Yes it can be true!! This is not the first time some greedy businesses from US have tried to do this, some of them even tried to patent the use of Neem tree that has been a traditional knowledge in India for thousands of years. When Indian Govt objected to a patent that was granted to USDA and WR Grace, the multinational WR Grace said that the prior use of Neem has not been documented in a scientific journal!!! Benefits of Neem tree are well documented in Indian traditional medicine known as Ayurveda and the Neem tree itself has cultural significance in many parts of India. Read about this dispute in Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neem.
I am sure the same multinationals are searching the rain forests and tropics to patent the medicinal use of a tree or a plant that has been a traditional knowledge for generations.
Well put. India is a land of contrasts. Rich Vs Poor, Urban Vs Rural, Upper Caste Vs Lower Caste on and on... The Indian upper class decided to sink most of the education money into higher education after independence. As a result, India still has the highest number of illiterates in the world. India should have first focused on building good infrastructure for primary education and then focus on higher education in a generation or two.
BTW, IITs look good only because the students who make it there after tough entrance exams (based strictly on point system of course) are smart, goal oriented and are heavily coached. Besides, the Central Govt spends a lot of funds on just a handful of IITs in the country. If you look at the bigger picture, IITs are one-dimensional as they are focused on undergraduate technical education with very little research or industry interface. They don't figure among the top Universities in the world since little else besides engineering degrees are offered.
The writer focused too much on "new economy" which has employed just over 1 million people in India. There is no need for every graduate in India to speak perfect Victorian English or be employed by software or call center companies. There will be plenty of other avenues as the economy grows. Even the outward looking IT industry will have to look inward at a not-too-distant future to cater to a growing domestic market.
As an Indian I found many of the comments as either mildly amusing or completely ignorant. A vast mojority of school kids in India (at least 2/3rds of them IMHO) don't have access to decent schools. School buildings are in bad shape (sometimes a few dilapidated rooms qualify for school buildings here), student-to-teacher ratio is horrendous, qualified and motivated teachers are a rare species, poor can't even buy books, mid-day meals are often of low quality etc... Some states do provide free text books, but, many parents are too poor to buy even notebooks, pencils and other required stationery. The self-centered middle and upper classes send their children to relatively better equipped private schools (which are still highly ill-equipped compared to standards in developed nations). They have never cared or pressed the governement to improve the quality of primary education. It's sort of a new "caste system". The poor and the rural kids have to go to ill-equipped government schools while the well to do feel "superior" by sending their children to private schools.
Given these conditions, what would a laptop do for a poor child? Not much, IMHO. It is better to spend the tax payer money on improving the school facilities and raising the overall quality. There is a dire need for bringing about uniform educational standards across different classes.
I lived is US for more than a decade. I saw school districts spending unnecessarily on computers and other technology. This is the other extreme where possessing latest technology is often equated with better learning!! No wonder so many high school grads in US can't even solve simple arithmetic problems without the use of calculators or computers.
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Yes it can be true!! This is not the first time some greedy businesses from US have tried to do this, some of them even tried to patent the use of Neem tree that has been a traditional knowledge in India for thousands of years. When Indian Govt objected to a patent that was granted to USDA and WR Grace, the multinational WR Grace said that the prior use of Neem has not been documented in a scientific journal!!! Benefits of Neem tree are well documented in Indian traditional medicine known as Ayurveda and the Neem tree itself has cultural significance in many parts of India. Read about this dispute in Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neem. I am sure the same multinationals are searching the rain forests and tropics to patent the medicinal use of a tree or a plant that has been a traditional knowledge for generations.
Well put. India is a land of contrasts. Rich Vs Poor, Urban Vs Rural, Upper Caste Vs Lower Caste on and on... The Indian upper class decided to sink most of the education money into higher education after independence. As a result, India still has the highest number of illiterates in the world. India should have first focused on building good infrastructure for primary education and then focus on higher education in a generation or two.
BTW, IITs look good only because the students who make it there after tough entrance exams (based strictly on point system of course) are smart, goal oriented and are heavily coached. Besides, the Central Govt spends a lot of funds on just a handful of IITs in the country. If you look at the bigger picture, IITs are one-dimensional as they are focused on undergraduate technical education with very little research or industry interface. They don't figure among the top Universities in the world since little else besides engineering degrees are offered.
The writer focused too much on "new economy" which has employed just over 1 million people in India. There is no need for every graduate in India to speak perfect Victorian English or be employed by software or call center companies. There will be plenty of other avenues as the economy grows. Even the outward looking IT industry will have to look inward at a not-too-distant future to cater to a growing domestic market.
As an Indian I found many of the comments as either mildly amusing or completely ignorant. A vast mojority of school kids in India (at least 2/3rds of them IMHO) don't have access to decent schools. School buildings are in bad shape (sometimes a few dilapidated rooms qualify for school buildings here), student-to-teacher ratio is horrendous, qualified and motivated teachers are a rare species, poor can't even buy books, mid-day meals are often of low quality etc... Some states do provide free text books, but, many parents are too poor to buy even notebooks, pencils and other required stationery. The self-centered middle and upper classes send their children to relatively better equipped private schools (which are still highly ill-equipped compared to standards in developed nations). They have never cared or pressed the governement to improve the quality of primary education. It's sort of a new "caste system". The poor and the rural kids have to go to ill-equipped government schools while the well to do feel "superior" by sending their children to private schools.
Given these conditions, what would a laptop do for a poor child? Not much, IMHO. It is better to spend the tax payer money on improving the school facilities and raising the overall quality. There is a dire need for bringing about uniform educational standards across different classes.
I lived is US for more than a decade. I saw school districts spending unnecessarily on computers and other technology. This is the other extreme where possessing latest technology is often equated with better learning!! No wonder so many high school grads in US can't even solve simple arithmetic problems without the use of calculators or computers.