TN Plus Two results, JEE etc.

Few random observations.

(1) Karnataka 2nd PUC (same as Plus Two in TN) results were declared on May 6th. Out of 6.11 lakh students who wrote the exam, 59.36% had passed. Oneindia site had the pass percentage in the last few years, some of which look quite shocking: (From http://education.oneindia.in/news/2013/05/07/district-wise-result-analysis-karnataka-2nd-puc-2013-004883.html)

In 2008, the pass percentage was as low as 41.31%. Remained sub 50% right until 2011. In 2012, jumped to 57.03% and now 59.36%. Not knowing the history over the last 25+ years, it does appear that this year record is the best. Still 4 out of every 10 who wrote have failed the exam.

(2) In comparison, in TN, 7.99 lakh students wrote the plus two exam, and the pass ratio is 88.1%

(3) TN's worst performing district Thiruvannamalai has a pass percentage a shade under 70%. Whereas, in Karnataka, Yadgir district pass ratio is around 46%.

Are the exams in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu comparable?Is the evaluation in TN more liberal?

As pointed out by Alex Pandian @AxPn, while we are seeing a spate of suicides in TN, the general feeling seems to be that Karnataka has done well by increasing the pass percentage. No one seems to have committed suicide.

***

As pointed out by RealityCheckInd on Twitter, a total of 30,000 people have qualified from the south zone in the JEE (Main) test. Of this, though, 20,000 are from Andhra Pradesh and a mere 2,000 from Tamil Nadu.

So in that case, how do we compare the education in these two states?

Anti- Sri Lankan protests in Tamil Nadu

It all started with the hunger strike by a few Loyola College students in Chennai. It seemed unclear to me what exactly their primary goal was. They had a 9 point charter of demands, which didn't read well.

It was also not clear to me what suddenly prompted this hunger strike. Sure, there was a scheduled meeting of UNHRC, where a few countries headed by the USA was going to table a resolution criticising Sri Lanka's human rights record. Channel 4 of UK had come up with another documentary, which had the haunting images of Prabhakaran's young son Balachandran eating biscuits in one frame, and found in a sea of blood in another. Two important books had been published during this time - The Cage by Gordon Weiss and Still Counting the Dead by Frances Harrison - documenting the human rights excesses by the Sri Lankan army during their bloody war against the LTTE in 2009.

The Tamil Nadu State Govt. moved swiftly and broke the hunger strike. But this only made the student protest spread across the state. Last week, almost every town had a college or two organising a local hunger protest. Even IIT Madras seemingly participated! Engineering Colleges and Medical Colleges looked to be joining. The State Government declared all colleges closed starting today.

At the political level, DMK's TESO was all for a very strong resolution against SL. Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha wrote to the Prime Minister asking for a tough stand at UNHRC. Last week parliament witnessed Tamil MPs almost unanimous - even the TN Congress MPs.

Yet, something seemed not right.

The Indian Government response is not clear what its position is. The pressure from Tamil Nadu means that India will be forced not to back Sri Lanka. It will be made to vote along with the US resolution, which unfortunately is itself quite weak. DMK and AIADMK want the resolution to be made strong against SL, but India doesn't have the capability or willingness to do so at this late hour. Further, Even if India cobbles together a tough resolution (much against its own wish), it doesn't have the ability to convince other countries to accept its version.

The protesting Tamil Nadu students have no clue about any of this. They do not even have a clarity on whether to support the US backed resolution or not. Their goal of calling SL action as a genocide is not going to happen, because that campaign started so late.

In the end, the students will feel betrayed.

Without leaders from amidst themselves directing this, students will merely fritter away their energy and will be mostly misused by the various political parties.

Many leftist intellectuals in TN seem to be overly thrilled about the student uprising. They see it as their beloved revolution. They are entitled to their dreams.

Most students who spoke on TV seemed to know very little about the political process. They don't seem to be reading anything at all. It is obvious that whatever they presented as their demands seem to have been given to them by some other operators, with their own ulterior motives.

