arjun Singh interviewing Karan Thapar and show how uneducated the latter is about the previous SC judgements on the issue (and of course, on demand, one can even change "the issue" and make it, say, a discussion about some shampoo-eliminating shampoo)
or
- it will be possible to cater to the segment who wants to know that India produced record cotton this year due to GM... and also to those who want to know about the cotton farmers in Vidarbha (and Punjab and elsewhere) who have created a record of sort by committing suicide
or
- depending on one's preference, Sardar Sarovar Dam can be shown to be the "lifeline" to Gujarat (specially, to the regions of Kutch and Saurashtra)... a very small niche segment, who may actually get affected, the news can highlight that only 1.8% of cultivable land in Kutch and 9.24% in Saurashtra will be in the command area of the dam etc. etc.... the possibilities to serve different markets of "news" are immense!
Other businesses (e.g., governments, corporates, NGOs, etc.) will be able to sponsor the news (or even do co-branding). For instance, the whole world can be shown to survive only on Coke or Pepsi - Similarly, NGOs will need to sponsor (if they have money) the news that 2/3 of the mankind does not have drinking water... etc. etc. [the greatest advantage of this kind of arrangement will be that all these objections about the "integrity" of news media will become a non-issue;0)]
and just to complete the scenario, this whole thing can be facilitated by Ministry of Truth, which will give "1984 George Orwell Awards" to the most successful channels...

I think, it was around this time, the effect of beer started running out, and the reality hit!

Waking from my creative reveries, I realised my utter ignorance and stupidity. The free-market news media entrepreneurs had already mastered the market, and had rolled out what I thought were my unique insights.

I realised, for example, that:

...I was naive (if I was not talking about myself, I would have said "ignorant and stupid") to believe that when I bought a newspaper/magazine or watched a news channel, I was the "customer" of the MSM (Main-Stream Media ), since I paid for it (even if nominally).

...the media revenues come, not from subscriptions paid by people like me - its so-called "valued" customers - but from its "real" customers - the businesses who pay for the advertisements to keep the media running.

So what - and to whom - does the media sell?

Media sells me (and you) - its subscribers/ audience/ viewers/ readers - to its primary customers (the businesses/ governments/ corporates). It influences and molds my (and your) views and beliefs to fit a certain version of reality... and gets paid for that service!

"Proper" English & Reservations-of-a-Different-Kind

madhukar — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:37:45 EDT

B-School where I teach

Deciding to call it quits, he went to the then dean, and told him about his decision. "But you can't leave just because you don't know English!!", the jesuit priest told him... and then spent next six months, daily two hours, teaching him English!

When I met him, he had already worked with some of the leading Indian and foreign corporate firms for a couple of decades, had raised a family of very mature children (I met them), had decided to branch out on his own, and was operating his business.

Why did I recall this incident today?

Uma's blog

Garima, the 16-year old daughter of a Delhi police constable

According to the school principal: "This year, we had around 200 applications for 28 seats. In the admission process, the Board exam score is not ignored, neither is it the only criteria. We take in students on relative merit, on the basis of an entrance test, an interview, and the board exam marks."

Garima ranked 12th out of 80 students selected in the written test, and made it to the interview, where she failed to make the grades. DPS' explanation for rejecting her was: "The CBSE marks don't mean anything to us. We have certain criteria about the kind of children we want. She wasn't able to speak English properly and that was also a problem."

There were 9 other girls who got selected, though they had less marks in CBSE than Garima, but fitted the "kind of children" the school wanted.

Garima was lucky, since she got noticed by the media and appeared on NDTV debate. Barkha Dutt wrote about her: "...there was nothing about her spoken English that suggested that she would have been unable to keep pace with the syllabus. Yes, she spoke with a regional accent that some would consider insufficiently sophisticated. But there was no doubt that she could not only follow a complex argument, she could also make herself understood to any English speaker."

