May 2015 by james paul

FROM EDITOR’S DESK

Passion to serve MAGAZINE ON EDUCATION VOLUME 2 ISSUE 12 May 2015

Is politics only a money game for politicians? Managing Editor Dr. Varghese Panthalookaran CMI Editor James Paul Associate Editor Dr. Prasant Palackappilly CMI

Columns K. L. Mohanavarma Dr. K. N. Raghavan Dr. Jos Cletus Plackal Sajit Malliyoor

Marketing Manager Varghese Kachappilly CMI Art Sajo Joseph

The answer to the above question is no. Politics is not a bad career choice. Rather it is one of the most challenging and hardworking career options, which not only tests one’s strength but one’s personality and aura as well. It is one of those career options, which provides a platform for the people to not only voice their opinion but also to be in the power to make that voice into a change. Politics as a career, is a very challenging and courageous decision. During the days of India’s struggle for independence, the youth’s participation in politics deemed synonymous with their involvement in the pious cause of attaining freedom from the British despot. The youth imbued with the desire to achieve freedom, gave themselves in many thousands into the turbulence of revolutionary politics. They were highly justified in sacrificing their lives at the altar of political freedom of the country. According to the former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, political science should form part of the curriculum from secondary to the college level for all students with development politics as the focus. “Legal personalities, experts and professionals should educate the citizens on the political process, the constitution, procedures, their rights and responsibilities,’’ he said while addressing a gathering of college students. Today, people view politics as a game of power surrounded by corruption, scams, terrorism and communalism. These are also the reasons why politics is not much of a favorable career choice. We need people with courage and strength to step up and take the reins of the leadership and be the voice and face of India. We need politics to serve the nation rather for their personal gain and fame. India is the biggest democracy in the world. The real power lies in the hands of the people who elect the people to rule the country. The basic principle of democracy is that it should have a wide participation by the people. The more is the percentage of voters out of the total population of the country, the stronger is the base of the democracy because the mandate given in the elections would have a popular sport. If you have strength to fight and courage to win with honesty in your heart, politics is the career where people really need you and will in future look up to you.

Contact: Rajagiri Media, Rajagiri Valley P.O, Kakkanad, Kochi-39. Phone : 0484 2973979 Mob: +91 9497711010 Mail : editor@rajagirimedia.com www.pallikkutam.com

The need of the hour is to have young politicians with open minds and open hands. We need leaders with passion to serve, from village to national levels.

CONTENTS GUEST COLUMN 54

CO VER ST OR Y COVER STOR ORY

An invitation to a political career

K. L. Mohana Varma EXPERT COUNSEL 14

When God bowls a Googly

Politics: a career option? One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato

Why politics is not a career option?............. M.R. Rajendran Nair Dr. K.N. Raghavan Dr. Ajithan Menoth

Career Politicians: Indian model..................

Politics: a challenging career........................ PERSONAL 17

My daughter is always angry with me...

Adv. Tharakan PKG

Rejith Singh

Qualities of a professional politician............

Professional politics........................................

Sajit Malliyoor 04

Col. GPV Nair (Retd.)

Pallikkutam | May 2015

MAY 2015 STORIES OF LIFE 20

Entrenched in ‘entrance’ trap The instant gratification culture prevalent in many families make children susceptible to low coping skills and low threshold of stress tolerance.

Dr. Jos Cletus Plackal

REGULARS NEWS................................. 06 ASPECTS ............................ 22 ASPECTS............................ CREA TIVE LIVING ............ 26 CREATIVE LIVING............ INFO TECH........................ 29

ASPECTS 22

INSIGHTS.......................... 34

Meditation on the five fires The process of the birth of humans

INNO VATIONS ................... 58 INNOV TIONS...................

He instructed him first about the sacrifice in five fires, namely, heaven, rain, earth, man, and woman.

CURRENT AFF AIRS ........... 60 AFFAIRS AIRS........... RAINBO W.......................... 62 RAINBOW

Dr. Augustine Thottakara POLICY WATCH 31

Debating Kerala’s claims on literacy - I

REFLECTIONS .................. 66 SUBSCRIBE NOW TURN TO P AGE 63 PA

The study found that there was high dropout rates among tribal children in Wayanad and Palakkad districts. Unfortunately these figures were significantly high when compared to official findings by the state. Dr. D. Dhanuraj and Rahul V. Kumar CURRENT AFF AIRS 60 AFFAIRS

Values in the present education system In ancient India a teacher was addressed as Guru, means one who dispels darkness and brings in light, one who opens ears and eyes, mind and intellect of the Vidyarthi. Dr. C. T. George Pallikkutam | May 2015

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NEWS

RSS proposes institute for classical studies

ashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has proposed that Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani to establish an Indian Institute of Classical Studies to promote Indian languages abroad, on the lines of China’s Confucius Institute. The proposal comes from the India Policy Foundation, a think tank funded entirely by the RSS, with senior Sangh functionaries Dattatreya Hosabale and Manmohan Vaidya on its board. Director of the Institute Rakesh Sinha’s letter to Irani says, “The global integration is demanding a coordinated effort of economic, education and

cultural initiatives in the present context of geo-political developments. An institutionalised initiative by the

Sinha adds, “For example, the Confucius Institute has established more than 450 institutions in universities close to 100 countries in past 10 years to promote Chinese language and culture, support local Chinese teaching internationally and facilitate cultural exchanges.”

MHRD, under your leadership will mark an international presence of Indian

118 schools in President asks IIMs Thiruvananthapuram to collaborate with get web connectivity best institutions

hiruvanathapuram city corporation has initiated steps to ensure web connectivity in all schools under the civic body during the academic year 2015-16. The education standing committee plans to introduce the internet in all the 118 schools starting from June 2015.

At present less than 10 schools under the corporation boast of having net connectivity. The mission will be realized with the help of Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD) and BSNL. “The project will be implemented as part of corporation’s general revamp of schools which began in 2011. E-learning is one aspect where we have lagged behind in many schools and with cent percent internet connectivity we hope to resolve this,” said K S Sheela, chairperson, education standing committee.

language, literature and civilisational culture helping India in its philosophical dignity and global endeavours.”

he President of India, Pranab Mukherjee has asked Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to be pro-active in developing a management research culture in the country for which IIMs need to collaborate with best of institutions in the world. The President attending the 4th Annual Convocation of IIM, Raipur said that our academic institutes have to be dynamic and hands-on in facing emerging challenges. Institutions of higher education have to promote a culture of excellence and develop core competencies. They have to expand capacity to cater to more students and at the same time uphold the quality of instruction. They have to resort to technology tools like eclassrooms and knowledge to enable sharing of ideas and intellectual resources like lectures and tutorials. He stated that we must also be pro-active in developing a management research culture in the country for which IIMs need to collaborate with best of institutions in the world.

Incidentally, the Confucius Institute is governed by a council whose members are drawn from the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

Ashoke Sarkar appointed as BITS Pilani, Campus Director BITS Pilani announced the joining of Prof. Ashoke Sarkar, Senior Professor as the Director of Pilani campus. He took charge from Prof G Raghurama who has over 27 years of experience at BITS Pilani in various capacities; he completed his remarkable 5-year term as Director of

Pilani campus and will be moving to BITS Pilani, KK Birla Goa campus to pursue research and teaching. Prof. Sarkar is an accomplished academic, having guided a number of PhD students and completed over 14 sponsored R&D projects. He joined BITS in 1999 and had earlier overseen the work as Dean, Instruction Division and as Dean, Academic Registration and Counseling. Recently, he led the team on Mission 2015 imperative on Quality Assessment and Assurance.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

NEWS

MPs warn govt against ‘saffronisation’ of education

he ‘saffronisation’ of education, focus on Sanskrit and Hindi and cut in key Central schemes for education were among the concerns expressed by MPs in Lok Sabha in a debate on grants for human resource development. Sugata Bose of Trinamool Congress criticised the Centre for making bodies like ICHR “packed by ideologues rather than scholars”, BJD’s Tathagata Satpathy urged

the same sham,” Satpathy said. Pointing out that the Minister has been passionate about Hindi and Sankrit, Satpathy said the government should let the children choose the language they want to learn. “Do not dump any language on them. I do not believe that there is any ‘Rashtra Bhasha’…,” he said. Satpathy added that the government should invest more on improving the quality of tools such as books and other education aids. Criticising the NDA government for being “friendly towards corporates and hostile to farmers”, Bose

said the PM had promised change. “We are still waiting for the qualitative change particularly in the field of education and human resource development.” NCP’s Supriya Sule wanted the government to consider bringing back examination system instead of continuous and comprehensive evaluation system. Congress’s Sushmita Deb asked the HRD Minister to promise before the House that there will not be any saffronisation of education.

No saffronization of education: Irani the government to encourage regional languages and accept English as the link language. “The link language cannot be any Indian language. English is no more a foreign language,” he said.

here is no saffronisation of education and the new policy will be within ‘constitutional parameters’ an emotional and angry Human Resources and Development Minister Smriti Irani said in reply to a debate in Lok Sabha HRD minister Smriti Irani defended the government against allegations of saffronisation of education, saying appointments to educational bodies have been made on non-partisan considerations, and accused the UPA of violations in setting up overseas campuses and semester system in Delhi University. .

“The Central government must invest money in creating infrastructure… Not buildings, roads and class rooms, but by bringing out books which have no religious tilt or involvement. No religion is greater or inferior to any other religion. It is all

Pallikkutam | May 2015

This is the first time the minister was answering queries on all controversies dogging her ministry — including the alleged resignation of chairman of board of directors of IIT Bombay Anil Kakodkar and IIT Delhi director Prof R K Shevagaonkar. The minister asserted that Kakodkar and Shevagaonkar are

continuing in their positions. The discussion on HRD has been going on for two days, with many MPs going all out to attack Irani. Former minister of state of HRD and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said that the education sector was “overregulated and under-governed”. He raised concerns about ‘declining autonomy of institutions” including “attempts to move the VC of Delhi University”. The Congress benches asked Irani to calm down. Four MPs wrote a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee complaining against Irani for allegedly intervening in the functioning of IITs and IIMs. Irani said that appointments during her regime were impartial. “Repeatedly, it is being said that appointments are being made with a vested interest. I want to ask who is Purabi Roy? Her husband is a CPI leader. We appointed her a member of ICHR. Is this bias?” she questioned.

NEWS

PG students complain of low funds, disparity

ack of adequate funding and high fees were some of the prime issues faced by the students in post graduation programmes in the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B). In an open house conducted with the director, Professor Devang

Khakhar, several students complained of lack of funds and disparity in funding among departments and courses. Some complained that the international travel grant of Rs 1 lakh is not adequate as it barely covers the ticket fare, let alone the stay. The director replied that many agencies and faculty are ready to provide the required financial support. A student complained that the fees per semester (Rs 34,000) are the highest among the other IITs in the country.

Universities asked to observe Day of Yoga

niversities and colleges across the country have been asked to observe the first International Day of Yoga on June 21, which was adopted by the United Nations following a proposal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Admissions start at Times School of Journalism

imes School of Journalism (TSJ), a leading institute run by The Times of India Group, has announced the admission schedule to its postgraduate diploma course for 2015-16. The yearlong journalism programme at TSJ has four months of comprehensive hands-on internship in leading group brands like The Times of India, The Economic Times, economictimes.com, timesofindia.com, ET Now, Times Now, Zoom, etc, and also select media brands outside the group.

Schools can prepare kids to report abuse

eaching children in schools about sexual abuse give them courage to report abuse, finds a study, suggesting that such kids are more likely than others to tell an adult if they had, or were actually experiencing sexual abuse. It is estimated that worldwide at least one in 10 girls and one in 20 boys experience some form of sexual abuse in childhood. Those who are sexually abused as children are more susceptible to depression, eating disorders, suicidal behaviour and drug and alcohol problems later in life, and are more likely to become victims of sexual assault as adults. In many countries, children are taught how to recognise, react to and report abuse situations through schoolbased programmes designed to help prevent sexual abuse.

UGC’s guidelines on students’ safety at higher institutes In a communication to all university vicechancellors, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has said the institutes may also ensure that promotional films are shown and education and communication materials on yoga are distributed on the day.

he University Grants Commission (UGC) has issued guidelines for ensuring the safety of the students of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) on and off campus across the country. UGC Secretary Jaspal S. Sandhu, has also written to the vice chancellors of all the universities to ensure safety of the students.

Patna University courses not revised for years

ighty-eight-year-old Patna University (PU) might have had a glorious past, but its present academic standard is far from satisfactory. Academics often question the quality of education being imparted in the university’s postgraduate and undergraduate departments. It is difficult to believe that the syllabi of different undergraduate courses have not been revised for the last several years despite considerable advancements in the subjects during the period. Though the post-graduation courses of the university have recently switched over to semester mode, the undergraduate courses are still being conducted under conventional mode. Sometime back, the PU senate had approved the proposal for introducing semester system in undergraduate courses, but it is yet to materialize.

Implementation of the much-publicized choice-based credit system with grading as per UGC’s direction still remains a distant dream for PU. The UGC has recently prepared draft model syllabi for as many as 19 undergraduate courses as part of its efforts to implement a uniform choice-based credit system in the country. The model syllabi has been prepared by a committee of experts for subjects including history, economics, psychology, physics, chemistry, biomedical sciences, botany, zoology, geology, anthropology, microbiology and forensic sciences.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

SPECIAL REPORT

The science behind

Nepal earthquake Nepal is particularly prone to earthquakes. It sits on the boundary of two massive tectonic plates â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Indo-Australian and Asian plates. It is the collision of these plates that has produced the Himalaya mountains, and with them, earthquakes. Nepal earthquake has destroyed housing in Kathmandu, damaged World Heritage sites, and triggered deadly avalanches around Mount Everest.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

SPECIAL REPORT

How the Nepal earthquake happened Experts explain the science behind deadly earthquake happened in Nepal

The science of earthquakes The April 25 quake measured 7.8 on the moment magnitude scale, the largest since the 1934 Bihar quake, which measured 8.2 and killed around 10,000 people. Another quake in Kashmir in 2005, measuring 7.6, killed around 80,000 people.

of the ongoing convergence between the Indo-Australian and Asian tectonic plates that has progressively built the Himalayas over the last 50 million years.

floods and monsoonal landslides, as exemplified by the Kedarnath disaster of 2013 which killed more than 5,000 people. In geological terms, the tremor occurred like clockwork, 81 years after the region’s last earthquake of such a magnitude, in 1934.

The reason is the regular movement of the fault line that runs along Nepal’s southern border, where the Indian subcontinent collided with the Eurasia plate 40 million to 50 million years ago.

These quakes are a dramatic manifestation

They are but one reminder of the hazards faced by the communities that live in these mountains. Other ongoing hazards include

Records dating to 1255 indicate the region – known as the Indus-Yarlung suture zone – experiences a magnitude-8 earthquake approximately every 75 years,

Pallikkutam | May 2015

SPECIAL REPORT

according to a report by Nepal’s National Society for Earthquake Technology. The reason is the regular movement of the fault line that runs along Nepal’s southern border, where the Indian subcontinent collided with the Eurasia plate 40 million to 50 million years ago.

along old fault lines. In this case the strain is built by the collision or convergence of two plates. A number of factors made this quake a

of the earth (a maximum of 3m). And the ruptured part of the fault plane extended under a densely populated area in Kathmandu. From the preliminary analysis of the seismic records we already know that the rupture initiated in an area about 70km north west of Kathmandu, with slip on a shallow dipping fault that gets deeper as you move further north.

Earthquakes occur when strain builds up in Earth’s crust until it gives way, usually along old fault lines. In this case the strain is built by the collision or convergence of two plates.

Earthquakes occur when strain builds up in Earth’s crust until it gives way, usually

Pallikkutam | May 2015

recipe for catastrophe. It was shallow: an estimated 15km below the surface at the quake’s epicentre. It saw a large movement

SPECIAL REPORT

Over about a minute, the rupture propagated east by some 130km and south by around 60km, breaking a fault segment some 15,000 square kilometres in area, with as much as 3m slip in places.

