“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
Bertrand Russell
“अपनी अभिलाषित वस्तुओं में से कुछ के बिना रहना भी सुख का अनिवार्य हिस्सा है।”
बरट्रेंड रसेल
Tuesday, September 17, 2024
Quote of the Day September 17, 2024
Deep crisis
Farming is not paying & jobs are few and far between. Even meagerly paying govt jobs have the first preference among the youths in the working age over private-sector, contractual jobs.
In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, a group of young men in rural Maharashtra joked to me about their precarious situation. They are educated, they said, but unemployed and unmarried. That small group of men in their early to mid-thirties, from a small cotton-growing village, actually echoed the sentiments you come across in large swathes of India. Education — quality, English-medium education — is a ticket to jobs. Jobs are a ticket to finding good life partners. That unmarried, educated women from the countryside are reluctant to marry into farming households and move into other villages where life and living are not kosher is a fact that is starkly obvious. It is worse in regions suffering from climatic aberrations such as frequent floods or cyclical droughts. Their priority is to marry into families in small towns where their future husbands would have a steady government or private-sector job.
That explains the anger and anxiety prevailing in small towns and rural India, particularly among the country’s working-age population. Farming is not paying and jobs are few and far between. Even meagerly paying government jobs, with permanence and certainty, have the first preference among the youths in the working age over private-sector, contractual jobs.
Close to two million youths applied for 20,000-odd police constabulary positions in Maharashtra. Close to 4,00,000 people, which included 40,000 graduates and post-graduates, threw their hat in the ring last week in Haryana to bag contractual jobs for sweepers. The Indian IT firms have reportedly delayed onboarding of freshers, who have offer letters for more than two years.
Across rural India, rackets of providing job letters — and not actual jobs — to men to materialise marriages are on the rise. Gangs that fleece men and women with the promise of jobs and marriages have a free run. The less that is said about job examinations where the papers are always leaked the better. In the absence of meaningful employment, what is attracting young people is speculative investments: share market, FnO, rummy apps, easy loan apps, hundi markets, and traditional and digital gambling, among a range of other options, are gaining traction, particularly among the youth, owing to social media.
Unemployment is the elephant in the room. Unemployability is even worse.
As this column is being written, The Indian Express is running a series on how ‘skilled’ Indian workers recruited by foreign firms have left their employers scratching their heads over the lack of basic skills in these men who have ultimately been sacked and sent home. That India is sending men to Israel to take over jobs meant for Palestinians is a different story.
Unemployment, rural crisis, ecological devastation, rise of cronyism, breakdown in governance, death of universal values, increasing attacks and sexual assaults on women of all ages, widening of social and economic inequalities, religious bigotry, near-stagnant production and manufacturing, and political-criminal-contractor nexus in government contracts are all inter-connected and form what the historian, Adam Tooze, calls a “poly-crisis”.
Amidst all this tumult, the State’s political response to the economic and social conundrums seems to be a one-stop solution: direct cash transfers or monetary promises to constituencies that would help political parties keep the throne and momentarily tide over the crisis until the next one shows up. But things have come to a boil. The silence of the Indian elite, however, allows an unchecked run to self-appointed experts on YouTube with their 30-second reels, giving half-baked and preposterous gyaan on every issue under the sun. We perhaps need a resurrection of sanity and values within our institutions, a re-imagination to bring our national life on the tracks.
Jaideep Hardikar
Source: The Telegraph, Published 13.09.24, 07:25 AM
SBI Foundation Launches 3rd Asha Scholarship Program For Students
The SBI Foundation has launched the 3rd edition of its Asha Scholarship Program, which aims to help 10,000 deserving students from underprivileged backgrounds across India. This scholarship provides financial support to students who need assistance with their education costs, ensuring they can continue their studies.
What is the Asha Scholarship Program?
The Asha Scholarship Program was started in 2022 and offers scholarships to students from Class 6 up to the postgraduate level. The scholarships range from ₹15,000 to ₹20,00,000 per year, depending on the student’s needs and level of education.
Who can apply for the Scholarship?
The program has different categories for students based on their education level:
- School students
- Undergraduate students
- Postgraduate students
- Students at IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management)
Additionally, there is a special ‘Study Abroad’ scheme for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) students who want to pursue higher education overseas.
How can students apply?
Applications for the scholarship opened on August 16, 2024, and will remain open until October 1, 2024. Interested students can find more details about eligibility and apply through the official website: www.sbifashascholarship.org.
How has the Program Helped So Far?
Since the Asha Scholarship Program began, it has provided ₹3.91 crore in financial aid, helping 3,198 students across India. This has had a positive impact on making education more accessible to students who face financial barriers.
Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, the Chairman of SBI, emphasized that the Asha Scholarship Program aligns with the bank’s broader mission of offering services that go beyond banking. He also highlighted how the Asha Scholars will play a key role in contributing to India’s vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047 (Viksit Bharat).
Express View on women outnumbering men in medicine: Whole numbers, dark truths
As more women enter medicine, it is time to iron out systemic inadequacies, patriarchal mindsets.
