all in the game

Excerpt from the book - A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown

Imagine an environment that is constantly changing. Imagine an environment where the participants are building, creating, and participating in a massive network of dozens of databases, hundreds of wikis and websites, and thousands of message forums, literally creating a large-scale knowledge economy. Imagine an environment where participants are constantly measuring and evaluating their own performances, even if that requires them to build new tools to do it. Imagine an environment where user interface dashboards are individually and personally constructed by users to help them make sense of the world and their own performance in it. Imagine an environment where evaluation is based on after-action reviews not to determine rewards but to continually enhance performance. Imagine an environment where learning happens on a continuous basis because the participants are internally motivated to find, share and filter new information on a near-constant basis. 

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I know, it sounds almost impossible to create such an environment. But the interesting fact is that we have seen and experienced such environments. Yes, through these new generation games that are available. That is where our tacit knowledge comes in to picture.

Yet, this aspect needs to be much debated because it is not given enough importance. In fact educators constantly dismiss games as a learning tool. 

Where as, all the learning is in the game, or, in the form of game. Games enhance learning. 

Srik

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Gandhian

Excerpt from the book - Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

In India today, the term "Gandhian" is ultimately synonymous with social conscience; his example - of courage, persistence, identification with the poorest, striving for selflessness - still has a power to inspire, more so even than his doctrines of nonviolence and techniques of resistance, certainly more than his assorted dogmas and pronouncements on subjects like spinning, diet, and sex. It may not happen often, but the inspiration is still there to be imbibed; and when it is, the results can still be called Gandhian, even though the man himself, that great soul, never liked or accepted the word. 

(It was Joseph Lelyveld in the above paragraph, making his ending remarks about the Great Soul)

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We surely know when the term 'Gandhian' is chanted and when it is not. It is an inspiration for sure but for the actions that still are un-welcomed in 'Gandhian' way.

And perhaps, many are not even aware of what it actually means.

Srik

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test

Excerpt from the book - Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

"Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test: Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubt and your self melting away."

(It was Mahatma Gandhi in the above paragraph)

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A challenging test for sure. I do not know how many of us take up such tests on 'self'.

Srik

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essence of the man

Excerpt from the book - Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

"the essence of his teaching was fearlessness and truth and action allied to these," Jawaharlal Nehru would write. "this voice was somehow different from others, it was quiet and low, and yet it could be heard above the shouting of the multitude; it was soft and gentle, and yet there seemed to be steel hidden away somewhere in it...Behind the language of peace and friendship there was power and the quivering shadow of action and a determination not to submit to a wrong."

(the words of Nehru in the above paragraph describing the Mahatma)

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The leader. Need I say more?
It is the essence of true, spirited leadership to make the change!

Srik

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pianist

Excerpt from the book - Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

I can't devote myself entirely to untouchability and say, "Neglect Hindu-Muslim unity or swaraj." All these things run into one another and are interdependent. You will find at one time in my life an emphasis on one thing, at another time on [an]other. But that is just like a pianist, now emphasizing one note and now [an]other. 

(It was Mahatma Gandhi in the above paragraph)

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Loved the above paragraph.

Of course many things are interdependent on many more other things. One has to realize the importance of them and take appropriate step. Just like a pianist. 

Srik

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plan for freedom

Excerpt from the book - Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

"I am biding my time," Mahatma finally wrote in a letter dated May 1928, "and you will find me leading the country in the field of politics when the country is ready. I have no false modesty about me. I am undoubtedly a politician in my own way, and I have a plan for the country's freedom."

(It was Mahatma Gandhi in the above paragraph)
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Well, It was his determination to lead the country towards freedom. An inspiration for sure. How many of our current politicians or leaders have such plans for the country? 

Mahatma was a true visionary.

Srik

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Indian Economic Model by S. Gurumurthy – Day 1

As we all know S. Gurumurthy is a well known Economist, Thinker and an excellent writer. Many of us used to follow his articles published in the Indian Express. And of course many of us are his critics for several reasons. But his radical thinking and his brilliant analysis drags our attention to him. Yesterday was the Day 1 of his three day lecture series on the ‘Indian Economic Model’ being jointly organized by the Bangalore University and the CESS (Centre for Educational and Social Studies) in Bangalore. Here are some of the interesting excerpts from his talk. I have tried my best to extract these from the points I made. Some of it may be inaccurate but I have tried to be my best in projecting the right information.

Day 1: The whole discussion was on the Global Meltdown and on the American economic model.

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We (India) were the super power during 1700s. Our GDP share to the world was approx 21%. China over took us during 1600 and we over took China again in 1700. Where are we now?

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We (India) follow American system. We borrow ideas from them. We do not think original and contribute to the system. I speak about America because the whole world is dependent on America and they are adopting ‘proven’ American models. We are the carbon copies of others thinking.

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Indianness of economic development is a concern. We do not think because we do not read economics. We have stopped reading good books on economics. Students never read good books on economics and are not interested in economic development.

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None of the top economists in the world could arrive at the reason for the recent economic downturn. And none were hence able to come up with a proper solution. Quoted examples from the 11^th May article in ET, Economist magazine on the global meltdown, other articles from FT.

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America is a stock market led model. 55% of the population invests in stock market. Whereas Japan is a bank led model and only 9% of the population invest in Stock market. In India only 2.5% of the population invests in the stock market. We do not risk and we want to be safe.

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One line answer for the downturn is the “Families bankrupted, they were made government dependent and corporate were enriched”. The family savings in America used to be 70% before the corporate took over. And in 2005, the family savings is reduced to 9.5% and now it is in negative.

Corporations took over the family savings in 1996 and by 2006 it had crossed 512 bn$ compared to the family savings of 90(?)+ bn$.

