Well, with all this racket over the decision to increase quotas for OBCs(Other Backward Castes) in India, I figured it was time I added my voice.
Now, I'm not exactly for quotas in any form, but since we already have them, and are not going to do away with it any time soon (for reasons regarding political expediency), we might as well have quotas for everybody. Yes sir! Hence the title of this post "Sarva Quota Abhiyan"(Quota for all scheme).
Why just restrict quotas to only a few classes like SCs(Scheduled Castes), STs(Scheduled Tribes), OBCs, and MBCs(Most Backward Castes). Let's include all other groups of castes, such as WTWBCs(We Think We're Backward Castes), WWBBCs(We Wanna Be Backward Castes), WGLBANWBCs(We Got Left Behind And Now We're Backward Castes), and the Undecided, who don't know anything about their castes(Can't leave out anyone now, can we?).
On a more serious note, reservations ought to be on the basis of economics, not birth. So, maybe we can base reservation on some threshold determined by the student's family's tax records. This would probably be a boon, as it would force everybody to register with the income tax department. On the other hand, the tax department would need to be bolstered, so that it can prevent underdisclosure of income.
But, frankly, it makes a lot more sense than the solutions that are currently being discussed. It's important to note that reservations are a pretty nifty way of uplifting backward classes, there are many examples of people getting in on a reserved seat, turning out to be quite successful. It's just that caste-based reservations aren't theway to go.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Down with variety
Variety is the spice of life, so they say. But, in the Indian entertainment business, it's bad for your bottomline. A good example is the recent case of Go 92.5 FM.
Go was a radio station that played a good amount of English music. The rest of the private radio stations in Mumbai play entirely Hindi music, and that too only recent stuff. You don't get too much of classic Hindi music during prime time. Then all of a sudden, Go decides to switch to playing only Hindi music. Now, with the Himesh fixation, browsing through channels is like Himesh, some other silly song, Himesh, some stupid remix, Himesh again, and All India Radio(AIR), the public broadcaster.
Now, we have lost seriously nice programs like "The Night Shift", which played quality English classics, and even had a special hour devoted to rock music.
The only oasis left in this desert is AIR, which still plays a few hours of English music. It even plays Western Classical, cool. And somebody said that private companies are better than government-controlled ones?
Probably, the only reason that AIR still plays western music, is that, being state-controlled, it doesn't have to fight for survival. So, it doesn't have to worry about mass appeal. A real pity actually.
Let's hope the policy for granting licences to radio stations changes to improve the variety of programs we get to hear.
Go was a radio station that played a good amount of English music. The rest of the private radio stations in Mumbai play entirely Hindi music, and that too only recent stuff. You don't get too much of classic Hindi music during prime time. Then all of a sudden, Go decides to switch to playing only Hindi music. Now, with the Himesh fixation, browsing through channels is like Himesh, some other silly song, Himesh, some stupid remix, Himesh again, and All India Radio(AIR), the public broadcaster.
Now, we have lost seriously nice programs like "The Night Shift", which played quality English classics, and even had a special hour devoted to rock music.
The only oasis left in this desert is AIR, which still plays a few hours of English music. It even plays Western Classical, cool. And somebody said that private companies are better than government-controlled ones?
Probably, the only reason that AIR still plays western music, is that, being state-controlled, it doesn't have to fight for survival. So, it doesn't have to worry about mass appeal. A real pity actually.
Let's hope the policy for granting licences to radio stations changes to improve the variety of programs we get to hear.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Project story
Now, this is a story that needs to be told. Our project presentation took place on Tuesday the 25th of April. Here is the leadup to that major event in our lives(or so we say):
Friday, April 21
Today is the day we are supposed to get the project report ready and send it for printing. And guess what, we decide to proofread, and this takes up most of the day. To top it off, I have to rewrite our rather messy trial code. So, it's another late night. Anyhow, at the end of the day, the report is ready without any errors (or so we think) and so is the code.
