What is that crack on the face?
A burrow?
Rather a sneaky trench.
You call it a smile?!
I know
That is amiability.
But why don’t your eyes keep quiet?
Discipline them
Or they get out of control
Why not tear them out?
Throw them on the rocks
So that they would never sprout
They are to die with this century.
” My Mask too fine and serene,
My smile ugly, words worthless
The mask is torn to pieces
Still I wear a self conscious laugh….”
These lines are still reverberating in my ears. I know that my words are not enough powerful to write about Nandhitha. Her serene soul thirsted for something that she had missed in her journey of life. She left the world because she never wanted to wear the mask. The lines in the poems were fresh and pure as it was not written for the public. The dreams, hopes and the feeling of loss melted into her pen and something still remains strange. She was adored by her parents her brother and the people around her but the intensity of love was beyond everything, that brutally taken away her mind. I was surprised by these poems and more by the poet. She might have been truthful to her life but she got married. Without doubt Nanditha and her poems will be remembered in the hearts of all those who values their lives.
Suave, handsome, successful, competent, articulate those words literally suited to the handsome personality, Dr. Sasi Tharoor, the youngest ever Under Secretary General to be appointed in the UN. At the age of 22 he joined the United Nations- one of the most prestigious organizations of the world- and the world witnessed his meteoric rise through the years.He married Tilottama Tharoor, a journalist and scholar, at the age of 21, from whom he is now divorced. He is the father of twin sons, Ishaan and Kanishk. He got remarried to Christa Giles, a Canadian who is Deputy Secretary of the United Nations Disarmament Commission.
Dr. Tharoor received many awards including, Rajika Kripalani Young Journalist Award for the Best Indian Journalist under 30 in 1976, at age 20, and accepted the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman award, India’s highest honour for non-resident Indians in 2007 , which he had been unable to accept four years earlier due to UN rules
Dr. Tharoor is also the author of six books, including the award-winning political satire, The Great Indian Novel (1989), and India : From Midnight to the Millennium (1997), a study of Indian politics, society and economic development after independence. He has written more than a thousand articles, open edited pieces and literary reviews in a wide range of publications on politics, culture, literature and almost everything under the sun.
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Brain gain! Fewer IITians going abroad!
But the times have changed. In the last five years, there has been a drastic decline in the number of Indian students leaving the country for higher studies and better paying jobs abroad.
Prestigious engineering schools such as the Indian Institutes of Technology are these days reporting a 'disinterest' amongst students to go abroad because of better emerging opportunities within the country.
Says V Kalyanaraman, Dean of the Centre for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras: "The number of graduate students from IIT going abroad for further studies or jobs has drastically decreased."
Figures as to what percentage of students has opted out of foreign jobs or higher studies abroad, especially to the United States, are hard to come by. But Kalyanaraman says with regard to IIT, Madras: "I think there has been some 40 percent reduction in the number of students going abroad in the last two years."
All these years, the highly skilled Indian talent flocked to America and other western countries for good jobs and better living standards. But these days, many of them are returning home and fewer students passing out of premier institutes, like the IITs, are opting to work abroad.
Kalyanaraman outlines four reasons why there is a reduction in brain drain and an increase in the reverse brain drain:
"Students are finding interesting and challenging jobs in India. The pay in India is also much better than it used to be earlier. And above all, they find that they can have a good quality of life in India too," reasons Kalyanaraman.
One main reason for this reversal of fortunes for IITians is the good pay that multinational companies offer in India.
Take, for instance, IIT-Bombay. This year, 31 IITians got job offers from IBM, 25 from Oracle and 16 from Intel at the IIT-Bombay. IIT-Bombay also saw the average salary increase to approximately Rs 3.5 to Rs 4 lakh (Rs 350,000-400,000) per annum from around Rs 3 lakh (Rs 300,000) per annum last year.
Chennai-based education consultant P Vasudeva says there's yet another reason for this decline in IITians opting for jobs and studies abroad.
The 'dual degree' programme, introduced in some IITs, is the cause, according to him. 'Dual degree' means an integrated bachelor's and master's degree along with the regular B.Tech programme.
"Many students are now opting for dual degree programmes in IITs and that means they need not spend considerable time looking for MS courses abroad, especially in the US," he points out.
Also, Vasudev says, if someone commits to do a PhD in the US, it takes about seven years, which is not an attractive proposition at present. "Nowadays, everyone wants to go through the IIT-MS-MBA route in India, and get settled here with good jobs," he adds.
Moreover, getting admissions for MS for an IITian in a US university is very tough these days because many American students are opting for master's programmes.
The higher pay and better opportunities are also forcing many IITians who went abroad years back to get back home.
IITian Arun John, a software engineer who worked in Texas for seven years, is one of them. Late last year, he came to settle down in Bangalore: "The US is a good place to spend some years. Not to work your whole life. I hated the idea of working for a lifetime in the US," he says.
John has set up Skynet Solutions, a technology solutions company, and has four US contracts already. "India offers more challenges. Why waste life in the US," he argues.
He says many of his IIT colleagues working in the US are preparing to head back home.
"Everyone wants to do something on his or her own. India, at present, offers lots of opportunities to do something different and be independent," John adds.
Two years ago, the American Electronic Association came out with a report which said many Indian techies are going back 'turning America's brain drain into India's brain gain.'
Titled Losing the Competitive Advantage: The Challenge for Science and Technology in the United States, it said countries like India and China are dramatically increasing the skill sets of their workforce, thereby posing a challenge to the US leadership in the technology domain.
"Public-private partnerships (in India) have invested in technical universities and communications infrastructure to create cutting-edge technology parks in places like Bangalore. This will only make India more competitive and alluring to investors and multinational companies," the report said.
Former resident of India A P J Abdul Kalam: A leader should know how to Manage Failure
Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?
Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources - but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.
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By 1979 - I think the month was August - we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts - I had four or five of them with me - told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.
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That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present - was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure - he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.
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The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite - and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."
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I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.
