Lessons from a disaster

A railway network that caters to about seven billion passenger trips a year poses extraordinary management challenges, the most important of which is to ensure that all journeys end safely. The derailment of the Indore-Patna Express in Kanpur Dehat, with the death toll at least 146, is a stark reminder that India’s strained railway system can be unpredictably risky. The distress of the families of passengers who died and those left injured can never be fully compensated by the announcement of ex-gratia compensation by the Railway Ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office and State governments; at the same time, confidence in the system has suffered a severe blow. The Ministry, which has recorded an average of 50 derailments a year over the past four years and a peak of 63, needs to engage in a sustained effort to win back public confidence. There are several elements to safety, of which the integrity of the tracks, signalling, engines and coaches need to be rigorously audited. Internal investigations by the Commissioners of Railway Safety have found human error to be responsible for 70 per cent of serious rail accidents, which underscores the importance of training and adherence to strict operational discipline. In the Patna Express accident, the focus is on whether there were flaws in the track, the speed at which the late-running train was being driven, and the role played by coach design in leading to high fatalities.

Millions of people board a train in India every day. They need an assurance from the Ministry that it is learning from its mistakes. Specialist committees headed by Anil Kakodkar on safety and Bibek Debroy on restructuring have recommended major reforms, such as the creation of a statutory safety authority, speedy replacement of ageing coaches with modern LHB design, and revamped management that keeps its focus on core train operations. In his budget this year, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu promised that all zonal railways would have ultrasound flaw detection machines by March 2017 to test track quality. It is important to know whether such a test was done on the Indore-Kanpur-Patna route. After an accident it is the quality of medical facilities that determines a victim’s chances of survival. Many terrible mishaps occur in rural areas that have no hospital facilities worth the name, no trauma specialists or intensive care. Upgrading district hospitals should be a priority. More immediately, the Railway Ministry should ensure that bureaucratic procedures do not come in the way of victims getting the best treatment and aid.

Source: The Hindu, 22-11-2016

CBSE UGC NET July 2016 results declared, check them here

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday declared the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) National Eligibility Test (NET) July 2016 results on itsofficial website .

The examination was held on July 10 at 88 cities across the country, while in Srinagar it was held on August 28.

Steps to check Results:

1) Visit the official website

2) Click on the link for ‘UGC NET July Examination Result 2016’ in the current events section on the left side of the page

3) Enter roll number and date of birth

5) Click on submit

6) Result will be displayed on the screen

Source: Hindustan Times, 21-11-2016

Humility and Grace

SANT RAJINDER SINGH





Humility is a rare virtue. We need to cultivate it. Humility means living with the sense that we are all part of Creation.When we recognise that all are interconnected, we begin to act in a humble manner towards others. When we get rid of our ego, pride and vanity disappear. We no longer hurt anyone.We realise that we are just humble recipients at God's door, and even those gifts that distinguish us from one another are but gifts from the Lord.By realising God's love, we develop humility . Then we see God's hand in everything. We recognise that God is the moving force. When we develop humility of spirit, we no longer suffer from pride -of wealth, position, knowledge or power.
One way to cultivate humility is through meditation. As we come in contact with the light and sound of God within, we radiate love, humility and peace. We want to serve others selflessly. We become like a lighthouse in the stormy sea of life.When boats try to find their way during a storm in the ocean, they always look towards the lighthouse. Once we see the light of God within and we realise that we are a part of divinity , we stand like a lighthouse, giving strength to others.
As we are filled with this outpouring of love from God, we find that it brings stillness into our lives. The state of happiness and bliss not only lasts during the time we meditate, but continues even when we come out of meditation. This state brings about tremendous changes for the better in our day-to-day life and has positive influence on life around us.