Saturday, April 22
Today is a relatively slow day. Just a little bit of our project presentation is done. Oh, the big news, apparently despite all our proofreading, where we found even misplaced commas, we missed out the fact that there was an error in our project name on the cover page. Brilliant!!
Sunday, April 23
Rest day. Much needed.
Monday, April 24
One of those extremely long days that come along uninvited. We has to finish the presentation, and all of a sudden, our project stops working. Not good.
It takes me till about 10:30 pm to figure out the problem, which is basically due to an error in some pointers. Also there is our presentation to be completed, along with the CD containing our code, documentation etc. Fortunately, all ofthis is completed albeit at 11:30 pm, which breaks my previous record for staying back in college i.e. 11 pm.
At 10 pm, we find out that our reports are still not ready, and would probably be ready by afternoon, and our presentation is supposed to be in the morning. Hooray! Looks like time to panic. Anyhow, Gerard and Hardik, two of our 4 team members (the others being Savio and I), decide to go to the shop to hound the guy till we got the reports. Wound up reaching home after midnight.
Tuesday, April 25
Ah, the day of the presentation dawns. After 2 hours, we finally get the project reports. Those 2 hours were pretty tough as we were rather worried, but our presentation was fortunately delayed on request.
Anyway, all's well that ends well. Our presentation was a hit with the external, the principal of MET (a very nice lady).
Thank God. Now that hassle is over, and our vivas(the last we'll have in Mumbai University) have begun. We ought to be getting sentimental, but fat chance we will.
Friday, April 21
Today is the day we are supposed to get the project report ready and send it for printing. And guess what, we decide to proofread, and this takes up most of the day. To top it off, I have to rewrite our rather messy trial code. So, it's another late night. Anyhow, at the end of the day, the report is ready without any errors (or so we think) and so is the code.
Saturday, April 22
Today is a relatively slow day. Just a little bit of our project presentation is done. Oh, the big news, apparently despite all our proofreading, where we found even misplaced commas, we missed out the fact that there was an error in our project name on the cover page. Brilliant!!
Sunday, April 23
Rest day. Much needed.
Monday, April 24
One of those extremely long days that come along uninvited. We has to finish the presentation, and all of a sudden, our project stops working. Not good.
It takes me till about 10:30 pm to figure out the problem, which is basically due to an error in some pointers. Also there is our presentation to be completed, along with the CD containing our code, documentation etc. Fortunately, all ofthis is completed albeit at 11:30 pm, which breaks my previous record for staying back in college i.e. 11 pm.
At 10 pm, we find out that our reports are still not ready, and would probably be ready by afternoon, and our presentation is supposed to be in the morning. Hooray! Looks like time to panic. Anyhow, Gerard and Hardik, two of our 4 team members (the others being Savio and I), decide to go to the shop to hound the guy till we got the reports. Wound up reaching home after midnight.
Tuesday, April 25
Ah, the day of the presentation dawns. After 2 hours, we finally get the project reports. Those 2 hours were pretty tough as we were rather worried, but our presentation was fortunately delayed on request.
Anyway, all's well that ends well. Our presentation was a hit with the external, the principal of MET (a very nice lady).
Thank God. Now that hassle is over, and our vivas(the last we'll have in Mumbai University) have begun. We ought to be getting sentimental, but fat chance we will.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Project is over
At last all the work related to our B.E. project is done. Now I can start blogging regularly. More on this later.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Programming contest fortunes
Ah! Programming contests. Places where crazy geeks code like madmen to solve ridiculously pointless problems. Well I've always found them good fun, although I've never really done too well in them. Generally, I get the right algorithm, but get confused for some reason or the other, and then modify it so it doesn't satisfy all test cases.
Well, I finally had some success at a programming contest. I managed to qualify for Round 1 of Google Code Jam India 2006. Although, I must admit the problem I solved was easy, I did solve it very quickly. For once, none of the gremlins that normally turn up when I program stayed home.
Round 1 was yesterday, and well, the gremlins returned. I was misled by one test case and modified the algorithm I had. Even this algorithm I got on the second try( I didn't read the question thoroughly :D ). Plus the usual goof-ups, like typographical errors and improper conditional statements, returned to haunt me.
