Common better quality education before common exam

The above quote is one of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein.
This also sums up what I am trying to tell here, in this post.


I am not against NEET. It is OK to have a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.
But I just wonder.. Shouldn't we prepare everyone across the nation before testing them through a common exam? Isn't that how the system should work??

Though India is a single country, we have 29 states and 7 union territories which are different from each other in many aspects.
Let me take just two aspects here, relative to this topic.


Educational boards :
There are 55 boards of education in India (visit  Boards_of_Education_in_India for complete list). Of all the boards of same level, no two boards have same syllabus. Every board have their own unique syllabus. When syllabi/boards are different from each other, is it fair to have a exam based on one particular syllabus?
Now, since the exams are based on one particular syllabus, people have no option but to follow that syllabus!

Till May 2016, number of CBSE syllabus based schools in India are 17,093 only (Here is the list of Schools_affiliated_with_CBSE). Is it enough for a country with population of 1.3 billion?


Let me take Tamilnadu for example (Tamilnadu because it is easy for me to collect data).
There are 55,667 Government/Private schools in Tamilnadu (By 2012), out of which 5660 schools are higher secondary (Proofs at TN_Schools_per_district and TN_Education_Report). All of them have same higher secondary syllabus as your higher secondary mark is used for college admissions across state.
Now, if we take CBSE schools in Tamilnadu.. There are only 499 CBSE schools in Tamilnadu (By 2013-14), out of which 122 are present in Chennai itself (FYI : Apart from Chennai there are 31 districts in Tamilnadu). The ratio of CBSE schools to stateboard schools is almost 1:112.
So, among 113 schools, students of 1 school have little privilege that the students of other 112 schools have (I am not saying they are 100% privileged or only they can crack NEET, but they have better start / better chance). Is it fair?


Social and Economic Status :
When there is not many CBSE schools available, and the chance to crack a national level is hanging in balance, next stop is coaching centers.
Now, there is a huge economical and social difference in this country. I don't have to present the data for social difference as well all already know that every region has it's own caste/religion differences. I will just share some data about economical difference.
Per capita income in Goa is 4,66,632 whereas the per capita income in Bihar is 63,200 (visit  List_of_Indian_states_and_union_territories_by_GDP_per_capita for more details). Percentage of people below poverty line is just 5.09% in Goa, 7.05 in Kerala whereas it is 39.93 in Chhattisgarh (visit Indian_states_and_territories_ranked_by_poverty).
My question is simple. Can the students from Chhattisgarh/Bihar have same chance in getting proper coaching as like students from Goa/Kerala?

When people are from different education system, different social and economic backgrounds, there is no point in testing them using a common exam.


My opinion:
Equalizing social/economic status is almost impossible, at least for next couple of years. But equalizing education is possible!
Every state's syllabus is based on various factors specific to that state. For example, if Tamilnadu students ready about Bharathi in detail, Bengal students will read about Tagore in detail. So changing the state syllabi is like destroying their identity.
But.. For the sake of this national level exam.. Why can't we have a high standard, good quality, higher secondary syllabus, common across India?
Let the students study their state oriented syllabus till 10th grade. Then, let them study a common syllabus for next two years and appear for a common exam (NEET or any other such exams that might pop-up in future). This will provide every student in this country a common platform to develop themselves before they take a test to pursue their dreams.

Common education. Common exam. 
Sounds fair?
Then sign the below petition regarding the same :)

Petition for Improved Common Syllabus for higher secondary 

Mission Goa - Accomplished

Every graduate in India would have been part of a Goa plan, at least once. I was no exception on that. In my case, I was part of 4 plans. But I didn't get a chance to visit Goa, till last week :)
 
After multiple failed attempts, me and 4 of my friends successfully visited the Rome of East!
Group of DSLR guys, Negotiator, Planner and Wanderer.
This is how the trip went.

Day 1 :

We reached Goa by morning 9:00. We boarded bus by 18:00 previous day, in Hyderabad. We traveled in Kadamba travels and it was a good experience, except for the hilly route after Belagavi, where nausea wave hit the bus!