Predicting quakes While the occurrence of large earthquakes in this region is not unexpected, the seismo-

statistical character of earthquake sequences is well understood, we are still unable to predict individual events. Questions as to why such a large earthquake, in this specific location at this time, and not elsewhere along the Himalaya, continue to baffle the research community, and make for problematic challenge of better targeted hazard preparedness and mitigation strategies.

The rupture initiated in an area about 70km north west of Kathmandu, with slip on a shallow dipping fault that gets deeper as you move further north.

The plates across this segment of the Himalaya are converging at a rate of about 2cm this year. This slip released the equivalent of about a century of built up strain.

logical community still has little useful understanding of how to predict the specific details of such ruptures. While the

Pallikkutam | May 2015

SPECIAL REPORT

But with each new quake researchers are gaining valuable new insights. As exemplified by the ready availability of quality data and analysis in near real time provided by organisations such as the United States Geological SurveyandGeoscience Australia, the global network of geophysical monitoring is providing an ever more detailed picture of how the earth beneath our feet is behaving.

Nepal is prone to destructive earthquakes, not only because of the massive forces involved in the tectonic collision, but also because of the type of fault line the country

one tectonic plate forces itself on top of another.

The most visible result of this is the Himalayan mountain range. The fault runs along the 1,400-mile range, and the constant collision of sits on. Normal faults create space when the the India and Eurasia plates pushes up the ground cracks and separates. height of the peaks by about a centimeter Nepal lies on a so-called thrust fault, where each year.

Nepal is prone to destructive earthquakes, not only because of the massive forces involved in the tectonic collision, but also because of the type of fault line the country sits on.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

EXPERT COUNSEL

When God bowls a Googly The book explains the travails that Ashwath faced during his career, the experiences that he had, both good and bad, and how he managed to conquer his mind and emerge a better player and human being. Dr. K.N. Raghavan

ver since my father introduced me to the nuances of the game cricket at the age of eight, it was my sole and all consuming passion till I met my wife during my third year in Medical College. Cricket used to occupy my thoughts through almost the entire time I was awake and like all youngsters with similar thoughts, my dream was to play for India. Though I managed to do fairly well in my studies to ensure admission to Medical College my heart and mind were not in becoming a good doctor; it was to win a test cap. There were numerous occasions when I found out that my talent did not justify such high aspirations but my hopes refused to die. I would go to bed at night praying fervently to God to bless me with all the abilities required to achieve my ambitions so that I could wake up the next day as a better player. Such miracles did not happen but God certainly intervened to ensure that my life found direction outside my cricketing dreams before it was too late!!

a family of sportsmen. He fell in love with the game at an early age and made the cut representing Karnataka state teams in the junior categories. However he could never make it to the squad for playing Ranji Trophy and hence could not play first class cricket. Being an enterprising and intelligent person he set up a software company at the age of 22 and ran it successfully for four years before deciding to go back and play the game. The book explains the travails that he faced during his career, the experiences that he had, both good and bad, and how he managed to conquer his mind and emerge a better player and human being. Normally children start playing some sport or the other for the sake of fun and some exercise. Studies are usually seen as the more important part while participation in sports and games are encouraged for ensuring that the body All these memories came flooding back to remains healthy. During the course of this my mind when I read the book â&#x20AC;&#x153;When God Bowls a Googlyâ&#x20AC;? written by Ashwath introduction to various games, some children discover a passion for them while Aiyappa. Ashwath who was a talented cricketer hailing from Coorg was born into some others demonstrate that they have a

Pallikkutam | May 2015

EXPERT COUNSEL certain flair for them which make them stand apart from the others. Gradually these groups, those with passion and the ones with talent, realise that they have to take the sporting event seriously if they wish to be successful in that field. As the seriousness grows, the fun part gradually diminishes and it dawns on the children that achieving excellence in sporting events demand as much dedication and commitment as regular studies in school, if not more. Thus, these children who started playing the game for the sake of enjoyment find that the element of fun that they always associated with it has been taken away.

consequences. This helped him to approach matches with a better frame of mind and his performances also improved. He has also placed on record his deep gratitude towards Sri M whose teachings guided him and Abey Kuruvilla, the former Indian cricketer and coach of his side in Mumbai, for helping him to regain his zest for the game and enjoy it.

unlike in the past, such endeavours also receive support and encouragement from their parents as well. But most of the youngsters and their parents do not know the amount of hard work and commitment they would be required to put in, the sacrifices they would be required to make and the frustrations and disappointments that would come their way.

The success of champions like Sachin Tendulkar and Saina Nehwal, the millions they earn and the celebrity status accorded to them have seen more children and youngsters getting attracted to the prospect of having a career in sports; and

The burdens placed on their shoulders by the high expectations invariably squeeze out any enjoyment that they would have attached with the pursuit of excellence in their favourite sport. In such situations, invariably the ones who survive are not the

Ashwath has written in his book about how he stopped enjoying the game when he started playing for winning selection to the state Ranji Trophy squad and other sides. His focus shifted completely to impressing the selectors with his scores so much so that his clear mind, which was his biggest asset, started getting cluttered with negative thoughts. He started becoming more bothered about the performance of

Ashwath returned to the game after a four year break; during these four years he had gained lots of insights in to controlling his mind through meditation. his competitors in a futile attempt to justify his average to poor performances. None of the coaches he turned to for advice could offer any help. In this situation when he found that his career was not going anywhere, he decided to take a break from the game and set up the software company. Ashwath returned to the game after a four year break; during these four years he had gained lots of insights in to controlling his mind through meditation. He also found that he was able to enjoy the game more and focus his attentions and energies on the present without being worried about

Pallikkutam | May 2015

EXPERT COUNSEL most talented persons but those with the mental fortitude to keep going even in the face of most daunting of challenges.

havoc wreaked on the careers of even the best talents in the country on account of their failure to handle success and fame.

The USP of this book is that it is written by a person who had faced for himself the

The story of Ashwath Aiyappa as a cricketer and sports analyst makes interesting reading but ends on a tragic note. After completing the manuscript of

water to try and save his brother who was in distress. This was the final googly that life bowled at this enterprising young man who had achieved so much within a short span of time. The book is a tribute to his academic excellence, inexhaustible energy and constant quest for learning. In his early and untimely death, the game of

He has explained in detail about the success achieved by Praveen Tambe who played the game for the love of the game but finally won recognition by becoming, at 41, the oldest player to take part in IPL.

entire spectrum of difficulties encountered by young sportsmen and found out the solutions by himself. Ashwath certainly took help from different sources but he made it a point to analyse his problems and understand why they happened. In the end he was able to identify his negative thought process as the main reason that led to his failures and he set upon himself to rectify it. He found the way in which successful players were able to attain and stay in the “zone” where they could focus on the task at hand with Zen like concentration while remaining in a state akin to Nirvana, oblivious to everything else happening around them. He has coined the neologism “Spiritual Intelligence” which in one word encompasses the ways in which thought process can be streamlined to attain greater success while retaining the zest and love for the game.

the book Ashwath and his brother Akhil were on their way to their home in Coorg to meet their parents when tragedy struck. Akhil and Ashwath were both drowned in a lake where they had stopped for a swim with Ashwath taking the plunge into the

cricket lost an astute mind while English language shall remain poorer without his contributions as a writer.

The author is the Commissioner of Customs in Kochi, Kerala.

This book should be read not only by aspiring sportsmen but also by coaches, sports administrators and parents. The author reemphasises the importance of mind and thought process in achieving success in the field of sports. He has explained in detail about the success achieved by Praveen Tambe who played the game for the love of the game but finally won recognition by becoming, at 41, the oldest player to take part in IPL. This book details the struggles that youngsters who did not get proper guidance are forced to go through and the

Pallikkutam | May 2015

PERSONAL

My daughter is always angry with me... Adolescence is a particularly hard time for children. This is a period of tremendous and dramatic changes in a child’s life Sajit Malliyoor

I have read your article on anger control which appeared in a previous issue of the Pallikkutam magazine. I have a related problem concerning my daughter. She is 16 years old, and has just completed her tenth standard examinations. Her father is working overseas and I work with a bank here in Kerala. The problem is that she is always angry with me. As far as I could remember, the issues started a year back, when I categorically refused her from using a smart phone my husband had brought when he came down on leave. She threw much tantrum regarding the issue but I didn’t relent. Since then, she would often find some fault with my doings and picks up quarrel with me. The reasons would vary from the type or the quality of food served, to the restrictions I am putting on her activities and freedom. She doesn’t like it whenever I ask her to shut down the TV and concentrate on her

Pallikkutam | May 2015

away for the work. She also writes frequent mails to my husband complaining about my behaviour. He is very disturbed about the happenings here and asks me to talk to a counsellor regarding the problems. Could you please help us? Your letter reminded me of one video I had viewed on YouTube a couple of years back. Back then it had gone viral on the social networks, commanding several million views. In the video, a disgruntled father shoots several rounds of bullets through his daughter’s laptop. The story was that the daughter had posted some unsavoury comments on her Facebook Wall about the way she has been treated by her parents at home. In response, the father also takes to the internet studies. Not only just this, virtually to vent about his daughter. More everything I demand from her is fraught interesting was the commentary section, with a string of arguments. Often when she gets angry, she turns incommunicado. which was split in two, with the people arguing in support of the father and those Occasionally she would shut herself up in her room, coming out only when I am who felt that he went overboard in his response.

PERSONAL I brought the story here not to discuss whether the father was doing the right thing or not, but only to highlight the difficulties parents face in taming an adolescent at home, especially the one who happens to have a temperamental issue. Much has been said about the difficulties children face while traversing through the transition phase in life that is called adolescence; but I wonder how far it has been translated into the common understanding of a parent, teacher or an adult in our society. Adolescence is a particularly hard time for children. This is a period of tremendous and dramatic changes in a child’s life; changes in the nature of physical, emotional, intellectual as well as relational. At times, these changes can be quiet baffling and confusing to the adolescent, as they struggle to come to terms with it. It is important for a parent to understand the changes that children are experiencing, in order to successfully navigate through the teen years with relative ease. The problems you are relating in the letter can be looked at from a perspective of the natural changes accompanying the teen years of your daughter. As far as I could understand, you are highlighting primarily two issues with her behaviour. The first one is the push for more independence and autonomy; and the second is an unwillingness to communicate with the parents – which could be a method of her resistance to the parental influence. You know that the primary goal of adolescent years is to attain

independence. In their quest for independence, the teenager slowly starts pulling away from the parents – especially from the parent whom they are closest to. This process can often be mistaken by the parents as rebellion and defiance. Recently I came across a piece of research which suggests that the teenagers want to do most things about two years earlier than their parents think is appropriate. That includes owning a phone, going out with friends or doing their own shopping. Now, this conflict of interests is a fertile ground

when you still attempt to micro-manage certain aspects of your child’s lifestyle. The feelings of being censored by an authority figure often leads to more resentment. Another aspect of the teenage – related changes is the argumentativeness in children. As they mature, they start to think more abstractly and rationally. With their new found rationality, they would like to question and assert, rather than to confirm to their parent’s viewpoints. However, the pre-frontal cortex areas of the brain responsible for forward planning and thinking about the future requires more development. That leaves them relatively poor decision makers and risk takers. They understand the logic behind why something should or should not be done, but their ability to think through the consequences for their own lives seems limited. I don’t have to tell you how you would be feeling in response to all those changes! It is natural to become easily hurt and angered when your child becomes emotionally distant from you. But let us not forget that even though they are not showing it, children still want us to be close, available and a part of their lives. Let us begin to deal with the problems by educating ourselves. Read books on adolescents. Parents who know what’s coming can cope with it better. And the more you know, the better you can

It is natural to become easily hurt and angered when your child becomes emotionally distant from you. But let us not forget that even though they are not showing it, children still want us to be close, available and a part of their lives.

for disagreements over living on adolescent terms versus living on parental terms. I have often heard parents reporting that “she started displaying this behaviour all of a sudden”. Then I used to think, what is really happening here is a parent who has suddenly got confronted with a child who has evolved into the mind-set of a young adult; who feels belittled when the orders are given to her. The matters get worse

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PERSONAL prepare. Now we shall discuss here a few ideas that may be helpful in coping with the challenges of adolescent parenting.

through their difficult feelings and to soothe themselves.

Listen them out from a place of patience Give your daughter some space. Don’t try and compassion. When a child feels being to fix her bad mood all the time. It is OK if heard, it goes a long way in assuring her

explicitly state that she is exceeding herallowance for this calendar year by the purchase and she may have to cut down on the movies and eating outs for the period. Allow your child some leeway. Don’t be overly anxious about the

As long as your daughter is not damaging the property or harming herself or anyone else, allow her to be and endure her foul mood. Children have to learn to work through their difficult feelings and to soothe themselves. she is sulking or incommunicado for a while.

that you value her as a member of the family and someone in your life.

In my practice I have often encountered parent – child dynamics, where a parent repeatedly tries their best to soothe a disgruntled child. Then when they realise that they are not getting anywhere, he or she becomes frustrated and becomes confrontational with the child. It then gets into a vicious cycle where the child responds with more rude remarks and subsequently receives an exaggerated punishment.

Give your daughter some of your precious time just to hear her out, no matter how ridiculous you consider the complaint or proposal to be. When disagreements arise, try not to be forceful and being a pushover; instead adhere to healthy boundaries. Rather than forcing your child into doing it the way you wish, make a valid attempt to understand her view points.

mistakes they might make in their choices. Much of the learning in life takes place through the repeated cycles of trials and errors. When they make mistakes, you be the safe place for them to come home to. Also remember that these difficult behaviour patterns are not going to stay for ever. As they move along through their teen years, these fluctuations will gradually become more stable and eventually they will grow into independent and responsible young adults.

If you are still in disagreement, set into motion the natural and logical consequences of your daughter’s choice. For example, if she wants to buy an expensive outfit for her class party,

Send queries to malliyoor@outlook.com (Sajit Malliyoor regrets he can not enter into personal correspondence)

As long as your daughter is not damaging the property or harming herself or anyone else, allow her to be and endure her foul mood. Children have to learn to work

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STORIES OF LIFE

Entrenched in ‘entrance’ trap The instant gratification culture prevalent in many families make children susceptible to low coping skills and low threshold of stress tolerance. Dr. Jos Cletus Plackal

ecently I came across a few parents who were so frustrated and frantic about securing admission to 11th Std for their children in “prestigious institutions” in Kerala. Their frustration was aggravated by their urgency that was confounded with the uncertainty of admission in the particular Schools they were aiming at. Some of these dads had just descended from Dubai and other Gulf countries for the single purpose of securing admission for their wards in a prestigious School. The most soughtafter Schools had coaching and boarding facilities with excellent track record in entrance exams. Mr Joe (name changed) is one such anxious dad and his son Abel accompanied him, perhaps more anguished at the uncertainties that he is going to face in the tense process of admission to a prestigious School in

Kerala. Mr. Joe has just flown in with his son to scout around looking for the best HSS in Kerala. “Best” means a school where there is excellent coaching and boarding facilities. Joe doesn’t quite figure out what his son might become or wants to. However, a “Science-Bio-Math has been programmed into the young man’s

head as a remote preparation for becoming a medical Doctor. While this dad is frantically running pillar to post to get his

son a seat in this ‘prestigious institution’, the son looks more and more worried about the prospect of having to study in such a competitive place. To my mind, many a parent are out on a projection process, and readily share that, “I didn’t get a good education, so let my son/daughter have the best”. In the frenzy for admission what parents overlook is the capacity of their wards to compete in such stressful situations. The instant gratification culture prevalent in many families make children susceptible to low coping skills and low threshold of stress tolerance. In a very competitive atmosphere these children may not function efficiently, and may slip into avoidance behavior. Besides, many a

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STORIES OF LIFE child lack self-confidence and security due to the continuous absence of the father who is the source of power and decision making. At such crucial times of stress this fear turns out into diffidence and insecurity resulting in poor performance. I have come across young clients from prestigious coaching schools who were bright but froze at stiff competition under

Preventive steps.

stressful situations and persevere to the end. It is the determination of the student that is going to succeed at the end of the day.

