Parasar's Weblog

Sub-Himalayan Region needs attention

parasar — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:32:13 +0000

We have to acknowledge that 11% of India’s geographical area comes under Sub-Himalayan Region and so does a huge section of our society. History is the witness of cultural wisdom possessed by tribes colonized in this area. Their rich heritage of art and craft has always been our pride. Be it their traditional language or knowledge of medicines, there is uniqueness. However, we all are witness of the fact that these unique cultures are today threatened and weather-beaten. Once this region was famous for its ‘ lingche’ and ‘kokpo’. Where are they now? Traditional music and customary sports of tribes are not talked about any more. Craftsmen are surrendering to poverty and migrating to industrial zones. Blame it on immature tourism or modernization; we have to acknowledge that tangible and intangible cultural assets of this region are under serious threat and rapidly fading. And this continuous threat has been perceived by few responsible NGOs like Pragya, PAHAR (People’s Association for Himalayan Area Research) and The Himalayan Trust, they are already working towards revitalization of Himalayan Culture and Customs and an immediate attention towards promoting responsible tourism. More information on organization working over this area can be found at www.ceehimalaya.org and http://uttarakhand.prayaga.org/ngo-list.html . Hope in near future more hands would join and work towards a cause that is in demand of serious attention.

Capacity building in its’ simplest form.

parasar — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:25:37 +0000

Real development is one which is successful in bringing about a shift in the consciousness of people at the grass root level. This shift must be positive to name it development. Capacity Building therefore is an intrinsic aspect for those in the developmental sector. I often wonder- What is Capacity Building?

Theoretically, Capacity Building by means of enhanced communication skills, knowledge sharing and value addition – seems like an easy goal to achieve, however, being pragmatic is the key to binging about any change in the society. Contemporary as we are, the generation has done away with clichés, classics are no more hit, and this is the era of simple words and simple writers as simplicity is so much easier to assimilate. I have tried to present therefore, succinctly my understanding of the term ‘Capacity Building’, this write up is totally based on observation and has nothing to do with theories, charts and surveys.

Human Resource Development, Organizational Development, Improvement of Legal Framework and Polices – these are the things that strike one’s mind if a conversation is going on Capacity Building. We often use these words as an answer to the meaning of ‘Capacity Building’ and there where we go wrong, as these are simply tools of ‘capacity building’, authentic meaning of ‘capacity building’ is far beyond these management jargons.

Change is the only constant in this world. Provoking change is the law of nature. Change leads to development only when it’s well channelized this process of channelizing change leading to development of a society and an environment is what I would like to name as ‘Capacity Building’. Here, channelizing means guiding and nurturing, society means people and environment means our surrounding and whole eco system.

Channelize and climb

Change can be positive, it can also be negative. But only positive change leads to development. We can also say that the other name of positive change is development.

Let’s understand it with the help of following example:

Arvind and Ashok were kids of same age with same level of intelligence and smartness. They used to go to the same school and live in the same locality. As teenagers both of them were repellent in nature only difference was that Arvind expresses his rebellion attitude by questioning Physics and Chemistry teachers with loads of ‘Why ’ and ‘How’ and Ashok expressed it by arguing with his mother on what to do and what not to do. Soon Ashok indulged himself into loads of negative activities and Arvind kept on questioning things around him. At the age of 30 Arvind was happily working with a leading organization in the capacity of a Manager and Ashok turned out to be a person who is unsatisfied and unwanted.

Question here is- What went wrong with Ashok?

Answer: His energy and level of intelligence was not channelized properly at the right time. No one ever built his capacity. He probably never received the required motivation. Changing phase of his life never got a shape. As a result our society lost one human resource, which could otherwise be of great capacity and help. On the other hand changing phase of Arvind’s life got a direction, a shape and that helped him to increase his capacity as an individual and is now contributing to GDP of the nation.

So my friends, Capacity Building only needs:

a) A ear to listen to you

b) A hand to train you

c) A mouth to motivate you

d) A brain to think for you

e) A person to share your success.

“Think about it, understand it and encourage it, you might end up being a life saver of another Ashok”

* image taken from Google engine.

Education without Value is dangerous to society.

parasar — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:07:49 +0000

Over the years India has constantly focused on education and believed that social development can never be achieved without education being an integral part of Indians. However, we failed to draw the real meaning of Education and also to a great extent failed in terms of preserving our culture and values. India has taken pride that academic standards of our educational system are far more advance and progressive as compared to many other developing and even developed countries. However, we are still lacking behind them in terms of experiences to focus on independent study, creativity and objective approach. Education in India is trapped in a concept which we often address as ‘earning bread and butter’. We have a result oriented system, where growth of students are mostly evaluated with aid of numbers scored over the exam; interestingly no format has been yet structured to evaluate understanding and judgmental skills of the students. The confused young Indian minds need help in developing their own values system. Hence, special emphasis should be given on Value Based Education and realization of the same.

