What is Bush good for?
A. Jayaprakash Kovilloor
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For all the deeds of Bush, the world community would record in their respective histories that there was an American president who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.
THOUGH THE world is not worried much about its continued existence, thanks to the interference of an ordinary mortal like George Bush, it is a good idea to ask an individual question to each one of us – what is Bush good for? The question may sound simple enough, but answering the question may demand a little sense of humour and a tinge of cynicism.
The former requirement, sense of humour, is what the world comes to experience as and when Bush makes a statement on international affairs, and the second requirement, cynicism, is what goes into the making of such comments. See some of his comments and suggestions on international affairs.
“The US would help the oil giant Saudi Arabia to protect its oil reserves.” What does the world understand when it listens to such a comment? A comment is made by whom? And what is he commenting on? When was he making the comment? Where does price of oil per barrel stand in the international market?
“We are happy to assist Saudi Arabia to generate nuclear energy.” What does Saudi Arabia need more than this? Are not the Arabs powerful enough now to dictate oil terms with the rest of the world? They are. Still as Bush needs to be good for the world, he is offering a little help to the ’king’.
When it is of Palestine, Bush cannot resist making a comment that ’independent statehood is what is needed to keep peace in this part of the world’. Since the rest of the world is left with lasting peace, thanks to Bush incorporated, and as Iran is staying in where it has always been, now it is time and the same is ripe for Palestine and then Egypt. Again Bush is becoming of some good to the world order.
Closely following the comment that it is Indian middle-class that is eating away the due food shares of the rest of the world, he had come up with yet another comment on Kashmir the other day. “It is time India and Pakistan found a solution to Kashmir issue.” Are we not going to respond to that comment? A brokerage from America would work wonders in bringing peace in the borders.
His West Asian regional tour focussing on peace comes to close this week, he would have made himself good to a lot of communities around the world, and by the time he leaves office not very soon, the world community would, including those bereaved families of thousands of American marines who got killed around the world, record in their respective histories that there was a president in America who had been good, not at keeping the world peaceful but ensuring the rest of the world in pieces and geopolitical regions.
And this President had had the rarest reputation of bringing disrepute not only to the US but to the rest of the world too. What, an ordinary mortal like Bush, is good for after all? Good for not a good thing!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Kerala SSLC: Above ninety per cent success is pestering!
FROM AN ordinary student’s point of view, clearing an examination is the most important thing, no matter with a distinction, first division, second class or with a just pass percentage for that matter. It is all good to be winning. But what happens to a community of more than 90 per cent students who leave the Secondary School Leaving Certification (SSLC) process with flying colours? No doubt, it leads to many social and academic anomalies in the long run.
From the present government’s point of view, this success marathon is part of their party’s policy that it stands for the poor, no matter if he is a poor voter, a farmer, a worker or a school leaving student. Most of these students who pass out, of course, out of mercy of the party’s policy, would end up jobless and aimless and will be spending rest of their life sticking a party’s posters, crying out Inquilab Zindabad, writing graffiti and participating in marches and dharnas and finally, getting beaten by police of successive governments.
When party is above people, there needs to be people to promote the party, and in order to have them, the party has to promote them. That is what is happening in Kerala. The party is willfully promoting more than 90 per cent of school leaving students with various grades. These innocents are not going to be go for higher education, nor are they going to make any constructive contribution to their families.
It is all going to be hoary for a small section of the society. The privately managed higher education’s makeshift arrangements are poised to have a field day in the coming academic ‘seasons’. After two years, all these passed out ones will pass out the same way their intermediate exams. Once they finish plus two exams, hundreds and thousands of parents will throng around the private management arenas for admissions. The bargain is going to be in the tunes of hundred thousands and ten hundred thousands.
If this is the case with domestic academic vultures, just imagine how it is in neighbouring states where higher and professional education institutes are ravenously awaiting their preys with lucrative offers and enticing options. They have appointed their agents in strategic academic destinations in this state. The net is cast and the catches are in plenty. The cost is clear and everything is in place. What is missing are a few strikes and lockouts in our higher education institutions and technical training centres at the time of admissions. This will leave a conducive atmosphere for the most ambitious of all parents in the world, parents of the school leaving students of Kerala, to pack up and go to Bangalore or Mangalore and invest in those institutions of ill-repute.
After some four to five years, these poor chaps would come back home as qualified, searching for jobs in their state where the government is unable to provide higher education opportunities to all the promoted students. In such a state, can these ‘externally qualified’ boys and girls expect the government to provide them with jobs? Are the private sector organizations, mostly MNCs, pleased and benevolent enough to absorb these sub-standard academic left-outs in their corporate cubicles? No way.