Preventive steps must be in place early on. Parenting skills must attend to instant and incessant gratification urges of children, unhealthy food habits, addictive TV habits etc. Positive sanction along with the

3) Teach and Train them to Relax. Unwinding and de-stressing must become a way of life. Short but effective exercises, meditative moments, yoga, prayer sessions etc.

tolerance. However, prevention is far better than cure.

Unwinding and de-stressing must become a way of life. Short but effective exercises, meditative moments, yoga, prayer sessions etc. intense work schedule. One such withered flower was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Roseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. She was so frustrated and restless that she lost all her focus in study and found an escape route in an unhealthy love affair. Resmy was another smart student who got frozen under great stress and was depressed. The list is long and in the pursuit of excellence, only the fittest survive. Counseling and therapy can modify behavior and enhance coping skills and improve the threshold of stress

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negative are inevitable. Parental support is vital. Let the parents become aware of their projection process and exaggerated ambitions about their children. 1) Make available the services of a trained counselor in the campus. It is at the initial transitional phase that the students need support and guidance most. 2) Make a conscious contract with the student to undertake hardship, face

4) Parents should keep in mind a blue print of an alternate plan, if the worst comes to pass the student must be protected by parents.

The author is licensed clinical psychologist (HRT), Jeevas Centre Aluva, Kerala.

ASPECTS

Meditation on the five fires The process of the birth of humans He instructed him first about the sacrifice in five fires, namely, heaven, rain, earth, man, and woman. Dr. Augustine Thottakara

1. Introduction

2. The story

2.1. The five questions

The following story is narrated in Chandogya Up. V.3-10, and in Brhadaranyaka Up. VI.2.1-16. We follow here the version of Chandogya Up. The protagonists of this story are: Svetaketu, the grandson of Aruna, King Pravahana Jaivali of Pancala, and Gautama, the father of Svetaketu. Three factors of this episode call our special attention. (i) The statement that Ksatriyas are the knowers of Brahman; (ii) The five stations, signified as five fires, the self passes through to take birth; (iii) The two paths the departed souls take.

Svetaketu, the grandson son of Aruna and son of Gautama, was a Brahmin boy, who has done studies in Vedas and Vedanta. He thought that he knew everything; he considered himself as an eminent scholar. Once he boldly entered the assembly of King Pravahana Jaivali of Pancala, who was a real scholar. The King was holding an meeting of philosophers. Svetaketu thought that he could impress the scholars by his erudition. Before he could speak, King Pravahana asked him: “My boy, has your father instructed you?” (V.3.1). Svetaketu replied that he is educated.

The King then asked him five questions: “Do you know where created beings go from here? Do you know how they return again? Do you know the place of the parting of the two paths, namely, the path of the gods and the path of the fathers? Do you know why the other world is not filled up? Do you know how, at the fifth oblation, the liquid oblations come to be designated as man?” Svetaketu answered all these questions thus: “No indeed, revered Sir”. Then the King asked him: “If so, why did you say, ‘I have been instructed?’” (V. 3.2-4). The boy was humiliated; he came to

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ASPECTS his father Gautama and complained why he did not instruct him these things. But Gautama himself did not know the answers to these questions, and honestly confessed his ignorance to his son. 2.2. Ksatriyas are the keepers of this knowledge Gautama came to the King and requested him to answer the questions he put to his boy. The King was reluctant to divulge the answers, and tried to dissuade him by offering him material wealth and earthly comforts. But Gautama was adamant; he wanted answers, not material gifts. Finally the King said to him: “Stay here for a long time; after that I shall see to it that you are instructed”. Gautama did that; and at the end of this preparation period the King said: “O Gautama, before you this knowledge never went to the Brahmanas. The teaching of this knowledge belonged only to Ksatriyas in all countries” (iyam na prak tvattah pura vidya brahmanan gacchati tasmad u sarvesu lokesu ksatrasyaiva prasanam abhut) (V. 3.67). Then he instructed him first about the sacrifice in five fires, namely, heaven, rain, earth, man, and woman. This, in fact, is the answer to the fifth question.

corresponding sphere, is explained in detail in the Upanisad. (i) The first fire is heaven itself; sun in heaven is the sacrificial fuel; its rays form the smoke; the day-time is the flame; the moon is the embers and the stars are the sparks of this fire; and the oblation in this fire is faith (sraddha). From this the rain originates. (ii) The second fire is Parjanya, that is, rain cloud and rain. Air is its fuel, cloud is the smoke, lightening is the flame,

this union, the foetus is formed, and in due time the child is born. The process of birth is symbolically expressed here. The seeker has to meditate on this evolutionary process. 3. Upanisadic meditations: the vidyas It has already been mentioned that what is important is that the seeker should meditate on these five fires and process of its progression, which ends in the birth of a new life. Meditation is an important theme of the Upanisads; but in studying and teaching the Upanisads, due importance to this aspect is not given.

The symbolic representation of five stations the individual self traverses through on its way to embodied existence on earth is in the form of five forms of fires.

2.3. The five fires The symbolic representation of five stations the individual self traverses through on its way to embodied existence on earth is in the form of five forms of fires. What is important is the meditation on these five fires and on the process their evolution. Each fire, situated in

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thunderbolt is the embers and rumblings of thunderbolt are the sparks. The oblation here is Soma.

Meditation in the Upanisadic context is technically called “vidya”. Vidya has two meaning: In the first place, it has its generally accepted explicit meaning, namely, knowledge (jnana); and secondly it means meditation or meditative exercises (dhyana or upasana). The major Upanisads contain a number of such vidyas or upasanas which are, as has already been mentioned earlier, forms of meditation. Prof. V. Raghavan defines an Upanisadic form of meditation as follows: “The upasana is the taking by the mind of a particular object or support and developing a concentrated and continuous thought of it, without allowing the intervention of any (iii) The third fire is the earth; its fuel is notion other than that”. Thus meditation the year; akasa is its smoke; night is the means the one-pointed concentration of the flame; the directions are the embers; the intermediate directions are the sparks; and mind on an attribute or manifestation of the supreme reality or any other object, and the the oblation to it is rain. prolonged thought on this object with the (iv) Man is the fourth fire. Speech, prana, intention of the purification of the self and tongue, the eye, the ear are the fuel, smoke, thereby the final liberation of the self. flame, embers and sparks respectively. The Sankara, speaking on the Upanisadic oblation is food. meditation in his commentary on Brahmasutra I.3.14 says: “For the sake of (v) The fifth fire is the woman. The true vision which has to be preceded by oblation to her is the seed of man. From

ASPECTS meditation.” So the meditation should lead the seeker to the beatific vision of the supreme Self. Commenting on sutra III.3.59 Sankara says again: “The fruit of these (meditations) is the realization of the meditated object.” 3.1. The thirty-two vidyas The Upanisads contain numerous forms of meditation. From the deliberations in the Brahmasutra, which in fact, is the shortest, but at the same time, the most profound commentary of the Upanisads, from other commentaries on the Upanisads by Sankara, Ramanuja and others, the scholars have selected the main meditative forms of the

Parama-purusa-vidya (Katha Up. III); Sadvidya (Chandogya Up. IV. 2.1); Anandamaya-vidya (Taittiriya Up. II & III); Sandilya-vidya (Chandogya Up. III.14; Brhadaranyaka Up. V.6); Paryanka-vidya (Kausitaki Up. I.6); Uddalaka-vidya (Brhadaranyaka Up. III.7.23); Aksarakasavidya (Mundaka Up. I.1.4); Bhuma-vidya (Chandogya Up. VII.24). The meditations of the Upanisads are divided into three: (i) The Nirguna-Brahma meditations, (meditations on the attributeless Brahman). (ii) The Saguna-Brahma meditations (meditations on the Brahman with attributes). (iii) The Pratika meditations,

auspicious qualities, who is interested in the destiny of man. (iii) The meditations on images or symbols of God are very important in the Upanisads. As regards image worship, the two words used in Sanskrit are Pratima and Pratika. The former stands for ordinary images; the latter for symbolic images. The former is meditating on idols or idol worship. The idols of particular deities are formed as they are depicted in the sacred books like the Epics or the Puranas. Mediations on the symbols of God are very common and very varied. Brahmasutras IV.1.4-5 explain the symbolic meditations. “(That supreme Person is to be meditated) not in the symbol,

The meditations on images or symbols of God are very important in the Upanisads. As regards image worship, the two words used in Sanskrit are Pratima and Pratika. Upanisads, and have fixed their number as thirty-two. Evidently there are more forms of meditation (vidyas) in the Upanisads than thirty-two. The names of these forms of meditations are derived from the particular objects, either God himself, or symbols or attributes of God, of the meditations, or from the goal of the particular meditation, or from the spiritual aspirant who used a particular form of meditation, or from the place or being within which the seeker has to find the object of his meditation, or from the mode or method of meditation. The meditation on the five fires is one of the forms of meditation, and is known as Pancagni-vidya. Some other vidyas are: Isvara-vidya (Isa Up. 1);

(meditations on images or symbols of Brahman). (i) Speaking of the Nirguna-Brahma meditations, Narayanaswami Aiyer says: “As regards the first, no meditation by itself will enable us to reach It. Going and coming are predicable of conditioned states only. In the case of the unconditioned, we are It. It being above thought, our meditation, being but mental, will not by itself enable us to reach It”. Such a form of meditation is not easily accessible for ordinary people. (ii) In the Saguna-Brahma meditation God is conceived as a person, who is kind and loving to his devotees, who has many other

because he (the meditator) should not (see the Self in the symbols).” “Meditation on Brahman (is to be directed on to the symbols of Brahman), because of the greatness (given to the symbols by this kind of meditations)”. 3.2. The aim of meditations Embodied existence. But there can be intermediary effects. Thus the Brahmasutra mentions three types of results of the Upanisadic meditations. (i) The destruction of sorrows (durita-ksaya); (ii) Obtainment of material and spiritual prosperity (aisvaryaprapti); and (iii) Gradual liberation from the exigencies of the embodied existence (krama-

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ASPECTS mukti). Therefore, the final goal of all meditative exercises of the Upanisads is the salvation. 4. The two paths the departed souls take The Upanisad describes two paths, which the departed soul can take: (i) Path of gods, (ii) Path of ancestors. 4.1. The path of Gods (Deva-yana)

5. Pre-eminence of the knowledge of the five fires The section on Five Fires of Chandogya Up ends with the following words: “He who worships the five fires thus, even though associated with those sinners, is not tainted by sin. He who knows these thus becomes cleansed and pure and obtains the meritorious world. – Yes, he who knows thus.” (Chandogya Up. V.10.10).

In the words of the Upanisads, the path of gods, which the meditators take:

6. Observations

Among them, those who know the five fires, and those who practise faith and austerity in

6.1. This episode in the Upanisad tries to bring home to us the process of the rebirth of

philosophy the idea of grace of God for salvation is not accepted; each one should work out his/her liberation; the paths, or the means for liberation are also different in different systems; classical paths are that of knowledge (jnana-marga), detached action (karma-marga) and devotion (bhaktimarga). 6.3. What is the process of rebirth? One paradigm is explained in this lesson. The migrating soul passes through five stations in a descending scale. These five stations are designated symbolically as five fires. The

Among them, those who have good residual results of actions, earned in this world, quickly reach a good womb, namely, the womb of a Brahmana, or of a Ksatriya, or of a Vaisya. the forest, they go to the light, from the light to the day, from the day to the bright fortnight, from the bright fortnight to those six months during which the sun moves in the North, from these six months to the year, from the year to the sun, from the sun to the moon and from the moon to the lightening. Then a divine person comes and leads them to attain Brahman. This is the path of gods (Chandogya Up. V.10.1-2). 4.2. The path of ancestors (Pitr-yana) Those who practise rituals and sacrifices and do good works for the common good (but are not meditators), they take the path of ancestors. They go to smoke, from smoke to night, from night to the dark fortnight, from the dark fortnight to the six months when the sun moves in the South, from there they to the region of ancestors, from there they go to akasa and from akasa to the moon. There they remain till the results of their past karmas are exhausted. Then they return to another birth through the way they went up, or they may take another route for their downward journey. They take birth again according to their residual karmas (Cf. Chandogya Up. V.10.3-6). “Among them, those who have good residual results of actions, earned in this world, quickly reach a good womb, namely, the womb of a Brahmana, or of a Ksatriya, or of a Vaisya. But those who have bad residual results of actions quickly reach an evil womb, the womb of a dog, or of a hog, or of a candala” (Chandogya Up. V.10.7).

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a self. The christian understanding of the human soul teaches the following facts: Soul is created by God in the early stages of pregnancy; but it has no end, it lives forever; there is only one life in body for the soul; there is no transmigration and rebirth; after the death, the soul, according to the merits and demerits it has gained in life, either enters into the eternal life with God, sometimes after a period of purification in purgatory, or it is eternally condemned to a life of suffering in the hell; the saved souls live eternally in the presence of God; their greatest bliss is this beatific vision of God; salvation is a free gift of God; to gain eternal salvation, the seeker should be in the state of grace; grace is the state of positive relationship with God; grace and salvation are brought about by the incarnation, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity. 6.2. The Hindu understanding of the soul/ self is different. Soul is eternal, it is not created, and it has no end; it is subjected to the doctrine of karma; soul migrates from body to body; new birth and body of the soul are determined by its past karmas; if the deeds were virtuous and meritorious, it gets a better rebirth; if the deeds were evil and wicked, it gets a lower birth; this chain of births, deaths and rebirths is broken by detachment, renunciation and by actions done without any desire for the fruits of actions (niskama-karma); in general Hinduism does not believe in eternal condemnation; the nature of the liberated state is differently understood in different systems; in many classical systems of Indian

new birth, of course, is determined by the past karmas. 6.4. According to this episode, the cause of one’s birth is not only the parents, man and woman, but also the elements and powers of nature. Therefore, a person is indebted to these elements and powers of nature, and he/ she has the grave responsibility of respecting and protecting this earth and its entities. Protection of environment is a grave responsibility of all humans. 6.5. The importance given to fire, agni, is significant. Fire plays an important role, especially in the Vedic times, in the religiosity and liturgical practices of Hindus. Fire is one of important Rgvedic gods. The very first mantra of Rgveda is addressed to fire. “I adore Agni, the domestic priest, the lord of the sacrifices, the officiating priest, the offerer and the bestower of excellence”. Fire is the mediator and messenger between the sacrificer and the gods. Agni is said to be the mouth of gods. “The deities are said to have Agni for their mouth” (Mahabharata, Santi Parva, CCCXLII). Oblations are offered into the consecrated fire accompanied by Vedic chants. Agni carries these oblations to the gods to whom they were offered, and bring back the blessings of these gods to the worshiper. 6.6. The starting point of this discussion is the five questions asked by King Pravahana to Svetaketu. These questions are answered, some partially, some fully, in the discussion of five fires.

CREA TIVE LIVING CREATIVE

Creativity and time Dr. Varghese Panthalookaran

Creative minds are called upon to master the art of efficiently wasting time in order to improve the quality of their works!

lbert Einstein once suggested: “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” How is time related to creativity? Is it directly proportional to the available time or is it just inversely proportional to it? Or does it maintain some other unique correlation? It is an involved question. True, time has to be expended to complete creative tasks too.

