Welcome Mr. President! Your presence has made the Doon look clean

There’s a sudden spurt of cleanliness drive going all around the city and mostly towards the Rajpur Road and adjoining areas. A good sign but it leaves many wondering simply because when in the worst of conditions in the past few weeks, when epidemic like Dengu and viral fever were catching people in almost every house no mass fogging or spray of insecticides, bleaching powder or garbage removal quickly being done by civic agencies although a big hue and cry by the residents and NGO’s. How this situation has suddenly changed and activated the civic authorities puts a big question mark.

Curious as I am, I tried to go round the city to get an answer. As one approaches towards Rajpur Road and its adjoining areas the cleanliness suddenly starts showing-up. Well I found Mr. President is coming to the Doon that this make-up exercise was on a war footing.

I was pretty amused to see, if you may like, go for a stroll on the Rajpur Road in the next one or two days towards the President House – Aashiyana and enjoy the spectacular view of mosquitoes being chased off by fogging machines, bleaching powder being lavishly sprinkled on both sides of the road up to the payments and on the wild growth and hedges and even tree trunks. For a moment I thought it has snowed in that patch. I am sure the President must have smelt the odour of the bleaching powder even inside his grand house.

Make-shift security huts, water tankers hurriedly pumping water through pipes to some reservoirs in the Presidents villa over its boundary and if I understood it well, sewage cleaning kind machines too were in ready preparedness along with fire and health service wagons. All this made me wonder what is happening. I could not stop my laughter at this funny sight. This exercise hurriedly carried a day before the arrival of the President should have been in place earlier as a regular maintenance practice of the grand Presidents House.

What however is a big eye sour and a no less funny sight among the many make-up exercise going on as a result of the President of India coming here to stay for a couple of days is the chaotic way of vehicles, both six, four and two-wheeled, being parked along the road at least half a kilometre on both sides of the President’s House. Surprisingly these vehicles are mostly government ones and those of the police department. One can see a chaotic and festive look for those outside the grand Presidents House chatting, gossiping and enjoying no less than as if a Dushera or Diwali carnival was going inside the premises. Every cop donning a special security batch pinned to his/her shirt’s pocket appeared more relaxed than on toes. I hope there’s much more to security for the President than what superficially seen.

Mr. President, while all the Doonites welcome you from the bottom of their hearts to come and stay in our city, if you happen to read this piece, we ask you to come here more often as your presence will keep many on their toes and the Doon clean. 

Heavy rain inundate old Dehradun roads

The over two-hour heavy downpour on Saturday afternoon inundated many roads of Dehradun and especially those of old part of the city creating havoc on some roads. Old Dehradun area roads on a normal day are no good. One can witnesses chaotic traffic with local buses, Vikram autos, mini trucks comfortable parking themselves anywhere, sometimes in the middle of the road to fetch and/or drop passengers coupled with shops and vendors jutting their merchandise beyond even the payment/foot-path uncaring for the traffic congestion it creates and inconvenience to the passer-by. Filth as a result of dairies flushing the cow dung in drains choking them beyond ones imagination is a typical scene that is seen. All this reflects a total lack of civic amenities, poor policing & municipal regulations and civic sense.

Out of disgust I share the aforesaid state of affair of Kanwali road of the beautiful Doon. While passing from the Kanwali road area today afternoon, unfortunately during the heavy downpour time the water-logged roads made me impossible to drive through in knee-deep water. With these photos that I snapped from my iPhone I leave the readers to assess the situation for them and hope the local administration and municipal authorities take strict cognizance of the situation.

Chikungunya-Dengue may affect tourism, aviation sectors

The outbreak of Chikungunya- Dengue in Delhi and many other places across India be dealt with on a war-footing both by the Centre and the state governments as the disease taking epidemic proportion besides affecting human life is also expected to result in a loss to the tourism and aviation industries.

As per an assessment, Delhi registers about 35 per cent of India's total foreign tourist influx as they use the national Capital as a transit during their travel. Delhi which attracts fairly large number of foreign tourists during the peak season set to begin from October every year should deal with the epidemic appropriately so that the people coming here face no threat.