Pics : The hilly, nausea-prone region
 
After getting down at Mapusa, our original plan was to get a bike and travel to our room (we booked a room in prior, at Calangute). But the bike rents are bit costlier there as that is the North Goa drop point for many travels. The least we were able to find was 400/day for scooters. So we went to calangute by bus and decided to rent bikes from there.

Buses are frequently available to Calangute and we didn't find any trouble in getting bus or finding our room in Calangute.
We booked room at Angel Guest House, in Calangute Baga circle. For 5 person, 2 nights, we were charged ₹3,100. Since it's off season (April), we got room for cheap cost. During season time, getting a room near Calangute is a challenging task, even if you are ready to pay big amount.
Room was pretty decent with AC/Fridge/TV. After quick fresh-up, we went for bike hunt.
The best deal we got was from Mr.Antony in a nearby rental shop, 250/day/scooter. On submission of one original ID proof, we got our Ride ! 3 scooters for 5 folks.

Since it's Good Friday, our first visit in Goa was to Basilica of Bom Jesus. We had no idea that church will be closed for outsiders and mass will be held in closed church for the whole day :(
Though the environment was good, though we got a chance to admire the building and architecture, the feeling of not seeing the church from inside - hurts!

Pics : Basilica of Bom Jesus 

To fulfill the void created by not visiting the church, we moved to Archaeological Museum, which is located just opposite to the church. But our bad luck continued! Even that museum was closed on Friday! We were just allowed to watch the outskirts. But even that was mesmerizing <3

Pics : Archaeological Museum

So, my suggestion to people who visit this spot is, plan a Saturday/Sunday visit. There are lot of churches in the surrounding and the museum will also be open on those days.

Though the visit was not up-to the expectation, the travel was. The ride to church was good, the road and environment was lovely. We got a chance to see the colorfulness and natural places of the city.

 Pics : Sneak peak inside Goa

To loose the heat of all day roaming, we spent the evening inside water. And those who booze, in our gang are already high. As many of us already heard, it's easy and cheap to get alcoholic beverages in Goa. Even in grocery stores, you can get them. Plus they are pretty cheap compared to other parts of India (almost half rate). On the other hand, food items are costly. Compared to Hyderabad, where I currently reside, it's almost double in Goa!

Back to that evening, we spent it in Calangute beach. It was crowdy. For that much crowd, the cleanliness of beach is totally unexpected. It was so clean than it should be :)

Next stop - Night Club! Goa. Night time. Where else would we go.. We went straight to Tito's lane.
Now guys.. A personal advice due to the pain we got there. Either go there as couple. Or be a girl by gender.
In almost all clubs, it was free entry for girls and they get up-to 50% concession in drinks as well. In many clubs, it was free for couple entry and in clubs where it was charged for couple entry, the entry fee was moderate. In many clubs, stag entry is not there :( . Clubs which allow stag entry charge more! We had very tough time finding a club which allows stag entry with considerable fee. After a long struggle, we found Club Ivy.

Pics : Club Ivy entry mark :P
 
Fee was good (500/person, which will be covered with drinks). Ambience was also good. But not our luck. There's not much crowd that day. The club members said it's because of Good Friday. They also informed that Easter night will be awesome.
There will be lot of crowd in that area and finding a spot to part your vehicle will be pain in the ***. So it's better to use cab or something, instead of self driving.

Half past midnight, we decided to eat. We decided to eat in the tito's lane itself and get back to club soon. I forgot the name of hotel we entered. It was on the opposite side of Cape Town Cafe. The service was awful :( I placed 5 orders. Every time the waiter picks up the order, goes in, come back and say it's not there. Couple of my friends tried Cashew Feni. They almost puked !!
Totally frustrated, we went back to club, finished our drinks and went back to room.
 
