India Journal

The Whole in the Wall Experiment

2006-10-23T05:11:00.000-07:00

You might have heard of song -"Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd that eventually become anthem for children (kinda paranoia though) now here is another Experiment in contrast to this.

Do read carefully -

An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a wall in
the slums and watches what happens. Based on the results, he talks about issues
of digital divide, computer education and kids, the dynamics of the third world
getting online.
New Delhi physicist Sugata Mitra has a radical proposal for
bringing his country's next generation into the Info Age
from a Businessweek Online Daily Briefing,March 2, 2000.
Edited by Paul Judge

[Source Via - http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm]

Lets get into detail -

Sugata Mitra has a PhD in physics and heads research efforts at New Delhi's NIIT, who has a passion for computer-based education, specifically for India's poor. He believes that children, even terribly poor kids with little education, can quickly teach themselves the rudiments of computer literacy. The key, he contends, is for teachers and other adults to give them free rein, so their natural curiosity takes over and they teach themselves. He calls the concept "minimally invasive education."

To test his ideas, Mitra 13 months
ago launched something he calls "the hole in the wall experiment." He took a PC
connected to a high-speed data connection and imbedded it in a concrete wall
next to NIIT's headquarters in the south end of New Delhi. The wall separates
the company's grounds from a garbage-strewn empty lot used by the poor as a
public bathroom. Mitra simply left the computer on, connected to the Internet,
and allowed any passerby to play with it. He monitored activity on the PC using
a remote computer and a video camera mounted in a nearby tree.

What he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net. Some of the other things they learned, Mitra says, astonished him.

The physicist has since installed a computer in a rural neighborhood with similar results. He's convinced that 500 million children could achieve basic computer literacy over the next five years, if the Indian government put 100,000 Net-connected PCs in schools and trained teachers in some basic "noninvasive" teaching techniques for guiding children in using them. Total investment required, he figures: Around $2 billion

On Feb. 25, BW Online Contributing Editor Thane Peterson sat down with Mitra, at NIIT's R&D center on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation - Read at -http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm

Police Turning Beast

2006-09-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

Recently in Ludhiana, Punjab (India) veterinary doctors protest against non-recruitment in government jobs, where Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had to arrived.

On the other there is another stories of Punjab Police's height of sickness, they made the use of their power of khakis moreover along with women poilce women they molested the girls, women participating in protest. See yourself -

This is the height of brutual vulgar act of police who supposed to defend the woman of country are pathetically doing such a shamefull act.

But what happened after this photo has been published in Times Of India , is another shameful act of Indian beaurocracy i.e. Naothing as Such that show some serious concerns.

No wonder if Indian Government Prize this Policemen with Bravery Award

After all - We Indians are being defended by these Safe Hands.

Soft Drinks and Hard Facts

2006-08-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

In India All of us know how many times allegations on Soft Drink Companies are made of having more than prescribed limit of Pesticides. Eventhough sale of such drinks didn't affect or would not affect at all in future with Coca Cola on top of the list of TOP 100 Global Brands

how can one imagine that Coca Cola wouldn't come out of such allegations

.

Check this -

The CSE ( Centre for Science and Environment ) on August 5 had claimed that the 12 bottled soft drinks, which are - Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Mirinda orange, Mirinda Lemon, Blue Pepsi, 7-Up, Coca Cola, Fanta, Limca, Sprite and Thumbs Up, failed health standards, testing positive for pesticides.

The CSE had alleged that in the case of 12 soft drink brands, of which samples had been taken, it had found pesticide residues which exceeded EU norms ranging from 11 to 70 times. It had warned that consumption of these brands over a long period would result in complicated health problems.

NOW SEE THIS -

On 11th of August government gave a clean chit to 12 soft drink brands, saying that their samples tested were well within the safety limits' prescribed for packaged drinking water at present.

Making a statement in Lok Sabha, Health and Family Welfare Minister Sushma Swaraj said: "The results clearly show that all the 12 samples do not have pesticide residues of the high order as was alleged in a report by the Centre for Science and Environment, a Delhi-based NGO."

What to be understand Now !!!???

India's Medical Tourism

2006-07-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

Medical tourism is what when patients going to a different country for either urgent or elective medical procedures, is fast becoming a worldwide, multibillion-dollar industry.
------

India is considered the leading country promoting medical tourism-and now it is moving into a new area of "medical outsourcing," where subcontractors provide services to the overburdened medical care systems in western countries.

India's National Health Policy declares that treatment of foreign patients is legally an "export" and deemed "eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings." Government and private sector studies in India estimate that medical tourism could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion US into the country by 2012. The reports estimate that medical tourism to India is growing by 30 per cent a year.

India's top-rated education system is not only churning out computer programmers and engineers, but an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 doctors and nurses each year.

The largest of the estimated half-dozen medical corporations in India serving medical tourists is Apollo Hospital Enterprises, which treated an estimated 60,000 patients between 2001 and spring 2004. It is Apollo that is aggressively moving into medical outsourcing. Apollo already provides overnight computer services for U.S. insurance companies and hospitals as well as working with big pharmaceutical corporations with drug trials. Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, the chairman of the company, began negotiations in the spring of 2004 with Britain's National Health Service to work as a subcontractor, to do operations and medical tests for patients at a fraction of the cost in Britain for either government or private care.

Apollo's business began to grow in the 1990s, with the deregulation of the Indian economy, which drastically cut the bureaucratic barriers to expansion and made it easier to import the most modern medical equipment. The first patients were Indian expatriates who returned home for treatment; major investment houses followed with money and then patients from Europe, the Middle East and Canada began to arrive. Apollo now has 37 hospitals, with about 7,000 beds. The company is in partnership in hospitals in Kuwait, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

Western patients usually get a package deal that includes flights, transfers, hotels, treatment and often a post-operative vacation.

Apollo has also reacted to criticism by Indian politicians by expanding its services to India's millions of poor. It has set aside free beds for those who can't afford care, has set up a trust fund and is pioneering remote, satellite-linked telemedicine across India.

Source:http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/healthcare/medicaltourism.html

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India Facts

2006-07-01T06:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some facts about India that would Surely make it come in line with other developed countries:

1) World's Biggest Mall is about to make Existence in India. The Mall named as - "Mall of India" is under construction in Gurgaon near Delhi. It would come up in full existence in a year. Its being told that it would have a kilometer of shopping on each floor.

2) Recently Ghaziabad (in Uttar pradesh state of India) has been included in World's Top 10 Dynamic cities of the World.(Source:Newsweek International's List of the Top 10 Fastest-Growing Cities in the World)

3) India has launched World's First education satellite (EDUSAT)
More at - http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6423

4) Once believed as Food defecient country, India is to be World's Top Food Producer as said by Radha singh in 'India Economic Summit 2005,' jointly organised by the World Economic Forum and the CII (Confederation of Indian Industry).

5) The Leela Palace, a Kempinski resort in Goa is among Best Beaches Resorts Of World according to "Forbes" website.

6) World's first cleanest Project, a Building for IT office space is in Kolkata, India named as "Technopolis". Its also India's first LEED certifies project.

7) India is among world's Top Six Trading Nations.