If the students do not read up and work on their own leaders, they will end up feeling totally disillusioned. They cannot move this current government that easily with such haphazard flash strikes.

Indian language ebooks

With Tablet PCs on the rise, this year will see many Indian companies attempting ebook applications for Indian languages. At the recently concluded World Book Fair in Delhi, Rockstand (RockASAP Retail Pvt Ltd) had taken a huge stall, very nicely designed. Its press release appeared as news items in most of the Indian newspapers, through PTI. Sample this article in NDTV. The reader app is supposed to also handle Indian languages. However, investigation at the stall did not yield any useful information. The people in the stall didn't know much about this.

NDTV Gadgets has a review on this app, which you can see here. This review also states that the app has Indian language capability and also says the app is available for iOS. However, when I checked on appstore in my iPad, I couldn't locate it at all. However, the Android app works. I could download a free Hindi book. It works.

This Hindustan Times article gives an overview of various ebook service providers who were present (and not present) at the Fair. Amazon Kindle didn't have a stall. Google was not present. Amazon is not interested in Indian language ebooks at present. But Google is interested and was still not present with a stall.

TiECON 2012 - Angel Fund panel

TiECON 2012 organized by TiE Chennai yesterday had an excellent panel discussion on Angel Funds.

Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Capital Funds moderated the discussion. The panelists were: Paul Singh of 500 Startups, Rajesh Sawhney of GSF Accelerator & Superangels, Rehan Yar Khan of Indian Angel Network, Karthik Reddy of Blume Ventures and Suresh Kalpathi of Chennai Angels.

Of the above, Rehan Yar Khan and Suresh Kalpathi represent Angel investors: wealthy people who invest their own money in small start ups, and help the companies go to the next stage. Paul Singh and Rajesh Sawhney represent accelerators - where they identify small companies who can be put together and fast tracked to next stage. Blume has raised money from nearly 100 HNIs, so it acts as a Venture Fund but Karthik claims they work like Angel investors.

Karthik provided an excellent insight into the kind of companies they invest: A company which will reach revenues of 2-5 crore INR within 2 years (so that they can attract investments in the next round from VCs) and can hit breakeven by this time so that they are not worried about any delays in the next round of investments. Even if there is no one interested in investing in such companies, Blume can itself put in more money in such companies.

Paul Singh said they typically invest 50,000 USD in their companies, hoping that it will last them for 6-7 months and look for next level investments. He said putting the start-ups together makes them perform better - peer pressure driving them to deliver more.

When queried on valuations, Paul said one could consider a ball park of not more than 15% of the company for cash to last for an year. Rajesh said he will not invest in a start-up company where the founders have given away more than 30% before the Angel round (to friends and family). Because there will be more dilutions in the subsequent rounds which will leave very little for the founders in the end. he said he has helped fix this issue for couple of start-ups but where it is not possible, he will not invest in them, even though the people are good and the idea is good.

***

There was a session on 'கஷ்டமான கஸ்டமர்' (Difficult Customer) in Tamil. S.Ve.Shekhar moderated the session. Karunanidhi of SKP Engineering College, Jayakannan of Arasan Match Industries and Muruganantham (low-cost sanitary napkins) of Jayashree Industries participated. It was quite an enjoyable session too, with a lot of witty repartee from Shekhar. This sessions could have been longer - it appeared to me that the whole thing came to a stop rather quickly. It is nice to see TiE organizing a Tamil session too.

It was at the end of this session that our new book was launched - a book written by IIT-M Prof A. Thillai Rajan (in Tamil): A guide to first generation entrepreneurs. This book will be available for purchase in another 3 weeks.

Crumbling democracy in Sri Lanka

Indian news media seems to be least bit concerned about the situation emerging in Sri Lanka. The Tamil Nadu newspapers (both Tamil and English) were primarily concerned about the civil war in which LTTE was destroyed by the Sri Lankan military. Since then, the coverage, if any, is only about whether Sri Lankan state will be held responsible for the human rights violations during and in the run up to the war.

Currently, the Rajapakse clan who have enormous control over every aspect of Sri Lankan administration is in the process of impeaching the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka Supreme Court. I have not seen any news coverage of this in the Tamil Nadu media.