Later that night, around 2:00, just had a night stroll at Calangute and Baga purely to enjoy sea and beach with less crowd :) There were scattered groups of people even at that time, but the crowd is not heavy. We called it a day around 4:00 that morning :P

Day 2 :

After morning discussions on where to go, we started to Chapora Fort.
There's nothing much left in the fort. Just part of walls. But the view from there is breath-taking! You can see sea in one side, forest in other sides. After admiring the views and completing 'Dil Chahta Hai' spoof photo shoots, we decided to visit the beach that was visible from fort top. The beach view was awesome and attractive from fort top.

Pics : Chapora Fort

When we made our way to that beach, we came to know that it is the famous Vagator Beach!!
We spent some good time there and spent some time in Chapora beach as well.

Pics : Vagator Beach

Finished our lunch at Bobby bar and restaurant (at a four road junction which you have to cross to go anywhere from Chapora fort). It was around 15:00 and there's not much left. We got fish thali and there's nothing to complain about it :)

Evening plan was to watch sunset from viewpoint/lighthouse @ Aguada Fort. But till we reach there, we didn't knew that fort will be closed by 17:30. So much for the sunset plan!

We rushed to find a better spot and found one as well. Sinquerium Beach. Just 5mins from fort and we are there well before sunset!
I have no words to describe the beauty we witnessed there. That is the best sunset I have witnessed, till date. A long time dream of 'watching Sun going down into water' also got fulfilled :)
 

Pics : Sunset at Sinquerium Beach

We didn't find any proper place for food till that time. Dinner we decided to try with the hotel recommended by guest house. The hotel guys said it will take one hour as they prepare on order. When food arrived, we felt bad that we didn't visit this hotel earlier. Food was better than all places we ate till that in Goa.
 
That night, plan was Saturday night market. Heard a lot about it before going to Goa. But was a bit disappointed that it was not up to the mark. We were expecting lot of cultural diversity there, but we didn't find much. One thing we found awesome there was the live concert!

Pic : Live concert at Saturday night market

Day 3 :
 
We split into two groups - One group went looking for good Massage center and other group (TBH one guy :P) went looking for water games. Though the first mission was unsuccessful, second one succeeded :)

We got a good deal from 'Dream in Goa Watersports'. 5 rides/1500/person. The office is near dolphin circle. After enrolling for sports there, they gave us a map which led us to the southern part of Calangute beach. That's where we took the rides.
 
We thoroughly enjoyed the whole part - Boat ride, parasailing, water scooter, bumper ride, banana ride. Went into water couple of times, but none of us knew swimming :P. There will be folks from water sports who will be with you, to save you :P.
After the whole part, returned to room and extended the room till 15:00 with extra payment of 250/-.
 
For late-lunch, we decided to go to the same hotel we had dinner the previous night. We had breakfast also in that hotel only. The food lover inside all of us found a right spot ;)

Pic : Railo's Bar & Restaurant - God who gave good food ;)
 
Returned bikes (after some check from bike owner), bought some souvenirs from Calangute. Got bus from Calangute to Mapusa. Boarded bus by 17:00.

Successfully completed Mission Goa B-)

P.S:

•  Negotiation can get you things so cheap.

• The major checking inside Goa is for Weed. They check every nook and corner of your belongings if they get suspicious. Beware!

• Fill petrol in advance when you find a petrol station. There are not many petrol stations.

• Be ready for Sun tan :)

• Quality food will be tough to find. Find a good shop and stick to it.

• Don't miss night party and casino. We missed casino :(. But my cousin who visited recently told me that it was a memorable experience.

• For those who drink alcohol, Goa IS THE spot. You will find better quality in cheaper price.  

• Don't try to carry any alcoholic drink from Goa. Police checking in border is pretty intense and you will be fined on-spot if you get caught possessing any alcoholic drink.

• Try not to miss any beach, especially Baga, Calangute, Vagator, Sinquerium, Candolim beaches. Every beach we visited during this trip had something different.

• The water games and rides are full of fun! We didn't see any age limit for any game or ride.

• We missed few places in South Goa. Make sure you don't.