The Conscious And Unconscious Mind

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan





The human mind is divided into two parts: the conscious and the unconscious. These are integral parts of every individual mind, whether male or female. The conscious mind is that part of the mind which deals with everything that is within the realm of our awareness, whereas the unconscious mind deals with all those thoughts which the individual is unaware of but which nevertheless influence his behaviour.The human body is a highly complex organism. In it, there are numerous functions at play at all times, such as seeing, hearing, digestion, respiration and different kinds of movements.Almost all these functions are governed by the unconscious mind. Little effort is required on the part of the conscious mind for all these bodily activities to function smoothly .
The conscious mind, with its unlimited capacity for thinking and analysing facts, is an exceptionally important part of our personality . But if, according to the divine plan of creation, so much is placed in the charge of the unconscious mind, what is the role of the conscious mind? The conscious mind is free to involve itself largely in the great quest for truth, the prime goal of every human being.
Truth is the reality of life.We must try to know the secret of life, the purpose, the real goal of life, to know what is right or wrong, what is good for the individual and what is good for society .
The answers to these questions are not written on a mountainside. It is our duty to discover all these things in order to gain knowledge of the truth. Since to know truth is so important, the Creator has consigned our bodily affairs to the unconscious mind. Now, a person, or his conscious mind, is completely free to discover all these truths of life.
Often, people live in a state of frustration. Tension and stress are the greatest psychological diseases in our present world. The reason lies in people's failure to find the truth.
Everyone is a seeker by nature, but everyone lives his life without knowing its real purpose. As a result of the ensuing sense of aimlessness, people live in a state of confusion, full of contradictions. They yearn to find something without knowing what it is. A tension-free mind is one that can function positively despite contrariety . People work, but find no job satisfaction. They earn money but experience no inner satisfaction. They live by the formula: enjoy life! But they don't know what real enjoyment is. It is a paradoxical situation. Everyone is living in this state of self-contradiction.
This is a self-created problem. When the Creator has given you a mind and made you free to use your mind, you should make use of this opportunity .Activate your thinking capacity.Discover reality . Read what is hidden in nature in an unwritten form. This is the only way to extract yourself from this psychological chaos.
The consciousness of truth is interwoven in your nature; it is very easy , therefore, to discover the truth.The only condition is to shun distraction, to follow the well-known principle of simple living and high thinking. If you want to save yourself from going astray , activate your thinking faculty . Think, think and think! You will surely reach the gates of truth.

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 51, Issue No. 47, 19 Nov, 2016

Editorials

What Were They Thinking?

Nuclear Adventurism

Lawlessness in Chhattisgarh

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: Dimming Aid Prospects

Law and Society

Revisiting the Rationale for Reservations

Alok Prasanna Kumar

Commentary

Dalit Emancipation and the Land Question

Ishan Anand

Are Retrenchments in IT Sector Legal?

Siby Jose

Is India Really Transforming?

Shriya Thakkar

Caste and Class

Shifting Categories in the Discourse on Caste and Class

Gopal Guru

Dalit Chronicles fromthe Telugu Country

Chinnaiah Jangam

The Many Omissions of a Concept

Ravichandran Bathran

Dichotomisation of Caste and Class

Anand Teltumbde

Review Article

The Rediscovery of Netaji

Sumit K Majumdar

Special Articles

Education in a Conflict-ridden State, Manipur

Sapana Devi Karam, Thounaojam Somokanta

'Is This Even Work?'

Panchali Ray

The Valuation Conundrum

Rajeswari S Raina, Debanjana Dey

Insight

Look East Policy, Subregional Connectivity Projects and North East India

H Srikanth

Notes

Tracing Ambedkar inDalit Capitalism

Swamy Kalva

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Postscript

A Canticle for Ramanujan

Arvind Krishnaswamy

The Dichotomy of Bob Dylan

Rohit Panikker

Framed, Digitally Yours

Nabina Das

Last Lines

Letters

Media under Siege

Network of Women in Media, India

Economics Curriculum

Ketan K Shah

Other Dana Majhis

Prakash Kumar Sahoo

Samar Sen: Centenary

Arup Kumar Sen

'The Fifth Steel Plant'

Kolla Rajamohan

Appointments/Programmes/Announcements

Appointments/Programmes/Announcements

Web Exclusives

Did Modi receive over Rs 55 crore from the Sahara Group as the chief minister of Gujarat?