I think, and hope, that Garima's case is not generalise-able across all schools and all people. There are some heart-warming exceptions too. For instance, there was this touching article on Sudama's Children in the recent issue of The Outlook, which featured the Delhi schools and children from less-privileged backgrounds who studied there... about their challenges and the support they got from their peers and school.

Neverthless, Garima's case does open up three issues to think about...

1. The Purpose of Our Elite Educational Institutions
Whether DPS - or IITs, NITs, IIMs, XLRI, etc. - the entry to all such institutions is based on criteria that select the "educatable" students. These are the one who meet the criteria - good "background", the "profile", "communication skills" (in "proper" English) - that will help them to do well at the exit stage (e.g., cracking the IIT, B-school entrance test, getting a "good" job, etc.). This 'exit performance', in turn, increases the equity and ranking of the institution, and attracts more of such people to the educational institution.

Needless to say, such institutions do add value by polishing the latent aptitudes of the students.

But do the create value?...

...or to paraphrase Justice Chinnappa Reddy 1985 SC judgement:

is it greater value to sharpen the aptitude of "the children of the upper-classes who go to St. Paul's High School and St. Stephen's College, and who have perhaps been specially coached for the examination may secure 70, 80 or even 90 per cent of the marks"

or does one create new value by bringing those children into the mainstream of the society, who have "no books and magazines to read at home, no radio to listen, no TV to watch, no one to help him with his homework, whose parents are either illiterate or so ignorant and ill informed that he cannot even hope to seek their advice on any matter of importance."

[Barkha Dutt's article - The English Divide - articulates the other two issues much better, and so, I will take the liberty of quoting from her]

2. The "Meaning" of Merit in Our Society? "Garima's story is a metaphor for India's twisted tryst with the future... For some months now, as the debate over reservation has raged, opponents of the quotas have made the same point again and again: we should be a society where merit matters. It's a compelling argument... But what do the anti-quota street fighters have to say now? Here's a girl who competed in the mainstream, her own DAV pitched against the trendier, richer, big names. But her merit was swallowed up by prejudice.

...and all because her English accent was not sufficiently sophisticated!!!

3. "English" as an Instrument of Social Divide? This is an important aspect of our social divide, since in India - in spite of its much touted "large English speaking population", there are barely 20-40mn (out of 1bn), who can actually read, write and speak English (of course, we have our own form of "Hinglish" with the road-side dhabas advertising that they serve "snakes" (snacks) with "child bear" ;0)...

...and there is an "elitism" about speaking "proper" English - even though, our English acquires its own regional peculiarities across the country.

As Burkha Dutt, points out:

"...Garima's story exposes India's paradoxical relationship with the English language. Nobody in the world speaks English like us. We have our own idioms, our own words and our own accents.

We pretend to love our own English and brag about how it is India's great selling point; the reason we dominate the global outsourcing business. But, of course, deep down we know that our English is not the English that the West really wants. And so, each time we talk to Britons or Americans, we subtly alter our diction and inflection. When we set up our call centres, we drop the subtlety entirely and start accent classes to teach our young people to abandon the speech patterns of our own society and to migrate to a virtual, linguistic, middle America, where they become impersonators of people they will never meet and never know.

But within India, we still treat our own English as the great social decider. We laugh at regional accents, smirk at those who make grammatical errors and feel most at home with those who talk like us. Everyone else belongs on the other side of the English divide. And as it turns out, the other side of the class and caste divide as well."

Sources:

Did you say merit?

DPS turns down CBSE topper

The English Divide

Sudama's Children

Schools shouldn't hold interviews after boards: CBSE chief

Modern Indian Myths: Liberalisation and "Socialism"

madhukar — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 15:19:03 EDT

Perhaps, every generation/era has its own set of mythologies and urban legends, which are mutually reinforced by the metropolitan conversations among the elite who have a voice. They define the "good" and "evil" in binary (fairy tale?) terms, which are comforting for those/themselves who find the grey areas of real-life uncomfortable to deal with/live in.

