Road to self-discovery

While assignments were taxing, life at Georgia Tech had its moments of camaraderie, writes Amritha Ram

Travelling to the U.S. to pursue an undergraduate degree seems unconventional to many, and I don’t think my parents believed that I was brave enough to live by myself in another country until the day I told them I wanted to pay the admissions deposit to the Georgia Institute of Technology. That was when they finally realised that I was truly determined to learn what that obscure word ‘independence’ meant. I have never looked back since, because after completing my first year at Georgia Tech, I have no doubts that this university will mould me into a better and more confident person.

All-nighters

I am a Computer Science major at the university and one of the reasons I chose to study abroad is that I will always have options if I am unsure of what I want to study, something that is not possible as an engineering student in India.

This helped me out a great deal, as I was initially indecisive with two to three options to pursue as majors crossing my mind. Georgia Tech was considered to be one of the most difficult universities to handle in terms of workload, and I understand now that those views aren’t just rumours. As students, we are pushed to give of our best and there’s no settling for second best. The tests are hard and when we’re given four assignments in one week, there’s a special kind of hopelessness we feel, but the sense of accomplishment that follows once we’re past all the all-nighters is incomparable.

The system of education is built on hands-on learning. I’ve met many people who’ve built robots and sophisticated programs during their very first year, and you don’t see that in many colleges around the world. I like that this institution makes me test my own limits and makes me do things which at first I’m almost certain I cannot do.

Moreover, it is not to be taken lightly that the U.S. is the land of opportunity, as I have been exposed to more opportunities in a year than I could imagine. Attending career fairs and ‘Tech Talks’ by world-renowned Fortune 500 companies gives every student the chance to meet recruiters and see what their future could be. This kind of exposure to the real-world application of science and engineering is exactly what I think will help me choose my field of interest and expertise over the coming semesters.

Life in Atlanta

One of the things that make this university so special is that it is in the heart of the city of Atlanta, but once you’re on campus it feels like you’re in this little bubble, away from the bustle of city life. There are so many things right on the edge of campus, like the Coca-Cola headquarters, the Georgia Aquarium and Skyview Atlanta, a Ferris wheel ride that gives you the most breathtaking view of Atlanta you will ever see. I lived in a freshman dorm for my first year and had a roommate who was born and raised in the USA. It made living together really interesting since we were from vastly different cultures and we often laughed about the misconceptions each culture has about the other. When it all gets overwhelming and seemingly impossible, there is always someone to pick you up and tell you the favourite catchphrase: “You’re at Georgia Tech. You can do that!” I can only hope that the next three years will be just as incredible as the one that has just passed.

Keywords: Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

Oct 15 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

'India has just 3% of global middle class'

Kounteya Sinha

London:





Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2014 released on Tuesday said that there are one billion adults at present who belong to the middle class, with wealth in the range of $10,000 ­ $100,000.However, according to the report, India has just 3% of the global middle class, and that share has changed very little during the past decade.
In contrast, China's share of the middle class has doubled since 2000 and now covers one-third of the global membership, 10 times the share of India. Presently India has 31.4 million middle class households (160 million individuals). The report said that the total global household wealth increased in current dollar terms to $263 trillion, or $56,000 per adult in the world, an all-time high for average net worth.
Aggregate household wealth has more than doubled since the start of the millennium from $117 trillion in 2000 to $263 trillion in mid-2014. Over the same period, personal wealth in India and China has risen by a factor of 3.1% and 4.6% respectively . Allowing for the rise in the adult population, global net worth per adult has increased by 77% from 2000, an average growth rate of 4.3% per annum. While wealth has been rising strongly in India, and the ranks of the middle class and wealthy have been swelling, not everyone has shared in this growth. This is reflected in the fact that 95% of the adult population has wealth below $10,000.
A very small proportion of the population (just 0.3%) has a net worth over $100,000.
However, due to India’s large population, this translates into 2.4 million people. India has 238,000 members in the top 1% of global wealth holders, which equates to a 0.5% share. India will also see a 61% increase in the number of millionaires between 2014 and 2019 – from 182 now to 294. For the first time this year, over 400 million adults globally have wealth above $100,000, against 217 million at the start of the century.