The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka has hardly been the upholder of democratic rights and human rights of the Sri Lankans. The Cage, by Gordon Weiss documents how the courts have systematically sided with the ruling dispensation to terrorise and bulldoze the opponents into submission. Yet, whenever bodies such as UN and International human rights organizations have complained about the dwindling civil rights in the country, the ministers and secretaries of the government will jump up and say that the Sri Lankan justice system is exemplary and will provide justice for all better than any foreign body would.

The current attempts of impeachment shows that Rajapakse & co will not brook any form of non-compliance from other "pillars" of their democracy. Just as Rajapakse group dispensed with the army commander Sarath Fonseka and put him in jail on trumped up charges, now it is the turn of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake.

Indian news media focused on the power struggle in Pakistan between then dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the Supreme Court of Pakistan. However, there is not much interest in a similar struggle happening in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka will soon be a right wing dictatorship under Mahinda Rajapakse, where dissent in any form will not be allowed. The opposition UNP under Ranil Wickremasinghe is powerless. Sarath Fonseka has been emasculated. The army is controlled by the defense secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse, a younger brother of Mahinda, while the Parliament is controlled by the speaker Chamal Rajapakse, an elder brother of Mahinda. If you have a pliant Chief Justice, then even the bits and pieces legal opposition can be taken care of.

Caste clashes in Tamil Nadu

It is very disturbing to see the emerging caste conflict in Tamil Nadu. The MBC castes in particular are coming together as a bloc against... not the upper castes but the dalits!

PMK's Ramadoss has organized a meeting last week in which other MBC castes have come together, possibly to create a united political front. But the key agenda is to keep the dalits from marrying their womenfolk! Look at the language here:

“They wear jeans, T-shirts and fancy sunglasses to lure girls from other communities,” [Ramadoss] told reporters. A resolution adopted at the meeting cited statistics of broken marriages to claim that inter-caste marriages ended in failure because they were unions born out of caste design and not love.

Dalits are portrayed as 'girl-snatchers'.  This is very similar to the Hindutva organizations accusing the Muslims of love-jihad. Ramadoss claims that dalits are waging a jihad against 'their girls'.

The agenda is two-fold:

1. Stop inter-caste marriage, in particular if the boy is from the dalit community.
2. Weaken the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The second demand is more sinister. SC/ST Act itself is very rarely applied and it has not prevented any atrocities against the dalits. Now, the MBC castes want the act to be weakened (read: removed) so that they can roll out their gameplan without any worries.

The response to this is very muted from the mainstream political parties. No official statement from DMK, AIADMK, Congress and BJP. Only Thirumavalavan of VCK is trying to organize a political front asking for support from the communists and Periyar groups (a bunch of fringe political entities opposed to caste, amongst other things). Such a political front will not have the strength to withstand the fury about to be unleashed by Ramadoss and his cohorts.

I don't think a few dalit boys marrying a few vanniar girls is the real issue here. The anger and hatred against the dalits seem to be very real. The speed with which nearly 40 MBC/BC castes have come together on an anti-dalit platform shows that they are very serious. There are regular statements from other caste groups as well against the dalits in the recent times.

It is important for the sociologists to quickly understand the reasons for this simmering anger coming to the fore so quickly and suddenly. Besides the burning of three dalit colonies in Dharmapuri district, there have been a couple of minor (which means only 4-8 houses burnt and not 100s of houses) burning incidents near Neyveli (heartland of PMK). This can flare up into a full scale war, if the government doesn't act immediately.

TN encounter killings

Two accused have been killed by police when they were being taken from Madurai to Sivaganga. These two are accused in the killing of a police constable sub-inspector named Alvin Sudhan couple of months back.

The encounter story is the usual police story. One of the accused apparently complained of chest pain. The police stopped the van, when the two jumped out and escaped. They were later found to be travelling in a two-wheeler. They were surrounded by police. The two accused then attacked the police with country made bombs. As a defensive measure, the police apparently shot and killed them.

