Rajasthan Royals Romps into the IPL Final

The first semi-final of IPL between Rajasthan Royals & Delhi Daredevils turned out to be totally one-sided affair. Delhi team lost without giving any kind of fight to Rajasthan team. Rajasthan Royals outclassed Daredevils in every department of the game. Shane Watson again showed his class with bat & a ball. He surely is a good contender for player of the tournament award.

Now it remains to be seen if Chennai team could provide a good fight to the mighty Mohali team in the 2nd semi-final of the tournament. Mohali is a very strong side with formidable batting and bowling combinations. So Dhoni & Co. will have to pull out something special in order to reach final. Till then Mohali remains favorite to make it to the final. If Mohali makes it to the final than the final will be a thriller as both the teams i.e. Rajasthan & Mohali are equally powerful teams.

LEONA LEWIS- BLEEDING LOVE

The song ‘Bleeding Love’ from the debut album ‘Spirit’ by Leona Lewis has already created ripples worldwide. It has been a blockbuster in UK, Australia, Ireland, US and France. The song is very excellent not only in terms of vocal quality but also in terms of lyrics and music. Actually everything about the song seems to be perfect. Leona Lewis, 23, is a very versatile singer and ‘Bleeding Love’ is the proof of this. Her soulful voice in the song is not only captivating in terms of emotions but it oozes a kind of sultriness at the same time which is really mesmerizing. Her powerful voice is quite impressive, no doubt she has the influences of the likes of Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and others. It’s a very good song on love and the rest of the album too, is very good. The way Leona Lewis is being well-received by the music-lovers across the world, the new lady has already achieved an instant stardom.

50 Best Workplaces in India

Great Place to Work Institute, the US-based Institute that ranks Best Workplaces globally, has came out recently with its list of top 50 Best Workplaces in India for the year 2008. The companies that secured top positions are:

1. RMSI PRIVATE LIMITED

2. MARRIOTT HOTEL, INDIA

3. GOOGLE INDIA PVT. LTD

4. AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES

5. CLASSIC STRIPES PVT. LTD

6. AMERICAN EXPRESS, INDIA

7. CADBURY INDIA LTD

8. NTPC LTD

9. GODREJ CONSUMER PRODUCTS LTD

10. HILTI INDIA PVT. LTD

11. SCOPE INTERNATIONAL

12. QUALCOMM INDIA

13. INTEL INDIA

14. MINDTREE CONSULTING

15. COMPUTER SCIENCES CORPORATION

16. FEDEX

17. ADITYA BIRLA MGT CORP LTD

18. JOHNSON & JOHNSON LTD

19. ADOBE INDIA

20. FORBES MARSHALL

21. INTERGLOBE ENTERPRISES

22. INTELENET GLOBAL SERVICES

23. AVIVA LIFE INSURANCE

24. BAJAJ CAPITAL

25. SIERRA ATLANTIC

Other companies that are included in the Top 50 list are:

Acclaris Business Solutions, Aditi Technologies, Ajuba Solutions, Ambuja Realty, Azure Knowledge Center, BMR Advisors, Cushman & Wakefield India, Dr. Reddy’s Labs, Ernst & Young Global, Hardcastle Restaurants, Infineon Technologies, JM Financial Consultants, Kotak mahindra, M&M, Marico Ltd, Monsanto India, Network 18 Media, P&G, Perot Systems, Quintiles, SAP Labs, ST Micro Electronics, VCustomer, Wipro BPO and Zycus Infotech.

Bias against English-medium students in Gujarat

There is inherent bias against English-medium students in Gujarat’s education system. This has always been the case. First of all, answer sheets of English-medium students are checked by Gujarat-medium teachers who can never be expected to do justice to English-medium students. Such teachers have had always shown their biases towards Gujarati-medium students and as a result English-medium students had to content with low percentages. They never allowed English-medium students to top the merit list. Statistics of Board Exam results of Std. 10th and 12th are a testimony to this prejudice in the education system. The pass percentage of the English-medium students had always been higher than the Gujarati-medium students. Similarly much higher percentage of English-medium students scores distinction. These biases have even been reflected during Board Exams when Gujarati-medium Supervisors often treat English-medium students unfairly by taunting and making fun of them.

Such a prejudice of state’s education system has been there since long time and nobody ever cared to question this attitude. Even local media never reported these glaring facts. It is only this year that the Times of India brought out all this in news after the board results for std. 12th (science) were declared. Although this news was not surprising for me as I knew about such inherent biases against English-medium students all along. As an English-medium student, I have gone through all this. The only heartening fact is that now all these things are now in front of public and the biased attitude of state’s education system is uncovered for all to see.

But the chairman of GSHSEB, R.K Pathak had a strange explanation “The English-medium students are intelligent but do not strive hard enough, whereas Gujarati-medium students carry out in-depth study and work very hard.” To this I have only one thing to say that this man may be correct to some extent as most of the precious time of English-medium students is wasted in rectifying the errors in their textbooks and then making sense of all the rubbish thrown at them in the textbooks.

Erroneous School Textbooks in Gujarat

Errors in English medium school textbooks have so far been ignored by everybody in Gujarat. Usually it is common to see printing errors in textbooks which is to some extent understandable, but the kind of errors that the textbooks in Gujarat carry is unimaginable. They are replete with factual, spellings and grammatical errors. Not only that there are numerous conceptual errors, the language is also inappropriate. It seems like the textbooks are written by authors who are neither familiar with English nor with the subject they write about.

The Gujarat Education Board doesn’t seem like interested in providing decent education let alone quality education. If the Education board can’t provide decent textbook for English medium then they should allow the use of textbook published by well-known publication house like McMillan. Many English medium schools have been doing so since long. They don’t rely only on the textbooks of Gujarat Board - at least till primary level and I think this is the only way it should be. At least students get quality study material. But then parents lobby raise objection against such schools for additional burden on students. So where do one go !!!

It is really commendable that the Times of India has now started the campaign ‘Jaago Gujarat-Clean Up The Textbooks’. I hope the efforts of the Times of India will be fruitful. We can’t expect the change from the thick-skinned Gujarat education board, but at least this will help in creating awareness among parents.

George W Bush – a fool or a compulsive liar

George W Bush blaming the rising prosperity of Indian middle-class for spiraling global food prices proves that he is either a fool or a compulsive liar. Till now everybody knew him as a hypocrite, but he has now shown to the world that he is either a fool or a liar.

Being a president of a country he is not expected to be ignorant of the fact that an American consumes food five times as much as an Indian. By the way everyone in the world knows that the US consumes largest amount of everything- be it energy, fuel, food or metal. So if he doesn’t know this simple fact then he is the biggest fool in the world and if he knew it then instead of commenting on Indian food consumption he should have asked his fellow countrymen to consume less food in order to control food prices. Why doesn’t he make remark on his country’s consumption pattern? He won’t do this because he is selfish to the core. He indirectly wants India and China to restrict their food consumption and at the same time he is not ready to budge on the issue of bio-fuel which is one of the main reasons for rising food prices. Even several international experts have held bio-fuels for being responsible for usurping arable land and distorting world food prices. So Mr. Bush stop lying every now and then. It has now become your habit.