Solutions to Change

by D.Dhanuraj The election commission is ready to declare the schedule of General Elections 2014. Political parties are busy in building alliances. It’s the coalition politics era in India. The main stream parties; Congress and BJP are still dilly dallying with the political formations they should push to occupy Raisina Hills. There are many ‘If’s and ‘But’s in the scene and poll pundits are obscured with the resurrection of the strategies of AAP by resigning from the Delhi Government.  It is for sure that the new Government formation is not going to be an easy task for any of political parties as most pollsters predict a very fractured mandate this year.  Every party is willing to buy the coalition government at the centre and it offers number of opportunities even for smaller parties when the fight is so close and exciting. Both UPA and NDA are still scouting for their partners and allies. For UPA,  anti-incumbency is at the peak riding on poli...

by D. Dhanuraj After a long time, I was standing on the queue to book my Tatkal tickets. I was at the reservation counter of Chennai Central Railway Station Reservation counter to reserve my return journey ticket from Chennai to Ernakulam.  Luckily I had Tatkal booking forms with me, which I had taken along with me from Ernakulam to ensure that I can afford to be there at  the Tatkal counter at  9.50 am equipped with the filled Tatkal form.  It was not a long queue (I am surprised; may be off-peak season) and I was probably 6th or 7th in the queue. I could sense a kind of excitement and curiosity on everyone's face as the counter opens for Tatkal reservation at 10 am. There were chairs for 5 or 6 to sit and relax before the crucial booking starts. As the clock ticked 10, everyone stood up.  I was not able to see the booking agent (not sure what is the designation of the officer; officer, inspector or agent?) at the counter. As I was lurking at the wi...

By D.Dhanuraj Kerala's recent history dealing with higher education (?) courses and colleges is not so praiseworthy. Everyone looks at the development with suspicion and no one wants to discuss and collectively learn from the experiences.  While we have a history of revolutionizing school education which has helped us to attain 100 percent literacy, it seems that we lost track with the developments in higher education field. Everyone in Kerala was forced to believe for a quite long time that it is the responsibility of the Government to run education institutions of excellence.  This was happening while private aided schools were serving the majority of population for many decades. At last, the Government took a decision to open up higher education to private players. Here, I am not going into the merits of the stated policies of the then Government on this regard. I want to explore the remedial measures to fix the problems that the higher education secto...