However, to improve the net creative residue, the same time often needs to be wasted! Creative minds are called upon to master the art of efficiently wasting time in order to improve the quality of their works! Look at Mr. Barack Obama, the president of USA, one of the most influential

countries on the globe today. He takes time to play basketball, spends leisure time with his family on holidays in Miami. He appears to be “Mr. Cool” in front of the world media. Does he waste his time, doing all these? Or does it also enhance the quality of his works? In fact, that the President of America grows gray hair could spell doom for the rest of the world. It

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CREA TIVE LIVING CREATIVE may signal an imminent political disaster, if gray hair could be taken as a sign of extreme work pressure, stress and “time famine”. Those who assume high offices in society need necessarily take time to relax and to reflect over the implications of their decisions. (This applies to Rahul Gandhi too). They need to find space and time to regularly replenish their creative skills. Time pressure and Creativity Prof. Teresa Amabile, the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, has researched for decades on the correlation between time pressure and creativity. According to her, while time pressure may make people feel more creative, it usually prevents them from actually being creative. It creates an apparently self-contradictory situation: people who are hard pressed for time evaluate themselves as creative, which they objectively not are. Subjective perceptions and objective reality remains miles apart! When creativity is under the gun, it usually gets killed, suggests Prof. Amabile. It is only an illusion that work pressure improves creativity! In fact, it is extremely difficult to keep creativity under time pressure. However, there are some methods for preserving creativity during dire pressure of time. According to Prof. Amabile, people could consider that they are on an important mission to negotiate with the time pressures. The mode of being on a mission fills the day with focus. Time pressure gets baptized to “meaningful urgency”. People feel positively challenged. They strive to identify the problem and explore creative solutions. A sense of mission imparts needed concentration and engagement in work, making room for creative blisters. The time pressure can also impart the feeling of being on a tread mill! People run faster on a treadmill only to get further

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While time pressure may make people feel more creative, it usually prevents them from actually being creative. It creates an apparently self-contradictory situation.

behind! They are pulled in multiple directions. They feel distracted, unfocused, confused, and trapped in never-ending chain of different activities. They do not feel that they do something important. This makes them feel more-pressed for time than when they were on a mission. This invariably chokes their creativity. According to Prof. Amabile this also often leads to so called “time-pressure hangover”, which keeps you uncreative for many consecutive days. However, there is always time to create for those who are ready to create time for the same! This does not automatically imply that days with low time pressure are ideal for creativity. When people are free, they

could revert to two different modes: an expedition mode or an auto-pilot mode. In the expedition mode, people focus more on exploring ideas than on simply identifying problems. They explore at individual level for ideas rather than in groups and often come out with creative insights. In the auto-pilot mode, on the other hand, people do their jobs without engagement. There is no external encouragement to think differently, and people languish in numerous unnecessary and routine meetings. This kills not just time, but also creativity skills! Time management and creativity Professor Anne-Laure Sellier and Prof. Tamar Avnet have made yet another distinction between people on account of their time management styles. According to them, “clock-time” people and “event-time” people approach time differently. Clocktimers, as the term suggests, schedule their days by hours and minutes. They give tasks, errands, and even pastimes an allotted hour and a time limit, and they stick to the schedule. Event-timers, on the other hand, schedule serially: They work on a task until it’s finished or they reach a natural stopping point, and then they move on to something else. For example, let us assume that an event-time person asks a clock-time person: “Do you want lunch?” The clock-time person will ask back: “What time is it?”, to which the event-time person will retort: “It has nothing to do with what time it is; do you want to have lunch?” The clock-timers are ruled by the march of the hours, they feel less control over their lives than eventtimers, whose schedules are in their own hands. This sense of autonomy and freedom makes the event-timers more creative. There are research studies which suggest that creativity is significantly related to time management skills of a person, which includes daily planning, and confidence on

CREA TIVE LIVING CREATIVE long-range planning. It also depends on time attitudes, such as perceived control of time, tenacity and preference for disorganization. Creativity is positively related to daily planning behaviour, confidence on long-range planning, perceived control of time and tenacity. However, it is found to be negatively related to preference for disorganization. This implies that planning daily activities, prioritizing them, and having a confidence in long-range planning are more relevant to the production of novel and useful ideas. In other words, time management behaviours may be necessary for the effective exploitation of creative ideas.

results from the formation of a large number of associations in the mind, followed by the selection of associations that may be particularly interesting and useful, suggests the psychologists. It is like throwing a bunch of balls into the cognitive space, juggling them around until they collide in interesting ways. It happens at its own chosen time! Ideal time for creativity Which time of the day is ideal for creative activities? For some it is the early morning and for some others it is late night. There are still others who consider all times as

Paul Graham distinguishes between the “maker’s schedule” and the “manager’s schedule”. The maker here is a creative mind. The maker’s schedule is defined by long, open stretches of uninterrupted work. For example, for a creative mind a single stretch of work may extend to the entire afternoon. By scheduling time like that the creative minds could shift into a state of “flow”, which is necessary for high-quality creativity. They schedule their times in meaningful bytes. On the other hand, a manager schedules his/her time bit by bit. Managers are preoccupied by accomplishing the given task as efficiently as possible. There is nothing creative to it. “Big ideas take time”

However, there were both morning larks and night owls among the creative minds of the world. Charles Dickens, for example, was a morning lark. He started his writing in the early morning and finished it by 2:00pm each day. Robert Frost, on the other hand, was a night owl. He used to start writing at about 2:00pm and would often be writing late into the night. He used to wake up only around noon. Mareike Wietha and Rose Zacks report a counter-intuitive observation in this regard. They found that the creative ideas often emerge at our least optimal times: Morning larks generate path-breaking ideas in the evening and the night owls have their breakthroughs in the morning, respectively, when they apparently aren’t at their best. The theory goes that as our minds tire at our suboptimal times then our focus broadens. As we become bit sleepy and vague, minds options abound and the mind makes connections between apparently unconnected ideas. Hence, for logical or analytical thinking the optimum times are ideal. However, for lateral thinking, suboptimum times are ideal!

Brahma muhurta is recommended as an auspicious time for prayer, worship and meditation. It is believed that the cosmos is charged with energy during the God’s hour, in which those who are awake partake.

Creativity takes its own time. Breakthrough ideas are rarely hatched over night. Bell Labs operates under its corporate philosophy: “Big ideas take time”. Researchers there have produced worldchanging innovations including the transistor and the laser beam. They have also won several Nobel prizes. The gestation of powerful ideas is akin to a “combinatorial play”, as Einstein prefers to call it. Creative thinking generally

auspicious time for prayer, worship and meditation. It is believed that the cosmos is charged with energy during the God’s hour, in which those who are awake partake. That creativity peaks in the morning time is justifiable. In the early morning the creative connections in our brains are most active, making it creative.

equally special. Some even get stellar ideas when they are under a shower! There is no single concept regarding the most ideal time of the day for creative outpour. The Indian tradition speaks of Brahma muhurta or “God’s Hour”, almost one and a half hours before sunrise at around 4 a. m. Brahma muhurta is recommended as an

What we invariably see in the creative minds is that they had a consistent writing routine and appropriate time schedules. They have actually made their personal optimum time for themselves. They acted as the owners and masters of their time. This perhaps is the clue to resolve the uneasy correlation between creativity and time: Be masters of your times, not be its slave!

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INFOTECH

Microsoft plans to manufacture phones in India

icrosoft is considering options to manufacture handsets in India after the government made it more expensive to import mobile phones, a top official said, adding that the US company wants to remain competitive in the fastgrowing market, where it has begun rebranding stores following the acquisition of Nokia’s device business. “We’re evaluating that (local manufacturing) constantly in terms of what our local footprint is. There are some new regulations and tax duties, etc., about local manufacturing and certainly we’re looking at them to make

sure that we remain competitive,” Chris Weber, corporate vice-president at Microsoft Mobile Device Sales, said when asked whether Microsoft would consider manufacturing in India. “We continue evaluating that across the globe, including India,” Weber said, without elaborating on specific plans. The largest software maker in the world, which bought Nokia’s device business in a $7.5-billion deal that closed in April last year, was unable to purchase the Finnish company’s phone manufacturing plant in Chennai due to a multi-crore rupee tax dispute that is still unresolved.

Google makes your Gmail accounts safer on Chrome

oogle Inc has announced a free extension for its Chrome web browser that better protects Google accounts, including email, against online attackers trying to steal passwords and other personal information. The extension, called Password Alert, can be downloaded on Google Chrome and warns users before they enter account information on “phishing” pages, or imitation sites designed to steal passwords and access personal information, such as emails or online bank accounts. Millions of phishing emails and websites are sent every day, Google said. Nearly 2%

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of messages sent through Gmail, Google’s email service, are designed to steal passwords. “Right now, it’s left up to the user to decide whether or not to enter their password,” said Drew Hintz, the lead engineer for Password Alert. “We expect users to know the difference between these sites, and that’s an unreasonable request to make of users.” The new extension, which took about three years to create, is an addition to Google’s other security measures, including safe browsing technology that warns users against potentially malicious sites and verification tools that help protect private accounts.

Tattoos can cause Apple watches to malfunction

arly adopters of the new Apple Watch have found that the device malfunctions when worn by people with wrist tattoos. The issue was first pointed out on Reddit by a tattooed user who complained that his watch would regularly lose connection, and report inaccurate heart rate results. Scores of other users then reported similar issues. Apple Watch requests a security PIN immediately after detecting that it has left an owner’s wrist, meaning that those affected are forced to repeatedly enter their code. Darker tattoos appear to cause more problems for the device than light inkings. The problem should have been foreseeable - Apple has already explained that it measures heart rate by analysing light absorption through the skin. The Reddit user who first flagged up the problem wrote: “So I thought my shiny new watch had a bad wrist detector sensor. “The watch would lock up every time the screen went dark and prompted me for my password. I wouldn’t receive notifications. I couldn’t figure out why especially since the watch was definitely not losing contact with my skin. “I decided to try holding it against my hand - my left arm is sleeved and where I wear my watch is tattooed as well - and it worked. “My hand isn’t tattooed and the Watch stayed unlocked. “Once I put it back on the area that is tattooed with black ink the watch would automatically lock again. Just wanted to give anyone a heads up about this issue because I don’t see it mentioned anywhere in Apple’s support documents.” The wrist detection feature can be turned off, but it stops Apple Pay from working. Apple has not yet commented.

INFOTECH

Flipkart buys engagement startup

lipkart has acquired Delhi-based mobile engagement and marketing automation company Appiterate.

This is the e-commerce major’s second acquisition this year after it bought mobile ad network AdIQuity for an undisclosed amount. Both acquisitions show Flipkart’s increasing focus on mobile commerce.

Microsoft Edge; Windows 10’s IE replacement

hown off at the annual Microsoft Build developer conference, the Edge browser will be available for Windows 10 when it is released this summer.

Appiterate, co-founded by Tanuj Mendiratta, Anuj Bhargva, Mayank Kumar and Varun Sharma, has helped leading e-commerce companies leverage the power of mobile apps and big data for targeted marketing though push notifications and in-app messages.

Edge is designed to take on Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Mozilla’s Firefox — and to once again make Microsoft the king of Web browsers. Edge isn’t just some Internet Explorer knockoff. The browser is a completely new piece of software and comes with a host of new features.

The platform has been delivering more than 100 million personalized notifications each month.

In addition to its name, Microsoft also debuted a new tab page for Edge. Joe Belfiore, a corporate vice president in

Idea, Airtel report higher profit on data growth wo of India’s top three mobile telecoms network operators reported a rise in quarterly profits, helped by strong subscriber growth for mobile data services while strong competition continued to pressure prices for voice calls.

data customers of 150 rupees ($2.38), up from 104 rupees a year ago.

Idea Cellular Ltd, India’s third-biggest mobile operator behind Vodafone India, and market leader Bharti Airtel Ltd together spent about $9.5 billion in the recently concluded government auction for airwaves, betting on the country’s significant mobile data potential.

However, the companies reported sharp declines in the average price achieved for voice calls — the realization rate per minute. Despite the jump in mobile data over the past year, voice revenues still make up close to 80% of operator revenues. Idea posted a 7.1% decline in its voice realization rate to 0.339 rupees per minute for the fourth quarter, while market leader Bharti Airtel recorded a 2.5% fall.

With a majority of the country still using more basic “feature phones”, India’s smartphone market is expected to grow at around 36% a year over the next five years, according to consulting firm Zinnov, making the higher margin mobile data business a potentially lucrative bet for network operators. Idea, which posted a 60% rise in quarterly profit, recorded a monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) among its 33.4 million

Separately, Bharti, which posted a 30.5% rise in profit for the quarter ended March 31, saw its mobile data ARPU rise by 43 rupees to 173 rupees.

Idea Cellular’s chief executive, Himanshu Kapania said that cost pressures remained in the sector but his company would try to absorb them by expanding. Otherwise prices would have to rise. “Whatever scale can’t absorb, it would be inevitable that price increases would happen,” Kapania told reporters in Mumbai.

Microsoft’s Operating Systems Group, said that Internet Explorer’s new tab page, the page you see when you open a new tab in the browser, is opened 1 billion times a day, so Microsoft wanted to help people get the most out of Edge’s new tab page. When you open a new tab, you’re met with a universal search bar that lets you perform a search using Microsoft’s Bing or enter a Web address. Below that is a list of your most visited websites. If there is an app for one of your top sites, you see a ”Get the app” button that takes you to the Microsoft Store, where you can download it.

India eyes 50 cr. internet connections

he government is working towards pulling off a goal of 50 crore internet connections by 2018, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. “Last year, internet service providers told me that we have got 30 crore internet connections in India... my plan is by 2018, to make 50 crore internet connections in India, that’s what we are working for,” Prasad said. “I am convinced that in the coming 2-3 years, India will become equal to China as an IT market of the world, I have no doubts about it,” the Minister said. On internet connectivity, he pointed to India having surpassed the US and being second only to China. “We are a population of 1.2 billion plus, we are having 97.5 crore mobile phones in India, very soon we will touch 100 crore,” the Minister said.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

POLICY WATCH

Debating Keralaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claims on literacy - I The study found that there was high dropout rates among tribal children in Wayanad and Palakkad districts. Unfortunately these figures were significantly high when compared to official findings by the state.

literacy has reached a point where we ought to be self-satisfied. The Economic Review (2013) showed that the state had 12,627 schools and 56 per cent of which were aided. Based on this complacency we have ascended on a higher platform to address second generation problems school education. This is all well Dr. D. Dhanuraj Rahul. V. Kumar in and good but alas these problems are perceived as technical in nature and ur idea in this series of two articles cured with an expanding bureaucratic is to carefully examine the state of apparatus. Two decades after the state of Keralaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s school education focusing Kerala was declared as completely on two districts Wayanad and Palakkad. literateour search should have focussed on We focus on the ST community to understanding the various possibilities and highlight certain conditions and suggest potentials of education. The reforms policy alternatives to deal with it. should have been to unbridle these possibilities rather than tie them down Introduction wanting more technical improvements. Keralaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s educational achievements at the The Context school level has been noticeable and praiseworthy compared to the rest of A few months back some figures from a India. It was believed that our tryst with study by Kerala Institute of Local

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Administration (KILA) was revealed in a newspaper article. The study found that there was high dropout rates among tribal children in Wayanad and Palakkad districts. Unfortunately these figures were significantly high when compared to official findings by the state (at approximately 37 per cent). Economic Review 2013 puts the overall dropout rates at 1.05 per cent while for Scheduled Tribes (ST) students it was 3.71 per cent. The figures provided by KILA could have several implications. From the side of the students these implications could broadly be put in two categories: 1) That the students were unable to attend classes due to social or economic reasons or any other technical reasons which contribute to difficulty in accessing these schools. 2) That the students found it least interesting to attend classes in these schools.

POLICY WATCH A note on the two implications is important. It is seen that in the case of Kerala the state policies have been to correct the first category of problems. This category is significant because it is preferred by the administration to expand their reach on particular communities. Providing more benefits to improve social, economic and technical facilities also expand the administration and bureaucracy and implies increasing cost towards funding these activities.