One good thing though, is that I quite liked the TopCoder interface used for the contest. So, I went and registered at TopCoder, so I can keep practising. In general, I find the problems a lot more solvable than those at ACM-ICPC.
The contest manager used by TopCoder is also pretty cool. I also like the contest manager CCPE made by Sreepathi and Keyur (who are good pals of mine). They, along with Ankur, are also the best programming team in our college. The manager used at CRCE, Bandra is also pretty good.
Let's hope I can keep improving my programming and at least win something.
Well, I finally had some success at a programming contest. I managed to qualify for Round 1 of Google Code Jam India 2006. Although, I must admit the problem I solved was easy, I did solve it very quickly. For once, none of the gremlins that normally turn up when I program stayed home.
Round 1 was yesterday, and well, the gremlins returned. I was misled by one test case and modified the algorithm I had. Even this algorithm I got on the second try( I didn't read the question thoroughly :D ). Plus the usual goof-ups, like typographical errors and improper conditional statements, returned to haunt me.
One good thing though, is that I quite liked the TopCoder interface used for the contest. So, I went and registered at TopCoder, so I can keep practising. In general, I find the problems a lot more solvable than those at ACM-ICPC.
The contest manager used by TopCoder is also pretty cool. I also like the contest manager CCPE made by Sreepathi and Keyur (who are good pals of mine). They, along with Ankur, are also the best programming team in our college. The manager used at CRCE, Bandra is also pretty good.
Let's hope I can keep improving my programming and at least win something.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Cricket today
Ah, I'm improving! It's now less than a month since I last blogged. Anyhow, I figured I'd write on the state of one of my favourite sports, cricket.
First of all, a brief history. Cricket was this game invented in England which very effectively provided 5 days of pretty enjoyable timepass, the games being pretty exciting in the old days. But, in the 50's and 60's, cricket captains figured a boring draw was better than an exciting defeat, and this led to reduced attendances at cricket grounds. So, they introduced one-day cricket. This proved relatively successful. Then came Kerry Packer's "circus". Essentially most of the innovations that we see today such as day-night games, coloured clothing etc. can be traced to World Series cricket. Now, cricket, especially the one-day variety, is very popular in South Asia, but less so elsewhere.
Test cricket is considerably less popular than one-day cricket. This is despite the fact that tests, in my opinion, are my opinion are more exciting than one-dayers, which have fallen into a more or less set pattern with few exceptions. The pattern is something like, biff-bang-pow in the first 15 overs, followed by 20 overs of consolidation, and then 15 overs of more biff-bang-pow.
Plus, the wickets have less for the bowlers than previously, mostly to encourage big shots, that many feel crowds come to watch. Unfortunately, this has led to matches where one team scores 300 plus, and the other team matches it with ease.
One-day cricket has also led to the demise of the technically-correct batsmen like Rahul Dravid. In fact, he's the only batsman who can anchor an innings in the Indian team. So India is almost always in trouble when he gets out.
Fortunately, the recent Ashes series has shown that people are interested in test cricket which is result-oriented, and if the pitches have something in them for the bowlers. Let's hope this prods the powers-that-be into improving the standard of cricket.
First of all, a brief history. Cricket was this game invented in England which very effectively provided 5 days of pretty enjoyable timepass, the games being pretty exciting in the old days. But, in the 50's and 60's, cricket captains figured a boring draw was better than an exciting defeat, and this led to reduced attendances at cricket grounds. So, they introduced one-day cricket. This proved relatively successful. Then came Kerry Packer's "circus". Essentially most of the innovations that we see today such as day-night games, coloured clothing etc. can be traced to World Series cricket. Now, cricket, especially the one-day variety, is very popular in South Asia, but less so elsewhere.
Test cricket is considerably less popular than one-day cricket. This is despite the fact that tests, in my opinion, are my opinion are more exciting than one-dayers, which have fallen into a more or less set pattern with few exceptions. The pattern is something like, biff-bang-pow in the first 15 overs, followed by 20 overs of consolidation, and then 15 overs of more biff-bang-pow.