In our times, apparently, one of the myths is the huge economic utopia that the post-1991 liberalisation has created. With India's GDP sky-rocketing surpassing the erstwhile "Hindu Growth Rate" (notwithstanding the fact that GDP itself is a function of how it is calculated - another modern myth!), there are two myths that appeal to those who have "seceded from the society"

Myth 1: Liberalisation of Indian economy has unleashed a boom in employment opportunities

Unfortunately, the reality bites, and the figures do not match with the assumptions. The following figures are from the Planning Commission's database.

Myth 2: Pre-91/"liberalisation", Indian industrial/social infrastructure did not develop due to the anti-industrial policies of the "socialist economy".

Once again, the reality does not match the beliefs.

Facts notwithstanding, the modern Indian myths perpetuate reinforced by media, urban elite and the government.

Meritocracy And The "Secession of the Successful"

madhukar — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:19:11 EDT

This is a continuation of the previous post exploring the nature and meaning of "Merit"...

According to Wikipedia:
"Meritocracy is a system of government based on rule by ability (merit) rather than by wealth, race or other determinants of social position.... Meritocratic governments and organizations stress talent, formal education, and competence, rather than existing differences such as social class, ethnicity, or sex. In practice, research on social mobility indicates that all these supposedly neutral criteria favour the children of those who are already privileged in some way."...

The term "Meritocracy" was coined by a British sociologist Michael Young in his 1958 novel The Rise of Meritocracy. Ironically, Young had coined the term in a disparaging sense to describe an unstable society in which one's social place is determined one's IQ. In the novel, this social system led to wide disparities between the masses and the elites, who had become arrogant and disconnected from the public sphere... And ultimately, to social revolution in which the masses overthrew the elite

Much later, the Harvard Professor, Richard Reich, coined the term "Secession of the Successful" in a 1991 New York Time article to describe how the elite "become arrogant and disconnected from the public sphere"

In a recent HT article, Sagarika Ghose captured the meaning of "Secession of the Successful" quite graphically:

"the 'successful' tend to 'secede' from society as they get richer and more successful. That is, those who are successful tend to retreat into a totally private world. They use private electricity. They attend private schools and colleges. They live in private colonies, manned by private security guards. They socialise at private clubs, use only private transport and thus they cease to have any stake at all in the 'public realm' or in the public world."

Perhaps most insightful are these excerpts from Michael Young's 2001 The Guardian article about merit and meritocracy:

"It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others.

Ability of a conventional kind, which used to be distributed between the classes more or less at random, has become much more highly concentrated by the engine of education.

A social revolution has been accomplished by harnessing schools and universities to the task of sieving people according to education's narrow band of values.

With an amazing battery of certificates and degrees at its disposal, education has put its seal of approval on a minority, and its seal of disapproval on the many who fail to shine from the time they are relegated to the bottom streams.... The new class has the means at hand, and largely under its control, by which it reproduces itself."

Manufacturing "Merit"

madhukar — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 13:39:29 EDT

These days in India, when "merit" and "social justice" have become an either/or issue, there is some merit in having a re-look at how "merit" is defined - and created/manufactured - in our society.

Notwithstanding the criticism that the educational infrastructure did not grow in India since independence, the data gives an altogether different picture:

According to another report, the total number of medical colleges in India also grew from 30 to around 250 with an intake of just about 20,000 (India has about 0.6mn registered doctors for a population of more than a billion people!)

In spite of such growth, however, two factors have impeded the positive impact of this growth in the educational infrastructure:

1. The population has grown faster, and the demographic profile of the country has changed in favour of a very large young and vibrant generation (India is one of the youngest country, with a median age of less than 25)... Every year, close to 40 lac (4mn) students pass out from the Indian pre-degree educational schools/colleges.

2. The quality of many professional institutes is much lacking. For instance, the more than 100 engineering colleges in Karnataka and 200+ in Tamil Nadu lack sufficient faculty and infrastructure, but demand exhorbitant fee. Similarly, of the close to 1,000 B-schools in the country, only around 50 are recognised by the AICTE, etc.

And therefore, the demand for good-quality educational (and occupational) opportunities has fast out-stripped the available opportunities.