The authors of this article were fortunate enough to visit and consult several schools and experts working in the area to understand the nature of the problem confronting them.

of ST students are the highest in this district. In government schools in Wayanad ST dropout rates are as high as 5.34 per cent while in aided schools these figures are 3.32 per cent. Does this mean that more and more corrective measures by the Wayanad and Palakkad state has improved the scene in these districts? If not does it imply that the Official estimates given in the Economic Review show that both these district face a existing strategy might have been misdirected? A re-examination was worth to understand these question. The authors did a sample survey of schools in these districts to understand the true nature and relatively higher dropout rate compared to causes of the issue of dropouts among the rest of Kerala. These numbers however different category of students belonging to traditionally vulnerable communities. remain particularly high for the ST Interestingly we found that the official category. Both these districts also have higher ST enrolments compared to the rest figures could be masking certain important of the state.This also meant that efforts by trends. We note some observations from our research. the state and related institutions to improve the conditions of these 1) While overall figures of students from communities were very high in these two the ST communities show dropout rates districts. close to 7 per cent, we note that the trend is not same across classes/grades. Lower The case of Wayanad is particularly primary level and higher secondary levels important considering that the enrolment

In government schools in Wayanad ST dropout rates are as high as 5.34 per cent while in aided schools these figures are 3.32 per cent.

The second category of implications is mostly misunderstood by the state administration. They take it to mean that schools and infrastructure should be modified to attract students. Hence smart class rooms, midday meals, providing accessories like bags and umbrellas etc. have been attempted to attract students. Now to understand the implications of these state led efforts let us look at the two districts highlighted in KILA study.

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POLICY WATCH have high dropout figures for ST students. For instance dropout among ST boys in class 1 in Wayanad is approximately 8 per cent. In class XI it increased to 18 per cent.

compelled to create a situation of full enrolment. As a result while several students are nominally enrolled, many of them are actually absent. We were informed of cases where spot admissions were practiced on the fifth working day in schools. Teachers visit ST colonies and add names of potential students to the

2) In the case of Palakkad it is even more striking. In class 1, 15 per cent of ST boys and 6 per cent of ST girls dropout. In class II, again another 6 per cent of ST boys dropout. That is in lower primary sections a large part of the enrolled students, especially boys, in ST community dropouts. It was also worth noticing that roll list. However many of these students 15 per cent of the ST girls dropped out in never find their way to schools. Class VIII. We talked with expert groups and head of 3) We saw that there are specific schools institutions to understand why these which contribute to this high figures in conditions exist. Most of these both Palakkad and Wayanad. Selected discussions provided biased observations schools in Munderkarad, Pampampallam which blamed particular communities of and Naikara in Palakkad were noted for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;not understanding the benefitsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of the high dropout rates. education; or pointed towards instances where transport was limited etc. 4) Administrative compulsions and Sometimes it was also highlighted that stricter norms have also created space for cheating the system. School authorities are there were social and cultural hurdles to

bringing these students to school. Child labour, child marriages and so on, stages which Kerala had supposedly overcome were allegedly prevalent among these communities. In the next part of this article, we try to critically reason out that these factors and blame games might be hiding the true reasons and issues facing Keralaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary education sector. Rather than picturing the problem of inability to bring a community to the school, we try to ask if the state administration is being obstinate in sticking on to what it believes is good for the others. Our view is that schooling and education has to shift to a higher trajectory and move past traditionally accepted views.

School authorities are compelled to create a situation of full enrolment. As a result while several students are nominally enrolled, many of them are actually absent.

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Dr. D. Dhanuraj is the Chairman, Centre for Public Policy Research, Kochi. Rahul V. Kumar is the Director (Reasearch), Centre for Public Policy Research, Kochi.

INSIGHTS

Do the Ability to empathize make schools cause students popular

study by the University of Queensland, Australia reveals that popularity of preschoolers and school-age children radically depends on their ability to identify what others want, think, and feel. Such understanding of other’s mental perspectives facilitates the kind of interactions that help children become or remain popular. Popularity was measured via nominations by classroom peers and ratings by teachers. The results are published in the journal Child Development. The ability to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling comes into play in

interpersonal interactions and helps us understand complex social situations, such as when one person double crosses another or uses sarcasm. This is also called theory of mind. The current study looked across the findings of multiple studies to reach the conclusion. The study also found that the ability to empathize is weaker for boys than girls, perhaps reflecting gender differences in how children relate to each other. For example, girls’ friendships are often characterized by high levels of intimacy and resolving conflicts, which may mean that their interactions require more sensitivity in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings.

myopia?

ver the last 30 years, short sight, or myopia, has become a global health problem. The most dramatic rise has been in Singapore, Taiwan, China’s cities and elsewhere in East Asia. Rates can be as high as 80-90 per cent among children leaving secondary schools in the region. As many as a fifth of them have severe myopia and so are at high risk of eye problems in later life. In Western countries rates are increasing; although not as rapidly as in East Asia. In a current study, researchers compared the history of school myopia with the bone disease rickets. During the 17th

Are gifted kids left out in schools?

n a thought-provoking research the University of Iowa concludes that high-ability children are often neglected in the schools. After ten years of publication of the report, A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students, and after implementation of a multitude of corrective measures, the high-ability students are still languishing in classrooms, bored and unchallenged, their potential lost and futures jeopardized.

entrance to school, grade-skipping, moving ahead in one subject area, or Advanced Placement courses. The Volume 1 includes personal stories from students, teachers, and families while Volume 2 presents the evidence-based research with eight new chapters and updates to chapters that appeared in the first report.

The researchers expose the disparities between the research on acceleration and the educational beliefs and practices that often run contrary to research. The Now the researchers, professors, and top research supports acceleration as the most administrators with the University of effective curriculum intervention for gifted Iowa’s College of Education are updating children. For bright students, acceleration their call to action with A Nation is not only cost-effective but has long-term Empowered: Evidence Trumps the Excuses beneficial effects, both academically and Holding Back America’s Brightest socially. As for the future, the study hopes Students. This two-volume report is that educators continue to use technology designed to “empower” parents, educators, to customize education for bright students administrators, and policy-makers with and that researchers develop new methods evidence and tools to implement 20 types for identifying gifted students from diverse of acceleration, which include early backgrounds.

century, rickets was common among children in England and then reached epidemic levels through northern Europe and North America. The remedy proved elusive until the 1920s, when scientists found that a lack of sunlight, resulting in vitamin D deficiency, was the cause of rickets. Myopia, like rickets, is a seasonal condition which seems to get worse in the winter. However, unlike rickets, low ambient light levels rather than low vitamin D levels seem to be the deciding factor in myopia, concludes the research. A century ago, it was widely believed that high daylight levels in schools could prevent myopia. Education departments built classrooms with large windows to try to stop children becoming shortsighted. Then in 1960s, medical thinking changed. Myopia was thought to be an inherited condition; so less was done to prevent it.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

INSIGHTS

The secrets of “Flynn effect” revealed

here is a dramatic rise in IQ scores during the past century. The mean IQ test scores of American adults, for instance, have increased by about 25 points over the last 90 years. This tremendous rise in IQ over century is often referred to as the “Flynn effect”. A team of researchers have studied the phenomena to reach the conclusion that more schooling — and the more mentally challenging problems tackled in those schools — may be the best explanation for the Flynn effect. The study also suggests that environment may have a stronger influence on intelligence than many genetic determinists once thought. There’ve been a lot of hypotheses put forward for the cause of the Flynn Effect, such as genetics and nutrition, but they generally fall flat. It really begged the question of whether an environmental factor, or factors, could cause these gains in IQ scores. School enrollment in the United States reached

almost 90 percent by 1960. However, the researchers suggest that it is not just increasing attendance, but also the more challenging learning environment that are

reasons behind the IQ score rise. The study is reported in the journal Intelligence. While even basic schooling activities can shape brain development, over the past century, schools have moved from learning focused on memorization to

Shadows of caste system still persist in India

new study from UC Berkeley suggests that despite all egalitarian efforts to downplay class as a forecaster for intelligence and achievement, many people in India still believe their destiny is tied to their station in life. Children and adults who were more influenced by caste were also more likely to believe that their own natural aptitude, academic success, and personality traits were fixed or set in stone. The results suggest that while education, technology and new money are promoting social mobility and replacing old hierarchies, gut feelings about how far we can transcend the circumstances of our birth and upbringing

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remain firmly entrenched. The results are published in the journal, Developmental Science. Traditionally, Indian society has been divided into four main castes into which Hindus are born: the priestly Brahmins, the warrior Kshatriyas, the merchant Vaishyas, the laborer Shudras and, additionally, the untouchable Dalits, renamed “Harijan” or “children of God” by Mahatma Gandhi. Since 1950, discrimination based on caste in India has been outlawed, yet the study still found that many participants perceive caste to be an active form of social stratification.

lessons that require problem solving and abstract thinking skills, which are often considered functions of fluid intelligence. Just as more physical exercise can improve sports performance for athletes, these more challenging mental workouts in schools may be building up students’ mental muscles, allowing them to perform better on certain types of problems that require flexible thinking and abstract problem solving, such as IQ tests.

Self-control enhances job prospects

arents who work to instill selfcontrol in their children will see them reap the benefits not only in the short-term but throughout their working life. Children with high selfcontrol — who are typically better able to pay attention, persist with difficult tasks, and suppress inappropriate or impulsive behaviors — are much more likely to find and retain employment as adults, spending 40% less time unemployed than those who had a lower capacity for self-control as children. The results are published in Psychological Science. While a link between adults’ self-control and immediate job success might seem obvious, it wasn’t clear whether measures of childhood self-control could forecast who successfully enters the workforce and avoids spells of unemployment across adult life. Developing greater self-control in childhood, when the capacity for selfcontrol is particularly malleable, could help buffer against unemployment during recessions and bring long-term benefits to society, through increased employment rates and productivity. Measures like preschool interventions, school programs and activities such as yoga and martial arts, and walking meditation exercises have all been shown to help develop better self-control and related abilities in the children.

Politics: a career option?

COVER STORY

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato

COVER STORY

Why politics is not a career option?

M.R. Rajendran Nair

For democratic process to be meaningful, every individual citizen is liable to have political awareness and honest political standpoint. “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute india into a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens: Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; Equality of status and of opportunity; And to promote among them all; Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation;

Do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this constitution” The preamble of the constitution of india read as above, clearly indicates the role of each individual citizen as repository of sovereign power and therefore the need for involvement in the political affairs of the nation by one and all cannot be overemphasized. For democratic process to be meaningful, every individual citizen is liable to have political awareness and honest political standpoint. In otherwords, a democratic constitution like ours presupposes such a citizenry, which will take informed and impartial decision.

“Career” is defined as “an occupation or profession, especially one requiring special training, followed as one’s lifework” in dictionaries. “politics” is defined, interalia as “The practice or profession of conducting political affairs”. What is political affairs? What qualifies as “political”? The general trend today is to identify activities of political parties as politics. We have many who are full time political workers. They are activists of one or other political parties. We may safely call them as career politicians, and presume they have taken up politics as a career. Ordinarily people understand politics as

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COVER STORY formation of political parties, creating electoral alliances, contesting for seats at various levels of democratic setups, etc. I would define politics as an art of involving and interfering in the affairs of the state realizing oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s position as a enlightened citizen who holds service before self. The pre-independent days witnessed emergence of career politicians from among common men, who were throwing away their other profession and occupation for livelihood only for jumping in to the arena of political activity of fighting the British at the risk of being jailed or even hanged. Perhaps nobody thought of politics on those days or in that way was a career. It is to be noticed that the attraction to the political arena in those days for those who took it up as their career was not the possibility of power, money or reputation. In fact such souls risked those very things to be part of the political movement in which

they saw ideological and moral justification.

was obviously that the people of India without any division the basis of political affiliation should be able to form themselves in to a democratic republic. Not only that his noble thoughts did not fructify but also unfortunate that he was blessed with martyrdom. Will one consider Gandhi, or his tribe as career politician is a question to be answered.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Careerâ&#x20AC;? as we always understand is a profession, occupation or avocation for remuneration and resultant livelihood. It was and it is never considered as a risk in life or a chance of success or failure. Those who were concerned about the society beyond self always activated themselves in serving the public. That was how Time changes the meanings of words. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi found Politics and career, both has lost its luster himself amidst struggles while at South due to passage of time. Today, politics is nothing but the activity of winning votes and coming to power. Being a career Africa. According to me he comes back to politician therefore do not beget approval india again for serving the people, serving today like the pre-independent days. But the nation, and performing his might to they are for an entirely different reason. liberate the nation and thereby to liberate Seeing the political scenario posthimself. Gandhiji did not desire to be independence in india no reasonable parent benefited by the power when would even dream of their offspring independence dawned after prolonged adopting politics as a career. During my struggle blended with residence inside the school days I remember my teacher asking jail, and harassment outside. His thinking every student as to what he would like to

Those who were concerned about the society beyond self always activated themselves in serving the public.

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COVER STORY

Career politics has fallen to personnel who could not get accommodated elsewhere or are in the arena of politics due to hereditary hues. We must bestow some positive thoughts as to how the predicament can be overcome. become in life. I distinctly remember that supported to avoid dependency on many of us answered that we would like to unethical methods of making livelihood. be come Doctor, Engineer, Teacher etc. Nobody was heard saying that he would like to become MLA, MP or the Prime Minister or the President of India. We never had an aspirant even for a panchayat member. Why politics is not a career option? One good reason can be that it is an area where there is a great amount of gambling. One is not sure that even with perfect honest hard working he/she may attain the position of a leader and eventual holder of an office. No one is willing to leave the future life in to uncertainties. They are probably supported by Samuel Johnsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quote â&#x20AC;&#x153;Politics is the last resort of a scoundrelâ&#x20AC;?. Recently I found in social media that a particular political party is going to employ youngsters in party and their youth organization for salary. Question naturally was asked as to whether workers and leaders can be recruited appointed and promoted by paying salary. Perhaps it is just the otherway about. Those who have opted to be in political activity at whatever levels should be financially

If responsible accredited political parties take up the responsibility of ensuring dignified life to its full time workers the aberrations leading to unholy activities can be avoided.

While ensuring that there is remuneration to the workers coming out for political service, there should also be guarantee of total transparency. A person volunteering for public work must also give up his claims for extended and overemphasized privacy, and his life in its minutest facets must be an open book. While career in politics by worthy individuals is a necessity for a democratic polity, we have very little means of attracting such people to the career of politics. We do not have even a proper curriculum which will cater to such a person to give him necessary academic background to equip him for such a career. Finally we end up having career politicians who are misfits in their fields coming to the arena of politics only because they cannot fit anywhere else. Career politics has fallen to personnel who could not get accommodated elsewhere or are in the arena of politics due to hereditary hues. We must bestow some positive thoughts as to how the predicament can be overcome. Each one of us is and ought to be a politician because we are one among the ultimate repository of power. We are unaware of this and a few

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COVER STORY

In a political career relationships matters much. It should be nurtured and developed in honest ways. who were in power never wanted to give the awareness of we being the masters for obvious reasons. But by the advent of public interest litigation, Right to Information Act, etc. have given considerable momentum and people are now generally aware that they are the masters and the so called men in power are servants. Masters will be able to perform only if they accept that politics is a career for them not a livelihood but a way of life. Every one therefore is a constitutionally bound to accept the position that they are public servants, whether they are paid or not. Every career, for that matter, must have a political angle to it. Every career must be public service. Every career must be at the inner level a political career in the true and correct sense of the word. Having stated this much i would like to enumerate certain qualities and qualifications which a â&#x20AC;&#x153;politicianâ&#x20AC;? should possess. We will recall a scenario of 1957, when adv. V.R. Krishna Iyer, Prof. Joseph Mundassery, and Dr. A.R. Menon were elected as independent candidates (ofcourse with the support of a political party), as Members of Legislative

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Assembly and were appointed as ministers. We can have many such examples including that of our former president, dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and even of Dr. Manmohan Singh. The above mentioned individuals form a species of quality people recognized, and accepted by majority for serving the nation by adorning political posts. Therefore I would suggest that certain qualities and qualifications to be possessed by a citizen must be derived from out of the qualities and qualifications of such individuals. A politician must be a performer. Not a mere preacher. A non-performing individual naturally will have non performers around him. The saying that practice before you preach is first essential requirement of a professional politician. One should not seek a trouble free blessed life in a political career. Naturally what is to be understood is that there is no easy way to the top. Hard work has no substitute. In a political career relationships matters much. It should be nurtured and developed in honest ways. One should understand that the need to be guided is far more than the need to be respected by the people. One

should love to be guided if he wants to be an honest politician. At the same time politician should also guide the people, unasked for and should understand that people needs to be respected. Make others feel respected by your own choice and they will take your guidance. Ultimately, honesty and integrity alone will survive. One should be honest to himself irrespective of whether he feels that others are honest or not. These are principles generally applicable in every walk of life, in every profession, in every career and in every calling. A specialized training is rather impossible in these areas. Experience and experience alone will be your good teacher. And we should understand that experience is a very bad teacher, who gives the test first and lesson later.

