Jayakumar Balasubramanian

Please read my previous posts about Landmark Forum ( Part I and Part II) before reading this one. In the past few weeks, I have been getting multiple comments for my posts about Landmark forum. Here is the summary of those comments: The landmark forum provides spiritual dimension to an individual. It helps the attendees to lead a peaceful life with full of self-expression. Why are you commenting on it? Today's world is filled with misery, where people are selling anything and everything. If we can tolerate a phone-call from a credit card salesperson, why not a spiritual/self development course like Landmark forum, Art-of-living etc? I think the commentors didn't completely understand the point I was trying to convey. It is not my intention to criticize these organizations or courses and say they are of no use. My take is to learn, understand and internalize them and practice in real life. Also understand that 'transformation' is a journey, rather than an instant capsu...

This morning I was reading June edition of 'Business world' and found an interesting article titled 'Bilingual Way'. The article talks about a survey conducted by National University of Education Planning and Administration. The survey shows that 74% increase in the number of enrollments from 5.47 million students in 2003-2004 to 9.51 million in 2005-2006 -- in upper-primary sections of English medium schools across India. The article goes on saying that the results has come at the cost of regional languages like Marathi, Telugu and Kannada and suggests that its time we moved away from the 'either or' debate and lookat bilingualism as a real alternative for education. The BW article has given statistical evidence, which is in sync my previous blog post .

It’s been 6 months since I attended Landmark Forum in Bangalore. For people who don't know what this is all about please check out this link . I have mixed opinions about the course. Let me share my first set of thoughts about this course. Let me explain the course structure first. It’s basically a three day plus one evening course primarily focused on personal transformation. Each day starts about 9 AM in the morning (sharp) and goes on till 11 PM in the night, with grueling sessions. Each day has only very few break in between, that too at odd timings (11 AM, 3 PM and 7 PM). A well trained ‘forum leader' will be leading the course for about 400 participants. He has a pre-defined courseware and speaks non-stop for all the three days. These leaders are extremely smart people and ruthless in expressing their viewpoints. The landmark education forum has internal methods of identifying, coaching and grooming these leaders. Coming to the course contents, it’s completely a westerniz...

Recently, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam has launched fortnightly e-newspaper 'Billion beats'. This is a welcome initiative as the internet medium is reaching every corner of India. Got a chance to read the first edition yesterday and it is very good. Check out this link for the latest edition.

Author: Sudha Narayanamurthy This book contains collection of short stories, which the author wrote in many newspapers and magazines. The author has traveled extensively to the rural parts of India where she met different type of people in India . She explains how people in rural India are having very high value system and leading a self-contained life. This book contains almost 50 small stories. Written in very simple English, this book explains the author’s experiences. Reading this book also gave me the background information of Infosys able to contribute to the society. Basically the author experienced everything, which made Infosys as a good corporate citizen. However at some places, the author mixed too much of sentimental stuff which I didn't like it. Also at some places it became boring as it had similar kind of stories. I would strongly suggest to read this book if anyone is interested in doing charity in India .

There are ample reasons for anyone to flock into the blogsphere. Recently I came across some blogs with gobs and gobs of ‘negative’ contents focusing on 'controversial' topics. They quickly become popular as they get high hit-rate and copious comments. These blogs mainly express strong 'opinions' against some of the burning issues in the areas of religion, sex, creed, caste, racism, nationality, politics etc. Naturally they catch attention of readers -- as it has got to do with an individual’s emotions. Readers quickly tend to take stands and tempted to express their counter arguments. According to me there are enough avenues to discuss about controversial topics as they are very well known. Especially in countries like India -- the media is given complete freedom to conduct debates, opinion polls, panel discussions to discuss flaming issues. Also at an individual level, most of these issues are 'no-control' problems and finding a solution is close to im...

I am currently in Singapore on an official visit and explored this country to certain extent. Even though English is spoken everywhere, they have given the much needed importance to three major local languages: Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. They have kept these official languages in best interest of all major sectors of the population. This is very well reflected in their education system. In their Primary School Leaving Examination (PLSS) they must choose their mother tongue along with English. Following is an excerpt from Wikipedia: In order to test the students' grasp of the language subjects, such as the English or mother tongue languages at the end of primary school, there are several separate examinations. As the student is usually required to take mother tongue and the English language, (with exceptions of exemption or additional languages), the average student repeats the following procedures twice. With each mother tongue subject there are two levels of examination, the stand...

The Times of India recently launched 'India poised' campaign showcasing India's achievements and problems in various areas. I am able to see the big-B's TV appearance, huge banners near Richmond road (Bangalore), with this new fad. With India's republic day is nearing, TOI can get some premium and publicity by initiating such things. These initiatives definitely bring in 'feel-good' factor among Indians at the same time there are lot of crude realities, which we need to digest. With over 5000 years of history and 57 years of democracy, I started asking a simple question to myself 'Am I proud to be an Indian?'. After deep introspection within myself I got the answer 'yes and no'. How come I can get two answers for a 'yes' or 'no' type question? I feel very proud when I look back India's glorious past. When the red-Indian tribes were living in north-American jungles, we had a great civilization here. Tr...

Last night I was watching a TV program 'Education in India' in NDTV profit, where a set of educationalists (in my words arm-chair-activists) were talking about the current education system and the discussion turned to giving education in regional languages. Somehow everyone was glorifying the need of English language and telling there is not much need to stress regional languages. When any state government (recently in Karnataka and Maharashtra) tries to 'impose' a regional language, people start protesting as if they were born with English language. Frankly speaking I am not able to understand the reason behind simply 'aping' the west by embracing English big time. Speaking from my personal experience, I learned all my education in Tamil till the age of 17 and I was able to understand things much better because it was taught in my 'mother tongue'. But unfortunately for today's parents they derive enormous amount of pleasure a...