Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Power of education

Read this article on Powerful Jews and response on desicritics.

The original article was a bit too long and most of it was repetitive. But if I got it right then there were two important parts in that article.

"Question: So, why are Jews so powerful?
Answer: Education."

and

"So, why are Muslims so powerless?
Answer: Lack of education!"

I would not say that Jews are most powerful and Muslims are most powerless in the world, however I don't see why I should disagree with the two reasoning above. If a religion emphasizes more on education, its bound to have more intellectuals. In today's world you cannot ignore the power of knowledge. Yes you can say that jews or for that christians have english as their basic language which is the language of most part of the knowledge available in the world today. However you cannot ignore the emphasis they put on literacy.

I have always believed in the power of education. All the issues in this world can be settled with proper knowledge transfer. Think of global warming, educate people about it and they would use the resources carefully. Think of international disputes, educate people about the issues and they would come up with an amicable solution. When you see a disease like AIDS which does not have a cure yet, the best option you are left with is educate people about it.

Religious principles might not be the only reason for the growth of people belonging to a particular religion, however these principles can have a huge impact on the social development.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Brain Drain

15 bright students of Indian origin, sitting in a small room in one of the biggest university of USA. Any guesses what they were doing in there?

Discussing the economy? No
Celebrating the rise of India? No
Talking over the rising oil prices? No

They were concerned about the lack of interest of poor dalit children in education. They were discussing how to support a group to take initiative and teach those children in their own homes. These students were discussing the living conditions of the poor people in one of the small village of West Bengal.

I have been hearing about brain drain since I joined IIT Kharagpur. It was hard to convince people that even after coming out of country, people do think about India. A small meeting yesterday evening bolstered my belief in indian brain's worry about their country.

wanna know more?? AID India