The author is senior advocate, practicing in High Courts and Supreme Court of India. Vice President - Anti Corruption Peoples Movement, Kerala.

COVER STORY

Politics: a challenging career Politics as a career is a very challenging and courageous decision. Primarily because it doesn’t offer which the other streams offer like security, growth, respect etc. There is lot of uncertainties. Dr. Ajithan Menoth “Which election is going on..? This was the question asked by one media person to the students of a famous regular college in Kerala, during the last parliament election, 2014. Several students gathered but some of them escaped immediately after the question. Then one of the students answered: “An election is going on ...” “Is it the Parliament election..? “No” “To the Assembly..? “No. An election” This is the typical example of ‘G.K’ of our student community on politics.

Educated youth have to play a major role in democracy. However, they are reluctant to entre in politics. Why? Politics as a career is a very challenging and courageous decision. Primarily because it doesn’t offer which the other streams offer like security, growth, respect etc. There is lot of uncertainties. Mostly when a person tries to enter politics, family and friends pull him back stating the fact that politics is nothing but a dirty power game, yet strangely when one questions them, they complain about the youth that this young, so-called ‘facebook generation’ is very self-centered and they worry more about their gadgets and parties rather than the conditions of

the country. Today, people view politics as a game of power surrounded by corruption, scams, terrorism, communalism, etc. In our society, parents have traditionally given primacy to the conventional and lucrative career options (engineers, doctors or investment bankers). In a scenario where people have lost faith in their leaders, the government and in politics in general, why then would an educated thinking parent encourage his or her child to venture into the jungle of politics? The widely held view is that politics is not even in the league of alternate career options for bright children whose potential can be leveraged in better ways.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

COVER STORY

If the educated youth are reluctant, the Indian politics continue to be led by uneducated politicians with criminal background. Politics is the practice and theory of influencing other people. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance. The quality of a politician is based on the following grounds: 1. Serving a higher cause 2. Sincerity and conviction 3. Courage – moral, physical and political courage 4. Put into effect praxis - (Praxis is the putting of ideas into action) 5. Focusing on the interests of the people However, Indian politics does not satisfy the above attributes. It is reported that 186 Indian members of Parliament have criminal cases including murder and rape. The general election of 2014 has seen the highest number of politicians with criminal records being elected to the Indian parliament. As per records, every third newly elected MP in the Indian parliament

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power. But now campus politics has been banned by most of the college management. Nowadays student politics is mainly influenced by parental parties. It is also characterized by violence and unnecessary strikes. These strikes are not based on the needs of student community The opposition leaders always oppose and but on the interest of the parental political non-cooperate with the developmental parties. projects of the ruling party. The ruling “Every nation gets the government it party always rejects the proposals of deserves”. Joseph de Maistre, the most opposition. This is not healthy but visionary of France’s early countersuicidal and harmful. One of the chief revolutionaries said this. If the educated ministers in India has commented, “What youth are reluctant, the Indian politics is wrong with corruption. It makes continue to be led by uneducated everybody’s life easy.” And some top politicians with criminal background. corporate leaders have suggested, “Why don’t we legalize corruption like they have done in Indonesia or some other place.” In short we are also responsible for the growing corruption in the country. The author is Associate Professor in Campus politics was the nostalgia of Economics & Head of the Department, youth during the 1970’s and 80’s. They S.N.M College, Maliankara and the have been encouraged by the dream of an Convener of the Publication Committee, egalitarian nation, not by the fascination of Kerala Sahithya Academi. has a criminal record. It is also observed that major political parties blindly support and maintain the unable leaders based on their loyalty to the party and ‘group’ interest. Most of them are uneducated and have narrow political vision.

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Career Politicians: Indian model Adv. Tharakan PKG

Right from a food adulterator to adulterer, bootlegger to smuggler, abuser to the abused, sorcerer to murderer, fundamentalist to terrorist, they all have a protector-politician who gladly receives handsome share of the loot. any politician, party affiliation and ideology notwithstanding. Less is even better! As for U.S. Senators, we should send them home after only one term! The senate is a menace, and that’s putting it mildly.”

“As long as the American people constantly reelect their individual congressmen, nothing will change in Washington, D.C. The longer politicians stay inside the Beltway, the more potential for corruption there is! So, why do we allow our elected representatives to become career-politicians? It’s stupid!” This is how Rev. Chuck Baldwin responded when the severest ever bribe scandal hit the US in 2005. Republican, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, had pleaded guilty to accepting US $. 2.4 Million in gratuitous payment apart from committing mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion. Randy who misused his authority as a member of Defense Appropriations and Intelligence committees was sentenced to 8 years in prison as well as to substantial

restitution. He has recently been released and all his property bequeathed. Rev. Baldwin added on: “Whether we like our congressman or not, we should not let him or her stay in Washington, D.C., more than just a few years. Eight years is more than enough for

On the face of our nation’s destiny being trampled by career politicians it is time we think amends. Every evil doer in our country, be that private businessman or corporate giant, has some political sponsor or the other, whatever. Right from a food adulterator to adulterer, bootlegger to smuggler, abuser to the abused, sorcerer to murderer, fundamentalist to terrorist, they all have a protector-politician who gladly receives handsome share of the loot. The nation and its people get coolly betrayed if not crushed down.

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No political party can present an honestly patriotic leader today. Indian model of democracy has been smitten by poisonous politicians who are openly corrupt and overly selfish. Hoardings of such politicians in foreign banks and in Gulf business houses exceed national wealth by far. It’s not simply an issue of shame on their heads, it’s curse on us. We need “behavior” on the part of our leaders among political parties – leaders who stand tested of standards that decency, morality and justice demand from any human species. Randy Cunningham admitted to the charges of corruption and remorsefully slipped into prison. He lamented “I have had great fortunes and misfortunes in life and now I face greater shame”. How many of our so-called leaders would ever admit a fault? A much hailed politician who eventually went up the ladder to be the Governor of a state fought with tooth and nail a claim of paternity by his illegal son and lost his ground in a long litigation till a court

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but royal leaders. Don’t we need to check career politicians? How can professional politicians go that scot-free as to be nation-killers?

ordered DNA test had its say. Yet, he jaywalked out as if “bindas” – there was no prison, no confinement, no shame – only an admission of the illegal son to his due inheritance. There was no punishment possible. “The king can do no wrong” lives on in India where there are no more kings

Politicians are like light for eyes or air for lungs. No sensible society can do away without them. They are the very spine of any country’s body politic. And hence there is the need to have robust, healthy politicians in place. But such are certainly not the kind of political leaders as we have aplenty now. No political party can present an honestly patriotic leader today. Indian model of democracy has been smitten by poisonous politicians who are openly corrupt and overly selfish. Welfare of the nation is no more the agenda of any political leader. Welfare of the party is it instead. And party funds belong to the

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All the political parties thereon – the ruling, the opposing, the neutral – all turned victors; the sad losers were the multitude that sent them on to serve them. They murdered democracy, crucified the nation and castrated the public including children. party heads by default – it’s a share pool of sorts. Party funds need no control, no limit, no audit, no record whatsoever. Doom of the nation is right here – party funds. Worse is that to amass funds, any demonic method is fine on the part of party activists. In reality, an honored leader is one who can command huge finances for the party from whoever, whatever, howsoever – no fears. In direct consequence, crooks and criminals swamp rank and file of all parties. Who realizes that uncontrolled and unaccounted fund collection is plundering this nation passively! We had since the day of independence way back 1947 corruption in political highs. Kuldip Nayar aptly commented “those

days clean politicians were they mostly and criminals were negligibly few but today it’s just the reverse”. Randy Cunningham was not a career politician, neither was he a criminal. An Ace from Vietnam war having downed a potentially dangerous Mig-17 of enemy forces he turned a hero and later on worked as trainer of fighter weapon in US Defense School. He was clean in office for quite some time initially. He was elected repeatedly over several terms and fell to temptations eventually. Indians on the other hand have to excel in the art of conceit, deceit and forfeit before being allowed to climb party rungs. In the West there are no career politicians as much and they turn corrupt per chance. As for India

we have life time politicians who run career corruption even to generations. Abroad, they work devotedly and a few happen to steal occasionally. In our country, they steal devotedly and fewer happen to work occasionally.And in India, they all steal in the name of “Party Funds”. Whether the party is secular or not, whether they shadow-represent some division of the community based on regional, cultural, linguistic, racist, religious, commercial or professional consideration, Party Fund is the same philosophy for all. Extort or extract the maximum is the unsaid rule that runs. A few leaders may be truly straight. But, for them to stay afloat in authority all their

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Let’s fast rewind three centuries to join Alexander Pope and pray “Let not India be rendered a land where angels fear to tread”. life time, they need support of second line leaders and down whose agenda is not straight at all. Cling to party positions till last breath, come what may, is their private manifesto. There cannot be another explanation to the barbaric atrocities that took central stage in the Assembly Hall of Kerala during the last Budget Presentation. All the political parties thereon – the ruling, the opposing, the neutral – all turned victors; the sad losers were the multitude that sent them on to serve them. They murdered democracy, crucified the nation and castrated the public including children. All members present in the hall that time deserve to be shown out of National Politics for life. Another term for any one of them, including the lone silent spectator of a representative therein, would be crime against the institution of democracy. RP Act that defines election paraphernalia need be amended to hold elected representative accountable for good conduct, even within the parliament or assembly hall where they enjoy immunity against talking non-sense and behaving dastardly. It’s a million dollar question since the amendment is to be initiated by them and it is anyone’s guess if they would ever do it. Shiv Khera has rightly put it when he said “responsibility without accountability is a liability”. Career politicians are increasingly becoming an abomination to our nation. Most of them stifle the public. Restricting representatives to two terms and compulsorily retiring them from party or executive positions beyond the age limit of 60~65 can go a long way in checking evil from annihilating the democratic structure that sustains us and which we hold sacrosanct. Before leaving British Politics, Tony Blair had decried the futility in promoting career politicians to taking up governance of the Party and State. He emphasized the fact that those who have never worked anywhere, those having no experience nor expertise in private placement or public corporate or government were to be considered misfits for handling state’s responsibility. We had truly patriotic leaders once – Chanakya, Vyasa, Bhasa, Bharatha, Bhishma, Drona, Dharmaputra from our ancient legacy; the dynasties of Mauryas, the Guptas, the Moghuls from medieval history; Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel, Gokhale, Moulana Azad, Chandrasekhar Azad, Allama Iqbal, Gandhiji from recent history. A peaceful, harmonious and content nation they conceived cannot be plagued by their irreverent generations to total anarchy. Let’s fast rewind three centuries to join Alexander Pope and pray “Let not India be rendered a land where angels fear to tread”. The author presently heads a Corporate Consultancy firm in Kochi. He is also into social activism, public speaking, HR & Corporate Training.

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COVER STORY

Rejith Singh

Professional politics

“I am aspiring a career in politics.” In the Indian scenario everybody will raise eyebrows on hearing this statement. Why this sarcastic response happens when put forward such a serious and debatable thought. The general answers can be the followings:

♦ General

India need more youth in politics to propel the country to the next orbit of development. After the introduction of tri-level panchayati raj system in the local administration there are a lot of chances for youth in to politics. So many ward members are in the age group of 25 to 35.

After the introduction of tri-level panchayati raj system in the local administration there are a lot of chances for youth in to politics.

perception about politics in India

♦ Politics is only a power game ♦ Party politicians has lost credibility

Now most of us consider politics as gimmicks of power surrounded by corruption, scams and communalism by narrow–minded party politicians. That is why politics is not much of a favorable career choice.

Out of its 1.27 billion population, India has more than 50% below the age of 25 and more than 65% below the age of 35. It is expected that, in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years. So definitely

Even though the percentage is low at this point of time, it will definitely increase/ need to increase in the coming elections/

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COVER STORY years. In Kerala itself more than 25,000 direct career openings are in politics as Grama panchayat members, Block panchayat members, District panchyat members, Municipal councilors, Corporation councilors and of course MLAs and MPs.

jobs are undergoing a metamorphosis to become a technology baptized hi-tech professions. And millions of new career openings are flowing in every walk of life with topnotch professional approach.

Since politics is the branch of knowledge that deals with the state and systems of government, the engaging of youth in politics is a must for any successful democracy. It is an ultimate need if a corruption-free state has to be created. ‘Power corrupts those who possess it, and fear of power corrupts those who are subject to it’.

It is an ultimate need if a corruption-free state has to be created. ‘Power corrupts those who possess it, and fear of power corrupts those who are subject to it’.

In India also some political parties are giving monthly remuneration/allowance to their fulltime party workers. Recently DYFI also decided to appoint fulltime party workers on paid basis to attract more youth. Meanwhile all the world’s media verticals are converging and the so called shining

For instance, the street corner teashops are transformed in to chains of food courts and professional agencies are at service for even septic tank cleaning. That is why this is the high time to mine out the career opportunities in politics.

The author is a Media Marketing professional, now working as Marketing Head of Asianet News.

Why don’t youngsters in India take politics as a career?

ducation experts discussed this topic in the last meeting of Rajajgiri Round Table, an initiative by Rajagiri Media. We need good leaders. Students with a passion to serve the society should be trained for that. Teachers can identify future leaders in the classrooms. The present student unions in the education institutions are highly politicized. In some institutions, teachers wanted to promote their politics through students. We need a different set of leaders to lead the nations, who can think above party politics. Our institutions should think about creating good leaders. Politics should be taught in the schools and colleges. We should encourage students to take politics as a career. Politics is now a rewarding career. It offers tremendous opportunity to students. We have examples of students who entered into politics from the schools days and become prominent leaders in the country.

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Leadership qualities of the students can be nurtured in classrooms. The ultimate aim of education should be creating better citizens. We have to design our teaching methods for that. Career oriented thinking is evident among parents and teachers.

present political situation. Why we don’t have many good politicians? What are the reasons for the diminishing quality in politics? We don’t have many good politicians because we don’t want our children to be politicians . Most parents want their children to be doctors or engineers and they can’t even think of a politician. The best students from our prestigious institutions never turn to politics. So the quality of the leaders remain the same. Some members of the forum said that politics cannot be treated as a career option. It can’t be taken as a profession. It should happen naturally. Even though we can train leaders in some aspects, leadership quality is inherited. Soft skills can be trained in education institutions.

Institutions attract students with its credential to create better employees for the future. This attitude should change. The forum also discussed about the

Dr. P. R. Poduval, Dr. Job Kuruvilla. Dr. P. C. Alexander, Dr. George Peter Pittappillil, Dr. John M. George, Phililp Daniel and Dr. Varghese Panthalookaran participated in the round table.

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Qualities of a professional politician Col. GPV Nair (Retd.)