The video footage released by the police show a few large sickles and various other weapon as if picked from a typical goonda arsenal.

The police version sounds so implausible and yet the media is not asking hard questions. People who call in during talk shows brazenly defend the police action, as a sort of revenge to Alvin Sudhan killing. Facebook and Twitter discussions support the police action.

Indians don't seems to understand the concept of a modern democratic state with a rule of law, independent judiciary, a just trial before a verdict is pronounced, the right to defence in a court of law etc. They seem to love the police state, where police barge in, shoot and then make up the evidence. Every single encounter killing in the state of Tamil Nadu in my living memory appears to be a sham. No independent verification of the police story, no explanation on whether such an action was really required etc.

This is not to defend the killing of the policeman. But in a civilised state, the criminal who caused the death will be caught, a fair trial given so that the people really convince themselves that the accused is indeed guilty, and then a punishment given commensurate with the crime, while at the same time the accused is given all the rights to defend himself.

Somehow, the citizen of this country does not seem to understand this process. He in fact thinks this complex procedure is a drain on our finances. He seems to want a quick solution, instant justice, a hollywood/kollywood form of draw a pistol out and pump a few bullets into the alleged killer's head.

But what about Alvin Sudhan, is the oft repeated question. What about him? Like so many people who have been killed in random violence or planned violence, Alvin Sudhan is just another victim. Like the software engineer who went to a TASMAC bar in Velachery to have a whiskey, and found himself caught between two gangs with lethal weapons fighting each other.

Random or planned killings cannot give police extraordinary powers to act on their own as if they are above the law. That in Tamil Nadu they do this with impunity is because the people support them.

I feel sorry for the people, because they will be at the receiving end one day.

FDI, DCT, Congress, BJP

Some folks seem to oppose FDI in retail trade and direct cash transfers championed by Congress, simply because those folks are, by nature, anti-Congress and pro-BJP.

I do not like the current Congress dispensation either.

Congress may have brought out Direct Cash Transfers primarily to attract the votes of the poor in the upcoming parliamentary election. However that alone should not be the reason to oppose this scheme.

BJP is yet to make its views on DCT, but you can safely assume that it will be negative.

This is a wrong approach. The right approach should be to evaluate this policy vis-a-vis BJP's own approach to Indian economy, growth and subsidy and then decide whether to support this or not.

Indian administrative set up is entirely corrupt. It is impossible to think of any department in a state or central government which is devoid of corruption. It may be only a thing of degree; some states may be less corrupt than some other states, but it will be impossible to find a state that is completely clean. Much of the money spent by the governments on the welfare of people is lost along the way. Again, there is no doubt here. The only argument is about what percentage is pilfered: Is it 15% or 85%?

What are the arguments against DCT?

(1) Subsidy itself is wrong. How long do we continue to provide such subsidies?
(2) Aadhar is faulty. Anybody can get an Aadhar card. This will encourage infiltration from Bangladesh.
(3) How is BPL determined? Who decides who should be included in the BPL list, which in turn will make them entitled to Rs 32,000 an year?
(4) Direct cash subsidy implies removal of indirect subsidies. This will impact those who are just above BPL, but may still need support.
(5) Grains in hand much better than cash in hand, as these folks will spend the cash on liquor.
(6) Indirect subsidy controlled the prices directly, and made cheap food, education and healthcare available directly to the poor. Direct cash may not be commensurate with the actual market prices of essential goods and poor may find life more difficult going forward.

Let me take each of the above.

(1) We can dismiss the first question straight away. We already provide subsidies. They were provided in an indirect manner. Whether we should provide subsidies (either direct or indirect) at all is a different question, not relevant to our current discussion.

(2) Aadhar seems shaky. There are many people who oppose the system because it violates privacy and because anybody can get an Aadhar card by giving random and spurious data. I don't think Aadhar card by itself entitles you to a subsidy package. With a bit of understanding of RSBY scheme (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana), I can say that the central government does have a list of BPL households on a district by district, taluk by taluk level across the country. This list may have a few dodgy households in it. Some genuine families may not find a place there. This problem exists even today. In Tamil Nadu, you can't easily get a ration card today. So, many deserving families don't get subsidised ration goods today. This will continue in the current model also. Some undeserving will end up getting extra Rs 32,000 cash while many deserving will not get it. But by and large, bulk of the population in this list will be genuine.