In the winter, roughly 2.5-3 lakh foreign tourists visit the Golden triangle Circuit of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur, accounting for about 30 per cent of the total number of the inbound traffic in the country.    

With big number of Chikungunya- Dengue victims in Delhi being, the number of tourists visiting Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer and other locations in the western state is coming down drastically as the state government itself is cautioning tourists against the disease.

With increasing cases of Chikungunya-Dengue and the kind of negative reaction on the tourists, the tourist traffic can drop drastically leaving a bruising impact on businesses such as hotels, airlines, taxi operators, restaurants etc. Many tour operators are now gearing up with precautionary steps for foreigners arriving in Delhi during the peak tourist season set to begin from October this year.

In all, the monthly foreign exchange earnings from the foreign tourists arrivals are between 1.5-two billion USD a month during the winter. While the arrivals get disbursed to Maharashtra, south India and Goa coasts, a large concentration is around the Golden triangle.

As per the data, the Percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during July, 2016 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (17.30%) followed by  USA (16.51%), UK (11.67%), Malaysia (3.49%), France (3.12%), Sri Lanka (2.94%), Canada (2.66%), China (2.32%), Germany (2.31%), Japan (2.20%), Australia (2.20%), Nepal (2.04%), Oman (2.04%), UAE (1.99%) and Pakistan (1.66%).

The Percentage share of  Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during July, 2016 among the top 15 ports was highest at Delhi Airport (26.22%) followed by Mumbai Airport (17.04%), Chennai Airport (10.11%),  Haridaspur Land check post (9.82%), Bengaluru Airport (7.31%), Cochin Airport (5.14%), Hyderabad Airport (5.04%),Kolkata Airport (4.20%), Gede Rail (1.97%), Ahmadabad Airport (1.91%), Trivandrum Airport (1.91%), Tiruchirapalli Airport (1.55%), Attari-Wagah Land check post (1.09%), Amritsar Airport (0.97%) and Ghojadanga land check post (0.71%).

India is targeting to attract 1 per cent of world tourists by 2020 and about 2 per cent by 2025, banking heavily on India's strong tourism potential.

Will take 126 years for India to reach education standards of developed nations: ASSOCHAM Paper

India does have ambitions to reach the level of developed nations in education, but it will take at least six generations or 126 years to scale up to the top  standard , if the country continues at its present pace in one of the most vital sectors, an ASSOCHAM Paper has said.

“Though India has made rapid strides, the yawning gap between the standards of education does not seem to bridge soon as the developed world has not slowed down spending on education”, the paper noted.

It said with India spending mere 3.83 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on education, it is not sufficient to   catch up. “It will take six generations or 126 years to catch up with developed countries if we do not change our education system dramatically”.

The US spends 5.22 per cent of its GDP on education, whereas for Germany it is 4.95 per cent and UK 5.72 per cent. “With the GDP base of these developed counties so high, the absolute money earmarked for education is huge. For instance the size of the US GDP would be something like seven times the size of the Indian GDP and then on top of it, its ratio on education on a higher base would be very significant”, according to ASSOCHAM Secretary General.

It is also noted that India has a resource constraint, but then, the country must catch up to reach the levels of spending as recommended by the United Nations, which wants countries to spend at least six per cent of their GDP on education.

If India steps up its resource commitment to education, it can really become a major source of talent to the rest of the world, given the demographic advantage it has. With 315 million students, it has the largest pupil population in the world, besides being the youngest country.

Shortages of quality teachers are among the major challenges for the education sector, the paper said. At present, the shortage of teachers has been measured at 1.4 million. Besides 20 per cent of the teachers do not measure up to the standards of the National Council for Teachers’ Education (NCTE) it is reported.

Also, due to absence of focus on effective skill development, India is one of the least skilled countries. Majority of the college graduates and post graduates have employability challenges.  This is ironical because India has a surplus work force but it is not skilled enough.

In our country only 4.7 per cent of the work force has any formal training, whereas this figure is 80 per cent for Japan, 95 per cent for South Korea, 75 per cent for Germany, 68 per cent for UK and 52 per cent for the US.

