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The headlines today are huddeled with Reservation being introduced into the IIMs and IITs (the premier institutes for giving higher education and management) for Backward and Other Backward Classes (BC and OBC) excluding their creamy layer. There has been mostly anti-reservation campaigns and little pro-reservation campaigns too.But the state has the stick in its hands , it can do what it wants.

Rather than going into same debate whether reservations should be or should not be. I want to know :

Will reservations help in socio-economic upliftment of targeted masses?

Reservation is a just a shock therapy to prevent the damage done by our grass root Public education system. There is no sight of any improvement in Public education system.

I won’t go into statistical details, But what i have experienced 

I am product of an Village Government School in State of Punjab(One of the affluent states of India). The school where i studied was called the best school in the locality, But the study culture there was like, we were made to learn from the help books rather than reading texts. English was started in 6^th grade by Social Sciences teacher because there was no English teacher and After 8^th grade there was no arrangement for English language teaching. There were no extra-curricular activities, no games. It was the time when the school was called in its prime time.

After that the school has gone to worst conditions , the only way the kids clear is by Mass cheating in the exams. The alternative to the government schools are private schools which employ teachers on salaries of 1000 to 1500 and who are product of those government schools. They are called English medium schools , but there is hardly any healthy learning environment.

The economically weaker parents put there kids into Government schools and economically stronger put them into those private schools out come from both schools are almost the same. This is the story of nearly 70% of Punjab and one can imagine the status of other states.

Those to who study in good city schools , are taught good English, are given good environment, are made to take part extra curricular activities. They face the pressure of doing good in the exams in terms of scores . The focus is on getting scores by hook or crook rather than learning. there is no healthy competition ,There is lethal competition. We don’t study what we love. We study what we are made to study. I want to know :

Are there any measures taken to improve the quality of education?

Revolutionary changes needs to be done in Education system, But i don’t think there is any step being taken in this direction because this will have long term benefits.

Improvement in Education system would not fetch votes, But Reservations will fetch them quick votes .

We are amused by the way India is progressing , we are amused the way Dhoni’s are fetching crores. We are amused be the way India’s riches  has made into the Forbes list.

We don’t care how the other half lives, and  Then we are worried about the biggest Internal threat to security are Naxalites. We are amused why they are so evil, we are amused why they can’t be like us.

Its dawn of the new year. Every things seems fresh, though its just a psychological feeling.The past is past, everybody make plans for the future, and I have some too.I scribbled some lines in Punjabi on new year eve.Here is English translation :

"have dreams in the eyes,
and passion to live the dreams..
have tides of wishes,
and courage to achieve those.. "

Punjabi Source Here

So my new year resolutions will be a progress in living my dreams .

Professional/ Academic :

• Pursue study/research in Natural Language Processing / Linguistics , Full fledged dedication does not seems to be affordable . Will look for alternatives like Open / Free Education thanks to MIT OpenCourseWare. There are many other players which provide open education.
• Start / become member of an open source project in the field of Natural Language Processing and Python as my favorite language.
• Learn a new programming language, LISP is a favorite, Scala or Groovy are also on the Radar.
• Dive more in depth into Java (Excited about closures in Java 7) and Python . In fact become more competent in Python.
• Will look to work on frameworks/technologies like Struts2, Spring , Guice ,
  Hibernate , Axis2 , SOA in Java/J2EE and django , Plone in Python , Will be following happenings in these .
• Become a Sun Certified Web Component Developer.

Personal :

• Learn Urdu langauge/script , to be efficient in reading and translating Pakistani Punjabi /Shahmukhi.
• Have personnel web space and host/migrate my blogs there.
• Will make cycling/exercising a habit.
• Will start writing a diary
• Will look for a girl friend…

Books To Read:

• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.
• The Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking.
• Ik Nadi Sanvli Jihi(Punjabi) by Nirupuma Dutt
• Many More as they come across .

My Predictions :

• Open Source is going to rule that is for sure . Linux (especially ubuntu) will give the fight to windows in desktop war.
  I am excited about KDE4 release.
• Google will be drifting from ” Don’t Be Evil ” policy .
• A Multipolar world order as US hegemony gets counter balanced by Russia, Iran and Venezuela trio.

Hmmm. It has become quite a long list . Hope I make all of these . I will appreciate if anybody has similar/anti thoughts on this, please do drop me a comment..

2007 has come to an end … Here is my analysis of my surroundings and things i am interested in . Here are the happenings :

Globally

• Open Source has arrived , It was more vibrant this year. Sun Micro systems open sourced its premier programming language Java , its operating system Solaris , even its processor chip ultraspark ( a first).
• Ubuntu captured the buzz in the Linux word and has become the alternative to windows along with opensuse . Its Linux era now as Windows Vista failed to create any impact . Go Linux Go. KDE4 is going to launch in January next year. Which is going to be another feather in the cap as its looks will be rock the Vista look and feel. Go Linux Go
• Google joined hands with various telecom companies and formed open handset alliance which announced its mobile SDK andriod in November this year. Google joined hands with IBM-Sun camp for ODF as document standred to challenge Microsoft’s OpenXML. Although being involved in open source ventures , Google is said to be drifting from its “Don’t be Evil” policy.

• The world is fastly moving to multipolar world as US hegemony is weakened by various elements like weakning of Dollar diplomacy, President Bush’s wrong stance on Iraq war. The countries like Russia,Iran ( in Asia ), Venezuela, Cuba (in Latin America) have risen as poles of new word order. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is the greatest challenger of the US hegemony in his region . With his oil diplomacy and pro people policies he has won support of earlier US allies in Latin America.

Personally

The year was a great learning experience in many aspects of life , professionally and personally :

• Became Sun Certified Java Programmer with 90% score in the begining of this year . Learnt hidden aspects of Java Language . Learnt and worked on various new technologies and tools like Apache Struts , Oracle , Hibernate , J-Unit , J – Meter, JBoss, Display Tags and many more.
• Migrated office work environment from windows platform to OpenSuse 10.2 Linux . Migrated IDE use foe Java/J2EE development from Netbeans to Eclipse ..
• Started learning Python and django , and very much in love with it .
• Some happier moments at family front (Dad recovered from braintstroke well and joined job ) , Some harsh moments at emotional front .
• Books : Read numurous books this year . Link to some of them.
  But Best i read this year were :
  Java –Head First Design Patterns , SCJP Study Guide by kathy Birts and Sierra
  Python — Dive in Python , The Django Book
  English Literautre — Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Art of War by Sun Tzu .
  Punjabi Literature — Naag Lok By Lal Singh Dil , Anhoye by Gurdial Singh, Failsoofiaan by Amarjit Chandan
  Punjabi Magazines — Hun (Woderful Punjabi Magazine), The Sunday Indian (Punjabi). (mail me for more info on Hun).
• Movies : Did not watch many but favourites were :
  Hollywood — Apoclypto by Mel Gibson , Oscar Winner The Pianist .
  Bollywood– Bheja Fry, Jab We Met , Chak De .
  Others — Documentry Pala by Gurwinder Singh.

• Celebrated Shaheed Bhagat Singh’s hundred’th Bitrhtday , with a treat to colleagues in the office .
  Inquilab Jindabad
• Got a chance to meet Punjabi writers Amarjit Chandan, Nirupama Dutt (Editor The Sunday Indian) and Sushil Dosanjh (Editor Hun)

So this was my last year 2007 in brief . I would like to hear about your views on last year and this post . Please post comments .

Alvida 2007