Plus, the wickets have less for the bowlers than previously, mostly to encourage big shots, that many feel crowds come to watch. Unfortunately, this has led to matches where one team scores 300 plus, and the other team matches it with ease.
One-day cricket has also led to the demise of the technically-correct batsmen like Rahul Dravid. In fact, he's the only batsman who can anchor an innings in the Indian team. So India is almost always in trouble when he gets out.
Fortunately, the recent Ashes series has shown that people are interested in test cricket which is result-oriented, and if the pitches have something in them for the bowlers. Let's hope this prods the powers-that-be into improving the standard of cricket.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Doordarshan is going down
Yikes, haven't blogged for over a month. I really ought to be more regular. Any how, my search for a topic has come to an end. After messing up all the TV related questions in an entertainment quiz, I have decided to write on the declining state of Doordarshan.
For those who haven't lived in India, Doordarshan(DD) is the state-owned public broadcaster. In fact, before the arrival of cable television, DD was TV. In the early days, DD was a godsend to the Indian public who had never seen a TV. It had a nice, balanced selection of programs, like a weekly Hindi film, some decent serials, and on Sundays, "I love Lucy".
However, after the arrival of cable television, DD went into terminal decline. The quality of programming, which had already declined, dropped further because of lack of advertising revenue. Nobody bothered with watching DD National and DD Metro, now that there were channels like Star Plus and Zee.
However, DD still got all India's home tests and one-day matches. Now, even this is being taken away, and the only reason DD viewers still get cricket is because of the courts.
Now, they are so down in the dumps that they don't cut serials where they are sure of making at least some money, for sports events like the Olympics for which they get the rights and then proceed to transmit on DD Sports, which is a cable channel.
At least, previously they used to show a one-hour highlights package, but that was not there for the 2006 Winter Olympics. This was irritating, to say the least. This is probably due to the fact that they have a news channel, DD News, in place of DD Metro.
There was a failed attempt to rework DD Metro, with some new content that they got with help from Channel 9 of Australia. But, that flopped after a while. Then, they tried to resuscitate their old serials. But, that failed too, and they dropped DD Metro for Dd News.
However, let's hope that there is some hope for the beleaguered broadcaster. The choice of movies has improved. Previously, it used to be one reasonably good(or relatively recent) movie on Friday, and an average(or, if you're lucky, a classic) movie on Saturday. Now, it's 2 reasonably good, recent movies on Friday and Saturday, and a classic movie on Sunday afternoon.
For those who haven't lived in India, Doordarshan(DD) is the state-owned public broadcaster. In fact, before the arrival of cable television, DD was TV. In the early days, DD was a godsend to the Indian public who had never seen a TV. It had a nice, balanced selection of programs, like a weekly Hindi film, some decent serials, and on Sundays, "I love Lucy".
However, after the arrival of cable television, DD went into terminal decline. The quality of programming, which had already declined, dropped further because of lack of advertising revenue. Nobody bothered with watching DD National and DD Metro, now that there were channels like Star Plus and Zee.
However, DD still got all India's home tests and one-day matches. Now, even this is being taken away, and the only reason DD viewers still get cricket is because of the courts.
Now, they are so down in the dumps that they don't cut serials where they are sure of making at least some money, for sports events like the Olympics for which they get the rights and then proceed to transmit on DD Sports, which is a cable channel.
At least, previously they used to show a one-hour highlights package, but that was not there for the 2006 Winter Olympics. This was irritating, to say the least. This is probably due to the fact that they have a news channel, DD News, in place of DD Metro.
There was a failed attempt to rework DD Metro, with some new content that they got with help from Channel 9 of Australia. But, that flopped after a while. Then, they tried to resuscitate their old serials. But, that failed too, and they dropped DD Metro for Dd News.