Review: Everyone Has A Story

Everyone Has A Story by Savi Sharma
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Story begins with three characters.
A wanna-be author girl. Mysterious, wanna-be traveler guy. Coffee shop manager, wanna-be coffee shop owner guy. 3rd character brings one more girl into story. A girl with tragic past.
What happens among these 4 is this story.

Though there are only four characters, all characters are designed well. The behavior of characters remain reasonable throughout the story. There is no place where we can think that this cannot happen in reality.

Story and the way it was told... Hats off Savi Sharma.

There's a place where the lead protagonist says - "I want to inspire people with my writing. I want to touch their souls. I want them to say, she feels us, she moves us".
I think this defines Savi Sharma's writing with respect to this book.
I have lot of things in mind which I consider too insane. But towards the end of this story, I started to believe that, maybe I am not so insane :P. Everybody has a story, so am I !!

Maybe the reason I loved this book is because it had too many similarities to my life.

I will recommend it to anybody who want a decent read :)

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Review: A Knotty Affair

A Knotty Affair by Dhaval Birajdar Jinadatt
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This story is about a software engineer, Viraj, in his thirties. Good job. Good pay. Lovely mother to take care of him. One day he meets up a girl from his past - Ruhi. From there we go 14 years backwards.

Young Viraj is very low in self-esteem. He has a stammering problem to add fuel to fire. His father, a strict Physics professor (assistant), joins him in the same college he works for. Innocent, shy, stammering young boy in a modern college. No need to say about the ragging and harassment he might go through. Amidst all this, one girl helps him to go through all this - Ruhi. Towards end of college life, Viraj falls for Ruhi who is no where in comparison with Viraj. With time and events, they move away from each other. Meanwhile Viraj's dad got framed in a case which ends his career and screws the life of whole family.

What happened to that case? What happens between Viraj and Ruhi after 14 years gap? This is the remaining story :)

What I loved in this book :
Book cover:

• Two faces of most probably same guy facing opposite directions. One face is thick whereas other is light. This resembles the character of protagonist. Viraj is like two different persons in 14 years gap. Changed physically, mentally, verbally. Young Viraj is so opposite to current Viraj.

• There is a region where both faces intersects. So there's a common space for both faces. Same holds true for Viraj. Though he changed lot in 14 years, he still have few things unchanged.

Courtroom drama:

• I haven't seen an Indian author of current generation writing courtroom drama. Kudos to Dhaval for the attempt. This might mark the beginning of many more to come!

Story-line:

• In general, Indian father-son relationship is bit different compared to rest of the world. Dad seems strict and son seems to hate dad a lot. But the love and bond they share is eternal. This book showcases the same. Because of his love towards father, Viraj fights a 14 years case!

• The Courtroom and NGO chapters of the story displayed the state of current Indian judiciary system , things that needs to be changed and an idea that can be done implemented :)

What I hated in this book :
Courtroom drama:

• This the major plus of this book. So I expected it to be in big level. Though the courtroom scenes are good for initial attempt, they could have been made better. Some little tweaks would have developed it more interesting.

• More focus should have been given to this. Instead author decided to focus on many things and kept this for just one chapter. Not amused!

Errors:

• I don't know what went wrong or how it happened, but I came across multiple spelling errors and punctuation errors. It would have been better if more attention was given to that :)

Characterization:

• For any book, characters make the story better. In this one, that is major thing that felt odd for me. The life of a software engineer was somehow I am not able to relate at all! I am software engineer by profession and I have LOT of software friends & acquaintances. Still I am not able to relate with that character (Viraj).

• In any story, if you are a guy, you should like the female lead in romance genre(according to me). In some stories, you will love her. In some, you will like her. In this, I didn't love her or like her!

• You should be able to understand why the male lead falls for her. In this story, I didn't find any reason other than the fact that Ruhi spoke to Viraj when nobody else did (she did it only for her own reasons which are selfish as hell) and she is hot. Not cool !

• There is too much dilemma in and around Viraj that at some point I started wondering whether Viraj is in dilemma or the author was !!

