India indebted to Karunanidhi for his 'unmeasurable' love for Tamil

This post was invoked by the wish list of an old man who knows he won't live long enough to see them - "Strive to make Tamil an official language, Karunanidhi tells youth".

Wherever i go outside TamilNadu, one of the questions popped up by my friends & strangers alike is 'Why u Tamils never learn Hindi?'. So let me answer that question before i move to benefits that country has reaped of 'Tamils never learning Hindi'.

• One of the key reasons is the man who is presently the esteemed CM of TamilNadu - Read "TN ready to fight against Hindi dominance - Karunanidhi". This great man while ensuring that his children & grandchildren learnt Hindi, made sure that the other Tamils were ignorant of the fact that your life is tough in India without knowing Hindi.
• If you want to know the historical reason, you have to go and read the newspapers of January & February - 1965. It was during these days Tamils - a 30 million crowd stood up as a single unit to fight against the implementation of "Hindi as the only official language of India". We, Tamils have always believed that "You could be a patriotic Indian without knowing to read or speak Hindi". But the men at the centre during those days thought otherwise. This led to one of the greatest protests led by the student community in free India. If you are interested in History or would like to know about the sad demise of a national party in TN, read the editorial - 'Hindi against India'

What has this protest of 1965 ensured?

• It ensured that English stayed as one of the official languages of India. It prevented the quick death of a large number of regional languages - Tamil, Telungu, Marathi, etc. More importantly, it stopped the further advance of the Hindi extremists. With hindsight, this protest ensured that most of the Indian students learnt English leading to a huge pool of English speaking graduates. It prevented India going the China way with regard to languages. Benefits are plain and simple. Without the protests of 1965, the software boom would have never occurred.

So whenever you meet a Tamil who does not know Hindi, just remember that he is still paying the cost for the prosperity that is being unleashed in India by the software boom. And if you meet a Tamil 20 years from now who is still does not know Hindi, remember - 'Havoc that an impossible dream by an old man can cause?'.

- By a Tamilan who still does not know Hindi

P.S: If you feel otherwise, I would like to hear from you. Post a comment or mail me at srobinb4u[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]in

Reservation in TamilNadu - My Opinion

This was my toughest post ever. On one hand, it is the first time someone(Karthi) requested me to write on an issue. In the other hand, I fear my opinions may hurt a few people including a few friends of me. That was one of the reasons I consciously avoided posting on the Reservation issue on my blog. (Even this post has been there in my blog for more than a month for want of publishing) Another constraint is that - the only demographic profile that i know of is TamilNadu making me ineligible to comment on the whole of India. So restricting the reservation issue to TamilNadu to make it much more meaningful for the people who read this.

Is the reservations really bad?
I have studied four years in a college which has around 60% caste-based reservation but none of us cared or gave a damn for this issue. We accept it as a reality and found a way to live with it. A few things I observed from my U.G. College is

• The policy of having around 60% reservation in my U.G. college ensured a very good representation of students from rural, semi-urban and poor families. This diversity in Anna university really benefited me as a person since I was exposed to certain hard realities of life[like how important 50 paisa is to a few people with economical constraints - have waited with my friends for hours in bus stop to climb a white board bus & leaving all the yellow board buses just because they were a few paisa costly]. This even made my transition from 'poor' CEG to 'rich' IIM a bit difficult
  
• Most of the students who entered the college through General Quota came from the developed urban cities
  
• Most of the students who went to M.S. for higher studies belong to the forward caste since Exposure & Networks that a forward caste student had was greatly superior to that of other caste students
• My Class Topper entered the college through the quota
  
• But I am also sure that the average of the SC/ST students will be much lower than that of other forward caste students.
  
• If somebody says that caste does not play any role in TamilNadu. Just think why Arvindaswamy & Madhavan are favorite actors for Manirandhanam. If you say it is only in Cine-field, then read this. In 2005, a retiring HOD of a well known Government supported Engineering college in central TamilNadu filed a FIR under TN anti-conversion bill[Only case of under that bill in the state] against his successor since he does not want someone who did not belong to his caste to occupy the post(that has belonged to his caste for ages)

Ok. But what does the sons and daughters of the FC people had did to deserve this punishment of caste based reservation?