Education is not an accessory to life but it is a necessity and it is a key to lead a better and satisfied life. Real meaning of education is far beyond our annual performance sheet; education in true sense is all about being a better person with each passing day. Education gives us this very knowledge, the most supreme knowledge of knowing oneself, which helps us to make our life better and purposeful. Interestingly our ancient educational system was based on values. Our history speaks of Education as ‘Vidya’, it is the light that enhances full potential of an individual, gift him/her with better understanding of their nature and sense to judge situations and their outcome of their own actions, a mindset to judge what’s right and what’s wrong for the society and environment they are a part of. In the olden days, ‘Vidya’ had two sub divisions, one was “Baahya Vidya” and another was “Brahma Vidya”. First one provided the adequate skills for earning livelihood and second one, lays down the path which leads to both joy in worldly relations and bliss in the life beyond. This Vidya was basically concern with morale and values essential for a healthy society, it is thus considered superior to all other Vidyas. This created an imbalance between academic knowledge and values, which with time and technological development we started focusing more on academics and got trapped in a system of marks, numbers and scores. And the concept of Value Based Education is gradually depleting and as a result today we are in a society where terrorism is the latest religion, where most of the time daily news papers furnish us with updates on increase in percentage of teenage pregnancy cases, student prostitution, suicide cases due to academic pressures, murders and this list will certainly go on and on.

But the question here is – Do we deserve to live this pressure cooked life? If no, then where is the way out? As respond to these basic questions of survival, educationalist over India soon realized importance of Value Based Education and introduced the subject ‘Morale Science’. Now, in school we do have a subject called Morale Science, however teachers, parents as well as students consider it as a subject which one just have to pass. I still remember, when I was a kid one of my friend said that her favorite subject is Morale Science and the next question our teacher asked is – Do you want to be a priest once you grow up? If not, then better focus on Math and Science. Sadly this is the story of every Morale Science lover. Now all we do is mug up CBSE book, and vomit it out over the answer sheet in the examination hall. Today’s education is sopping in textual scholarships, it deals more with concepts and conjectures, constantly forgetting the values and materialism is prevailing in the society.

Today education is brought and it is a calculated investment with high rate of interest. The girls are still deprived from education as people hardly expect them to earn as long as such thoughts continue there is no hope of discovering the true knowing the true value of education. A holistic approach to students’ education is needed, one that provides complete learning of mind and body through critical educational thinking and innovative approaches.

There has been a lapse in our value system which the educational institutes should inculcate in a student. The need of the hour is to follow a balanced approach towards students’ academic career, which will bring in true value to their life and make them better contributor to our society and world at large.

At last, I would just like to say that -

Value Based Education, guarantees to develop a steadfast citizen but education all alone, without values might lead to a Chemical Engineer who is devoting his energy and time on concocting bombs for the coming up terror attacks. In simple words Education without Value is dangerous to society.

Are you still chasing your tail?

parasar — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:29:58 +0000

Are you still chasing your tail?

Do you frequently catch yourself and others saying that 24 hours are just not enough for me or time flies and I have so much more left to do. If the answer is an emphatic Yes, I propose you go through this article; a quick glance will do in case you’re running short of time like always…

Sometime back, I read about the sudden demise of Ranjan Das, CEO and MD of SAP Asia-Pacific, from cardiac arrest right after his gym workout. He was 42, father of two young sons, at the zenith of his career and life, certainly not an age to bid good bye. Those who know him were stunned as he had always been a health freak.

I personally met Ranjan Das when I was a school going kid, and have always carried profound memories of his humble personality and ambitious words. Spurred on by that meeting I used to follow his interviews and write ups, whenever possible.

When I came to know about this, I just questioned myself- What could possibly go wrong with a person who believed in healthy living? With a hope to answer myself I started thinking about his words and those rare interviews I followed.

NDTV once had an interview with Ranjan Das, where he clearly stated that three things should be followed to live long and healthy life, namely balanced diet, exercises and adequate sleep. And immediately he confessed that he is pretty good with first two but quite dishonest with the third. He was highly ambitious, a man who constantly sets new target for himself. In another interview, he shared his experience of running in Chennai Marathon and this was his comment, “My initial goal was to complete the race and then it was completing it in 70 mins. Later, when I saw I had set myself a good pace, I shifted the goal to 60 minutes and I achieved it too, along with another colleague.”