Very amusing!

It is a subject of great amusement for me, and I am sure many of my friends who read this may feel the same when certain teachers categorised as good over others and recognised at city, district or national levels on different occasions. Without prejudice against anyone, the most amusing part is that there is no benchmark or standards lay so far which ascertains the good from the bad specially so in a field like education.

Without a proper benchmark or a survey conducted where only children of all schools/colleges through some process to name their best “Gurus” how can any agencies other than the pupil adjudge a teacher from outside. If done it is mostly with vested interests.

It is against this background, I could not stop myself from writing this piece, when I again read in a section of press yesterday about some of the so-called “Best Teachers” being awarded on Teachers Day, September 5. I always wonder who best teachers are. How do they look? How and by whom are they spotted, since it is certainly not by the nomination of students who are the real judges for judging the capabilities of a teacher?

I have from my childhood respected all my teachers alike and felt that everyone has contributed his/her bit in my personality development and skills. My respect still remains the same equally for all of them even after my completing formal studies over 25 years back.

In my schooldays time children gave importance and respect to the masters and not categorising them as first, second and third grade, which unfortunately is the practice on rise and made to imbibe in the new generation students.

We cannot discriminate especially in a profession like teaching. If those who feel can do so of categorising good and bad, they must first launch a campaign to weed out the black sheep, if any, from this noble profession to select the best with the help of students. Until done or until there is a transparent standard to gauge the bright from the dull no one has the right to misguide the society, create indifferent opinions and damage sanctity of a noble profession.

Not only this, such unwanted classifications are a big discouragement to that major sections of teachers who do their work very diligently in urban and rural areas alike and does not pomp and show.

It is a pity and shame to see that most of those who queue up for being recognised on a pious occasion like Teachers Day and other such occasions are Principal’s, Vice-Principals, Vice Chancellor’s or some fortunate teachers and some fortunate because of their influential backgrounds.

A true recognition comes to a teacher if his/her student does well. At least fifty percent performance of a child, if not more, rests on a teacher. So the best award or reward for a true teacher is how well his/her student does in studies and later in life.

The Principal’s and Vice Chancellors are in any case not always from teaching but are a part of the management circle and hence not be included under teacher’s category. It really downgrades those who stand by such recognitions and raises a question mark on the selectors and selection rules. Though not all recognised worthless but because of the lack of visibility of fair chance provided to all teachers alike to prove their worth with student’s opinions/ranking strictly taken into consideration these recognitions appear dubious.

Heads of State, senior government functionaries and eminent personalities should refrain and/or minimise endorsements to such exercise until these are thoroughly transparent and checked for being unbiased coupled with students survey for a partial choice of a particular teacher nominated for an award.

Let the sanity of teachers not be ranked. In fact appreciating teachers be encouraged to make them more dedicated to the students and imbibe new techniques of teaching. Also, appreciation of teachers be done at large and not of any specific person unless otherwise there is a very strong and exceptional case of their performance. Such appreciation thoroughly examined in a transparent way before being made public.

Till this model be adopted the “Best Teachers” recognised the present way be made to undergo a scrutiny post award where the students of their institutions be made to vote against their worthiness. The report of such assessments be made public and be conducted by a government agency with public representation. Though this will not fully, but to a large extent be a sieve to the problem.

Uttarakhand Governor Dr.K.K.Paul congratulates Arun Kumar Singhal

I sometimes wonder why?

It’s not only children who wonder and have curiosity to know the reasons to many unanswered questions they have in mind but even grown ups wonder at times to get answers to many unusual situations of life those that relate to them or the society. I too wonder sometimes if human beings are still dwarfs even though they claims to have conquered the depths of the earth, sea’s and the oceans or for that matter the infinite Space. To me all these successes look like a jest at times when we fail to have an answer to a simple and small thing when compared to the size of the so-called achievements of science.