One of the lacunae in the documentation of India’s medical history has been the fact that it covers little of the lives and struggles of women doctors. The journeys of Anandi Bai Joshi, Kadambini Ganguly or Haimabati Sen — some of India’s first female doctors — into popular consciousness might have been impeded by the fact that there were so few women who studied medicine in the late 19th-early 20th century that their stories got archived as exceptions. In the last decade though, this has shown a happy remedial tendency. Data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) shows an upward graph in the enrollment of women in medicine. For every 100 men, there were 100 women enrolled in medical colleges in 2020-21. This was an increase from 88 in 2011-12 per 100 men to 110 in 2019-20, with a slight dip during the pandemic. There have been other significant — and welcome — departures. More women are opting for what have, for long, been male bastions — cardiology, oncology, neurology.
This upsurge is a welcome alignment of aspiration and opportunity and the work of generations of attitudinal shift. Women are no longer willing to be thwarted by societal expectations of marriage and motherhood or the premium placed on care work at home, notwithstanding their professional qualifications. The AISHE data bears this out. From just seven women against 312 men in 2012-13 in cardiology, the number rose to 78 against 220 men in 2020-21. In oncology, there were just 29 women against 95 men in 2012-13, but in 2020-21, the figures stood at 116 women against 123 men. In neurology in 2012-13, there were nine women against 118 men, but in 2020-21, this grew to 78 women against 173 men.
However, despite the projection that almost half of Indian surgeons in the coming decade will be female, and as the R G Kar rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata has shown yet again, the system remains unprepared to receive women in its fold. Sexism in the classroom and the workplace, absence of basic facilities such as separate changing rooms and washrooms, inadequate security arrangements and little protection against violences large and small are all functions of a masculine imagination of the workplace. As more women enter medicine, this is an opportune moment to fix all that is broken. It could begin with more women in leadership roles who realise that it is not the late-night shifts that are the problem but the fact that women need to be worried about them in the first place.
Source: Indian Express, 17/09/24
What is helium and why is it used in rockets?
Two NASA astronauts aboard Boeing’s Starliner will stay on the International Space Station for months because of a faulty propulsion system whose problems included helium leaks.
Back on Earth, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, which finally launched on Tuesday, was delayed because of helium issues on ground equipment.
Past missions that have been affected by pesky helium leaks include ISRO’s Chandrayaan 2 and ESA’s Ariane 5.
Why do spacecraft and rockets use helium?
Helium is inert — it does not react with other substances or combust — and its atomic number is 2, making it the second lightest element after hydrogen. Rockets need to achieve specific speeds and altitude to reach and maintain orbit. A heavier rocket requires more energy, not only increasing fuel consumption but also needing more powerful engines, which are more expensive to develop, test, and maintain. Helium has a very low boiling point (– 268.9 degree Celsius), allowing it to remain a gas even in super-cold environments, an important feature because many rocket fuels are stored in that temperature range.
How is helium used in spacecraft?
Helium is used to pressurise fuel tanks, ensuring fuel flows to the rocket’s engines without interruption; and for cooling systems. As fuel and oxidiser are burned in the rocket’s engines, helium fills the resulting empty space in the tanks, maintaining the overall pressure inside.
Because it is non-reactive, it can safely mingle with the tanks’ residual contents.
Is it prone to leaks?
Helium’s small atomic size and low molecular weight mean its atoms can escape through small gaps or seals in storage tanks and fuel systems.
But because there is very little helium in the Earth’s atmosphere, leaks can be easily detected — making the gas important for spotting potential faults in a rocket or spacecraft’s fuel systems. The frequency of helium leaks across space-related systems, some engineers say, have highlighted an industry-wide need for innovation in valve design and more precise valve-tightening mechanisms.
Source: Indian Express, 14/09/24
Monday, September 02, 2024
Quote of the Day September 2, 2024
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
“मैं हिंसा पर आपत्ति उठाता हूं क्योंकि जब लगता है कि इसमें कोई भलाई है, तो ऐसी भलाई अस्थाई होती है; लेकिन इससे जो हानि होती है वह स्थायी होती है।”
मोहनदास करमचंद गांधी (1869-1948)
What is Whitetopping Technology?
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in India is proposing a new policy to repair and upgrade old national highways using a method called Whitetopping Technology. MoRTH is asking for feedback on this idea from stakeholders by September 7. This policy is needed because many parts of India’s national highways, which cover about 1.46 lakh km, are aging and require improvement.
Definition of Whitetopping Technology
Whitetopping is a process where a layer of Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) is placed on top of existing bituminous ( asphalt) roads. This technique is especially useful for roads that have ongoing problems due to poor drainage. Whitetopping has already been used successfully in various government projects, such as the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), and cities like Bengaluru.
Benefits of Whitetopping
Whitetopping offers several advantages compared to traditional asphalt overlays:
Longer Lifespan: It can extend the life of a road by 20-25 years.
Less Maintenance: Roads require fewer repairs and less frequent lane closures.
Cost-Effective: Although the initial cost is higher, the long-term savings from reduced maintenance make it a smart investment.
Environmental Benefits: The lighter color of concrete reflects more light, helping to cool urban areas and reduce the heat island effect.
Better Performance: Whitetopping is more resistant to common road issues like deformation, rutting, and cracking, especially in hot climates.
Improved Fuel Efficiency: Vehicles use less fuel when driving on concrete roads compared to asphalt roads.
MoRTH is actively seeking input from various stakeholders to fine-tune the proposed policy and ensure it is implemented effectively. Gathering feedback is important to address any practical challenges and make this innovative approach to highway maintenance successful.
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