After brainstorming for a day or so, I was surprised to see how this great man passed a message even towards his end. I just thought of sharing it with you all as I guess we all need to learn it before things get out of our hand. I realized that his tragic death is in some way a ‘wakeup call’ for people like us, who think that we are wasting one third of our life just by napping, who think there is just one life and we must cash in each and every minute, who are relentlessly pushing their limits. In this era of competition, targets and deadlines we hardly realize that we are simply pushing our limits. Do we in the hustle bustle of our life give a moment’s thought to realize that by doing so we are just wiping away few years from our life, those years which otherwise we could enjoy with our dear ones.

Multitasking is the “new – age” mantra which we all live by, even aspiring to become an expert at it, someone who others can emulate. It reminds me of the jewellery add where the mother is on the phone, at the computer, in the kitchen, helping her child with his schoolwork all in the same breath and may I add effortlessly. Makes one think whether it’s just one of those ads or is it the true reflection of the immensely high pressured lives that we are all leading. And it doesn’t surprise me that same is passing on to the younger generations. Day in and day out, all we strive for is being a thorough professional, an obedient son/daughter, a great partner, an excellent parent…..unfortunately the list goes on and on. We just want to be the best in whatever we do and strive only to achieve our set target, but always at the cost of our emotional, psychological and physical well being. And the worst part is that we hardly acknowledge this fact.

This realization was, certainly a ‘wake up’ call for me and hopefully will be for you, who are reading this. Now would be a good time to start giving meaning and precedence to terms like- quality of work life, work life balance and stress management. It is unfortunate that we use these terms merely as conversation fillers and never actually have focused on them. Well, here focusing, I guess should not be just limited to a goggling of the latest work life balance articles and watching some videos on ‘you tube’ followed by discussions with your colleagues on how the company/boss/wife/driver are disturbing you’re not so perfect life, which otherwise could have been perfect. Genuine focusing is far beyond all these. It’s going ahead and executing things in such a way that by end of the day you get some time to be with yourself to understand – what you really are? When you understand yourself, you’ll get and insight of your feelings, your wishes and your priorities. For example if being happy is your priority, you’ll gradually fix on a schedule where in you get more time for your hobbies; if being with your family is your priority, you’ll schedule your work accordingly.

So in case you are in the mood for some introspection and have your thinking cap on, probably these points will help you get started on planning a better lifestyle. If not, at least might help you realize where you are right now.

Is being healthy all about eating right and exercising? Isn’t it also about being happy and living?

Is it all about meeting your deadlines? Isn’t it also about enjoying the experience of meeting deadlines?

Is it all about winning the trophy? Isn’t it also about treasuring the moment?

Is it all about gifting your wife a set of diamond? Isn’t it also about making her feel special every time she is with you?

Is it all about paying school fee of your child? Isn’t it also about holding his hand and enjoying first ‘A’ of his life?

Is it all about helping your old parents with finances? Isn’t also about holidaying with them?

“It is true that we all just have one life to make a mark but my friends it is also a reality that we just have one life to be with our near and dear ones “

So, we better stop chasing our tail and start living.

