kriticulture

If you have ever visited India, you know the ubiquitous subzi-wallah – almost every corner features at least one selling fruits or vegetables, arranged enticingly, with customers picking and choosing the produce, while haggling about the high prices. But big changes are on their way – in all sectors of retail , as the Indian government has decided to allow foreign companies like Wal-Mart to setup shop. Does that mean that you will stop hearing the subzi-wallah yelling outside your window early in the morning? Probably not… Link below: The Subzi-wallah or Wal-Mart? | Tribe Desi Marketing & Communications

(From Daily Post , November 9, 2011 )    By Rajesh Kumar Sharma The Upanishads tell the story a young man who, arriving at a teacher's hermitage in the forest, knocks on the door. 'Who's there?' a voice asks. 'If I knew, I would not be here,' he answers. More than two thousand years later, the purpose of education remains essentially the same - to know who we are. And that includes knowing the world of which we are part. But more than others it is we, inhabitants of the land of the Upanishads , who need to revisit this question today and ponder over it. Day in and day out, someone is telling us that our education is not in sync with reality. That it should be 'job-oriented'. The advice made sense a decade ago when several obsolescent courses used to absorb floods of students. The situation has changed pretty much since. There are too many 'job-oriented' courses now, most of them with too many seats. The problem is the students turned out by...

By Rajesh Kumar Sharma (Published in The Daily Post of October 26, 2011) What can we do to redeem our universities from the curse of sterility, banality and mediocrity that has befallen them? Before we ask this question, we might ask – what is the Indian university? We speak of the American university, the French university, the German university, the British university, and now even the Chinese university. But the Indian university? It existed once upon a time, in places like Nalanda and Taxila. The distinctive modern Indian university just does not exist. The idea, the concept of the modern Indian university is just not there. Indeed, the university does not exist because the concept does not. Until we begin to conceptualize the Indian university, nothing will help. Like a dim shopper who does not know what she wants, we will continue to run from shop to shop stuffing our bags with whatever the clever shopkeeper manages to sell to us. And we will feel cheated and disappointed at...