Include music in school syllabus

According to Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, humans have several different types of intelligences—logical-mathematical, linguistic, and interpersonal. He believes that music intelligence is equal in importance to all of them. Several scientific studies have determined conclusively that music plays significant role to

1. develop children's language skills
2. develop children's self-esteem
3. develop children's listening skills
4. develop children's math skills
5. stimulate children's brain connections

Because of this vital role of music in Child's development, Western countries, and some Asian countries such as China and Korea include music in school syllabus. Schools recruit different types of music teachers and give options to kids to select music instruments they want to learn. Schools conduct concerts and encourage kids to learn music. This creates interest in music in kids at early age.

Why can't we do this in India? Why can't our governments include music in school syllabus and recruit at least some music teachers in all public schools and impart free training to children? This helps to:

1. create several new jobs for musicians.
2. create a huge market for music instruments. This generates jobs indirectly and triggers small scale business.
3. encourages kids to learn music which gives options to kids to choose a different occupation when they grow up.

Historically cultural development is part of overall development and prosperity of a community or region. Look at the great Mowryas, Guptas, Moghuls, or present Western culture specifically US. Economic development and prosperity is never de-coupled with cultural development.

India is rich in culture historically. However, post independence cultural development has been getting hit significantly due to lackluster encouragement especially financially from Government and also due to the impact of Western culture. This is high time India needs cultural revolution to protect our culture and create a sense of pride about our culture in our kids. This can be done to a significant extent by including music in the school syllabus.

What do you think?

The power of appreciation

Appreciation is one powerful tool to get things done and also to get more productivity from employees. This I learnt way back in 80s when I read the book How to Win Friends and Influence people by Dale Carnegie. This book has plenty of tools to win friends and influence people.

I applied this tool successfully in real life in the early 90s. My company got into a tiff with a a very Senior Bank Manager related to a foreign transaction and reached a dead end and the Manager refused to meet any one from our company. My MD called me to resolve this hot potato. I met him at the bank and talked with him for 30 mts everything under Sun except the problem. I have made sure to appreciate him for all his help to our Company. It worked. Even before I asked his help, he offered his help and resolved it. Of course he called my MD later to tell the story.

I have used appreciation as a tool of appeasing people, getting things done, and getting more productivity from staff very very effectively. You don't really lose anything by appreciating others. Remember this does not have to be necessarily at work place, you can use it any where even to win over your wife.

Try it next time. See the results.

Telangana – Mis-directed energies

“What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it. ". This quotation by Alexander Graham Bell underscores the stark reality that you need to know your final goal in order to determine whether your effort is successful. The ongoing agitation in Telangana is one more example of the misdirected energies of determined people. I am flabbergasted by the perseverance and energies of those people which have been totally misdirected. I question myself time and again why people can’t use the same energies for the development of their region, for the development of infrastructure, and for cleaning up their political system. I don’t have to state here how much underdeveloped the villages in Telangana. These villages lack basic amenities and infrastructure facilities. All these political leaders who have been crying loud for a separate State have never made any concerted efforts to uplift the lives in these downtrodden villages. Have these politicians ever made any effort to bring better schools, better roads, and better self-employment schemes in those villages? Who is stopping them in doing these?

The goal of the people shouldn’t be achieving a separate State. But achieving the final objective i .e. Better life. How does a separate State can ensure that? Why can’t people redirect their energies and fight with same vigor and determination for better schools, amenities and infrastructure. Telangana people are the real stake holders in this struggle. They need to know that whether the efforts that they are putting in lead them to their ultimate goal? I have no hesitation in my mind to express the fact that the separate State inherits the same political and social malaises, which continue to plague the society as it has been ever before.
This whole thing highlights the following three points:
1. People don’t understand their objectives
2. We do not have leaders to educate people about their priorities and rally them around.
3. Irresponsible attitude of the media. Media needs to play a very responsible and objective role in this kind of imbroglio. They can air programs that make people to think and question their decisions. However media is clinging to sensationalism.
I am really discouraged and dismayed by the way in which things have been going in our state in the last few months. Again I do not hesitate to state here the loser of this entire episode, “ it is the stakeholder….”.

Why don't you celebrate your little one's birthday at Nachiketa Tapovan?

Yes. Seriously. I am sure you must have been bored with the run-of-the-mill type of birthday celebrations of yours or one of the members of your family. Don't you think it gives immense happiness and satisfaction when you celebrate your birthday with lots of little poor children by sponsoring lunch for that day at a meager Rs.2400? You have different options. If you don't want to give money you can donate in kind. You can spend with little children and understand what a great service Nachiketa Tapovan has been doing for these poor little kids. Remember, these kinds of little things that you do with your little kids plant seeds of social service and sense of care for poor and deprived in them.

My second son celebrated his birthday with these little children in January,2009. I want to thank Mr Purnachndra Rao garu of NICE organization (http://www.nice-india.org/Welcome.html) for letting us know about Nachiketa. You can call Mr Purnachandra Rao garu to know more schools and organization like these for your donation.

Brief profile about Nachiketa:

Nachiketa Tapovan is different from lot of Orphan's homes in lot of ways because it focuses not only on education but also on spirituality as propagated by Swami Vivekananda.