This is just my belief and how this will established and how the list will be cleaned up every year is to be left to the Central and the State Governments. We need to push them to come up with a workable mechanism.

I am less concerned about Bangladeshi infiltration as of now. I genuinely think it is a minor problem.

(3) & (4) How BPL families should be defined is a big question. I am sure various agencies we have follow different methods and thus come up with very different data. Also, what constitutes a poor in different states, from rural to urban regions should vary. It can't be a simple "annul family income" number. Also, the subsidy amount should ideally worked together with a state government. It need not be a flat Rs 32,000 per annum. Also, it may be desirable to consider multiple buckets (groups A, B C), who will get different subsidies based on the per capita earning of that particular family. It could be Rs 32,000 per annum to one group, Rs 24,000 per annum to another and Rs 15,000 per annum to the third.) This way, we can gradually reduce the shock to every group.

(5) Grains vs cash. It is quite possible that a whole lot of people may misuse the money and waste it on liquor or other vices. I suggest transferring the cash to the woman of the house rather than the "head of the household" who is usually a man. Women in poor households are more likely to spend the money wisely. They understand hunger and healthcare requirements better than men. Money in their hand will also make them more powerful in the family. In some cases, this may also make the women vulnerable to attacks from the man. It will have to be left to the law to deal with such situations.

(6) In the models of indirect subsidy, government purchased in bulk, thereby could get grains at cheaper prices. Now, too, the government can procure in bulk and sell goods through the ration shops. Only, the price will not be Rs 1 per kg. It will be Rs 10 or Rs 15 or whatever it is.

Now what could be the advantages?

The ration shop guys won't loot this and sell elsewhere at a higher price, because no one will pay any higher price than what is being charged. You can only arbitrage on subsidised goods, like the Tamil Nadu rice in Kerala market.

The ration shop fellow will have to be nicer to the public, because if he isn't, the folks will buy from a private shop. The price difference will be marginal. If the ration shop fellow is not nice, he may not have a job, because the shop will eventually be closed for want of customers.

People will not accept third rate, rotten grains because for that rate (Rs. 10/15, they can get decent rice elsewhere too). Now, they are forced to accept inedible junk, because they won't get them so cheap anywhere else.

Market shock can be best handled by few govt. run shops which will ensure that there is always a correctly priced alternative.

If the prices still increase for essential goods which were earlier indirectly subsidised, the government will have to take a look at whether direct cash transfer subsidy amount should be increased, and whether they can fund the increase.

I see enormous advantages in this model. This is certainly worth a try - even if it has been introduced by a Congress govt. for cynical political gains.

Direct cash transfer

Poll time: Ministers detail biggest reform measure "direct cash transfer" from Congress Headquarters

Indian central government has decided to offer subsidy to families below the poverty line directly through cash transfers to their bank accounts, as opposed to the prevailing indirect model today.

The amount per family per year seems to be large: Rs 32,000. For 10 crore homes, this amounts to Rs 3.2 lakh crore an year. How this is going to be rolled out while dismantling the current indirect subsidy is unclear.

At a certain level, some kind of subsidy is required to lift poor people up. Let us hope they use the money sensibly and not waste it away. In fact, the leftists are the ones who disapprove of direct cash transfers. They probably do not trust the poor to spend the money wisely on food, education and healthcare.

We have to see how this works in the pilot districts. It may be worthwhile that the money be transferred to the woman of the household rather than the man.

New Blogger app for iPad

Blogger has released its app for iPad yesterday. This is obviously much better than the earlier iPhone version. Hopefully now, I will blog a bit more in English.

There is a built-in camera feature for taking a live picture and embedding in a blog -- something that may make better sense within an iPhone app. Probably the iPad mini can make better use of this.

Just to test that feature... An image of one of our recent publication...