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Content

Vol-XLiX No 41 October 11, 2014

No Magic Broom

Vol - XLIX No. 41, October 11, 2014 

• Editorials

The Swachh Bharat campaign has failed to understand why there is dirt.

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• 0 Comments

Editorials Racism in India Racism is at the core of the assault on three African students in the Delhi Metro. Read more	Margin Speak BJP's 'Hindu' Model Anand Teltumbde The Sangh Parivar had better understand that their "Hindu" model is never going to work. The more they drive their supremacist project, the more they would alienate people. Read more
Commentary I, a Manual Scavenger, Not Your Vote Bank Dhamma Darshan Nigam The world of manual scavenging is informed by caste, patriarchy, filth and humiliation. Their only source of "power" comes from politicians considering them a vote bank; yet, without truly understanding their lives, aspirations, and... Read more	Commentary Recent Changes in Labour Laws An Exploratory Note Anamitra Roychowdhury This article explores the possible implication of amending the Contract Labour Act, 1970 and questions the rationale behind amending the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Read more
Commentary 'Final Reports' under Sec-498A and the SC/ST Atrocities Act Sthabir Khora The failure by the police to file a First Information Report is the subject of much debate but the Final Report by which a case is closed has received scant attention. This article reflects on the findings following a study of 100 Final Reports... Read more	Commentary Science, Society and Risk in the Anthropocene Nutan Maurya The culture of too much hygiene in rapid, unplanned urbanising society with poor infrastructure exposes urban spaces to a particular risk brought about by unchecked use of technology. This article looks at the indiscriminate use of antibiotics... Read more
Commentary Time to Reform the Central Government Health Scheme Manoj Grover The Central Government Health Scheme provides health services to three million government employees, pensioners and their dependents with the second being the fastest growing segment. However, a scheme that started with a lot of promise has got... Read more	Commentary Professor Bipan Chandra (1928-2014) Sabyasachi Bhattacharya Few historians of modern India have had as much widespread influence as did Bipan Chandra. A popular and engaged teacher, history research and writing was never a dispassionate exercise for him. His contributions to Marxist and nationalist... Read more
Commentary Exemplary Teacher Who Left Behind a School of Thought V Krishna Ananth Bipan Chandra's contribution to the historiography of Indian nationalist thought was decisive and unparalleled. A scholar who saw immense value in a Marxist reading of history, his sorties into India's post-1947 political history laid him... Read more	Book Reviews Understanding the Indian Economy Indira Rajaraman India's Evolving Economy: Puzzles and Perspectives by A Vaidyanathan (Delhi: Academic Foundation), 2014; pp 348, Rs 1,195, hardback. Read more
Book Reviews Long View of Developing Countries in the World Economy Vivek Chibber Catch Up: Developing Countries in the World Economy by Deepak Nayyar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2014; pp xi + 221, Rs 695. Read more	Perspectives Where Is the Magazine? Indian Semi-Fascism and the Left Bernard D'Mello Following the ascendancy of Hindutvavadi nationalism over its "secular" counterpart, and a majority, Modi-led government in power at the centre, semi-fascism is in the making in a milieu characterised by monstrous class polarisation, a... Read more
Special Articles Testing Chastity, Evidencing Rape Impact of Medical Jurisprudence on Rape Adjudication in India Durba Mitra, Mrinal Satish Protests following the 16 December 2012 gang rape in Delhi led to reform of rape laws in India. Through a detailed analysis of the history of medical jurisprudence textbooks and their use in case law, this paper argues that these textbooks... Read more	Special Articles Quran as Discourse Engineer’s Case for a Politics of Liberation Nazeer A Majeed In his reading of the Quran, Asghar Ali Engineer emphasises the egalitarian promise of politics in Islam. A truly Islamic politics is defined in terms of liberation of the underprivileged masses which, according to him, is part of the Quranic... Read more
Special Articles Arthashastra beyond Realpolitik The ‘Eclectic’ Face of Kautilya Deepshikha Shahi Kautilya's Arthashastra has increasingly become a source of intellectual inspiration for scholars particularly interested in exploring the possibilities of theorisation in Indian international relations. However, they mostly compare... Read more	Notes Silence of the Bengali Dalits of Barak Valley A Marxist Interpretation Ruman Sutradhar This article explores the nature and attributes of caste in the Barak Valley, situated in south Assam. It draws upon the Gramscian concept of hegemony and ideological domination to illustrate the silence of the Bengali dalits there. While caste... Read more

