"Fraught with danger"

Many a man has been slaughtered for executing their duties diligently. The brutal killing of Jyotirmoy Dey is yet another addition to the endless list of such men.

A journalist by profession, Mr Dey was engaged in criminal investigation for a news paper. A thread in one of his investigations became his noose. To such an atrocity the first reaction of public would be an outright criticism and the second one would be a piece of advice to shun such a profession as a career option.

                But think carefully, is there any profession in this world that is not fraught with danger?

One would have to think very hard to find an answer to this questionand if one does so the answer would be that there is no such profession that guarantees safety and security. Be it police or civil, public or private every profession has some kind of inherent danger because there are always areas of conflicting interest. As everyone is playing a zero sum game, the victory of one is the defeat of the other. Human beings as adamant as they are lead the conflict to grave outcomes in some cases. Some people lost their families and friends in the 2008 terrorist attack that jolted Mumbai including the GM of the Taj hotel. He might have joined the hotel industry for any reason but safety must not have been in his mind at any point of time.

                Police men die in combating terrorists, the defence personnel die in battles saving their nation, pilots die in crashes, miners die in mine traps and divers die in deep dives. The modes of death may be different but the end result is the same.

When we are destined to die anyway, why do we care about the way of death? With no fear of whatsoever we should execute our duties with full conviction and honesty.

Institution that make money but don't admit so.....

For a country like that of India which has a population of more than a billion the development lies in the intellectual growth of people. Having more than fifty percent of its population below thirty five the demographic changes are in favour of the youth. But the education infrastructure to educate and train this huge number of people is insufficient here. Especially in higher education India lags much behind its foreign counterparts. It has less than fifty percent literacy rate when it comes to higher education.

To fill the gap the government has allowed the not for profit institutions, but are such institutions actually working actually without profit? I guess not. So how do they deceive the government, the tax authorities and of course the students.

The quality of teaching and administration gets affected by their nepotism as many of the resources employed to run the show are organised by the relatives and friends of the owners.

Posts such as the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, the director or the deputy director are reserved for the close relatives like son, daughter, son-in-law and daughter-in-law or at least to their cronies. While earning hefty packages they make sure that the sole objective of earning more and more profit is being met both in short and long run.

The quality of services provided in the campus also gets affected as the service provider has to meet multiple objectives besides earning profits. Most important thing for them is to share a large pie of their profit with the management. The end result tis that the payer gets inferior service for dear money. For example in an outsourced canteen, the contractor has to share his profit with the corrupt management, effectively raising the cost of production and finally leading to a substandard quality food being served to the students. But the transaction turns very prolific for the management who doesn’t have to pay any tax.

The same applies to the quality of the professors who work at very less salary and under very inflexible environment as the decision making lies with a handful of people.

The cost of education in such institutions remains higher than the unaided autonomous institutions without any substantial improvement in the quality of education. The owners earn huge money deceiving everyone.

The solution lies in allowing the “For Profit” institutions that while openly earning profits would be transparent with every stake holder. And the students would be much more informed before engaging as they are not with any of today’s  pseudo-non-profit-making –institutions.

A Dog's pride

Doing a research about the foreign breeds of dogs in India I came to know some startling facts about their lifestyle. Besides our Indian dogs there are more than a 100 foreign breeds of dogs available in India that include the Great Dane, the Rottweiler, the GSD, the Golden retriever and the bulldog to name a few. There are different breeders available in India for different breeds. The task of the breeder is to provide an environment conducive for the breeding and than to take care of the puppy and mother once it is born.

The puppy care starts from day one like that of a human baby. The care includes prenatal and post natal vaccination. It has to be vaccinated for 9 deadly diseases the number of vaccinations is nearly the same as that of a baby, not to mention the fact that many babies in India are still born at homes without any medical supervision and even after great efforts of the Ministry of Health Lakhs of babies still miss the necessary vaccinations.

The food for the puppies has certain nutritional value including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins similar to the food recommended to babies.  Notwithstanding the prescription both the mothers and the babies in India suffer from mild to severe malnutrition in large numbers.

The cost of dog food in net sales value may range anywhere from Rs 150/ kg to 600/kg depending upon the country of processing, which can be higher than that of many sweets like “Badam Burfi” that we buy and gift on Diwali.

There are puppy cards issued by the designated clubs for pets in India. A card would have the dogs breed and the ancestral history. Microchips are implanted into their bodies for identification to search in case of theft. All this is happening in a country where the identity of a common man is lost in a mass of 1210 Mn.

There are personal care products like Tooth paste, odour neutralizer, bathe soap, shampoo and fur oil available. Many villagers still dream about these products.

There are toys, fashion accessories and designer clothes available for dogs for which an average Indian kid craves.

There are insurance products available for dogs that cover damage starting from minor accidents to death and companies like Oriental Insurance, United India Insurance, National Insurance and Bajaj Allianz general insurance have taken the lead. These insurance companies must have realized that the next big opportunity lies with dogs and not with men as all eligible men seem to have been insured.

There are dog shows and dog seminars being organised in India which get good media coverage.

Recently one company in Chandighar showed a treadmill for dogs in a dog show.

The cost of purchase of puppy could be anywhere between Rs.15000 to 50000 depending upon the breed, progeny and the age of the puppy, which could be higher than that of a child who had been trafficked from Bangladesh.

The per anum cost of maintaining a dog could range from Rs 24000 to 50000 which could be higher than the per capita income in India which hangs at Rs 46492.

After all this research I realized that it’s not too bad to be a dog especially a foreign one.