The private sector organisations mean business and what they mean by business is probably this: Make rupees 50,000 for us and take 20-25,000 as salary. In such a profit driven employment landscape, these candidates are bound to end up nowhere, but in streets, to be mauled and exploited by political parties, fundamentalists, party-fringe organisations, rackets and organised criminal nexuses.
All is not going to be well for them. They may be studying two more years in some schools (either government or private). But they are destined to be ill-formed in the most sensitive and transition period of their life; their future is bleak and finally, the generation next is, unfortunately, going to be a disappointed lot, unable to sustain themselves and powerless to contribute anything to the nation.
Ultimately, our dream to become a developed nation is getting more and more distant and the present government’s decision to offer pass out grades to more than 90 per cent pupils, is one of the most hideous administrative reforms, this state has ever seen.
I feel sorry for these fellows who are given a false impression that they are out for a better catch in future. Actually, they are the catches of a ruthless and criminal academic lobby, working in and out of the state, clandestinely patronised by political parties. These kids are pawns and their parents are to parading them in front of these higher education conglomerates. The money they have to shell out to these organisations is bound to be from bank loans, mortgages and outright sell off of those little patches of lands and grains of gold they own.
From the present government’s point of view, this success marathon is part of their party’s policy that it stands for the poor, no matter if he is a poor voter, a farmer, a worker or a school leaving student. Most of these students who pass out, of course, out of mercy of the party’s policy, would end up jobless and aimless and will be spending rest of their life sticking a party’s posters, crying out Inquilab Zindabad, writing graffiti and participating in marches and dharnas and finally, getting beaten by police of successive governments.
When party is above people, there needs to be people to promote the party, and in order to have them, the party has to promote them. That is what is happening in Kerala. The party is willfully promoting more than 90 per cent of school leaving students with various grades. These innocents are not going to be go for higher education, nor are they going to make any constructive contribution to their families.
It is all going to be hoary for a small section of the society. The privately managed higher education’s makeshift arrangements are poised to have a field day in the coming academic ‘seasons’. After two years, all these passed out ones will pass out the same way their intermediate exams. Once they finish plus two exams, hundreds and thousands of parents will throng around the private management arenas for admissions. The bargain is going to be in the tunes of hundred thousands and ten hundred thousands.
If this is the case with domestic academic vultures, just imagine how it is in neighbouring states where higher and professional education institutes are ravenously awaiting their preys with lucrative offers and enticing options. They have appointed their agents in strategic academic destinations in this state. The net is cast and the catches are in plenty. The cost is clear and everything is in place. What is missing are a few strikes and lockouts in our higher education institutions and technical training centres at the time of admissions. This will leave a conducive atmosphere for the most ambitious of all parents in the world, parents of the school leaving students of Kerala, to pack up and go to Bangalore or Mangalore and invest in those institutions of ill-repute.
After some four to five years, these poor chaps would come back home as qualified, searching for jobs in their state where the government is unable to provide higher education opportunities to all the promoted students. In such a state, can these ‘externally qualified’ boys and girls expect the government to provide them with jobs? Are the private sector organizations, mostly MNCs, pleased and benevolent enough to absorb these sub-standard academic left-outs in their corporate cubicles? No way.
The private sector organisations mean business and what they mean by business is probably this: Make rupees 50,000 for us and take 20-25,000 as salary. In such a profit driven employment landscape, these candidates are bound to end up nowhere, but in streets, to be mauled and exploited by political parties, fundamentalists, party-fringe organisations, rackets and organised criminal nexuses.
All is not going to be well for them. They may be studying two more years in some schools (either government or private). But they are destined to be ill-formed in the most sensitive and transition period of their life; their future is bleak and finally, the generation next is, unfortunately, going to be a disappointed lot, unable to sustain themselves and powerless to contribute anything to the nation.
Ultimately, our dream to become a developed nation is getting more and more distant and the present government’s decision to offer pass out grades to more than 90 per cent pupils, is one of the most hideous administrative reforms, this state has ever seen.
I feel sorry for these fellows who are given a false impression that they are out for a better catch in future. Actually, they are the catches of a ruthless and criminal academic lobby, working in and out of the state, clandestinely patronised by political parties. These kids are pawns and their parents are to parading them in front of these higher education conglomerates. The money they have to shell out to these organisations is bound to be from bank loans, mortgages and outright sell off of those little patches of lands and grains of gold they own.
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