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Jobs vs Wages

Three faultlines in wages sabotage private formal job creation. Demonetisation will undo some damage.

Two events that trigger the most predictable, irrelevant and frenzied media circus around jobs are the application numbers for a government recruitment advertisement and small moves in the official unemployment rate. Both are irrelevant; India doesn’t have a jobs problem but a wages problem. Our official unemployment rate of 5 per cent is not a fudge and anybody who wants a job has one; they just don’t get the wages they want or need. The creation of high-paying private sector jobs is being murdered by three faultlines in wages: Government vs private, nominal vs real, and gross vs net.

Why? Because we estimate that almost 85 per cent of the 30 lakh applicants with PhDs, degrees, etc for government peon posts in Uttarakhand recently already had a job (they were chasing above market wages with the additional upside of an employment contract that is marriage without divorce). Because we know that a child equates a salary of Rs 4,000 per month in Gwalior with Rs 18,000 in Mumbai (the difference in not salary but cost of living reimbursement for rehna, khaana and office jaana). Because we know that applicants in job fairs make decisions on haath waali salary rather than chitthi waali salary (there is a 45 per cent difference between gross and net wages for poor-value-for-money statutory deductions). Let’s look at each faultline in a little more detail.

One, government vs private wages. People at the top of the government get paid too little but people at the bottom of the government get paid too much. Unfortunately people at the bottom are 85 per cent of the numbers and greatly distort the labour market because Class 3 and 4 employees get paid more than 200 per cent of their private sector counterparts for the same job not including low performance accountability and high job security. The huge number of government job applications is not people running away from insecure low-paying private sector jobs but people running towards overly secure high-paying government jobs. Government employment should be public service with reasonable wages; not a rigged rate like LIBOR that distorts the market.

Two, nominal vs real wages. Since we cannot take jobs to people in the short run, we need to take people to jobs. But the migration to cities is being retarded by the huge mispricing of land that directly affects living, eating and commuting costs in India’s few job magnets (we only have 50 cities with more than a million people versus China’s 375). The economic wastelands of Mumbai, Delhi, Chandigarh can’t compete with job magnets like Gachibowli, Mohali, Gurgaon and Bangalore because the new clusters combine an infinite supply of mixed use commercial and residential real estate (happiness economists suggest that commute time is a key component of happiness).

Three, gross vs net wages. A monthly salary of Rs 15,000 per month in a cost-to-company salary world only ends up as a Rs 8,000 bank credit because employers are required to make mandatory deductions of 45 per cent of salary for poor value programmes like provident fund, ESI, LWF, EPS, and much else. Government data suggests that workers with annual incomes of Rs 1.8 lakh do not have any saving and cannot live on less than half their salary; consequently they prefer working for the informal sector where haath waali salary is equal to chitthi waali salary.

These faultlines murder high-paying formal private jobs and we need three regulatory interventions: Faster urbanisation, lower regulatory cholesterol, and broader human capital. Faster urbanisation means an increase to the number of Indian cities with more than a million people from 50 to 200; bad urbanisation is better than no urbanisation but high quality urbanisation like having real mayors, robust city finances, etc could create the virtuous cycle of higher formalisation, higher productivity and higher wages.

Making bribing a core capability for builders has been bad for formal job creation and labour migration and demonetisation will bring down land prices, accelerate construction, and raise labour mobility. Land was the most inefficient and unfair of the three factor markets of land, labour and capital and demonetisation is a wonderful intervention. Lower regulatory cholesterol for job creation is important because most of our workers work in low-productivity enterprises that are not productive enough to pay the wage premium; our 6.3 crore enterprises only translate to 18,000 companies with a paid-up capital of more than Rs 10 crore. Human capital is key; neglecting primary school education for decades after Independence is a mistake being amplified by the new world of work that disproportionately values reading, writing, arithmetic and soft skills.

