An Age Old Rant - Rahul Manglik

The problem of national language continues to plague India even today.It stings a lot to know that ENGLISH is mainly used
as a language through which entire INDIA remains connected. I mean people from
different states use English to communicate with each other...Even after 60+
years of independence we are not able to have a national language which can
unite everyone on a common platform
While the issues of ‘official language’ and ‘minority/majority languages are obviously determined by processes of the state, it is also necessary to note the evolution of languages themselves as parts of societal change. And, it is as important to see languages as modes of communalism as to note that they are also systems of misunderstanding. Thus, the linguistic problem has to be addressed at various levels: inters-group, inter-group; as elements of discourse and as barriers in social-cultural interaction.It hurts to know that we are dependent
on a foreign language to lead our lives in
different parts of our country. The thing which hurts even more is that a
person is looked down upon when he is not able to communicate properly in
English which is a foreign language in front of a group of people who have
their mother tongue as HINDI/TAMIL/TELUGU/OTHERS....

Why is it so????Why a person is considered to be
an illiterate if he doesn't know English??

Let’s respect our mother tongue first and then let’s
talk in English. 

P.S.:-I felt like writing this article in Hindi
but sadly, everyone in INDIA is not united by a common language and moreover we should always keep in mind while selecting our national language that "If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow"

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Is University worth it? - Jamie Dunn

Why can’t graduates get jobs?

Are there so many unemployed graduates because of the lack of jobs, or is it
because they aren’t equip properly for the world of work?

It’s a strange state of affairs when young people are paying £9,000 to get
higher educated, but then coming into a market-place where there are no job
opportunities. From an employer’s point of view, I think that these graduates
miss the vital part of the educational puzzle, experience. Education is geared
towards the theoretical side of learning, but employers want to see that there is
more to the individual than just a bunch of pass papers.
From a young person’s view, how can graduates gain experience when
employers aren’t prepared to offer them the opportunity to?
I think that the solution can be found at different levels, Universities need to start
incorporating more experiential learning and encouraging the students to go out
and seek opportunities rather than to rely on the qualification to do all the work
for them. It would be great to see Universities place more focus upon introducing
students to employers on a simple, friendly networking level. It’s a real cliché,
but as the old saying proceeds, it’s sometimes who you know, not what you
know.
Students should be prepared to volunteer and show employers that they are
worth employing based upon the experience that they have learned about
the business whilst in the volunteering stage. This is also a great opportunity
to show off your skills whilst in a real, practical environment and show some
results that will impact the organization that you are currently volunteering
with.
Businesses can start working with graduates more whilst they are still studying
and start equipping them with the skills that they need upon graduating because
then that way businesses have the chance to hand pick the best talent and start
training them for their organization before they even finish University.

This situation can get better and it will get better if each industry starts
speaking to each other and communicating because at the end of the day, it’s in
everybody’s interests to do so.

- Jamie Dunn (www.jamie-dunn.com)
  Entrepreneur | International Speaker | Coulumnist

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All By Themselves

The nuclear disaster caused by the Tohoku tsunami at the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant has led to confusion, governmental fumbling, and months with no cleanup. Now, the Fukushima Prefectural government, in collaboration with the Japanese Society of Radiation Safety Management, is giving residents instructions on how to do their own cleanup, and recommending that they do so. Seriously? DIY nuclear cleanup? Apparently so, because the Prefecture has published guidelines:

Fukushima Prefecture’s guidelines recommend wearing a hat, face mask, gloves, waterproof boots, long-sleeved shirt and long pants to lessen external and internal exposure, and experts add that the garb should be disposable.

When decontamination efforts involve use of water, the guideline advises rain gear and eye protection, plus a helmet and safety line when cleaning roofs.

The Prefecture has spent five months trying to come up with a plan that gets residents safely involved in the cleanup from the nuclear disaster, while accepting responsibility for some of the more dangerous work such as roof cleaning and trimming of tall trees.

But people pull plants out of yards and gardens, reducing Cesium-134 contamination simply by disposing of the plants that contain it. How does one “dispose of” radioactive plants, soil, and rocks? Bag it all in plastic and bury it in a hole with at least 20-30 cm of layers of tarps and soil. Eventually, the municipalities will pick up the buried material and move it to landfills, whence it will eventually go to a “secure” location.