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In America, families have collapsed compared to Asian countries. Divorce rate is 55% (second marriage divorce rate is 60 %(?) and the third marriage divorce rate is 75%). 27% of the American population live single. Hence there is no question of savings. In Asian countries families are the institutions. We save money to take care of them. In America, Government takes care of the families. They give money for them to survive. They give mortgage loans, they ask people to borrow money with high interest rates.

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Japan reduced their interest rate to make its population spend money. The interest rate got reduced to 0.8% and still people were saving money than spending. Government had to come up with the interest rate to deposit the money in the bank. And Japanese continued to deposit money in the bank. They have the highest cash reserves that cross trillions of dollars.

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Jagadish Bhagawati, the guru of Paul Krugman, was invited to India to suggest on the economic model by the Finance Ministry. (I don’t remember when). And he had given a 72 page document on the same. The two interesting problems shared were the following:

1.    Indians save unnecessarily. More than what they need to spend.
2.    Housewives are stingy and they don’t spend.

So more efforts were put towards making people spend. Attract global brands so that the housewives will get attracted towards those products and spend more. But efforts were not enough as the housewives continued to save rather than spend.

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‘The idea of family’ is very strong in India and hence we save money. Savings in India is close to 35-37% and out of that the household savings are close to 75%. In the next 10 years approx 1.7 trillion will be spent on infrastructure and all the money will be generated by the household savings. This will drive not only Indian development but also the global development. We will not borrow any money from outside.

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In America every individual will have close to 10 credit cards. They will be offered to take loans. For the population of 220 million (not sure of the year), there were about 1.2 billion credit cards and the debt amounting to trillions of dollars.  American mortgaging is now called as ‘Jingle’ mortgaging.

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American borrowing is close to 1.5 trillion dollars now. More than Americans investment in India, we have our savings in America. In 2011, America’s total debt is equal to its GDP. And in UK that follows American model, the debt is equal to 4 times its GDP. The reason is the product of culture and decline of families.

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We are asked to follow such system for 20 years and we have come up with no other alternatives. 

(End of the lecture)

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The interesting observation for me was on the 'idea of family' and the savings pattern with respect to the same. 

Srik

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Special Sunday visitor

Well, after a long time I thought of spending a lazy Sunday, without much of activities. Now that all my treks and outdoor trips have come down drastically since the last couple of months, thanks to all my new projects and long meetings during the weekends, there is no other option but to be in Bengaluru. 

More than anything, I thought of just resting today and sleep enough to catch up with all my pending sleep hours. I did not turn on the alarm on my mobile. I was all set for a 24 hour sleep (just saying). Yeah! that was required.

But, to my bad luck, I forgot all about my friends who would wake me up exactly at 6 am irrespective of how deep I am in my sleep. It does not matter if I am in a sound sleep or unconscious in my dreams. They come, they wake me up and if I dont listen to them, they shout harder to make sure I wake up and say 'good morning' to them. Today it was a bit more special; I had an unusual visitor, I heard a sweet voice amidst all the others. But, in my usual way of avoiding them, I closed my ears with my pillow and tried getting back to sleep. 

I could not sustain my curiosity and that sweet little voice was persistent enough in my ears so that I wake up and see who it is. In my half sleep state, I opened the door and started looking for the new friend. There are two big trees in front of my house. One is the Pongemia and the other is the Bauhinia (I think Bauhinia purpurea). It was a real test for me to connect that voice to my eye sight. And there it was, sweetly sitting on the Bauhinia tree and shouting out 'Good morning' to me. I connected with it through my eyes and through my ears and lost in its melody for a while. It was sitting beautifully amidst all my Koel friends, my regular 6 am visitors. This was my first sighting of this beautiful bird - Great tit - on this tree since 3 years (in Vijayanagar). 

Great tit (Parus major) on the Bauhinia tree

My day was made. It was as good as me opening my eyes on a Saturday morning in a forest or on a mountain. 

When I took out my camera to photograph it, it looked as if it did not notice me and was lost in its own world singing and jumping; allowing me to wonder in awe to make my sighting worthy enough. 

Hope the bird stays on for a little longer and hope I hear its calls every day and feel good to start my day! The only fear for me is that these birds keep jumping on the electric wires. They anyway look camouflaged in all these trees on the streets. No idea how to make these birds avoid them.

I only wish I can talk to these birds and they listen to my words!

Srik

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...under construction

Ah! I could finally visit the site to check on the progress. All seem to be working fine as of today. But more of what is to be done is still a challenge.

Construction workers from Andhra Pradesh at the Site

Aerial view of the building under construction (South-west corner)

This particular visit was very helpful in getting a lot of clarity on several issues. Be it the community support, or  understanding medical facilities in the surrounding villages, availability of doctors and volunteers. We also visited the nearest PHC at Muddenahalli and interacted with the duty doctor. Perhaps! I think we are moving in the right side of the history. And may be we can hope for some good breakthrough. 

Read more about Chere here.

...more excitements to follow 

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a sorry affair

Excerpt from the book - Great Soul by Joseph Lelyveld

Those who depend on what he called "truth force" were "strangers to disappointment and defeat," he claimed in his book. Yet here he was, at the end of his days, expressing chronic disappointment and, sometimes, a sense of defeat. He'd had more to do with India's independence than any other individual - in declaring the goal and making it seem attainable, in convincing the nation that it was a nation - but he was not among those who celebrated that day. Instead, he fasted. The celebrations were, he said, "a sorry affair."

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That was Mahatma Gandhi in the above paragraph. 

In a way it is so true that it was not an occasion to celebrate. It was a defeat in his own mind that the real freedom was not achieved. 

Srik

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