As the long-term plans for formalisation, urbanisation and human capital yield results, it’s time for a time-bound monitoring on three overdue and impactful interventions in regulatory cholesterol by the ministry of labour. First, we must overrule its self-serving case for an Establishment Number and replace the 27 different numbers issued to every employer with a single Universal Enterprise Number. Second, we must set a date for 100 per cent paperless, presenceless, and cashless compliance for all state and Central labour laws. Second, we must end the shameful stonewalling of the ministry of labour of the provident fund and ESI reforms announced in the budget by making employee contribution to the provident fund voluntary and creating competition for ESI and EPFO by allowing employees to choose alternatives like NPS and health insurance.

Recent youth unrest — the idealisation of Burhan Wani by Kashmiris and the reservation agitations by Patels, Jats, Gujjars — have roots not in a job emergency but a formal job emergency. Gandhiji said the difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve our problems. Time to remind the ministry of labour.

The writer is chairman, Teamlease Services

Source: Indian Express, 21-11-2016

America beckons

Want to study in the U.S? Choose your options well. Here’s where to start, writes the U.S Consul General in Chennai.

Many dream of studying in the United States, but some are discouraged from doing so because the path seems complicated. Let me explain how you can make your dream a reality, while also highlighting some of the advantages in the land of opportunities — the United States of America.

In today’s global work environment, a degree from a foreign university not only offers knowledge, but also provides critical skills to create and adapt to jobs of the future. The United States is one such place where experiential learning and research are the norm. Over 1,40,000 Indian students are currently studying in the U.S. and are making their mark in American classrooms with their talent and hard work. They know that an American degree is recognised across the world and will open up a wide range of opportunities.

Students are usually admitted into U.S. universities in the fall or spring semesters, starting in August or January, respectively. Start preparing a year or a year-and-a-half prior to your desired programme’s start date since application deadlines usually fall about 10 months before the start of your programme. However, some universities role out admissions and accept applications throughout the year.

There are over 4,500 accredited universities and colleges in the United States. First, ensure that a programme’s academic content and research opportunities match your interests. Also make sure that you meet the eligibility requirements listed on the university website. Beyond that, you may wish to consider factors like school size, location, weather and tuition to help narrow down your choices.

For high school students who are not yet sure what career path you wish to take, you can apply for an “undecided major” in a U.S. university or apply to a liberal arts college where you will study different subjects in the first two years and declare a major at the end of your second year. Another option is a two-year Associate Degree from a community college, which is often more affordable than a four-year university. With an Associate Degree, you can transfer to a university for your third and fourth years of undergraduate studies.

While researching universities, it is also important to start preparing for required standardised tests. Those who wish to pursue a bachelor’s programme should take the SAT or ACT and an English language proficiency test (TOEFL, IELTS or PTE). Those looking to complete their master’s or PhD are required to take the GRE or GMAT and an English language proficiency test. Standardised tests and academic credentials are important.

However, your extra-curricular activities, leadership skills, and demonstrable interest in your chosen field of study are equally important. Some universities have made the standardised tests optional, but if you wish to widen your choice of universities or pursue a scholarship or assistantship, you must submit test scores.

As you start on this path toward fulfilling your dreams, remember, you are not alone. You and your parents can seek guidance from EducationUSA, funded by the U.S. Government to guide international students who wish to study in the United States.

To arrange an appointment with the EducationUSA Center at the United States-India Educational Foundation, Chennai, please contact 044-28574134 or send a mail to usiefchennai@usief.org.in

Student mobility

According to The Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, released on November 14, 2016, the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities surpassed one million for the first time during the 2015-16 academic year— an increase of seven per cent from the previous year to a new high of nearly 1,044,000, representing five per cent of the total student population at U.S. institutions.

This strong growth confirms that the United States remains the destination of choice in higher education.

The Open Doors report is published annually by the Institute of International Education in partnership with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The new report indicates there were a record 1,65,918 students from India, a 25 per cent increase from the year before, making it the second leading country of origin among international students in the United States. This was the highest absolute increase of students ever and followed the previous year’s record growth.

India accounts for one out of every six international students in the United States. Approximately three-fifths of Indian students are at the graduate level and three-fourths are in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

Keywords: Study abroad, U.S., U.S. Consul General, Chennai, Philip Min

Source: The Hindu, 19-11-2016