What you are not seeing here is that this is probably a better investment than direct investment in schools. Projects like these open up more employment opportunities for those involved in fundamental science and research, which in turn motivates more people to choose that line of study and work. It also retains people who are genuinely skilled in these fields from migrating over to higher paid fields like applied engineering and IT.
Overall, in a country of contradictions like India, it is highly neccessary to sustain and encourage research and development efforts. The people are directly motivated to identify offshoots of their research which can better the lives of people they identify with. I think it is a big folly to focus all your resources on primary education without providing a direction for those benefitting from it. You need the ability to build aspirations within people and out of such efforts come stories that are a lot more valuable than the investment itself.
This is not a first time for India. For over fifty years, India has made large investments in building research instutions which has in turn spurred its populace to acquire the skills to staff these positions. For a country that in 1948 had not a single heavy industry or any technonology or manufacturing ability, it has done rather well to have churned out the huge engineering force from the 80s onwards building a domestic industrial and technological base which is quite enviable when compared to other countries of India's age and background.
Enrollment in education cannot be increased by direct investment or force, it has to be voluntary. And for that, people have to be able to see gainful employment and social status at the end of the road and efforts like this provide that.
It is interesting that you cite Sharia for Muslim law, but do not cite your references for Hindu law. Practices in India today, do not neccessarily have anything to do with Hindu law. By all accounts Hinduism has been generally liberal with sexuality and open and accepting of various different practices including homosexuality.
When Europeans arrived in India, they were shocked by Hinduism, which they termed idolatrous, and by the range of sexual practices, including same-sex relations, which they labeled licentious. British colonial rulers wrote modern homophobia into education, law and politics.
The Wikipedia entry on Homosexuality in India also does not refer to any of the conclusions you have made. Sure, it might sound kind of cool to make up your "facts", but please cite your sources.
The creative reconstruction of history is exactly what is being discussed here and you do make a good case against it.
As has been discussed so many times on/. most of the problems with the Diebold stems from the unneccessary complexity of the system
Other systems in use like the Indian Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs, offer all of the functional features with a much higher level of security and accessibility and for a price that is very easy on the taxpayers. For a very interesting comparison look at http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-com pared-with-diebold.html
Most of the "inventions" in the article were pioneered, by Greeks, Indians, Chinese and others and these were moved around by the arabs whose caravans traded between these civilizations. To attribute all inventions to Islam is totally unfair to history and to the people and the civilizations who actually invented them!
Seems like they are really taking their embrace and extend policy all the way along. The beta.search.msn.com already implements Google features like the site search. Try searching for something like Linux site:sun.com to search within just the Sun site.
Already a lot of the results turned up in searches seem pretty close to what Google turns up. The news links are up there pretty much like Google again and the page is a lot lighter than most standard MS pages. The search is pretty quick too, though it doesnt yet tell us how long the search took!
The only think missing is "I am lucky" button.
The discussion here has been centered a lot around software professionals. But the Indian educational system "Churns" out a lot more than that. High technology professionals like Nuclear Scientists, Space Researchers, Bio Technologists etc., have existed and excelled for years on salaries probably a tenth of what they would make elsewhere. I personally know quite a few people who hold PhD's in nuclear physics or genetics and have worked as researchers for over 30 years and still earn around $6,000 a year. And they manage a reasonably good life on that, and dont find too many reasons to complain (or to sell their work illegaly abroad).
Engineers and Doctors abound in India and a person earning $12,000 a year lives out a very "comfortable" and upmarket life. In some ways it is even better than what the same person would make in the US earning like 70K or so.
So, by Indian standards a "fresh" grad being paid $6,000 is like an amazingly large sum, which their parents, despite having probably much higher qualifications and work experience couldnt ever imagine making.
Having said that, it is also true that education and quality teaching is much less expensive in India that elsewhere. That probably accounts for why you dont have a lot of high quality teaching in Computer Science in India, because not too many people would want to earn a lot less by teaching. That probably also explains the seemingly lower quality that some "fresh" grads would have.
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What you are not seeing here is that this is probably a better investment than direct investment in schools. Projects like these open up more employment opportunities for those involved in fundamental science and research, which in turn motivates more people to choose that line of study and work. It also retains people who are genuinely skilled in these fields from migrating over to higher paid fields like applied engineering and IT.
