Sunday Posts

There is some kind of consensus that education has a social role: Even those who subscribe to Margaret Thatcher's view 'there is no such thing as society' believe that education creates productive workers which help businesses and lift GDP. So, what role education should play in a society is not left-wing indulgence, but rather a pertinent discussion which everyone should join in. This is particularly relevant in India for several reasons. Those who are in love with GDP growth, that is most people in India, frame the discussion in predictable terms: 10 million new workers are joining Indian workforce every year and the country has to equip them to be productive. In this straightforward formation, if India does this, all other social challenges will go away. Even any casual observer will appreciate the limitations of this view: Indian businesses and institutions have greater challenges to scale than hospitality workers speaking poor English. And, in that broader perspe...

I have been touring India for last three weeks promoting an education aimed at bridging the education-to-employment gap. This is a persistent problem that we notice in the West: That universities are all designed to serve themselves, promoting abilities and attitudes in their best students which serve their own ends, best students do best becoming an university professor. The businesses, whose requirements are different, often have to retrain the people they require, and it is very difficult for them to make their voice heard in the curriculum and teaching in the university. One of the solutions to this problem, therefore, is project-based learning, where the employers and educators are brought together in a common endeavour, where practical work counts as much towards the degree as academic excellence.  At the outset, India has this problem of the severest kind. Every employer seems to complain that they are not able to find people they need. The education institutions are o...

India was to be, as Nehru told André Malraux, 'a just society by just means'.  67 years on, as we seek to redefine India, we should return this vision. It is the time to make a fresh start perhaps, as we haven't achieved a just society and lost sight of the just means - and indeed, any appetite, as it seems, for such grand imagination. But that should precisely be the reason to reimagine! Ideas such as these are often laughed at, as rhetoric that means nothing. Yet, here is a poor illiterate country, which instituted a liberal democracy, and managed to hold together despite its diversity and difference. One must be conscious of its many failings, but this should not undermine what India has achieved. The current ruling generation, which has seen none of the privations of colonialism nor made any sacrifices, may want to mock the struggles Indians waged, but such ignorance can only lead to a return of history and continued dependence. Ideas such as these, successful...

In the last few weeks, I travelled to several cities in India talking to employers, listening to their plans and concerns about people hiring. I got some numbers - it is evident that they are hiring people in thousands - and I also realised how hard it is to do so. I met some of these employees, bright ones, and listened to their aspirations and how employers help and do not help them in furthering their careers. This was not one neat piece of market research, I was not going around with some kind of questionnaire in hand, but rather a series of overlapping conversations. However, they collectively give me an idea on what's happening in India, though this perspective is limited to the middle class, 'white collar' jobs. Admittedly, my engagements were actually quite specific. It was, first of all, limited to certain industries, those which could be serviced by the new kind of Higher Education I am engaged in. The agenda was narrow - I wanted these employers to partner ...

It rained heavily while I waited to board my flight at Pune's Lohegaon airport. It is only a short walk to the plane, but it was the kind of downpour that won't allow even those few steps. The ground staff, who can't but be out and about, were struggling even with their big, workmen-like umbrellas. My cheap folding umbrella, a companion I learnt to keep while living in London, has to remain safely tucked away: This rain is just too mighty for its makers to have imagined. So I waited in the erratic queue ful of busy-looking people, for the bus to do the one minute ride, which the bus was doing, with all its elaborate maneuver around the plane and along the pre-set routes, once in every fifteen minutes. That's when I started writing this post - partly to get around boredom, but also to remember this smell, the smell that comes from such rain. It may be my imagination - in fact, must be my imagination - that I was smelling the wet soil even through all the mixture of fue...

My weekend, spent boringly in Bangalore, was about catching up on some readings and watching some TED videos, including this fascinating talk by Malcolm Gladwell. In fact, this made me so interested that I ended up watching his longer talk at Google (below) which covers the same ground and more. In fact, this next talk highlighted one more issue close to my heart, which is, when you are at a disadvantage, you need to learn to play a different game. Indeed, this comes from the story of Vivek Ranadive, recounted here in this second talk, and this has profound implications, or so I think, for what I do. Without saying much more about Gladwell except that I shall surely read his book next (and recommend everyone to see his profile on CBS by Anderson Cooper), let me try to summarise what I am learning from all these discussions. My obsession remains with how to educate someone who did not have the advantage of a selective education so that s/he can live a productive and happy ...

I decided to write a personal note almost for the record, my own record, so if I ever look back on these blog posts several years later, this will serve as a bookmark: This is where and how my thinking changed, it would record. Not that I have done anything truly significant, but more than a week in India and I have started feeling comfortable with it. I am engaging with India with more substantial intent this time than before, and the nature of my engagement is also slightly different: Hence, it matters. Despite being Indian, and a frequent visitor, every time I come to India, it takes time to adjust. This is nothing to do with the country, which indeed remains the same, but it is me - every time I go back, nostalgia and memories overlap with reality, justifications mellow down experiences, afterthoughts make emotions benign. So, every time I walk out of the airport, I bring an image of a country with me, which must go through a series of interactions to get real. This happened ...