For instance:

This year (2006), around 3lac (0.3mn) students appeared in IIT-JEE for about 6,000 seats in IITs, IIT-BHU and ISM-Dhanbad. The 18 NITs put together have just around 7,000 seats. (The irony is that, as the table above shows, while there are almost 3.5lac seats available in Indian engineering institutions, the aspirants' target is only for the quality institutes, which cannot accommodate all of them. Thus, while the success rate for entrance in IITs/NITs is less than 2%, in many engineering colleges, the seats remain vacant).

The situation is similar in the "second-rung" engineering colleges. In 2004, about 3.75lac (0.375mn) students appeared for AIEEE, competing for about 9,000 seats across 117 engineering colleges across the country.

Similarly, in 2005, around 1.5lac (0.15mn) candidates appeared for CAT for the 6 IIMs (about 3,000 seats), and around 70-odd other B-schools. Just a few years back, in 1998, this figure was 87,000.

Aspiring for the medical and dental colleges, in 2004, about 1.7lac (0.17mn) students appeared for CBSE's All India Pre-Medical Test, competing for just about 1,600 seats in the top medical colleges

About 7,000 students compete for the 80 seats across all its 9 centres of the National Law School, one of the premium 5-years courses in Law.

This year, for XAT (XLRI's admission test, which is accepted by 30 other b-schools), around 30,000 students (of the total 60k who appeared for the test) applied for the 180 seats in XLRI, etc., etc....

In many ways, the working definition of "merit" in contemporary India is a function of this big supply-demand gap, where less than 2% aspirants to professional courses qualify to have "merit", i.e., get selected to their desired courses... and a mere difference of less than 0.01%ile in the admission test can change one's status from "merit" to "de-merit"

And so, to win in this Darwinian landscape, an entirely new industry has taken shape during last decade or so, which specialises in "Manufacturing Merit"...

...the "Coaching Institutes":

Some Snapshots
(1bn =1 crore):

The Coaching Institute industry is dominated by around 50 firms. This is fast growing industry with an annual turnover estimates that vary from Rs.3,000bn-Rs.12,000bn. (as an offside, the fast-food industry in India has a turnover of only Rs.500bn :0)

Among the pioneers of this industry was the Bansal's Coaching Classes in Kota, Rajasthan, which started in 1983. Kota, currently, has around around 130 coaching institutes with an estimated combined turnover of Rs.250-400bn. The cost of 10 months coaching at Kota can vary between Rs.60,000 to Rs.175,000.The students come from all over India, and according to one report in 2003, Kota produced 2/3rd of the IIT entrants.

Kakadeo, Kanpur hosts 75 engineering, 20 medical and 15 business management coaching institutes within a two kilometer radius.

Chennai-based Brilliant Tutorials which provides coaching for 17 different exams to 60,000 students. According to this list, 730 of its students qualified in the IIT-JEE entrance test in 2005.

According to Delhi-based FIIT-JEE, 2047 of its students got selected in the IIT-JEE 2006 (that's for a total 7,000 seats!!!)

Mumbai-based IMS Learning Resources, which has 66 centers across the country, and coaches 40,000 students in several common entrance exams including CAT, eight state level MBA entrance exams, GRE, GMAT, etc.

Delhi-based Career Launcher has a presence in 51 cities across India and the Middle East and offers career oriented training and entrance exam preparatory education to over 35,000 students.

Chennai-based Triumphant Institute of Management Education Pvt. Ltd (TIME) has 90 centres in 59 cities, and claims that more than 1200 of its students got selected in the 6 IIMs through CAT-2004.

Chennai-based Aspire Learning Company prepares 40,000 students for the IIT-JEE, ICSE, CBSE, Tamil Nadu state board and matriculation exams in 42 centres across south India and boasts a gross annual revenue of Rs.16 crore.

...the list goes on: Professional Tutorials, Sachdeva New PT College, Rau's Study Cirle for IAS, Delhi-based Akash Institute, Trichur-based PC Thomas Classes, Sahil Study Circle, Chanakya IAS Academy, Ascent Education, etc. etc....

