Love: Do You Know What It Is?

I often wonder what love actually is. Is it what binds my mother and me together or is it something that keeps me awake all night waiting for someone’s text? Perception of Love is relative, with time and type of the relationship. Someone may be of utmost importance but with passage of time he may become insignificant, may what reason be. It may be his deeds, our understanding, or simply someone else replaces him. Our blood relations also do not guarantee the eternal love. Is Love what I feel when I walk alone in the rain? I don’t know what I think or feel but it makes me feel beautiful and beautifies the things around. Is love when I can smell my mom when I miss her while in the hostel?

Is love when I call some old friend just out of the blue because I felt I was needed? We meet so many people everyday but there is just one we fall in love with, the same qualities we have seen before but this time we fell for them. Suddenly our whole world revolves around that one single person, who out of nowhere becomes everything for us, to the point that we can leave the world and its bonds for them. Love is the coming together of two minds, who, fit in like a puzzle, complimenting the other side of each other. It doesn’t necessarily have to end in marriage or eternity or some other definition. It is far more superior and deep than these worldly needs.

With the bond comes the sacrifice. Sacrifice of certain expectations, sacrifice of some moments, sacrifice that go unnoticed, all in the name of love. A wife cooks, cleans, toils everyday and is only appreciated either on her birthday or the anniversary. I don’t know how to feel about it. It is happy to see that she is satisfied with her life. But it makes me sad to put myself in her shoes and let my efforts unnoticed. Maybe this is what love is, selfless and self-appreciating. We always say that love just happens, it’s not pre-decided; then, when did my grandparents, who met for the first time at their marriage venue, fell in love? Before they could know each other, they were told they were made for each other. An arranged love but still with the same intensity as those who took years of togetherness to know and decide. With each new birth comes a new definition of love. I guess, love can never be explained or maybe it doesn’t need to be. Each has his own way of exchanging love. What I may see as lonesomeness may be peace for you. What I may take as quickness maybe eternity for you.

Indian Universities: Are They Not Good Enough?

Development is an ongoing process. Ever since the dawn of time man has been incessantly striving to do something better, to discover something new. In keeping with this it is no surprise that educational institutions do everything in their power to be better every year so as to churn out the brightest minds of the world. Indian institutes in particular are getting more competitive by each day. Lakhs of students compete to get into an IIT or an IIM.

However, the 21st century has seen the world getting smaller. Nothing is isolated to a country anymore. The whole world is the platform where standards are set and success is achieved. Every year, universities from around the world are put to the test based on different categories and a list of the best 200 of the lot is recognized. The categories include teaching quality, graduate employability, international outlook and research quality.

Topping the list is predictably Harvard University, followed by California Institute of Technology, MIT, Stanford and Princeton. The top ten include 7 from the US alone and 3 from the UK. In the top 200, 75 universities are from the US, 32 from the UK, 12 apiece from Germany and Netherlands and 9 from Canada. The list also includes Asian universities from Taiwan, China and Singapore.

Surprisingly, IITs and IIMs do not make the cut. When it is widely regarded that an IIT is one of the best places in the world to study engineering, why did it not get recognized as one of the top 200? The highest ranked Indian university is IIT Bombay which comes in the 300-350 range.

The ranking of any university depends on the amount of its cooperation. But the universities from India have been ranked well before (2 IITs were featured on the list in 2009), so it could not be the lack of cooperation that explains the poor performance.

Developing the education system does not only require a high financial input, it also requires faculty of excellent quality and good infrastructure among others. While our universities are growing at a steady pace, the rest of the world is speeding up. This wouldn’t do if we want our education system to be of world class quality.

Dr. Narayan Murthy-CEO of Infosys recently said that 80% of IIT graduates are unemployable. While debates are raging on the matter, Dr. Murthy’s comments are not far from reality. With the explosive success of coaching centres that teach students how to crack various entrance examinations, students aren’t really learning what is in the books. They get to see how to solve a particular problem but they do not necessarily see the logic behind the solution. Students follow the same method every time a question arises. There is no room for innovation anymore.

The representation of international faculty and the number of international students are important aspects but Indian universities lack in that portion.