DU introduces environment studies as a compulsory course 

Delhi University (DU) has introduced a compulsory course in Environmental Studies for its undergraduate students. The course was mandated by UGC.

The course is being introduced in the current academic session, and studens can take it up wither in their first or second semesters. It will be a qualifying course and carry 100 marks for the three-year undergraduate programme.

“The evaluation for the course will be undertaken by the respective colleges who will later send the evaluated marks to the examination branch through the existing mechanism,” Prof Rup Lal, the DU Dean of Examinations, added in a circular to the principals.

While the course will be available only in English during the present session future sessions will introduce it in Hindi as well.

Directives were issued by the University Grants Commission to colleges and varsities all over India in 2004 as per a Supreme Court order for starting a six-month mandatory environmental science course.

However, the implementation of the course was delayed due to the time-consuming process of curriculum development and infrastructural upgrade, varsity officials said.

According to the teachers in the Environmental Science department, it is important for the students to have a knowledge about what is happening to the earth and its resources.

Ecosystems, renewable and non-renewable natural resources, biodiversity and conservation, pollution, environmental policies and practices, exploitation of mineral, land, water resources and deforestation will be among the subjects covered as part of the course.

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/10/delhi-university-introduces-environment-studies-as-a-compulsory-course/#sthash.3rCNUDYk.dpuf

The freedom to marry

The move from decriminalising homosexuality to granting legal status to gay marriages may seem a simple and logical step. After all, the quintessentially liberal principle is that all people ought to be treated with equal respect and without discrimination in every matter. This dictum would apply equally to the question of marital preferences as with sexual orientation. But contemporary history tells a more complex story. The United States Supreme Court last week gave assent to same-sex marriages in five States. It did so by declining to hear challenges to earlier appeals to court rulings. Since the relevant circuit courts also have jurisdiction in six more States, the latest decision is in effect expected to allow marriages among homosexuals in a majority of States — 30 of them. This seeming surge in political and judicial support is a far cry from the situation that existed just a decade ago. Thirteen States amended their constitutions in 2004 to ban same-sex marriages, reacting to Massachusetts’s move to allow them. They were echoing the spirit of the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defined the institution of marriage as a union between man and woman. It further authorised States that banned such marriages to withhold recognition to gay couples from other States where this was legal.

But then, two Supreme Court rulings last year repudiated the view that a world where gays and lesbians were wedlocked was an affront to heterosexual marriages — a view that was espoused by social conservatives and religious groups. In one ruling it struck down the 1996 legal provisions as being unconstitutional and violative of the Fifth Amendment protection of individual liberty, and denial of equal benefits to same-sex couples. In the other, the court nullified the ban on gay marriages in California, which, incidentally, was the first State to overturn the ban on inter-racial marriages in 1948. A number of States have since lifted the ban on same-sex marriages, including the five States that have now won the court’s backing. Globally, 17 countries — predominantly European ones, besides two from Latin America — have ended the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriages and consequent social and legal benefits. While The Netherlands was the first to do so in 2001, Britain, France and Brazil amended their laws suitably last year. Iceland’s Johanna Sigurdardottir was the world’s first openly lesbian Prime Minister, between 2009 and 2013, and was the country’s longest-serving member of Parliament. Freedom and equality, it is fairly obvious, eventually and inexorably lead to a gender-neutral stance on many social questions that may have been settled by convention in the past.