Changing Role of Trade Unions in India

parasar — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:30:37 +0000

The only thing constant in today’s world is change. Indian Trade Unions also went through major changes and each time evolved with a bit stronger prospect. Here, we’ll can see changing roles of Trade Union in India, starting with Industrial Revolution followed by social welfare era, freedom movement, collective bargaining and finally a brief on present status. Industrial Revolution and Trade Union Existence TU are voluntary organizations of workers formed to promote and protect interest of working class through collective actions. In India the TU movement emerged sometime between 1850s and 1870s. Trade Union as an organization was born out the industrial revolution. Unions were formed mainly to protect the workers against those who could harm their interests. In early phase of industrialization working class was unorganized and exploited beyond imagination. Factory production began in India in the early part of 1960s. The objectives hen was to export the manufactured goods to markets in Britain. These factories were set up in the port of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras to facilitate export. Bombay for textile and Calcutta for jute. Supply was labour was abundant, which raised competition for jobs among workers. This competition depressed the wage rates and provided total power to employers. During the colonial rule, government interference existed generally to help the employers in their dealing with the workers. These Exploitation provoked formation of unions. Trade Union and Social Welfare In early 1980s the miserable conditions of textile workers in Bombay provoked few social workers to pressurize government to improve working conditions of workers, which forced the government to pass the first Factories Act in 1881 stating about work timings and rest hours but ignored wage regulations. In 1890, N M Lokhanday first formed an Association and named it Bombay Mill hand ( which was not a trade union but was the first union). Then came many organizations with the objective of social welfare, spreading literacy among workers and redress grievance with constitutional method. The collective bargaining was missing in that era. Freedom Movement, Collective bargaining, Politics and Trade Union Then comes the era of growth when leadership of unions were passed from the hands of social workers to the hands of politicians and freedom fighters. This is also the era when collective bargaining was introduced and Trade Unions Act was passed. This era started immediately after First World War. In 1920, the All India Trade Union Congress was formed under the chairmanship of Lala Lajpat Rai.The formation of AITUC made colonial government more cautions in dealing with the labour and they passed the fouth Factories Act to control the unrest. In 1926, the Trade Union Act was also passed. A) Freedom Movement , Politics and Trade Union AITUC was supported by national leaders like sardar Vallabhbhai Patel,Mahatma Gandhi, J.L Nehru, Gulzarilal Nanda and many others from Indian National Congress. Trade Unions played a major role in freedom movement. Leaders of major TUs were also freedom fighters so mass strength was always there. Two wars were going on simultaneously, one the fight for right and justice to working class and another for freedom from colonial rule. Members of TUs become followers of freedom fighters and contributed to freedom struggle remarkably. In a democracy politicians need the support of the masses. Working people being strong vote banks, political parties began to depend on trade union. Trade Union felt that if they aligned with political parties particularly the ruling party, they would , they would be better able to defend their members’ interest. This also holds a negative side as TUs in India has been allied to one or the other political party, TU rivalries have become more sharp in free India.The splitting up of union and formation of new union having sympathies with political partied have been common. Economical Difficulties have become testing time for the critical alliance between trade union and political parties with mounting tensions between the two ( CPM and CITU care in West Bengal) B) Collective Bargaining and Trade Union Collective Bargaining is opposite of individual bargaining, it is the technique that has been used by unions and management to reconcile their conflicting interest. This is collective because here employees act as a group and selects a representative to discuss differences with the employer. First Collective Bargaining agreement was concluded in 1920 by Mahatma Gandhi to regulate labour management relation in the textile industry of Ahmadabad. Since then it has been a hit. Present Status of TU in India TUs have achieved a remarkable status where their voices are heard by the govt and employers, they are consulted on various matters related to interests of labours. At present there are 12 Central trade Unions in India. But Trade Uniond in India are still largely leaders led and structure for decision making is missing. Due to rapid advancement in technology and growing global competition TU will need to develop appropriate structure and be more democratic. Conclusion: TUs have helped to make what’s today a better work place by playing various roles at various stages be it of a social worker, lawyer, collective bargaining representative or a politician. But scope for improvement and development is always there as change is the only constant.

Go Back To Love, Go Back To Life!

parasar — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:49:15 +0000

The only difference between you and me is that you are leading your life with question marks (?) and I am using comma (,) in search of a full stop (.). As always, now also I’ll say that life is beautiful, it’s a paradise.

Perhaps you all are far more matured than me, far more intelligent than what I am. You might have seen life and lived life much more than me as that whatever I’ll write now, you’ll find it known and read, but at time recalling or revising is not a bad idea, I guess!!

In life we all assume that there are certainly few people, who’ll never let us down, who’ll probably never break our trust but at times they do let us down and shatter our trust. That’s the time when we face life with a broken heart. We argue with ourselves and our attitude in turn break other’s heart and their trust on us. We sit back and cry but rarely do we realize that life is just flying by. My dear this post is just to remind us few things we always believed in, few thing we always accepted as a part of yus, few things that life forced us to erase and few things that we denied to acknowledge.

In everyone’s life a time comes when we just want to sit back and relax, we want to lay our head on someone’s shoulder and sleep in peace, we look for love. But my dear, we’ll never ever find love if we try to find it. It does not require words to float. All it requires is time to spend and feelings to feel. I always say – it’s better to wait for the cooked food rather than in taking uncooked stuff.

At times it happens that the person we love may not love us in return or the person we love the most might walk out of our life one day and then we’ll say ‘love hurts’. During this time 95% of people detest love and say- “I would never fall in love again, it just gives pain and it hurts”. Here, life stops us from loving someone truly again and we look around for the safest bet. And in search of this safest bet we forget to live, to enjoy, and to smile. We involve ourselves solely just in making our life perfect, as Jhon Lenon once said “Life happens when we are busy making plans”. Life that we all want for us is something like the painting of the painter who is trying to paint it with color of life and is expecting that it’ll soon turn into reality.