A good new attempt which could have made better :)
Hoping that Dhaval will reduce the impact of movies in his upcoming stories.
Also hoping that the next book from him would be new in concept like this and better in presentation than this!

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Review: Love Like A Fairy Tale

Love Like A Fairy Tale by Shadab Alam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A boy-ish girl. A very good guy. Friends to Lovers. Continues to be in love. Marks beginning of a unique fairy tale love story. End of story.

 
Jacob and Aana are the two mentioned above. The protagonists of this story. Two friends/neighbors. Aana has a painful past which was caused by many things. Her so-called-mom. Boy friend and best friend (who cheated her by getting together behind her back).

She begins a new life with photo studio business, new friends, new place leaving out all the painful past in past. With time, things get better. Business goes good. Friends love her more with every passing day. Lovely sister who stays by her side always.

All of sudden, past crosses path with present when her ex-boy friend and ex-best friend decides to marry and they end up in her studio door. In a turmoil of events, Jacob, her best friend becomes her boy friend. Her ex-bestie decides to screw her life once more. Jacob becomes a fly in that web. How everything gets resolved and how happily-ever-after begins is the rest of story.

 
I have fallen in love with Aana, right from the beginning of the story. Independent, awesome woman in her early 30s. Someone who didn't stay down after taking multiple hits from childhood. Belongs to the type of girls who will make you fall for them easily without putting any effort at all.
 Jacob. The all charming, well earning, good, hot guy. Dream neighbor for any girl :P.
Sonia. The best sister you can ever have :)
There are few more characters which will get our attention. But these there are the major ones.

Below are what I feel as good and bad in this book. Just my opinion :)

Pros:

• Simple story line. Neat, simple, good.
• Characterizations. Especially Aana <3.
• FIFA love. Very intense love. A rare thing to witness in India. Very rare to witness in an Indian girl. Rare but not non-existent. Good to see the small community getting recognized.
• Shadab Alam made it clear that not every happily-ever-after will be of same type. There can be different types as well :)

Cons:

• Why would Alvia sticks around just Aana to screw her life up? If money is the only motive of Alvia, as mentioned in book, didn't she find anybody better in 3 years? Why should it always be Aana whose life should get screwed?!
• For a genius cool guy like Jacob, the misunderstanding he gets into with Aana, is not so brainy! He who is so stable in mind, gets freaky at the first sight of trouble. Not so cool. All the good thoughts he gathered up from the beginning was spoiled at that point. Though he regained that one from many characters in book, he failed to regain it completely from me :/

Overall, a good read with just a small glitch..

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Blood in PETA

Before starting anything, I would like to clarify that I love animals and I oppose cruelty against animals strongly. Below is my stand against a single organization based on facts, which are also mentioned below.

If you are in India, you would have surely heard about PETA by now.
PETA was all over the news for multiple sensational news related to Jallikattu (Tamilnadu), Rekla race (Tamilnadu/Kerala), Kambala race (Karnataka) and Bailgada (Maharashtra). These are not the only reasons PETA hit the news in India. They were consistently fighting for so-called cruelty against animals.
But.. Are they really against cruelty of animals??

PETA is very well known to kill animals. Yes, you read it right.
According to multiple sources PETA has killed more than 34,000 animals from 1998 to 2016 in just one state of USA.
Let's get down to some real numbers.


The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), as part of monitoring animal shelters, monitor the details of all animals taken in by the animal shelters there and what is the fate of them afterwards.
Below the numbers published by them (VDACS) regarding PETA :

Transferred - Transferred to other Virginia releasing agencies like animal shelters and animal control.
Adopted - Adopted by somebody. 
Killed - Killed in the facility accidentally, or during transfer, or euthanized. 


If you see the kill number and kill percentage in the above chart, it is alarmingly high.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is actually behaving like People for the Euthanasial Treatment of Animals!
When questioned about the kill rate, PETA always kept mum. Recently, last year, they opened up to media saying that they didn't find enough recipient for all the animals they received.