However, let's hope that there is some hope for the beleaguered broadcaster. The choice of movies has improved. Previously, it used to be one reasonably good(or relatively recent) movie on Friday, and an average(or, if you're lucky, a classic) movie on Saturday. Now, it's 2 reasonably good, recent movies on Friday and Saturday, and a classic movie on Sunday afternoon.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Command line v/s GUI
Ah! The perennial battle in computing. Which is better the command-line or the GUI?
Well, ever since Xerox (not Apple and definitely not Microsoft!!) developed the GUI to make things simpler for newbies, they have opened a can of worms. Though it is undeniable that this has resulted in an explosion in the number of computer users, ultimately, a GUI can only do so much. Indeed, in many operating systems, particularly the Unices, a GUI program will just translate the option selected by the user into options that would normally be entered on the command line. This make things much easier for newbies, but much more restrictive.
Another major grouse I have with the GUI is the mouse. Personally, I find it very irritating to move and click for anything I need to do, when a short command may be all that is necessary. This particularly rears its head while copying and renaming files.
Another good reason for using the command-line over the GUI is that it enables a lot of work to be done remotely over the network, unless you use web-based administration (for example, on Debian GNU/Linux).
Finally, a very esoteric reason for disliking GUIs. Personally I feel that commands like "cp source destination" are a lot closer to English than just dragging and dropping files.
However, when trying out new programs, I often do prefer the restricted environment of the GUI, mainly to avoid wrecking any hardware thanks to wrong settings. At the same time, though I still find the command-line more convenient if not quicker.
This also contributes to my preference for Unices over other operating systems which have a limited command-line environment.
Well, ever since Xerox (not Apple and definitely not Microsoft!!) developed the GUI to make things simpler for newbies, they have opened a can of worms. Though it is undeniable that this has resulted in an explosion in the number of computer users, ultimately, a GUI can only do so much. Indeed, in many operating systems, particularly the Unices, a GUI program will just translate the option selected by the user into options that would normally be entered on the command line. This make things much easier for newbies, but much more restrictive.
Another major grouse I have with the GUI is the mouse. Personally, I find it very irritating to move and click for anything I need to do, when a short command may be all that is necessary. This particularly rears its head while copying and renaming files.
Another good reason for using the command-line over the GUI is that it enables a lot of work to be done remotely over the network, unless you use web-based administration (for example, on Debian GNU/Linux).
Finally, a very esoteric reason for disliking GUIs. Personally I feel that commands like "cp source destination" are a lot closer to English than just dragging and dropping files.
However, when trying out new programs, I often do prefer the restricted environment of the GUI, mainly to avoid wrecking any hardware thanks to wrong settings. At the same time, though I still find the command-line more convenient if not quicker.
This also contributes to my preference for Unices over other operating systems which have a limited command-line environment.
Friday, December 30, 2005
Form is temporary, class is permanent
At this time last year, Sree & I had just had a great semester of quizzing when we took apart all opponents. Unfortunately, those times are just not coming back.
At one point in our quizzing career we had a 10 quiz winning streak, now we haven't won a quiz outright for the past 9 months. There are a few runner-up places though.
I guess the main reason for this is that in the past sem, we have hardly gone for any quizzes, primarily due to lack of publicity from the other colleges(Have they chickened out?). Also, in the quizzes that we do take part in, rank bad luck just does us in.
Three cases in point are, VESIT's quiz at Praxis, our intra-college IEEE techfest quiz and the general quiz at Mood Indigo. In the first case, we came up against electronics questions, which aren't exactly our cup of tea. In the IEEE techfest quiz, an error on one question and an error in scoring which resulted in us choosing a tougher question cost us the quiz. Finally at Mood I, we knew most of the other teams' questions but fluffed up our own, and this happened in just one round, but we still missed out on a top three placing. In fact, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed teams were separated by just 5 poins each.
AARRGH!! I hope that lady luck comes back from vacation soon.
At one point in our quizzing career we had a 10 quiz winning streak, now we haven't won a quiz outright for the past 9 months. There are a few runner-up places though.