[Note: Obviously, one needs to apply a "correction factor" to the claims of numbers by the coaching institutes;0)... Nevertheless, there is no denying that they play a critical role in creating "merit" in the current system.]

...and How do the Coaching Institutes manufacture "Merit"?

There is no doubt that they - at least the "good" ones - help polishing the potential/knowledge that the aspirant must already be possessing (in fact, a few coaching institutes have their own "entrance test" or criteria for admitting the candidates for coaching!)

Compared to the broad generalised coverage of +2 and other courses, however, the coaching institutes are more focused to make the aspirant succeed in the entrance exam. This has to be so, since in our given system, one's "merit" (or lack of it) is determined by a one-shot, one-day-cricket-match kind of entrance exams. One single wrong answer or one single missed question can bar one's entry into the domain of merit.

Therefore, besides other things, the Coaching institutes, also

maintain a database of the previous years' question papers,

analyze the trends of questions asked over years in the entrance exam, and prepare the candidates for the kind of questions that are likely to come that particular year,

train the aspirants to "recognise the pattern" of questions, and respond quickly. This ability is often more important in the "cracking" the exam, than actual understanding of fundamentals.

since most entrance-exam papers have "negative marking" component, it is often more likely to score higher marks by not answering some questions than by answering them. The coaching institutes also guide the aspirants how to minimise risk of losing marks,

if the final admission involves interview and group discussion, the coaching institutes also prepare the candidate for these "skills" (e.g., improving one's "GK", how to introduce yourself, how to interact in a group, speak proper English, self-presentation, etc.).

in some isolated cases (like this one), the coaching institutes also help the candidate by procuring the "leaked" paper for the test... Etc.

In fact, these latter contributions of coaching institutes are often their USP/differentiating feature.

From a purely socio-historical point of view, the coaching institutes, in a very short period of time, have revolutionised two major changes in the societal texture of India:

1. they have redefined and evangelised a new meaning of "merit", which is essentially based on the supply-demand gap of opportunities in the society, and

2. they have successfully created a small but vocal new "social class" which owns the "merit" (and its definition) in the society.

Is there Merit in Reservations?

madhukar — Tue, 30 May 2006 14:29:34 EDT

Is there a merit in reservation? As many comments on the previous posts allege, the benefits of reservation are supposed to have been cornered by the "creamy layer" or by those who don't actually fit into the criteria of being "backward".

On the other hand, a nation cannot develop on a sustainable basis, unless certain radical reforms are implemented to tackle the issues of social disparity and unequal opportunities. The arguments on both sides (pro- and anti-reservation), however, are largely based on ideological or anecdotal evidence.
My own mental analogy has been like this: if you spray fertilizer in a field - real life not being 100% perfect - it will not only help some plants to grow and bloom, but will also kill some plants due to overdose, and it will also often facilitate the growth of the weeds for whom it was not meant. But the effectiveness of the fertilizer is measured in propotion to the aggregate productivity of the field. And so, in this current debate about the reservation, one question begs an answer:

Is there any empirical evidence to show that quota has really helped?

And if they have not done in last 60 years, how can one be sure that they will do so now?

The Southern Four states (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra) have had 50% or more reservation in higher and profession education for many decades - even before the Mandal Commission in late 70s.
If the distributive justice that the reservations aimed at had really worked, then there should be some positive differences between southern and the northern states.