The government is hoping for a 10% reduction in over-all contamination, but rainfall and cesium-134 half-life degradation of about two years should create a 40%-60% reduction, without any human help, in the same areas people are attempting cleanup.

One scientist said that the government seems to be simply waiting for nature to do the work, but giving homeowners make-work in the meantime. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, just what the Japanese federal government is playing at. One wonders whether the federal government of the USA would have any better plan when such a nuclear disaster occur at a US power plant.

Chuck Larlham

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It's Serious Wake-Up Call !

The streets are not safe for many teens in London due to youth violence. Young people never know who might be carrying a knife. “Carrying a knife is for protection, that’s why they do it,” says Benjamin Akande who was threatened at close range with a knife by another youth before. Akande is one of 90 teens gathered at City Hall from areas with the highest youth crime rates in London to discuss youth violence. This group was assembled by Mayor Boris Johnson and the Metropolitan Police.

Knife Crimes

In 2008, 22 young people were killed due to knife violence in London. With just 8 teen knife homicides in 2011, the number of deaths has definitely declined. This decline serves as a metric that the mayor and police have used to take credit for improvement.

However, Trauma Surgeon Duncan Bew poses the possibility that the decline in youth killed in knife violence has to do with the increased practice the hospital is receiving in severe wounds caused by knives. In fact, knife crime overall is up by 11%. “There is no doubt that some patients are surviving who would not have done so before we improved our trauma service,” Bew says.

Next Steps

At this meeting with London’s youth, government officials explained new mandatory custodial sentences for all 16- and 17-year-olds found carrying knives. The youth in attendance support these harsher penalties in general, but aren’t convinced that this is the solution. Teenagers suggested more youth centers and greater regard for young people’s opinions as solutions.

Hopefully, this event will not be the only one of its kind. This youth violence affects everyone in the community including law enforcement, health professionals, and city officials in one way or another. However, the biggest and most immediate impact is on youth themselves. Any help youth can offer to help professionals understand the thought process of other young people is a step closer to a solution.

Sania Gulati

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How To Make A Habit Of Succeeding?

Success is not a property owned by some specific group of people. In fact success belongs to those who are passionate about achieving excellence in whatever they do. Your key to personal success is through building a dynamic purpose. Purpose differs from goals, for purpose is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – the ideal that we seek.

Once we attain success in one endeavor, we look forward to another and again another which is still ahead of us. The key to any personal success is to have a definite purpose. People mostly go by the popular notion that happiness depends on external circumstances consisting of people like friends, superiors, relatives, colleagues and public apart from surroundings like temples, churches, mosques, playgrounds, cinema halls etc. In reality, we derive happiness through internal conviction, determined by character that is the direct result of this purpose.

The key to any personal success is in finding the power of purpose. More than 80 percent of the students studying in schools and colleges do not know the importance of the goals and this part of education is rarely imparted to them by their teachers, parents or elders.

Even though they are studying in their educational institutions, in order to attain the purpose – i.e. acquiring one educational qualification, instead of attaining the purpose through step by step goals, they are in the habit of wasting much of their time in undesirable activities. The purpose cannot be achieved or attained immediately and it is possible to reach the target or purpose only through achievement of goals by living each moment.

The purpose can be treated as long term vision whereas goals are short term achievements. Each moment with us should be allocated with some goals like going to the shop to purchase some goods; visiting the bank; attending to a patient and listening to music or a lecture etc. In other words, any activity planned for an achievement or performance can be defined as a goal and any activity performed without any purpose or goal can be defined as “deviation from goals”.

How goals can change our life style? The personal success is achieved through establishing a goal and the goals are concrete; measurable and related to a definite period. Everybody should fix his mind on the purpose with persistence and should take steps to search for that which he seeks, making use of all the accumulated knowledge and education which he already has or acquired from others. In fact, during every moment of attaining a goal, the individual enjoys a sense of achievement which in turn acts like an elixir for further course of action.

The success of the so called entrepreneurs, scientists and administrators is on account of their characters developed through “positive” habits towards achieving tiny goals leading to their long term purposes or targets.

Gauri Sankar

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