As for the research quality, research being conducted in higher education systems—while taking away no value from them—is considerably of a lower quality when compared to the world. It doesn’t matter anymore if it is the best in the country. Not just the quality, but also the quantity of research is lacking in India. A country which gave the world people like Aryabhatta and Sir C. V. Raman should not struggle when it comes to finding geniuses.

So what could be done to ensure our universities can edge out foreign competition? What could be done to improve the quality of research, the quality of the graduates that Indian universities produce each year?

For one, a better academic infrastructure is needed. Most laboratories and libraries in Indian universities are outdated. They need to catch up with the 21st century. The examination process of admitting students could be re-evaluated. Instead of letting students in just on the basis of their marks—which are at times not a good judge of how smart they are in a particular subject—an all round evaluation can be performed—a more elaborate process.

Innovation must be appreciated and encouraged. Today when achieving ‘just ok’grades are the norm, people must step up and strive to achieve the best in whatever field that suits them.

Your Waste Is Someone’s Means Of Living: Rag Pickers In India

Sarasa has no last name and no formal education. She lives in the slum in Delhi with her husband and three children. Each morning she begins her day by collecting garbage and she ends her day either vomiting or if all goes well then just disinclined to eat for a few hours, until the stench has receded from her nostrils and her fingernails have been scrubbed clean.

She is a secret environmentalist. She may not be aware of it or may not even understand the term, but she is one of 300,000 little-seen workers who perform a vital role for the city; they rifle the detritus of modern life, recycle anything of worth and carefully dispose the rest. Waste collectors like her are discriminated against, regularly harassed and possess few economic and social rights, but they provide a valuable service. By collecting household garbage they reduce the city’s solid waste management costs, provide a recycling system where none would exist otherwise and reduce the amount of waste which ends up in landfills. They should be referred to as “invisible environmentalists.”

More than 90 percent of India doesn’t have a proper waste disposal system, so the whole responsibility of the garbage dumping relies on the shoulders of rag pickers – one of India’s poorest and most marginalized groups. They are not paid by the state; they rely on meager salaries received from the communities they serve and on meager profits from the sale of discarded items.

India’s garbage generation stands at 0.5 to 0.8 kilogram of garbage per head per day. And we already know that land in India is scarce. India’s per capita waste generation is also very high, that it is a big trouble if a garbage collector doesn’t visit a neighborhood for a couple of days. Then the normal practice is to instruct the household help or maid to take the bags, walk a few yards away – probably towards the end of the lane – and dump the bags there. Slowly and gradually that dump start troubles for the residents and they approach the welfare associations and demand the same to be removed. Only then do we realize the importance of our regular waste collector. Most of the time people don’t even let them enter our houses and many people don’t even let them touch any buckets in their homes. Also, this problem draws on the caste system in our country. Most of these workers are Dalits – the lowest rung of Hindu society who are forced to face discrimination and prejudice.

It is also a common practice in India to not to separate the waste. Battery containing mercury, broken glasses, used medicine bottles or syringe and vegetable peels are often thrown in the same bins. It is considered to be the responsibility of a waste collector to pick up trash by hand, separate them manually without gloves, mask or proper cleaning facilities. Social isolation and unsanitary work conditions lead to illness, injuries, and serious infections. They work a minimum of 10-12 hours every day and are paid meagerly, their monthly income never crossing 3000-3500 rupees.

These workers are also affected by serious problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence and illiteracy. There’s an urgent need for municipal corporations to help them with peer counseling projects, to check child labour and get the rescued children admission in schools. Also it is imperative for them to separate biodegradable from non-biodegradable waste. Non-biodegradable wastes then further should be categorized on the basis of their toxicity. They should provide workers with proper masks, uniforms and gloves. Also, there’s a need to demand a hike in the waste disposal budget from the state. The government needs to invest in new waste disposing technologies so that this issue can be deal with efficiently.

As individuals, we need to make sure that we minimize our waste and use color-coded waste bins — green for biodegradable, white for recyclable wastes and black for other wastes. We should prohibit littering on the street. We should respect everyone in our community and should say a firm no to discrimination. Disposing waste is not a wasteful business.