Overall, in a country of contradictions like India, it is highly neccessary to sustain and encourage research and development efforts. The people are directly motivated to identify offshoots of their research which can better the lives of people they identify with. I think it is a big folly to focus all your resources on primary education without providing a direction for those benefitting from it. You need the ability to build aspirations within people and out of such efforts come stories that are a lot more valuable than the investment itself.
This is not a first time for India. For over fifty years, India has made large investments in building research instutions which has in turn spurred its populace to acquire the skills to staff these positions. For a country that in 1948 had not a single heavy industry or any technonology or manufacturing ability, it has done rather well to have churned out the huge engineering force from the 80s onwards building a domestic industrial and technological base which is quite enviable when compared to other countries of India's age and background.
Enrollment in education cannot be increased by direct investment or force, it has to be voluntary. And for that, people have to be able to see gainful employment and social status at the end of the road and efforts like this provide that.
It is interesting that you cite Sharia for Muslim law, but do not cite your references for Hindu law. Practices in India today, do not neccessarily have anything to do with Hindu law. By all accounts Hinduism has been generally liberal with sexuality and open and accepting of various different practices including homosexuality.
When Europeans arrived in India, they were shocked by Hinduism, which they termed idolatrous, and by the range of sexual practices, including same-sex relations, which they labeled licentious. British colonial rulers wrote modern homophobia into education, law and politics.
The Wikipedia entry on Homosexuality in India also does not refer to any of the conclusions you have made. Sure, it might sound kind of cool to make up your "facts", but please cite your sources.
The creative reconstruction of history is exactly what is being discussed here and you do make a good case against it.
As has been discussed so many times on /. most of the problems with the Diebold stems from the unneccessary complexity of the system
Other systems in use like the Indian Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs, offer all of the functional features with a much higher level of security and accessibility and for a price that is very easy on the taxpayers. For a very interesting comparison look at http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-com pared-with-diebold.html
The article is actually quite absurd!
FTA "Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi."
It is very well known that Surgical instruments were perfected by Sushruta around 500BC in India.
Most of the "inventions" in the article were pioneered, by Greeks, Indians, Chinese and others and these were moved around by the arabs whose caravans traded between these civilizations. To attribute all inventions to Islam is totally unfair to history and to the people and the civilizations who actually invented them!
The RTA Trip planner does an awesome job for Chicago. ---------------
Does a 3D Gui mean I can walk through my spreadsheet?
Seems like they are really taking their embrace and extend policy all the way along. The beta.search.msn.com already implements Google features like the site search. Try searching for something like Linux site:sun.com to search within just the Sun site.
Already a lot of the results turned up in searches seem pretty close to what Google turns up. The news links are up there pretty much like Google again and the page is a lot lighter than most standard MS pages. The search is pretty quick too, though it doesnt yet tell us how long the search took!
The only think missing is "I am lucky" button.
The discussion here has been centered a lot around software professionals. But the Indian educational system "Churns" out a lot more than that. High technology professionals like Nuclear Scientists, Space Researchers, Bio Technologists etc., have existed and excelled for years on salaries probably a tenth of what they would make elsewhere. I personally know quite a few people who hold PhD's in nuclear physics or genetics and have worked as researchers for over 30 years and still earn around $6,000 a year. And they manage a reasonably good life on that, and dont find too many reasons to complain (or to sell their work illegaly abroad).
Engineers and Doctors abound in India and a person earning $12,000 a year lives out a very "comfortable" and upmarket life. In some ways it is even better than what the same person would make in the US earning like 70K or so.
So, by Indian standards a "fresh" grad being paid $6,000 is like an amazingly large sum, which their parents, despite having probably much higher qualifications and work experience couldnt ever imagine making.
Having said that, it is also true that education and quality teaching is much less expensive in India that elsewhere. That probably accounts for why you dont have a lot of high quality teaching in Computer Science in India, because not too many people would want to earn a lot less by teaching. That probably also explains the seemingly lower quality that some "fresh" grads would have.
I knew the pied piper would find a paying job someday!