A Mind at Play

Lone juggler lies deep in practice
intense and focused kneading the skill

shadows and lights dance all around,
swaying gently to the rhythm of form

there's motion and muscle fused in act
the sculpture getting carved in blur

it draws you in, the pace quickens
round and round, the gentle spin

and the gazer moves, gives into grip
onto the orbit, to reach the end

the gazed and gazer, audience and the act
are merged at ends, one and the same

you create, you consume, you watch and you play
the perpetual act of your reality machine

Another world

Shadows settle down in a drizzle

on the symphony of bones and flesh

A collective voice hums on a high

as the walls crowd in waiting

A moment frozen as the limbs reach out

Perhaps another world is a fleeting touch away

Restless

Walking down the sidewalk

Bright sun shaking itself dry, pouring

down as a trickle on the head, Soaking

up the heat, it bloats me from inside

Its faraway, anything that I can touch

world is flattened to the sides, flying

far away like a kite; thread hanging loosely

from my hand; I draw in fresh air, freedom

From here till where, debilitating obsession

with direction, groping, feeling for tomorrow

an eternity of expression looking for certainty

Looking inward, a beautiful mosaic, but all in knots 

SC judgement on 2G - More questions than answers?

In this judgement, SC questions First Come First Served policy for spectrum ((which is a natural resource) and not the implementation of the policy. The contention is that since firms got equity at high valuations post spectrum licenses, there has been a loss to the exchequer.

I find this interesting since NOT all natural resources are auctioned away in our country - college licenses, mining licenses, land given to Infy, Telco etc to name a few. The judgement brings all these cases also fall into the consideration set. Did the Guj govt do wrong by giving away land w/o auction for the Tata Nano plant at below market rates? What about all the land Infy got from various govts?

And ofcourse, this opens up the scenario where the licenses awarded in 2001 and 2003 are also questionable since it used the same policy. Apparently the reason SC did not quash the earlier license allocation process (2001 and 2003) is that those firms are not part of the specific petition filed in the PIL. Seems to be a mere technicality which can be worked around if someone filed a PIL against those allocations.

In my perspective it is dicey for the court to comment upon the policy of no-auction because there are certain merits in going for a First Come First Served policy as against an auction. If the licenses were auctioned, the telecom tariffs in India wouldnt be among the lowest in the world and the current cell phone penetration would not have been achieved. While the govt got less money by not auctioning, it might not be the best way to give away licenses.

To put in a disclaimer, I am not defending the govt. - there certainly was corruption in this case but that is w.r.t the way the policy was implemented by changing the cut off dates arbitrarily (after the dates were passed), changing the priority list arbitrarily etc. This ofcourse needs to come out.

But in all this excitement about getting the judgement, we might be missing a key point of significance where SC is questioning the policy of no auction.

Education for graduates

The elephant is marching, everyone is talking about the great economic powerhouse as India keeps dishing out 7%+ GDP growth rates.The numbers are for real and the story is exciting - there is a stupendous growth opportunity for the services sector and 40% of the 1.2bn population is below the age of 18.
Scratch this further and there are disturbing numbers. NASSCOM (India's national body for the IT industry) report says that only 25% of graduate engineers and 10-15% of ordinary graduates applying for IT jobs are employable. This is also supported by a Mckinsey report in 2005 that talked about India's HR potential. I do not have numbers for other industries but the story shouldn't be too different.
It is very obvious that the education system is out of sync with the expectations from its output. The system dishes out students with little perspective on the industry and paucity of skills to hit the job running. Obsolete curriculum and teaching methodology severely hamper its effectiveness. The biggest constraint on the education system though is the amount of government control that states what the institutes can do and what they cannot.
This places huge burden on the corporates as well as a challenge for the numerous students carrying the hopes of their middle class parents. But I believe this also is an interesting opportunity for those who see it that way.