In an age when human being have set foot on the Moon, aiming for setting up human residential colony’s there or exploring Mars and other celestial bodies in our galaxy and even planning a pleasure trip for people on a specially designed spacecraft to the boundless Space not to mention the deadly weapons possessed by the leaders of the world which can bring an end to the human civilization in just seconds or for that matter the countless civil and military satellites hovering over our heads meant to keep a watchful eye, are tremendously tedious and unthinkable task. However, contrary to this we do not still have the power, know how to certain basic things at our command. This indeed makes the tall claims of science look dwarf.

The amazing news of a brave and lucky Indian soldier from among a group of few unfortunate ones, his colleagues, guarding the country in one of the world’s toughest, all through the year snow-bound battlefields at a height of over 20,000 feet rescued after 6 days from under tons of ice buried deep in the snow as a miracle. Army men consider the miracle a blessing of ‘OP Baba’. OP Baba an unknown soldier who died here somewhere in early eighties but whose spirit roams around this icy region often guiding and warning the soldiers of mis-happening is a revered soul by those serving here.

Siachen has sub-zero temperature that goes down to as low as -50 degrees, lurking danger of a crevasse or an avalanche that are normal and often met by soldiers. Upon return from here soldiers often experiences memory loss, shivers at night, stunted hair growth and at time many other dreaded ailments as a result of climatic conditions here.

The news and such unfortunate happenings and tough work conditions could make any reasonable person bent upon thinking on what need be corrected to make sure the well-being of the guardians of the country serving at such creepy places while they are alive and not just extending help to their dependents after they are gone!

So why are scientists rejoicing of their conquest of the depths of the earth, sea’s and the oceans or for that matter the infinite Space when there is totally no control of humans or methods devised to save lives in places like Siachen. Why are we still after the out-of-date means of securing this region when better options exist?

The recent few days has made me think of some minute details of the living condition of soldiers in the deadly terrain. Imagine how a soldier without any lament expected to guard while living in all averse conditions of the nature in a tented accommodation. These tents are specially designed! What on earth is special of it when there is no second line of defense attached to these for its occupants in case of their facing the fury of nature?  Though nature is supreme and incidences like ice wall collapsing or a crevasse are unavoidable, there certainly remains room for way out and alternatives. Pity! But we are still in primitive age on this account. Though some efforts carried out by DRDO but they seem negligible to the amount of research and alternatives that need be devised for people serving these regions.

As per official data adverse climate conditions in glacier ridden areas claim an average of 10 lives a year, these numbers do not say the everyday challenges like frost bite or the dreaded Chilblain that can dismember limbs, teeth and any other vulnerable part of the body. It’s a pity that we are unable to zero off this data even after human presence in Siachen for over three decades.

It is time to think out-of-box to make sure of alternatives to rid the men of these areas from a continuous basis. Randomly, I think of hi-tech Robots, Drones and extensive Satellite surveillance a good alternative at such unearthly places. When Robots, Drones and Satellite can do many impossible tasks in different spheres why similar alternatives can’t be devised and thought of here to replace men? Its time our planners and leaders gave a serious thought on this issue.

In similar disaster of three years back in Uttarakhand – The Kedarnath tragedy which saw the worst ever death toll in the hills that numbered in thousands of human beings and livestock being killed at the hands of nature besides the livelihood sources public properties and aquatic biodiversity destroyed at places. Numerous settlements in the hills even wiped out of existence due to this unforeseen disaster which combined deluge, flash-floods as a result of unprecedented rain and landslides leaving the topography of the place unrecognizable in no time. Here also there were no effective measures of early disaster warnings even though tall claims of our scientific achievements.

Special satellite systems capable of early warnings appraisal of avalanche, storms, deluge, flash-floods landslides and other natural calamities launched for treacherous, inhabitable and eco-fragile regions can do away with around the clock human presence. This does not mean lowering the vigil in the area, but in fact a better and more effective way to watch while saving precious human lives. While out-of-box thinking is a must the need of the hour is also to do away with the mundane and primitive style of functioning by the country in this context. Can somebody from the higher echelon of the government have an ear on this!

India mourns the passing away of Siachen avalanche survivor Lance Naik Hanamanthappa and his other colleagues. May their soul rest in peace!