Ok, I am on a roll.. so here is another link and another entry into this 'recently so dormant' blog of mine. http://www.deeshaa.org/2005/12/24/monkeys-running-the-circus/ Antanu Dey comments on the Cash for Questions Scam

As the year end approaches... Its time for those next year predictions. Here are some from AMR. http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.asp?pmillid=19052 * 2005 has been a great year for Google PR. See how many news items you can digg up here and here.

Will Mumbai get new Taxi System? Sucheta Dalal talks about it.

Favorite Columnists Varsha Bhosle She has been missing in action since a long time. Her writing carried a fire which I have not seen in most of the other contemporary journos. She has been missing in action of a long time. Harsha Bhogle. A very eloquent speaker and a commentator, writes equally well. He is the ‘Dravid’ of cricket commentators. Tavleen Singh She needs no introduction. A favorite of many generations TVR Shenoy I have been following his writing since my childhood. Dad used to bring home ‘The Week’ and I would gladly start reading this magazine from TVR’s regular column. Shobha De A very direct, controversial author and a columnist. I used to read her column regularly in Sunday Mid Day and some other papers & magazines. But the only novel I have read from her stable of published material is Speedpost. Prem Panicker Prem probably has the most widely followed cricketing blogs in the world.

Mr Murthy lets not corporatize education in India like its in USA. Anything Mr. 'Infosys' Murthy says is gospel nowadays. The PR machine at Infy has just been so effective, it has taken Murthy's status to an iconic level in India & the world over. Not that I am against Infy or Murthy. But Sir, everything cannot be and should not be corporatized. Everything that is good in Western countries is not always best in India. And education is certainly one of them. Here is what Mr Murthy has to say - Narayana Murthy's 4-point plan on higher education 1. Liberalize education The role of government needs to be minimized. Higher education must function as an industryin a free-market environment with suitable regulatory mechanisms. Licensing must be removedin education along the lines of the trade liberalization of the 1990s. Educational institutions mustbe allowed to function as corporations making their own decisions. Full autonomy needs to begranted to all institutions of higher learning. The very fact that government is involved in education has had largely beneficial effect.Yes! Reservations are something we must continue to deal with. Corporations necessarilydon’t make good education givers. Corporations by nature are for profit, and I strongly believethat for profit institutions would increase the spread of more nepotism and corruption.Certainly not a good idea. 2. Private funding Many prestigious American institutions such as MIT and Stanford are funded almost entirely byprivate money. Our government is facing an era of lack of funds. It is therefore, essential thatthere is widespread infusion of private money into our higher education system. Market-drivenfees will enable universities to provide competitive salaries and scholarships. This will enable them to compete for high quality faculty and students. Colleges must be provided with the latest teaching tools, computers and Internet connectivity. I am certainly for private funding. Private funding has helped the mentioned American institutions.Private funding needs to come from corporate sector such as Infosys or a Wipro. Educational institutions are a key resource procurement points for corps like Infy. Today almost 70% of their staff strength is made up of fresh graduates out of college. In other industries such as mfg. or pharma incur significant costs on procuring raw materials. IT industries, the cost is not that significant. A model where IT industries share a percentage of income generated through thesourced students, with the educational institutions has lots of benefits. In a market like India, market driven fees work well only for the financial, education and corp. institutions but rarely for the students. Market driven fees would drive higher per capita debt and soon education would become financially unattractive like it is here in USA. 3. Performance pay Meritocracy must be introduced among faculty by implementation of pay-for-performance systems.There should be bi-annual student surveys of faculty members. All benefits to faculty membersincluding compensation and promotion must be based on feedback secured from students. This definetly a right point. Creating a feedback loop which is objective around performance would be vital factor. But the teachers in the Indian educational system are underpaid,and paying good attractive salaries would attract top notch talent which otherwise wouldhave moved to the corporate world. 4. Students loans Subsidies should exist only in basic education and not in higher education. Parents below a certain income level can be given vouchers by the government. These vouchers can then beused for payment to schools and educational institutions. An Educational Development Finance Corporation can be set up to fund higher education through a National Student Loan Program. If India is to achieve $45 billion in software service exports and $10 billion in IT-enabled service exports by the year 2008, it will require a resource pool of almost 1.3 million professionals. What will happen then is that the chunk of students who graduate out of institutions will flow into IT, while the laggards will be left to general industries. It is essential to have high quality people in general industries as well since they are the ones who provide the basic infrastructure within which IT exists. Education is a key driver of economic success in any nation. In a country like that of India, affordable education at all levels would fuel a larger quality resource pool. Rather than govt. subsidizing higher education completely or freeing up completely, a model where the corporate world and govt. both participate to create an affordable structure of higher education would work better. Student loans create unnessary economic burden both on the parents and the students. Rather than blindly copying the American model of education, we need to leverage the strengths and the lessons learned and apply it to the context on Indian education.

Do we need the BJP anymore? TVR Shenoy, one of my long time fav columnists asks this very relevant question. A few years back I would have been a very staunch supporter of BJP, but today I find myself asking the same question TVR is asking. More than the fact that the party today finds itself distanced from an ideology, I see it more as one without much integrity. Five years in power and now out of it, have seen it fall from grace and lacking leadership to see itself beyond where they are today.