Kayamkulam boat race 2011 was conducted in Kayamkulam lake on August 27 2011. Some of the videos and photos are uploaded below:
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Lokpal Continued…
It is good to see that people of this country are aligning behind Anna Hazare in the fight against corruption. But are we assured that the corruption in this country can be ended with the introduction of a lokpal bill?
As per my understanding, lokpal will be an autonomous body functioning at the central and state levels and will have the power to prosecute anybody at its discretion. The impact of this can’t be predicted at this point of time. What is the guarantee that lokpal won’t become corrupted? What is the guarantee that lokpal will not be misused?
Nobody is having any doubt about Team Anna’s credibility or its intention. But we need to consider the long term impact of such a bill. If I’m not mistaken, we have enough laws in this country to deal with any situation or contingency. Only thing is we need to fine-tune these laws to the need of the hour and to execute them in an effective manner.
Lokpal can be created giving an overall monitoring power and provision for them to initiate investigation against any suspect. Even the media is doing the same thing these days. They are throwing light to many corruptions in our country which initiated such a huge protest among common people. Let the lokpal investigate the corruption charges and submit the evidences before the court of law or even they can make these evidences public if they feel that the court is keeping mum.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Economic Growth vs. Inflation
RBI had increased the policy rates several times in the past one year or so in order to tame inflation, but in vain. There has to be an equilibrium between economic growth and inflation. The choice of priority between the two is a tricky one. At any point of time, one should not be a burden for another.
Because of the increase in policy rate, banks are forced to increase interest rates due to which loans are becoming costlier. This is increasing the burden on common man who is already reeling under high price of essential commodities. To fuel the situation further, government had deregulated the price of petrol. This is having a huge impact on the inflation control measures taken by RBI and government.
The government cannot simply wash its hands off by deregulating the price of petrol and leaving it to the oil companies. The government should be responsible to the people of the country. Its first priority should be the common man, which constitutes majority of Indian population.
Other important factors which fuel inflation are hoarding and black-marketing. The government has to take effective steps to ensure sufficient supply of essential commodities in the market. Tonnes of food grains are getting wasted at government godowns. If these can be injected into the market before rotting through the public distribution system, it may ease inflation to some extend and also provide some relief to the poor people.
The increase in policy rates is only affecting the lower and lower-middle class people. The upper class is not affected much. In this adverse environment also, the real estate business in India is booming making it unapproachable for the common people. This makes quite evident that black money is prevalent in our economy. Some channel reports suggest that the deposits by Indians in Swiss bank amounts to 40% of our GDP.
Without having a control over the black money, no steps taken by the govt. and RBI will ease inflation. The current growth rate of India is attributed to the fact that wealth is being accumulated onto the hands of the rich. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening alarmingly.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Professional Education in kerala
The self financing professional colleges in Kerala are keeping the students and the govt. in point blank for the past few years. Educational sector has now become one of the most profitable businesses rather than a service to the society. The most worrying fact is that the Christian Missionaries who played a vital role in the past bringing in an educational revolution in this country are now bargaining for money.
The element of social service is missing in our present educational system. Everyone is only interested in making profit out of it and the standard of education has degraded to such an extent that the students coming out of some of these colleges are not fit to be inducted into the professional arena even after several months of training. Because of the increase in the number of professional colleges and hence the competition among them to consistently improve their results, many of them are adopting spoon feeding. This has resulted in the drastic decline of educational standard. As Swami Vivekananda said, education should be the manifestation of perfection already in man.
The biggest ever mistake was committed by our govt. when it provided NOC to numerous professional colleges without having a strict law for governing them. Now the self financing professional colleges are organized in such a manner that the government is at the mercy of them for admitting students from merit list every year.
Sree Narayana Guru had taught us to “be enlightened with education, be strengthened with organization”. These professional colleges had followed the latter to become organized against the interests of the society and hence making enlightenment with education unapproachable for majority of people. If the govt. had passed a law to govern them before giving NOCs, the dilemma which we’re facing every year could have been averted.
Monday, June 20, 2011
The Fuming Lokpal
The heat of Lokpal bill has been fuming in India for quite some time. While there is no objection among the public for the intension of the bill, the events happening in the recent past has been a cause of worry for all.
Some time back, terrorism was the greatest threat we were facing. But now it has given way to another threat – corruption. Corruption has been here for quite some time, but now it has erupted out of nowhere. Unfortunately, our govt. has no time to concentrate on the issues faced by common people after countering the allegations by media and opposition.
All Indians are in the view that the malaise of corruption should be wiped out of the country. The Lokpal bill may be considered as a step towards that. But there should not be a parallel govt. in our country with the introduction of this bill. If it happens, the effects would be catastrophic.
There should be an effective mechanism to curb corruption. We have the laws for preventing corruption. We need to polish these laws according to the need of the hour and to execute it in an effective manner.
We are governed by a set of people who have been elected by us. If we exercise our voting rights in a cautious manner, we can restrict power being falling into the wrong hands. For that to happen, we should think beyond politics. I’m not in the view that all politicians are corrupt. There are a few corrupt persons in our system. But we should remember that a single drop of poison is enough to contaminate a full bucket of water. It is the duty of the public to filter out these few drops from falling into the bucket.
In my opinion, the Jan Lokpal bill should be introduced with an overall monitoring power so that it won’t run a parallel government. That will be enough to have a check on corruption without leaving a wound on our democratic system.
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