In one of the earlier postings (pt.10), I had quoted how in Tamil Nadu (which has had 69% reservation since 1960s), in 2004, students belonging to the Backward Class (BC) or Most Backward Classes (MBC) quailified for 952 of the total 1,224 seats in 12 government medical colleges in the State (77.9 per cent), and the first first 14 ranks in the medical admissions went to BC/MBC students.
But, as one would point out, getting into a medical college through reservation, is different than becoming a good doctor (or as someone cruelly commented: "would you leave your life in the hands of a SC/ST/OBC doctor who got into the profession through reservation?")
Following this line of enquiry, I stumbled upon this report on The Merits of Reservations. It is based on the data from the Planning Commission's National Human Development Report 2001:
As the table below shows, apparently, at an aggregate societal level, reservations in healthcare education have had a positive impact on the society:

Sources:

Merits of Reservation

Planning Commission's National Human Development Report, 2001

Southern Solitude

Reservations/Quota and the Meaning of "Merit"

...But Who are the OBCs?

madhukar — Mon, 29 May 2006 08:12:09 EDT

It is surprising - or perhaps not so, given the "uneducated literacy" in the country - that a large number of people on either side of the reservation debate have little idea about the definition of OBCs.

This results in, e.g., a false debate on whether the reservations should be based on "economic criteria" or "caste".

Most people don't know - or care to find out that the very definition of OBCs, however, was/is not based on genetic heredity. Rather, it is based on multiple criteria which consider not just the social (or caste-based) deprivation, but also on educational and economic deprivation...

According to Mandal Commission, the backward Castes/Classes were defined on the following 11 criteria:

Social

Castes/classes considered as socially backward by others.

Castes/classes which mainly depend on manual labour for their livelihood.

Castes/classes where the percentage of married women below 17 is 25% above the state average in rural areas and 10% in urban areas; and that of married men is 10% and 5% above the state average in rural and urban areas respectively.

Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 25% above the state average.

Educational

Castes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5 to 15 years who never attended school is at least 25% above the state average.

Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of 5-15 years is at least 25% above the state average.

Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is at least 25% below the state average.

Economic
- Castes/classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25% below the state average.
- Castes/classes where the number of families living in kachcha houses is at least 25 % above the state average.
- Castes/classes where the source of drinking water is beyond half a kilometer for more than 50% of the households.
- Castes/classes where the number of the house-holds having taken a consumption loan is at least 25% above the state average.

The National Commission for Backward Classes, after studying the criteria/indicators framed by the Mandal commission and the commissions set up in the past by different state Governments and other relevant materials, formulated the following guidelines for considering requests for inclusion in the list of Other Backward Classes:

Social
- Castes and communities, generally considered as socially backward.
- Castes and communities, which mainly depend on agricultural and/or other manual labour for their livelihood and are lacking any significant resource base.
- Castes and communities, which, for their livelihood, mainly depend on agricultural and/or other manual labour for wage and are lacking any significant base.
- Castes and communities, the women of which, as a general practice, are for their family's livelihood, engaged in agricultural and/or other manual labour, for wage.
- Castes and communities, the children of which, as a general practice, are, for family's livelihood or for supplementing family's low income, mainly engaged in agricultural and/or manual labour.
- Castes and communities, which in terms of caste system, are identified with traditional crafts or traditional or hereditary occupations considered to be lowly or undignified.
- Castes and communities, which in terms of the caste system, are identified with tradtional or hereditary occupations considered to be 'unclean' or stigmatised.
- Nomadic and semi-nomadic castes and communities.
- Denotified or Vimukta Jati castes and communities.
- Castes and communities, having no representation or poor representation in the State Legislative Assembly and/or district-level Panchayati Raj institutions during the ten years preceding the date of the application. (The term "poor representation" may be taken to refer to a caste or community whose presence in the body is less than 25% of its proportion in the population.)
Educational
- Castes and communities, whose literacy rate is at least 8% less than the State or district average.
- Castes and communities of which the proportion of matriculates is at least 20% less than the State or district average.
- Castes and communities, of which the proportion of graduates is at least 20% less than the State or district average.
Economic
- Castes and communities, a significant proportion of whose members reside only in Kachha houses.
- Castes and communities, the share of whose members in number of cases and in extent of agricultural lands surrendered under the Agricultural Land Ceiling Act of the State, is nil or significantly low.
- Castes and communities, the share of whose members in State Government posts and services of Groups A & B/Classes I & II, is not equal to the population-equivalent proportion of the caste/community.

Moral of the Story: Intellectual brilliance/moral superiority is not a substitute for ignorance of facts.