A politician needs a much wider arc of knowledge about all facets of human activity without which he/she would not be in a position to do full justice to his/her job. As a matter of fact a good politician will be well versed with all aspects of human life.

ngineers build houses for our living, construct dams for irrigation, power and drinking water. Doctors treat us. Civil Servants manage and administer our resources; entrepreneurs run factories. For a developing country like ours, every profession has its own value and everyone has to strive hard to excel in what he is good at. The dynamics of politics that the politicians practise for their livelihood is by no means inferior to the professional acumen that Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers etc. do. Perhaps, a politician needs a much wider arc of knowledge about all facets of human activity without which he/she would not be in a position to do full justice to his/hrtmk job. As a matter of fact a good politician will be

well versed with all aspects of human life. Therefore, it would be preposterous to look down on politics as a third rate profession and politicians as a whole, as a bunch of corrupt idiots, which they are not! However, I am one of those who is inclined to believe that politics is a noble profession for any youngster to pursue

provided he fully understands the nuances of the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;nobility.â&#x20AC;? Politics as a profession In a multi-textured and heterogeneous society of ours making a career as a politician is not at all difficult for obvious reasons, but practicing politics as a profession in its true sense is definitely testing and demands a wide range of personal qualities and convictions. A politician who practises politics has no formal coaching on politics and has no training institutions where he could get trained in the nitty-gritties of politics. He is really handicapped when compared to other trained professionals like Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, etc. for most importantly the raw materials for a politician is the common man who can easily be won over by your detractors. If you are not careful and humane in dealing with this very fragile commodity you may

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A beginner in politics must understand what are the basic prerequisites that he should have or attain so as to practise Politics as a profession with nobility. even find someone hanging and committing suicide in front of you, your barometer on human sentiments should be spot on. So please be gracious enough to grant a politician his due and kindly do not treat him as your whipping boy!

galore for the former category, unfortunately the latter group is so thin. Now is the time aspiring young entrants into politics should decide between the two, politics as career or politics as a profession?

Politics and soldiering are considered as two noble professions for the basic reason that you cannot be found wanting in both the cases. A shattered defence services will lead the country to doom. Likewise an irate political system will take the country from doom to peril. So a beginner in politics must understand what are the basic prerequisites that he should have or attain so as to practise Politics as a profession with nobility. There is definitely a perceivable difference between someone who has made a career in politics and another person who pursues politics as a noble profession. Examples are in

If your choice is politics as a career I rest my case here. You will also join the bandwagon of those politicians who wield power, roll in money and boast of muscle power. Your senseless bragging may get media attention for a while and you may spend the rest of your life basking on the glorious adventures (mostly misadventures) you had as a leading political figure, quite often complaining of persistent hi-fi ailments!

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If you have chosen the other path of pursuing politics with nobility, there are four Cs by which you will be respected and honoured by the world. They are

Competence, Character, Concern and Commitment. The First, Competence in this context signifies the level of knowledge of inherent and mandatory parliamentary procedures that are in vogue and the earnestness to follow them in verbatim to preserve the dignity of the house where you are. Also competence implies the practical wisdom to foresee the developmental needs for at least next 20 years. Another important aspect of competence is the ability to ensure that the acts passed by the parliament are promulgated and put into force without unduly delay. The second C represents Character. This cannot be bought from the Lullu Mall shop window at a tagged prize. It has roots from oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family, social and educational background and most importantly the company of people one keeps. Your character gets

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A politician must always be concerned about the welfare of the people not only those who stand with him but also all those who are in his ward/ constituency/ State. manifested in public in many ways ie in conversation, in interpersonal relations, in resilience to take on criticism, boldness to stand by your own conviction and mental strength to ward off temptations which are in plenty. The third is Concern. Concern is an abstract feeling that emerges from the combination of competence and character. A politician must always be concerned about the welfare of the people not only those who stand with him but also all those who are in his ward/ constituency/

State. Leading Jathas and hartals and speaking vociferously on platforms freely available are not the hallmarks of concern. You get concerned about your people only when you live and engage with them. Not knowing the snivels of your people and lack of concern can prompt another Gajendra Singh in front of you and you will be left with no option other than shedding crocodile tears. The fourth, last but not the least C stands for Commitment. Commitment to the Nation and to its people. The former three

Cs together may not bring Commitment. It needs a very high degree of mental resolve and involvement to get that feeling of total commitment. This may not come to you so early in your life. Be patient and strengthen your resolve to such a level that you are committed to what you think and what you stand for !

The author holds masters degree in Defense Studies from the Madras University and served Indian Army for more than 24 years as a communicator in corps of signals.

Inspired by Kejriwal, IITians mull career in politics AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s astounding comeback in the Delhi Assembly polls is inspiring the students of IIT-Kharagpur, where the Delhi chief minister had studied, to take up politics as a career. “Making a career in politics is one of the options before me now after graduating from IIT. Kejriwal has proved that even those from IIT and engineering background can be successful in politics,” Atal Ashutosh Agarwal, a third year student of mechanical engineering of IIT-Kharagpur, said.

carry out online and phone campaigning during Delhi polls, said the number of those from the campus of the top engineering institute joining as volunteers of the party was increasing. “It is all because of Kejriwal as everyone on the campus has a soft corner for him. He is

Originally from Delhi, politics caught his fancy after he saw the IIT alumni waging a war against corruption along with his one-time mentor, social activist Anna Hazare. “Kejriwal has made it easier for us to enter politics. He has shown us the path and is an inspiration,” said Agarwal, who one of us,” he said. On Facebook, has already joined the Aam Aadmi Party hundreds of young IITians come together (AAP). on the community page ‘AAP IIT Kharagpur’ to discuss political Lokesh Deshmukh, a second-year developments and issues related to the geophysics student who helped AAP

party. The page has already crossed over 2,000 ‘likes’. Politics, otherwise, is taboo on the IIT campus as political activities are not permitted inside. Kejriwal had studied mechanical engineering at Kharagpur from 1985. The Nehru Hall hostel where Kejriwal stayed for five years is known for its social and cultural activities. He was a regular at Hindi dramatics society meets and was active in events related to public speaking, debating, etc. That gave him a good exposure which is helping him now in the political world,” Agarwal said, adding that the IIT culture makes them go beyond the world of textbooks and classrooms. Professor Shankar Kumar Shome, a former director of the institute who had taught Kejriwal, said they provide holistic education which pushes students to achieve the pinnacle of success. “After they pass-out, they can take up whatever careers they want to,” he said.

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GUEST COLUMN

An invitation to a political career Importance of every discipline is normally measured in terms of ultimate wealth creation. In the present competitive world, the success measurement is ability to give the best money value to your work. K. L. Mohana Varma

his is the season for entrance examinations to various courses of higher studies in almost every discipline of human activity we can think of. Every year new career oriented courses crop up. Job providers watch and wait on the campus walls like hawks for catching

the best and even the next best will also have comfortable career options. But unfortunately, the rulers, exponents of practical politics, the political parties, never join in this recruitment saga, and there is no entrance examination or even a course oriented serious academic program

for budding career politicians. And they rule all of us. Importance of every discipline is normally measured in terms of ultimate wealth creation. In the present competitive world, the success measurement is ability to give the best money value to your work. The courses

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GUEST COLUMN concentrate on their present and future monetary return values. Wealth is of course the gun. The ultimate symbol of your status. But politics is the gunner. We at present teach the ways of acquiring the gun, but not how to effectively use it. The art and science of politics is not at all taught. I am not belittling the subject known as politics which since the beginning of arts curriculum a subject with jargons, philosophies and such time-old heavy theories which have very little practical use in the art of governing the nation or even the lowest level of public activity.

rulers symbolized by their monarchy. We never had thought of the democratic system of governing ourselves and our leaders were quite aware of the predicament. So when we made our constitution, we were very particular to

itself to be acceptable slowly. In a society sharply divided in wealth, health, caste, creed, color, language and customs, the only common bond was their ruler, a kingly figure. We were proud of our Rashtrapathi Bahvan, the most luxurious palace, perhaps better than, if not at least almost comparable to Beckingham palace. We were least worried about the Prime Ministerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residence, a poor replica of 10, Downing Street. This psyche resulted in family rule, a distinct kind of democracy where the voters willingly preferred and elected generations of leaders from the same family. Naturally, the political parties also became family controlled. A change in the system would be possible only by use of another equally undemocratic approach of caste and religious considerations. In either case, ensure that all the pomp and show a successful career in politics depended on associated with the royalty becomes a part clearly extraneous factors and it had very of our democracy. We just copied the little to do with the normal qualities British King and all paraphernalia including attributed for the winner in other the House of Lords from Britain and nonvocations. elected Governors in the purely federal Mammen, the unemployed unskilled, state set up. They were the synonyms of fairly educated, street smart malayalee royalty and the democratic system tried

Politics is not a bad career choice. Rather it is one of the most challenging and hardworking career options, which not only tests oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strength but oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personality and aura as well.

Why? Let us think why career politics is not treated as an attractive job option and taught in colleges or institutes? I am confining the enquiry to India and all such neodemocratic nations which have very eagerly copied the systems in all our endeavors from our colonial rulers. We have willingly taken up higher education in a foreign language, healthcare in European system of medicine, food and dress habits imitating the unnatural to our tropical hot climate and even adapted finally the democratic system of government. When we got independence, we were not as a nation, mentally prepared for ruling ourselves. We had 562 kings in addition to the British

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GUEST COLUMN intelligent youth, was starting his day. No shirt in the almirah and no time get a fresh one ironed by his sister. He had to take one of the white khadi shirts of his deceased father, a Gandhian politician. Mammen’s some elder village friends were picked by the police in a brawl and since he had nothing else to do, he goes to the police

khadi dress. He goes up and up in his chosen career and ends up on top. He knows what is required for career building in current politics. He knows that politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by vaguely promising to protect

At any level, local, district, state or national, politics is the best carrier option to execute your ideas to the society. I have asked many young educated and intelligent persons searching for the best career as to why they don’t select politics as a career. They were aghast.

Politics is a good option, mainly because practical politics is lucrative in power, wealth and in addition, an opportunity to serve the poor. At any level, local, district, state or national, politics is the best carrier option to execute your ideas to the society. station. Funny, he finds himself called inside and the station officer gets up and says: sir, why should you personally come for this? I would have released them if you had just telephoned. Mammen was aghast and within moments he realizes his power, the power of khadi shirt, the uniform of Indian politician and in the quickest possible moment, he spot selected his career: Politics. This is from a recent satire Malayalam film. Mammen just politicizes his name as Mammachan, and discarded all his non-

each from the other. He learns that people by nature are untrustworthy, malevolent and self-serving and thus those in power only maintain their position through exploitative and deceitful actions. Mamachan’s case may not happen in real life, but it is the best possible option in the present set up. Thus even now, for a shrewd and intelligent youth, in the present political play field, politics is a good option, mainly because practical politics is lucrative in power, wealth and in addition, an opportunity to serve the poor.

‘Politics as a career? ‘Have you gone insane? ‘You have lost your mind? ‘I don’t have a Godfather ? These are the most common reactions as politics is considered as an unfavorable career choice. Sometimes the youth don’t bother or the family forbids them from entering into politics or they simply don’t care. These are the attitudes of people towards politics as a career. But are they

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GUEST COLUMN really true? Is politics as a career actually bad? The answer to the above questions is a big NO. It is one of those career options, which provides a platform for the people to not only voice their opinion but also to be in the power to make that voice into a change. In the present turbulent times where people are slowly losing faith in

When it comes to politics, what most people know about is only half or very little side of it. The media only focuses on scams and allegations making the politicians villains, The movies portray politicians as uneducated idiots who are just busy making money. But if one

interested in this profession, and more and more political parties are being born. Even with the mushroom growth of political parties, the service of the people is nowhere in the agenda of these new or old politicians.

With the career of a politician becoming so very lucrative and paying, more and more people are getting interested in this profession, and more and more political parties are being born. politicians, we need people with courage and strength to step up and take the reins of the leadership and be the voice and face of India. So to the readers I can only say, if you have strength to fight and have courage to win with honesty in your heart, politics is the career where people really need you and will in future look up to you. At present, we make career choices depending on our knowledge and interests. Generally parents make the decision. Their decisions need not be the correct one and almost in all cases they would be guided by their dreams.

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decides to take up politics as a career, it is a very challenging and courageous decision. The security and assured growth are not part of it. But on the positive side, the best thing about politics is that it can be joined at any time of your life and at any point of your education. The politician becomes not only the representative of the people, but also an administrator and a lawmaker. He understands peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pain, problems and provides a solution.With the career of a politician becoming so very lucrative and paying, more and more people are getting

The latest trend of the nexus the politician businessman and the bureaucrat makes Indian politician a very strong entity to reckon with. He has, in this nexus the combined strength of money power and muscle power. It is for the youth, intelligent, hardworking with innovative minds to come up and take politics as a career, at least for the sake of marginalised Indians who are always being kept away from the mainstream of progress and social justice. The author is a Kochi-based novelist, short story writer and columnist.

INNO VATIONS INNOV

Million ltr. juice from a single grapefruit

he Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology reports production of Nootkatone, which is found in minute quantities in grapefruits based on the principles of synthetic biology. Nootkatone is used as a high quality, natural flavoring substance in millions of liters of soft and lifestyle drinks, as a biopharmaceutical component or as a natural insect repellent. As an insecticide it is effective against ticks, mosquitoes or bedbugs. In the medical field, the substance has shown activity against cancer cell lines. In cosmetics, people appreciate the good smell, in soft drinks a fine, subtle taste. Scientists installed new genetic information in the yeast Pichia pastoris, so that the cells began producing Nootkatone from sugar. The genome of the yeast cells has been extended with four foreign genes derived from the cress Arabidopsis thaliana, the

Harvesting electromagnetic energy

esearchers from the University of Waterloo report in the journal Applied Physics Letters, discovery of a novel method to harvest electrical energy from electromagnetic sources. The method is based on “full absorption concept.” It involves the use of metamaterials that neither reflects nor transmits any power enabling full absorption of incident waves at a specific range of frequencies. Electromagnetic energy is harvested by radios or televisions using classical dipole patch antennas. The new technology introduces ‘metasurfaces’ that are much better energy collectors than classical antennas. Metasurfaces are designed in order to provide “near-unity” energy absorption. Researchers could, for the first time, collect essentially all of the

electromagnetic energy that falls onto a surface! The harvested energy is then channeled to a load through a conducting path that connects the metasurface to a ground plane. Space solar power is an important application of the new discovery. In this method solar rays are converted into microwaves - using conventional photovoltaic solar panels - and then beam the microwave’s energy to microwave collector farms at designated locations on Earth. Japan plans to begin harvesting solar power from space by 2030. Other key applications include “wireless power transfer - directly adaptable to power remote devices such as RFID. The technology can also be extended to the infrared and visible spectra.

Why does the human skin not tear easily? Egyptian henbane Hyoscyamus muticus, the Nootka cypress Xanthocyparis nootkatensis and from baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Ultimately, the aroma found in one grapefruit leads to millions of liters of tasty juice. Synthetic biology could be of vital importance to humanity, as Artemisinin shows. Thanks to this substance malaria is curable. Unfortunately, it could be found only in tiny quantities in the sweet wormwood - until the US researcher Jay Keasling was able to transfer the appropriate production route from the plant in bacteria. With these “synthetic” organisms the active ingredient is produced at lower costs.

kin is remarkably resistant to tearing. Why? Researchers identified four specific mechanisms in collagen, the main structural protein in skin tissue, that act together to diminish the effects of stress: rotation, straightening, stretching, and sliding. This keeps skin from easily tearing. This explanation is published in Nature Communication. Skin consists of three layers - the epidermis, dermis and endodermis. Mechanical properties are largely determined in the dermis, which is the thickest layer and is made up primarily of collagen and elastin proteins. The research team began their work by establishing that a tear in the skin does not propagate or induce fracture, unlike other materials such as bone or tooth dentin, which are composed of mineralized collagen fibrils.

