... dreaming of people you last saw a decade ago.
... forgetting the name of the Bandra pizza place you used to order from everyday.
... looking at buildings in Valletta and being reminded of Baroda.
Its time to go home.
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Question
Q: What connects a person from coastal Karnataka (India) and a person from Haute-Savoie (France)?
A: The way they say 'Yes'. Vay Vay*
:)
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* Oui is almost pronounced as 'Vay' , or 'why' up in the Alps :)
A: The way they say 'Yes'. Vay Vay*
:)
----
* Oui is almost pronounced as 'Vay' , or 'why' up in the Alps :)
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Textbooks online
Somewhat old news, which one heard only today.
The Tamil Nadu state School Education Department has a website where it's put up all school textbooks (classes 1 to 12) ... http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/
Some digging led to the discovery that other states have textbooks online as well, but one found nothing as comprehensive as TN.
States that have books /chapters online (not just syllabii, which a lot more states have):
The NCERT also had plans in this direction, but not much has come of it. All they have on their sorry excuse of a site, are syllabii and what looks like bits of random textbooks. Get your act together, guys...
Of course, now that the crucial first steps (faltering in some cases) are happening, one hopes to see better stuff too -- like perhaps interactive lessons/ tutorials/ exercises, or video... Best to leverage the interactivity of the medium, wot?
Also, our governments should do something about moving school textbooks onto non-commercial licenses (so that atleast other people can begin building more learning materials)... those books were created with public money, after all.
The Tamil Nadu state School Education Department has a website where it's put up all school textbooks (classes 1 to 12) ... http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/
Some digging led to the discovery that other states have textbooks online as well, but one found nothing as comprehensive as TN.
States that have books /chapters online (not just syllabii, which a lot more states have):
- Karnataka (with some help from the Azim Premji Foundation)
- Andhra Pradesh (also supposed to be here... but I couldn't find anything)
- Kerala
- Madhya Pradesh (They just have a skeleton site, the actual textbooks are missing :)
The NCERT also had plans in this direction, but not much has come of it. All they have on their sorry excuse of a site, are syllabii and what looks like bits of random textbooks. Get your act together, guys...
Of course, now that the crucial first steps (faltering in some cases) are happening, one hopes to see better stuff too -- like perhaps interactive lessons/ tutorials/ exercises, or video... Best to leverage the interactivity of the medium, wot?
Also, our governments should do something about moving school textbooks onto non-commercial licenses (so that atleast other people can begin building more learning materials)... those books were created with public money, after all.
Monday, 14 April 2008
Deewane-e-Aam
April - May is one's favourite time of the year, largely for a single reason: Mangoes -- specifially alphonso mangoes ( Bombay roots showing, obviously!).
As far as one is concerned, a mango is more than just a fruit. It symbolises carefree summer vacations, fun with cousins, and a million happy memories of occasions spent devouring it in all possible forms. Seriously...if sunshine had a taste, one suspects it'd be somewhat like a mango's. If happiness had a texture, it couldn't have been too different from that supple goldeny-orangey flesh. If bliss had a smell..... Gaah!
And one is waxing lyrical over them, because one is likely to miss having one's annual fix... being in Tuscany this season.
Ah well. One will read about them and drool.
Mind the wet floor.
As far as one is concerned, a mango is more than just a fruit. It symbolises carefree summer vacations, fun with cousins, and a million happy memories of occasions spent devouring it in all possible forms. Seriously...if sunshine had a taste, one suspects it'd be somewhat like a mango's. If happiness had a texture, it couldn't have been too different from that supple goldeny-orangey flesh. If bliss had a smell..... Gaah!
And one is waxing lyrical over them, because one is likely to miss having one's annual fix... being in Tuscany this season.
Ah well. One will read about them and drool.
Mind the wet floor.
Friday, 11 April 2008
India Day in Pisa
One is singing, along with K:
1) Colonial Cousins' Krishna
2) Mile Sur Mera Tumhara (cliched, but.... perfect answer to everyone who's ever asked me 'So, what language do you speak in India?')
1) Colonial Cousins' Krishna
2) Mile Sur Mera Tumhara (cliched, but.... perfect answer to everyone who's ever asked me 'So, what language do you speak in India?')
Monday, 28 January 2008
Saat rupaiyya, baraah aana
*Not* the Kishore Kumar song, but something far more substantial.
CNBC TV-18 reported today, that each school-going child in Pondicherry gets 35g of biscuits and 150 ml. of milk for breakfast each day. Trivial move, but it's led to better attendance, and better attentiveness in the classroom -- Pondicherry reportedly has 100% attendance upto Class 12.
And it costs them Rs. 7.75 per child per meal to achieve.
Of course it isn't just food that motivates students to study.
But one takes the simplistic approach here -- what if it did? What if poor parents began sending kids to school, if only to keep them from starving (one has read too many stories in Reader's Digest!)?
What if Rs. 7.75 (a little below 20 cents in USD terms today) per child, per meal could lead to a 100% literate India 15 years from now?
Loose change never achieved so much.
CNBC TV-18 reported today, that each school-going child in Pondicherry gets 35g of biscuits and 150 ml. of milk for breakfast each day. Trivial move, but it's led to better attendance, and better attentiveness in the classroom -- Pondicherry reportedly has 100% attendance upto Class 12.
And it costs them Rs. 7.75 per child per meal to achieve.
Of course it isn't just food that motivates students to study.
But one takes the simplistic approach here -- what if it did? What if poor parents began sending kids to school, if only to keep them from starving (one has read too many stories in Reader's Digest!)?
What if Rs. 7.75 (a little below 20 cents in USD terms today) per child, per meal could lead to a 100% literate India 15 years from now?
Loose change never achieved so much.
Wednesday, 2 August 2006
Hyderahhhhh!bad
The weekend saw me doing one of those weekend trips that life has lately seen very few of.
The agenda: ACE2006 at the ISB.
One more city, right? Not.
Hyderabad 'Dakhkhan' as my grandparents would have called it, is cool. The cantonments remind me of the more innocent Bangalore of just four years ago, the roads are blissfully flat, and 'Gachi Bowely' is all wide open spaces and breezy campuses (Tangent: Is the plural of campus campii?).
To add to which, how can you go wrong with a city where you can get into a rick, and ask to be taken to Paradise?
The agenda: ACE2006 at the ISB.
One more city, right? Not.
Hyderabad 'Dakhkhan' as my grandparents would have called it, is cool. The cantonments remind me of the more innocent Bangalore of just four years ago, the roads are blissfully flat, and 'Gachi Bowely' is all wide open spaces and breezy campuses (Tangent: Is the plural of campus campii?).
To add to which, how can you go wrong with a city where you can get into a rick, and ask to be taken to Paradise?
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