Keywords: Gay marriages, decriminalising homosexuality, same-sex marriages, US Supreme Court, homosexuals, social conservatives

Childhood, peace and development

The Nobel Peace prize for 2014 has been awarded to two South Asian activists in the field of child rights, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi. The first is a thoughtful and fearless teenager who, despite deadly opposition, lit a path to learning and liberation for girls in Pakistan. The second is a 60-year old campaigner from India who has worked to liberate children from the shackles of compulsory labour and bondage. In choosing them, the Nobel Committee may appear to have chosen unusually. Malala is, at 17, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever, and Mr. Satyarthi a relatively unknown name outside the region and his field of work. However, the Committee’s choice has been hailed as both bold and necessary. It has sought to underscore a crucial but widely disregarded prerequisite for development and peace in our times, namely, the responsibility of nations to provide the means of formal education, leisure, safety, and care for all children. As this year’s citation says, “It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation.” Growing up in the Swat Valley of Pakistan under the brute rule of religious bigots opposed to education for girls, Malala grasped the link between school education — and particularly education for girls — and larger social change early in life. How an outspoken child fought a public campaign for the right to education, surviving even an attempt on her life, is well known. She continues to lead the battle for girls’ education from her current location in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Satyarthi, a founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Campaign), has led the rescue of over 78,500 children from bondage. He gave shape to the Global March Against Child Labour, a coalition of national campaign groups. He too sees education as the key instrument for the liberation of children from poverty, exploitation and neglect. In his pioneering work on child labour and school education in India, the late political scientist Myron Weiner wrote: “Modern states regard education as a legal duty, not merely a right: parents are required to send their children to school, children are required to attend school, and the state is obliged to enforce compulsory education ... This is not the view held in India. Primary education is not compulsory, nor is child labour illegal.” The Nobel Peace Prize this year recognises the crucial links among child rights, labour, and school education and, in doing so, recognises one of the most fundamental prerequisites of a better tomorrow for millions of children everywhere.

Keywords: Nobel Peace prize, South Asian activists, child rights activists, Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi, girl education, child rights, child labour, Nobel Committee, Bachpan Bachao Andolan

Oct 14 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Work on taming firms gets Nobel in economics

Kounteya Sinha

London





French economist Jean Tirole, 61, won the Nobel Prize for Economics on Monday, “for his analysis of market power and regulation“. He is the third French man to be awarded with the prize for economics.Tirole said he was “incredibly surprised'' when he got the news about the award. “I first old my wife and mother. She's 90-yearold. I first asked her to sit before I told her the news,'' he said. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Tirole is one of the most influential economists of our time. “He has made important theoretical research contributions in a number of areas, but most of all he has clarified how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful firms.'' Many industries are dominated by a small number of large firms or a single monopoly . Left unregulated, such markets often produce socially undesirable results ­­ prices higher than those motivated by costs, or unproductive firms that survive by blocking the entry of new and more productive ones. From the mid-1980s, Tirole breathed new life into research on such market failures. His analysis of firms with market power provides a unified theory with a strong bearing on central policy questions: How should the government deal with mergers or cartels, and how should it regulate monopolies?
Before Tirole, researchers and policymakers sought general principles for all industries. They advocated simple policy rules like capping prices for monopolists and prohibiting cooperation between competitors, while permitting cooperation between firms with different positions.
Tirole showed theoretically that such rules may work well in certain conditions, but do more harm than good in others. Price caps can provide dominant firms with strong motives to reduce costs but may also permit excessive profits.
Cooperation on price setting within a market is usually harmful, but cooperation regarding patent pools can benefit everyone.The merger of a firm and its supplier may encourage innovation, but may also distort competition.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com