Instead, the tearing or notching of skin triggers structural changes in the collagen fibrils of the dermis layer to reduce stress concentration. Initially, these collagen fibrils are curvy and highly disordered. However, in response to a tear, they rearrange themselves in the direction in which the skin is being stressed, and prevent failure through rotation, straightening, stretching, sliding and delamination prior to fracturing. Researchers used powerful X-ray beams and electron microscopy to aid their study. They hope to replicate these mechanisms in synthetic materials to provide increased strength and in better resistance to tearing. The insights could be applied to the improvement of artificial skin, or to the development of thin film polymers for applications such as flexible electronics.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

INNO VATIONS INNOV

Intelligent air-conditioning

esearchers at the Technische Universit채t M체nchen (TUM) have developed a new smart airconditioning concept for personal cars. In contrast to previously deployed solutions, in which the entire interior is cooled or heated to the same temperature, heat is generated or dissipated only where it can actually be felt by the passengers. This could be done by heating the seats of passengers. The temperature control of the seats is accomplished using Peltier elements. These are semiconductor elements that can be used for both heating and cooling. Even though Peltier elements are relatively expensive, they warm up or cool down immediately. Compared to the cold start of a combustion engine in winter, they even improve the level of comfort. Maximum efficiency of thermal management is achieved by integrating the

performance electronics into a holistic thermal management system. This allows using the waste heat the motor and the performance electronics to heat the passenger compartment in the winter while excess capacity of the air conditioning system can be used to cool the performance electronics in the summer. The thermal management system is controlled by intelligent, selfadaptive system, which evaluates the various sensor signals for temperature and humidity and automatically finds the optimal settings with regard to comfort, safety and efficiency using a simplified computer model. A remote control of the air conditioning system via a smart phone is also provided. Thus shortly before his arrival, the driver can start heating or cooling. A preliminary air conditioning during charging could be added as well.

Raincoat made by bacteria

esearchers at the Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee have discovered how communities of beneficial bacteria form a waterproof coating on the roots of plants, to protect them from microbes that could potentially cause plant disease. This idea could help develop improved products to protect plants from disease and help curb the risk of unwanted infections in agricultural or garden plants, suggest scientists. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers studied the protective film formed by the common soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis. They found it incorporates proteins that change shape as they reach the film surface. This exposes an impervious surface on the protein molecules, enabling them to slot together like a jigsaw puzzle, to protect bacteria underneath. The film is able to repel water - which means other potentially harmful molecules also bounce off. Researchers say that being able to control the production of the biofilm in agricultural products could enable improved protection for plants.

Ultra-stretchable piezoelectric generator iezoelectric generators produce electrical spark in a conventional cigarette lighter. It converts the mechanical pressure into electrical energy. The researchers from The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Seoul National University (SNU) have developed an ultra-stretchable piezoelectric generator, opening new avenues for power supplies in universal wearable and biomedical applications as well as self-powered ultra-stretchable electronics.

the Internet of Things (IoTs). However, the degree of flexibility is critical for such applications. For example, wearable/ biomedical devices and electronic skins (eskins) should stretch to conform to arbitrarily curved surfaces and moving body parts such as joints, diaphragms, and tendons. They must be able to withstand the repeated and prolonged mechanical stresses of stretching. In particular, the development of elastic energy devices is regarded as critical to establish power supplies in stretchable applications.

Flexible electronics enables new technologies like flexible displays in mobile phone, wearable electronics, and

The new facile methodology provides a high-performance and hyper-stretchable elastic-composite generator (SEG) using

Pallikkutam | May 2015

very long silver nanowire-based stretchable electrodes. Their stretchable piezoelectric generator can harvest mechanical energy to produce high power output (~4 V) with large elasticity (~250%) and excellent durability (over 104 cycles). These noteworthy results were achieved by the non-destructive stress- relaxation ability of the unique electrodes as well as the good piezoelectricity of the device components. The new SEG can be applied to a wide-variety of wearable energy-harvesters to transduce biomechanical-stretching energy from the body (or machines) to electrical energy.

CURRENT AFF AIRS AFFAIRS

Values in the present education system Dr. C. T. George

ducation is a process of imparting knowledge, skills, values, morals, beliefs, systems, methods through the means of story-telling, samples, examples, games, lectures, drawings, demonstrations, discussions, debates, deliberations, searches and researches. These activities are summarized into three words namely Teaching, Training and Coaching. The giver is called teacher and the receiver is called student. A teacher teaches, a trainer trains and a coach coaches. The first, second and third duty of a teacher is to teach and the first, second and third duty of a student is to learn. In ancient India a teacher was addressed as Guru, means one who dispels darkness and brings in light, one who opens ears and eyes, mind and intellect of the Vidyarthi (Knowledge SeekerVidya=Knowledge and Arthi=Seeker).The first guru of a human being is mother, the second father, the third teacher and the fourth is the nature with its possessions and properties in entirety. We the mankind is fortunate to get birth and live till death in this only earth we have so far. Education gives the

most beneficial possession and is the inevitable property owned by a person. Those who cannot get education are really unfortunate. Teaching is a noble and notable profession hence a teacher has to professionalize his or her person and personalize the profession by constant learning, unlearning wherever necessary and updating. There are cultural, social, political, scientific,

students who become good citizens and who make the world a better place by their contributions. Parents, students and teachers form the triangular base on which the edifice of education is erected and established. Sincere hard work is expected from these three agents in its own way. But today the problem we face is that we do not emphasize the need of hard work which is replaced by ordinary stress on work which trait is not enough if we expect whole hearted adherence to values in the present educational system. It is necessary to have concrete and solid efforts from the part of teachers in particular and others in general if we look for ideal and lofty results.

In ancient India a teacher was addressed as Guru, means one who dispels darkness and brings in light, one who opens ears and eyes, mind and intellect of the Vidyarthi

economic and aesthetic values, information and dimensions directly related to the art and science of education. Students are the raw materials in the making into finished products. Teachers are the makers of good

A teacher has to give something â&#x20AC;&#x153;extraâ&#x20AC;? on everything done towards holistic performance of education which is a blessing to everyone irrespective of caste, creed, color, sex, religion and region. Hard work alone can usher in impressive results. A nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best assets are its teachers. A teacher has to have an attitude of always giving something extra

Pallikkutam | May 2015

CURRENT AFF AIRS AFFAIRS which commitment will make things happen and happen for the good of one and all in one’s life time. Knowledge is a vast ocean. A life of 60 or 70 or 80 years is not sufficient to grasp even a billionth of it yet learning is a process from birth to death and what is owned can be transferred from one generation to the next. If we believe that students are the future builders of a nation then teachers of the present times are the moulders of the builders. Good teachers should be appreciated and bad teachers should be avoided. Teaching enables to contribute one’s potential for the benefit of humanity near and far. Truth, love, justice, fraternity, respect, equality, care and concern, tolerance and patience, peace, privacy and the like are personal values that should be taught besides other syllabus – centric subjects. A student assessment method of teachers should be adopted and those teachers who fail to score the desired rating should be suitably re-trained and watched for making required improvement .The knowledge imparted by a teacher should be instrumental to inspire the student. Information imbibed should be able to induce students to innovate and excel.

trouble of teaching an acceptable social behavior pattern to the students. Suitable teaching modules should take care of this deficiency. Education should aim at character building of an individual. Moral qualities have to be taught compulsorily and those concepts should be firmly internalized by students who become the strong pillars of an enlightened society in the making. Nonviolence is the religion that can save this world so there has to be an emphasis on this idea. Parents and children constitute a family, families constitute a society and societies constitute a state/nation. In the family

and high thinking instead of the bygone concept of simple living and high thinking, as an accepted norm of social progress. We live in a world of speed of light but without light. Morals are coming down and borstals are going up. Plenty of money is present but the honey of happiness is absent. Persons are plenty all around but not a Samaritan to help in distress. Man is born free but he is in chains of corruption, degradation and agony. But the solution to these problems lie with men and women of this earth as no men from mars and women from venus will come to save us. Parents, teachers, politicians and governments in power are responsible for the mess in prevalence. Progress and prosperity of each individual, each family and each society should be a serious concern for the state.

Yousafzai Malala, the youngest person who is the winner of Nobel Prize for Peace, said “One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world”.

A teacher should be capable to teach a student in such a way that the student reaches to a higher level of confidence and competence. A good teacher is an ornament and a bad teacher is a disappointment. A teacher without genuine commitment is like doing business without honesty. Today, the behavior of students in public places is awful and irritable. It seems parents and teachers do not take the

Pallikkutam | May 2015

The definition of democracy is”of the people, for the people and by the people” similarly, the concern for the wellbeing of the population is also of the people, for the people, by the people and above all with the people.

there has to be unity, family unity is family strength, unity of society is the strength of the society and such societies in large numbers make a strong nation and we are no exception to this universal principle. Equality, equity, secularism and selflessness must be taught to students. Moral instructions must form a compulsory curriculum in all semesters of academic courses because ultimately morality measures the life of a person in the society. Duties and responsibilities must be the base for rights and privileges. Today it is possible to maintain high living

Moral values have a spiritual angle,it is an essential angle in life because moral values form the foundation of a successful life. So these values should form compulsory teaching attractions because without them human character and behavior would become devilish and disastrous. A teacher has the responsibility to teach the subject but more than that a teacher must concentrate to teach the student. Subjects are per se without emotion but the taught are persons of ambition, emotion and passion. A teacher before winding up the class should make it a point to give one good thought (food for thought) besides the topic handled, for the day just like the practice of giving one good word each day.

CURRENT AFF AIRS AFFAIRS

Teaching is a dignified undertaking. It is more than a job because teachers create the personality of an individual. Teachers open the minds of students to the universe at large because there is an ocean of potentials in every individual. A teacher should hear the students patiently, consider their opinions, problems, grievances, suggestions carefully and when required take a decision quickly or give a solution wisely. Teaching is syllabus-centric but the centre of gravity must be teacher-centric. Thus a good teacher can make great difference which the students acclaim and proclaim. A good teacher may not be a good orator but necessarily one can be a good oracle. A teacher should be like a bee, that is, take the best from everything and pass it on to the students and in due course make the students inculcate the habit of bees. To get a stronghold on the students a teacher must be a good friend of theirs. Teaching is a dignified undertaking. It is more than a job because teachers create the

personality of an individual. Teachers open the minds of students to the universe at large because there is an ocean of potentials in every individual. I believe that God wanted to teach everyone by Himself. But He found it is impossible. So He created teachers. Teachers thus do God’s job. It is a great and rare privilege bestowed on the teachers. Every teacher must remember this basic creed and do one’s duty sincerely. The power of a teacher is power of knowledge, power of delivery, power of persuasion, power of trust, power of love, power of empathy, power of selflessness, power of friendship, power of honesty, power of equality, power of equity and power of optimism.

We need hardware and software engineers with humane heartware. We need doctors, engineers, administrators, leaders, politicians, employers, employees, soldiers, spiritual leaders too with a humanitarian heartware. The foundation for this extremely important structure has to be laid by parents and teachers from the beginning and like the prayer we say every day, this has to be a regular ongoing activity. To conclude, let me quote Yousafzai Malala, the youngest person who is the winner of Nobel Prize for Peace, 2014, she said “One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world”. The author is a retired Executive of Canara Bank, a freelance writer, and trainer.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

RAINBOW

WHO AM I?

2. What, Still, Occasionally, Later, Never, Happily 1. Post Office

10. Everyone in the world break me when they speak every time. Who am I?

3. I’m a Riddle!!

9. What is the word that is spelled incorrectly in all dictionaries?

4. I’m your brain!

8. Scientists are trying to find out what is between earth and heaven. Can you find me?

5. Alphabet ‘C’

7. Find me who am I. I am the building with number stories.

6. All months in a year have 28 days and many have more than 28 days.

Riddle Time

6. I have 28 days in a month. Which month I am?

7. A Library

4.I have all the knowledge you have. But I am small as your fist

8. AND

3. When you do know me about me, them I am definitely something. You will always search for me. But when you know me, I am nothing. Who am I?

5. I am the biggest alphabet, as I contain the most water in the world. Who am I?

9. Incorrectly

2. What is a word comprise of 4 letters, stills is also made of 5. Occasionally written with 12 letters and later with 5. Never written with 5 but happily with 7.

that your hands can hold me. Who am I?

10. Silence

1. Find Me! I start with ‘P’ and end with ‘E’, but I have thousands of letters. Who am I?

Answers

UNITED WE STAND; DIVIDED WE FALL

Story

nce upon a time three sons were engaged in merchantile business under the supervision of their father. They were very rich. Each son was proficient in his own department. If one was good in sales, the other one was competent in purchases and similarly the third one in finance. Unluckily, one day the father got bed ridden and the sons decided to divide the business under the fallacy that each of them were experts in their own way and can handle their individual business solely.

The father was glum and grumpy with their decision but was helpless and

time, they started having huge losses in their respective businesses. They tried all possible ways to succeed but the situation became worse. Then they came to their father for a piece of advice. The father said “when you all were doing the business jointly, the business ran successfully. But it was not any one of you responsible for the success of the business rather traits of all three of you put together made the business successful”.

unfortunately the separation took place. As a result three of them became each other’s competitors. With the passage of

The sons realized their mistake & got reunited. So we conclude that disunity always ruins.

Pallikkutam | May 2015

RAINBOW

Sudoku 03 - Answer

Sudoku 04

Pallikkutam | May 2015

Classroom Jokes

Send your classroom jokes to editor@rajagirimedia.com

REFLECTIONS

King of the Heart

Jose Panthaplamthottiyil

This beggar was a mystic. And so he was also a king – a king of his heart which was his kingdom. And he had total control of his kingdom. He controlled its passions and desires. He controlled its whims and fancies.

ohannes Tauler (1300-1361) was a German mystic who was also wellknown asa preacher and theologian. One day while going for a stroll he came across a beggar. Immediately he checked his pockets but they were empty. So he apologized to the beggar and said, “I have nothing with me to give you. May God bless you with a good day.” “I thank God because all my days are always good,” raising his eyes to heaven the beggar said in response. “Then may God always make your life happy,” Tauler said with a smile. The beggar once again raised his eyes to heaven and said, “I thank God also because I am always happy.” Astonished at what he heard Tauler asked the beggar, “But how can you be happy always especially because you have to beg for a living?” “I thank God when I get something to eat,” the beggar said with a broad smile on his face. “And I am happy about His loving providence which provides me with

food. I also thank God when I have nothing to eat. This is because it helps me to turn to God more often and trust in His loving care.” “Wow!” cried Tauler and continued to look at the beggar with admiration. Then the beggar continued, “I always wish to make God’s will my will. If I go hungry today I take it as God’s will. And I thank God for the same.” “Who are you?” Unable to believe what the beggar was saying Tauler asked him. “I am a king!” the beggar said in reply.

Sickness did not upset him. The normal troubles and tragedies in human life did not take away his happiness from him. He had total control of his heart and he submitted it always to the will of God. Of course, we are not mystics. However, it is always good to have control of our hearts. But do we have control of our passions and desires? Do sickness and lack of conveniences in life upset us? Are we able to hold our heads high in the midst of troubles and tragedies of life? Can we still smile when misfortune befalls us?

It may not be easy for us to look at everything in the context of the providence of God like the mystics do. And nobody is saying that we should not try to change things for the better. In fact, that is what This beggar was a mystic. And so he was also a king – a king of his heart which was we are called to do – to make our lives and the lives of others better. However, we his kingdom. And he had total control of must learn to be happy at all times his kingdom. He controlled its passions remembering that nothing happens to us and desires. He controlled its whims and without the knowledge and consent of fancies. God. Then we will be the kings of our His lone desire was to be submissive to the hearts. will of God. Poverty didn’t bother him. “And where is your kingdom?” Tauler asked him again. “In my heart,” he said with a chuckle.

Printed and Published by Fr.Varghese Panthalookaran CMI on behalf of Rajagiri Media, Rajagiri Valley P.O, Kakkanad, Kochi-39. Ph: 0484-2428249. Printed at St. Francis Press, Kochi. Editor: James Paul