I guess the main reason for this is that in the past sem, we have hardly gone for any quizzes, primarily due to lack of publicity from the other colleges(Have they chickened out?). Also, in the quizzes that we do take part in, rank bad luck just does us in.
Three cases in point are, VESIT's quiz at Praxis, our intra-college IEEE techfest quiz and the general quiz at Mood Indigo. In the first case, we came up against electronics questions, which aren't exactly our cup of tea. In the IEEE techfest quiz, an error on one question and an error in scoring which resulted in us choosing a tougher question cost us the quiz. Finally at Mood I, we knew most of the other teams' questions but fluffed up our own, and this happened in just one round, but we still missed out on a top three placing. In fact, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th placed teams were separated by just 5 poins each.
AARRGH!! I hope that lady luck comes back from vacation soon.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Down with rote learning
As a student of Mumbai University, I have experienced at first-hand the effect of rote learning on budding engineers. Rote learning makes a complete mockery of the education system. Coaching classes, which are big business, say mug up and you will be successful.
Successful?? At what? Cramming? So now your entire existence on earth will be defined by how many marks you got in so and so exam. Just imagine, you might have taken up so much of the earth's limited resources to produce a bunch of marksheets. You must have shattered the dreams of so many less-privileged, yet more talented people, just to produce a bunch of marksheets. And at the end of your life, all you might have done for the planet is produce a couple of crammers, driven it closer to destruction and yes, the marksheets.
I have seen people sacrifice first-class technical ability in order to become people with first-class on their marksheets. Frankly, it's just a huge waste of talent. And then we wonder why India isn't No. 1 in technology despite the wealth of tech graduates?
Frankly, what does a marksheet say about you? Your entire existence is summed up in a number. Is that even logical?
I mean, I understand the need for analysing aptitude quantitatively, but can we cut rote learning out from the loop? Maybe we can use projects with some well-defined metrics to enable grading and more thought-provoking questions in exams instead of "short notes".
And I think we need to let up on our lecturers. They are so overburdened with the syllabus and correcting answer papers, that they don't have the time to see the big, wide world beyond. And frankly, there are quite a few who do a good job of encouraging thinking along with tips for exams.
I also feel really bad for companies who come for placements. Here they have several hundred students to choose from, and no real way of separating the wheat from the chaff. So, they settle on cutoffs, which is no way to judge ability.
So, I guess the only way out is for the University to be clear about what it wants from students, and start thinking a little beyond rote learning. But, I don't see this happening any time soon and even if it happens, it will be a surprise in the final exam paper which is really the wrong way to go about it.
Successful?? At what? Cramming? So now your entire existence on earth will be defined by how many marks you got in so and so exam. Just imagine, you might have taken up so much of the earth's limited resources to produce a bunch of marksheets. You must have shattered the dreams of so many less-privileged, yet more talented people, just to produce a bunch of marksheets. And at the end of your life, all you might have done for the planet is produce a couple of crammers, driven it closer to destruction and yes, the marksheets.
I have seen people sacrifice first-class technical ability in order to become people with first-class on their marksheets. Frankly, it's just a huge waste of talent. And then we wonder why India isn't No. 1 in technology despite the wealth of tech graduates?
Frankly, what does a marksheet say about you? Your entire existence is summed up in a number. Is that even logical?
I mean, I understand the need for analysing aptitude quantitatively, but can we cut rote learning out from the loop? Maybe we can use projects with some well-defined metrics to enable grading and more thought-provoking questions in exams instead of "short notes".
And I think we need to let up on our lecturers. They are so overburdened with the syllabus and correcting answer papers, that they don't have the time to see the big, wide world beyond. And frankly, there are quite a few who do a good job of encouraging thinking along with tips for exams.
I also feel really bad for companies who come for placements. Here they have several hundred students to choose from, and no real way of separating the wheat from the chaff. So, they settle on cutoffs, which is no way to judge ability.
So, I guess the only way out is for the University to be clear about what it wants from students, and start thinking a little beyond rote learning. But, I don't see this happening any time soon and even if it happens, it will be a surprise in the final exam paper which is really the wrong way to go about it.
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