Swami Vivekananda through his soul stirring speeches and quotes awakens in each of us an inner calling urging us to work hard and to elevate mankind economically and spiritually.
Nachiketa Tapovan, is a fruit of such inner calling-a spiritually oriented service organization formed in January 1999. The main aim is to spread the moral and spiritual values amongst the youth. Tapovan aims at achieving this by translating its ideals into practical activities for the elevation of humanity irrespective of caste, creed, community, or gender, looking upon people as the absolute manifestation of the Divine.


Please visit http://nachiketatapovan.org/index.html to know more about Nachiketa and also how you can help them.

BCT Parameswara Rao - Great efforts

BCT means Bhagavatula Charitable Trust started by Mr Parameswara Rao. I came to know about Mr Parameswara Rao in 1986 when he got Man of the Year award by The Week weekly magazine. His achievements are amazing. He showed to the world what can be done to change the lives of rural people in India.

Mr Parameswara Rao's own life itself is an inspiring story for young people to emulate his acts and to chose the path of social service. He left his plushy job and job offers because of what he believed in. He went back to his native village near Vizag, AP and started revolutionizing the way rural people live in some villages.

His efforts have been amply rewarded. His work grew into the NGO Bhagvatula Charitable Trust that works in 39 villages directly and influences work in hundreds of villages -- for example at one point in time it was running 700 Non Formal Centers until it trained local NGOs there to run them themselves. Vast acres of wasted badlands on the rocky hill slopes are now prospering into lush green farmlands. A model for holistic development, BCT is well known for work in reclaiming wasted land, setting income generating activities by village initiatives, women's empowerment, and education.

A very modest person, Parameswara Rao is not eager to claim responsibility to things he/BCT initiated -- for example the anti-arrack movement in AP portrayed in the film "When Women Unite" was triggered by a story in the literacy textbooks about a village where women stop their husbands from drinking. What the film does not mention is that the story is a true one from Marripalem, one of the BCT villages.

BCT has come to believe that there is no waste land, it is only wasted land, in other words, man not utilizing the appropriate technologies for bringing the land into production. In order to demonstrate this point, BCT has taken a 50 acre wasted hill slope, in the rain shadow region of Ponchardarla Hill which as about 24 inches of annual rainfall. With proper soil conservation and water management techniques, the area is a blooming greenery with about 100 species of plantations in a matter of 3 years. The fodder is being developed in three tiers as a semi-pastoral system. Even growing of the flowers is demonstrated to be yielding 1000 rupees per acre annually.

Now my question is why can't our political leaders make this happen all over our country? Why can't the government take the expertise and help of BCT in implementing this all over the state or country?

I am providing here some links that could be helpful in learning about Mr Parameswara Rao and his BCT more.


http://www.bctindia.net/

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/08/27/stories/2005082702571900.htm

http://www.thehindu.com/2005/11/15/stories/2005111516040300.htm

Where is the infrastructure for our kids development?

Do we have good parks, sports grounds,libraries for our kids? It pains when you see the lack of infrastructure is really hurting our kids development. We have a wrong perception in India that kids' development means only education. Even if parents want to encourage their kids in sports or in any other extra-curricular activities, there is no way they can do that due to total lack of infrastructure.

I strongly feel Sports grounds and Libraries play a significant role in shaping the future of our kids. They have direct bearing on the personality of kids.

Government has to take some immediate steps to develop this. Again I reckon injecting some degree of capitalism here to have a win-win situation for all the players means government,people, and participating agencies.

This is what I recommend for Libraries:

1. Government enter into partnerships with leading industrial houses, and publishing houses to set up one big central library in every city, and town.
2. Government has controlling stake in the Library ownership.
3. Books are supplied by the Publishing houses.
4. Leading industrial houses play other roles like day to day administration and contribution to building development etc.
5. Set up smaller outlets in all the major centers of the city to have access to people in all corners of the city.
6. Charge nominally for subscription from the people.
7. Also set up web site for people to look at catalogues etc.

What do you think?

Why nobody talks about appropriate technology?

Way back in 1940s, Pandit Nehru advocated Appropriate Technology to battle innumerable issues that India was experiencing. Appropriate Technology is a synthesis of the foreign and the local, in order to suit the realities of our country, like abundant manpower, and natural resources etc. Visit the wikipedia to understand more about Appropriate Technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

There are so many ways if there is will to battle lots of issues that we are experiencing in India right now with technology. For example, in Tiurpathi, the city municipality initiated a project to procure household garbage for reasonable price to be used for energy and compost production. This helps preventing the cluttering of our neighborhoods with garbage and there by spreading of diseases and also it helps to generate energy at lower cost with appropriate technology. As a matter of fact, the huge garbage that we generate in our households can potentially create lot of wealth.

http://money.outlookindia.com/scripts/IIH021C1.asp?sectionid=10&categoryid=48&articleid=3093

There are so many other areas where we can use suitable technology such as Agriculture, Infrastructure, Health, education, and in all walks of life.

Now, why our leaders are not talking about technology to improve the lives of the people? Rather they are innovative in coming up with more and more populist schemes that will drain the coffers easily without any productive development?

What do we need to do?

1. More emphasis on appropriate technology in our education right from 6th class.
2. Seminars and conferences by Universities and schools to bring awareness and education.
3. Means to commercialize the technology
4. Government incentives to companies that adopt and produce Appropriate Technology.

What do you think?