Education in 2.0 world

Be it my love for maths as a subject or my strong conviction about need for education / tutoring portals in India, one site which I have always closely followed up since its inception is www.mathguru.com. This site was launched somehwere in July last year & the recent metamorphosis which this site has undergone is a lovely change I must say J. The site has evolved as a very interesting online tutorial portal & as per the industry sources, the site has got 15,000 registered users till now & is expected to grow to 25,000 users by March 2008 (Source: Hindustan Times)

Well, as a kid I remember how many of my friends used to hate maths as a subject & considering the phobia of maths in many students till date I think it’s an excellent move to have a portal like this to make the life of students simpler & easier. Oh how I wish such portals would have existed when we were kids!!! Life would have been so simpler for many students in our generation as well J However, why only maths, I think there is a need for many such portals in India who can offer education to students in an easier and cost – effective ways. Such portals are a win-win situation for all in a country like India, where curriculum based education is being given the highest priority as compared to any other country, where teachers in normal schools and colleges are one of the lowest paid salaried individuals & where accessibility to good education in most of the states is still a burning issue. With such cost effective portals students can get access to quality education in an easier way & at the same time even teachers can make more money as compared to their low salary being paid in most of the schools/colleges. Considering the need & potential of education as a category, I’m all eager to see the developments in this category in future & I’m sure this category will also see a huge boom like travel, job, matrimony & entertainment.

Imagine, another one as NDTV imagine

Today saw web banners of NDTV imagine all across main internet publishers. Well, the banner surely raised curiosity & made me click the links immediately and oh yet another entertainment channel & that too with nothing new L… same old daily soap concept. Though I was aware of NDTV launching 3 new channels in entertainment & movie segment but still after seeing the programming details of the channel on its website, I personally got disappointed… same story soap concept, musical reality show & then dance reality show etc…Aren’t we done to death with saas bahu sagas & reality shows? Well, the formal announcement of NDTV new channels always said fresh entertainment but the sneak preview on the website definitely promises nothing like that. Maybe once the channel is live, we can judge its best.
Well, lot many channels got launched during the last 5 to 6 years & Indian Television Industry has surely seen an explosive growth. Infact its one of the fastest growing industry in India, with more than 300 channels launched in last one & half decades. The industry is surely saturated as far as channel concepts & programming are concerned but still in last few months, we have again seen quite few new channel launches. Despite the clear cut advantage lying with first movers like Star, Sony & Zee since years, new set of biggies like UTV launched Bindass & INX launched 9X entertainment & 9Xmusic in recent past!!! Gosh… too many me-too channels with same kind of programming! Isn’t it sort of ENTERTAINMENT OVERDOSE for Indian television viewers???

Well, this one was really bad

This has not happened for the first time that I’ve got jam packed in Bangalore traffic in such a way that it looked as if the jam would never come to an end but somehow my yesterday’s drive back to home really left me wondering & shaken from inside. I felt this terrible desperation & helplessness after yesterday’s incident.

A reputed hospital comes on my way back home & so generally I find one or two ambulances running on the road. As any other road in Bangalore, even that particular road is jam packed during peak hours, sometimes so much that a stretch of 3.5 kms takes as much time as 30 mins to 45 mins to be covered. Infact occasionally I have spent even more time on that particular stretch. So, as usual even last night was nothing different when I was just stuck in the jam with so many screeching & screaming horns here & there. In all those sounds, there was one ambulance sound also roaring its alarm like anything, well but what can one do to help that ambulance as those who live in Bangalore know that there is hardly an inch for any vehicle to move here & there if you are stuck in jam. Suddenly my eyes went to that ambulance window & I saw a lady crying appallingly… somebody in that ambulance was critically injured & as per the auto driver next to me it was her husband who had got injured. Her loud voice & continuously running tears were just making it impossible for me to withdraw my eyes from her. That ambulance driver came out to instruct people to move here and there explaining the critical condition of the patient & even public was willing to move seeing the desperate condition of that female…she was just crying like anything & everybody was soooo pained to see that. But alas, no place for any vehicle to move back, front, right or left… we all were just stuck…even with all the intention to help, none of us were able to do anything…Oh god, what a moment that was…I felt like just jumping out of my vehicle & allowing that ambulance to go. But of course that would not have been of any help as what to do with the vehicle… In all this chaos & millimeter by millimeter progress of vehicles ahead, more than 25 mins were over, the hospital was hardly any distance from that place but still L…Then a bunch of guys suggested all of us to move back & there was a small service lane kind of thing in the back in which people started entering, so that atleast that ambulance can move back & maybe try some other route to reach any other hospital. But ohhh suddenly we heard the sudden loud wailing of this lady…she started banging her head on that ambulance window… oh god, what happened, has he died???????? I was just wondering & the taffic started moving, maybe one of the signals had become green… I tried asking my neighboring window, “what happened, is he ok”?, he replied, “looks like he is dead now”!!!!!!!!! And zoom that ambulance went ahead as the jam opened…

Well, I don’t know what happened to that lady’s husband, is he alive or he just died in that jam waiting to reach the hospital which was hardly 10-15 mins away from that area… I just kept on praying that may he be alive as that lady’s tear filled face was hounding my mind… and whole of my way back I was just wondering about the traffic jams & ‘n’ number of vehicles plying on the road… Well, traffic woes are the reality of any city these days but is there any solution to it in a city like Bangalore where the roads are so narrow with no space on sides to expand the roads even an inch??? The city has exploded completely with migratory population like us & the infrastructure was not at all geared up to bear an explosion like this… we all only crib about the traffic etc etc here, but when I see those narrow roads, those upcoming commercial spaces & the incidents like yesterday, I keep on wondering… if there is any solution to it???