It is not so easy to believe the above statement. In a city of 8,382,993 (according to 2015 survey), they couldn't find 2000-3000 (approx) people to adopt animals ?!
Come on PETA. Come up with some better lie next time!!

According to some PETA employees, PETA's employees are made to watch videos in which animals are abused to great extent, in order to make them believe that people are incapable of caring animals, and 'PETA is doing what was best for animals'. This is clear brain wash and completely idiotic belief!


According to a state inspector in Virginia, PETA facility where animals are imbounded, was designed to house animals for no more than 24 hours. So any animal they caught, or as PETA says, any animal they receive, should be transferred from their custody within 24 hours.
Any sane human can understand that finding a recipient in 24 hours is not possible. So how can PETA expect that to happen?


When Poorva Joshipura, CEO of PETA India said that they don't have enough funds to carry out operations (Read her full interview here), I was wondering whether that is the same reason why they designed their animal shelter house with such low facility, leading to crowded cages, diseases and euthanasia.
But stats say otherwise!
 Below is the fund information of PETA :

It is clearly visible that they are not in shortage of money. So it led me believe that they have low facilitated shelter house because they don't believe in animals right to live.
I was not surprised when I came across the below postcard from Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and head of PETA.

PETA is an Animal rights organization which don't believe that animals have the right to live?!
An organization which is against it's own purpose is having so much popularity! It hurts deep down!!


If the above animal adoption/kill statistics for one state itself is this cruel.. How will their whole world statistics will look like?!
Nobody knows !!!


As said by Nathan J Winograd, director of 'No kill advocacy center' and author of 'Friendly Fire' - book on animal ill treatment, and I quote, "You either love animals or you love PETA, but you can't love both because the two are mutually exclusive".


When I decided to write this article, I was having an idea of proposing a regulation which will strictly monitor PETA's animal intake and their fate, in India.
But when I dug further and deeper, I feel like.. there is no purpose for organizations of this type to be functioning at all.
This organization is full of animal blood and it should be washed off!

Sources of Information :

• http://www.whypetaeuthanizes.com/
• http://www.whypetaeuthanizes.org/
• http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/
• https://www.petakillsanimals.com/
• http://www.nathanwinograd.com/ 

Review: Arranging love, contemporary way!

Arranging love, contemporary way! by Poornima Dhiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Best way to begin this year..
This is 1st book I started this year (1st completed book was from last year :P ), and I wish the whole book year be the same!

The story is about a girl. Facts which make the story is, that girl is - 30, independent, strong-willed, cheated in her 3 year old relationship, Indian.
Though I use the word story, when I read the book.. I felt like I am reading the journal of a girl.
Honest. Straight-forward. Lethal.

It's not easy to be a girl in India. Yes, I am a patriotic Indian. No questions on that .. I am just stating the fact, which is so true.
This society is still digging lot of pits for woman.
She can't make her life decisions on her own. She can't decide her marriage age. She can't be the breadwinner of a family. She can't do so many things.
Author Poornima just hit all the can'ts with valid whys...!

I strongly believe that most of the incidents in this story is inspired by Author's or her immediate circle's experience.
You just can't get all the facts right on without experience!
Relationship.. Break-up.. Betrayal.. Getting over it.. Unable to find any right person.. Situations faced by single.. All are right on target!

Too many negative male characters in the novel. Too bad that Ananya didn't meet any guy who is not negative!!!
But .. That's the concept of this story :) A girl who couldn't find any guy whom she like ..

Hard to believe it is a debut novel. A good, decent work from author.
Expecting more from her ...

Any woman, who have her own dream, should read this book.
Definitely an inspiration. Especially the 'Note to self' in the end.

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Review: Love Stories That Touched My Heart

Love Stories That Touched My Heart by Ravinder Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The best short stories collection I have read till date !

If the stories are from same author, there will be some similarities among them.. At some point, there will be thought of monotony..
But, since this one is a compilation from different authors, there is lot of variety to enjoy ... !
Though all stories are based on love, they displayed variety in love..

There are few stories which are not up to the mark.. But there are many that will touch our heart <3

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