The network and exposure that their parents had developed is a very important advantage for them. For example, if my parents had ever lived in North India, they would have ensured that I learnt Hindi in my young age itself. (My children would surely learn Hindi!!). Similarly the learning & experience effects and also the network built is a big advantage to them which can be offset by reservation. But still I believe there are lot of other better ways of affirmative action.

My Personal Stand - I don't welcome reservation but I don't oppose reservation too...

P.S: I am more a socialist than a capitalist... And expecting my arguments to be shredded into pieces in the comments section.. :)

CFA exams cancelled for Indian students!

You won't get to see this headline in any newspaper. But for more than 7000 Indian students who were slogging day and night for this particular exam on June 3rd, it was a huge shock & disappointment.

If you have never heard the word 'CFA', the following paragraph is for you :

CFA stands for Chartered Financial Analyst. First awarded in 1963, the CFA charter is the designation of professional excellence within the global investment community. The CFA Program offers a truly global educational challenge where you'll build a fundamental knowledge of investment principles that is relevant in every market around the world. Employers and investors know the CFA charter is the definitive standard for measuring portfolio management and investment analysis competence and integrity.
[Copied from the CFA institute website]

It is a must-do, in the calendar of MBA students whose career interests lie in financial analysis, research, marketing, or investment banking. Most of the students take it, not willing to lose the competitive differentiator every other Finance Student in the college has.

Why the exams were cancelled?

You will understand it once u read through these events

• On 4th August 2006, the Delhi high court ordered Hyderabad-based Icfai University to stop using the Chartered Financial Analyst and CFA trademarks.
• On the petition of the Icfai through its university in Tripura, the Guwahati High Court directed AICTE to determine whether CFA Institute must seek approval for its CFA Program from the AICTE. [See the Icfai went to Guwahati knowing that the representatives from this Global institute would think twice before coming to such a far away location]
  
• AICTE, just 2 weeks before the June 3 exams[for which students were preparing for a year] has asked CFA institure to cease operations in India. Read the letter sent out by AICTE to CFA institute.

As usual, Neither the CFA global institute[which has more than a lakh students appearing for its exams every year] nor the AICTE were affected by this cancellation of this exam, but it was only the students who are taking the impact of this cancellation.. As my friend aptly put it - 'None of the Politician's children nor any VIP's children are going to take these exams, then who in this nation cares for it' - Incredible India!!!!

Update: Surprisingly, this news found itself in the front page of the Economic Times - "AICTE asks CFA to stop executing"

Another mention on CNN-IBN about this issue - "CFA course ban hits students hard"

Thank God! That atleast Indian media is not sleeping. :)

Heard about twitter??

Are you someone who regularly feel the need to update your friends & relatives - "What are you doing at that particular moment". 'Twitter' is the right thing for you.

A global community of friends and strangers are answering one single question: "What are you doing?". You can update using your phone, messenger or right through the web itself. I joined it today and was really excited by the concept. You can access my personal twitter at http://twitter.com/robinsamuel. Just access http://twitter.com to sign up for this new social networking website.

Displeasure of D(MK) with Maran

When I read about the tiff between the Maran family & M Karunadhi's, never thought that it was worth a post . But on seeing fellow blogger's coverage of the events - Asif and Badrirag, I also decided to come up with my own version of the events.



Few Key things to know - to understand the whole controversy:-

• Stalin is in firm grasp of the DMK's party structure with very high loyalty to him running among its ranks
• Though Azhagiri claims that he is in charge of the southern part of TamilNadu, the reality is little different. Except for Madurai, it is Stalin's supporters who control the party. [Remember, I belong to southern part of TamilNadu]
• Stalin after the entry of Maran into political picture, started seeing him as his major competitor rather than Azhagiri Especially because of his dynamism and popularity with the common folk

So Stalin used this golden opportunity to get Maran out of the place from which he gets all the attention and fame. His argument was since MK already warned the Maran family not to publish the result, it is their fault. For this reason(not to allow Maran family to rise up as his competitior), he has even patched up with his half-sister Kanimozhi (soon-to-be the Delhi arm of DMK).

Hmm Politics! How exciting it is!!!