Don’t you think that we are just like the dreamer who is trying to dream a perfect dream in return missing on his sleep? But this dreamer hardly realizes that a good sleep can lead him to his perfect dream.

We all know that true love is divine as almighty, innocent as a kid’s smile and pure as our mom’s blessing. Then, why do we allow circumstances to push us away from it.

It’s true that we don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it, but it’s also true that we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives. Let your past go, just don’t hold it back and open a new window for fresh air, trust me you’ll say “life is beautiful”.

When I was a kid my dad used to tell me “the happiest people are those who just make the most of everything that comes along their way not those who have best of everything”…I still believe that may dad is aware of the secret.

All I want to say is that dream what you want to dream, sleep where you want to sleep, hug whom you want to hug, speak what you want to speak……. Life will always give you a second chance but you would never get this life second time to give you that second chance…… J

That Mango Tree.

parasar — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:40:57 +0000

When I look back I see two great friends, you and me,
Sitting under that huge mango tree,
That was the time when we were simply free,
But never imagined that time will just flee.

You in your yellow shorts and I in my pink frock,
Sitting over that grey rock,
Always wondering, how many birds are there in the flock?
I say six and you start counting all the docks,
Just to prove that I have a mental block.

Do you remember those wee hours of morning?
We used to gear up for our swimming classes,
Always so happy to go all the way cycling,
And feel so proud of ourselves while overtaking slow moving buses.

Have no count on the number of classes we missed,
Soon, all our teachers got annoyed and pissed;
Our casual studies continued to persist,
Finally with little notes on all subjects we managed to subsist.

Without much effort we somehow passed class tenth,
And there again we were together in eleventh,
Soon we cleared exam of twelfth,
And just like that our school life went.

Those were the days of unending chaffer,
Everyone named us, rumormonger,
Surprisingly, we were too happy with this new advert,
And jubilantly with more yarn we, revert.

I still remember your first crush,
While taking his name you simply blush,
When he use to enter class, immediately you hush,
I always wondered about the reason behind your real mush.

But next year was not same,
As we moved to attain different aims;
I went for my graduation in management,
You decided to stay back and look for assignments.

And after that when we actually met,
We discovered that now we have different mindset;
Things which were right to you were wrong to me,
And soon it become ‘you’ and ‘I’ instead of ‘ We’.

For first time in life, we had a real variance,
I thought we’ll soon overcome it with our invariance,
Little did I knew that I was wrong,
And soon I realized that it’s all gone.

Somewhere inside this world’s blare,
I am missing that Mango tree out there,
I know for me you still care,
Just wanted to ask, are you there?

A new lark

parasar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:02:37 +0000

Ages went by, I waited for him,

He came in, twice or thrice but only in dreams;

Hope was there but scope was little,

In front of God, heart still cuittles.

I waited for him, over the same old road,

I was tired but something always goads;

It says wait for him, he’ll come one day,

And I waited with a hope that one day with my name he’ll add his cay.

Years passed but he never arrived,

Only I know, how I survived;

But with each year I thrived,

And suddenly I revived.

That was the year, I met you,

For me you were too new;

Your unending crazy whim,

Soon made me move out of him;

Now, life is just fresh like morning dew,

I have no clue, in between when our friendship grew;

I don’t care you are Hindu or Jew,

I just want to be your glue.

Soon you too felt the spark,

Somewhere there in your heart I made the mark;

Together we drew our life’s arc

And there starts a new lark.

My view on life

parasar — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:29:32 +0000

Life is a jaunt for me till date. I love exploring life at every phase. Karma, super natural power, colors, auras, numbers, attractions and all other things that help in solving life’s mystery interests me. Life has always been a mystery for me and I am sure for many others. Once I tried to solve mystery of life and found that I failed far before I actually started solving it. Curiosity forced many noble souls to discover secret of life, know the truth of life or you can say face life personally. As far as I know, only one person killed this distance between human and life to some extent by questioning the purpose and significance of human existence. He was Swami Vivekananda. He invested his entire life just in search of life and its existence. One lifetime for search of life’s meaning, amazing!!! But guess, one lifetime was not enough. Hope all philosophical and scientific researchers will come out with something vital soon. Opps!! I am getting too philosophical now. But truth is that I have always been philosophical. I believe that mankind is blessed with immense power and senses with help of which we can make the unexpected happen. But we can’t really practice them or realize this potential. To gain this authority of exploring our own senses and power we have to refine our souls, actually we are too messed up to acquire something so pure.

Slowly and surely we all will turn our intangible dreams into tangible assets.

Almighty bless us all J