SRCC Cut-off Row: Shouting what has been known for long.

To all young aspirants

Please do not feel de-moralised if your dream of getting into SRCC has not materialised because you couldn't get 100% as a non-commerce student. It's not your loss but of the institution if it 'unintentionally' discourages a wider, ecelectic mix of fundamental learning for the student base.

This entire fiasco highlights a few things quite clearly. No, not just that we lack more quality institutions or that the quality of students has gone through the roof. What it does however tell is the fundamental flaw in our understanding of assessment, and review.

This however is not a newly acquired handicap. For a country that has known to put people through strange tests expecting stranger results can never get a grip of what testing really is. Leave alone the assumption that examination boards have any clue as to what they are looking for.
Digressing from academics, if i may be allowed, we have grown up knowing tests are a fundamental part of lives. An agni pariksha for chastity, or be it a lakshman rekha for control or fasting for austerity, we Indians love putting ourselves to test. However, the tradition breaks down when modern education gets intwined with unrealistic expectations.

How on earth are you promoting holistic education with cut-off's being the only criterion for gaining admission. By classifying students as non-commerce and then putting a 100% 'see-if-you-clear' criteria are you assuming a 17-yr old to focus on anything but academics.

If SRCC is truly looking at taking students with these credentials alone, then there is a serious flaw in our system. The corporate patronage to such institutions needs to be looked at again. Because lets face it, the reason for such craze for the institution is not for its 'learning' provided, but for the 'packages' available thereafter. Corporates need to assisst other lesser known tier-2 city based institutes too to ensure lesser pressure on both infrastructure as well as students.

Let this cut-off list not let the students assume that every single person walking in or out of SRCC is better than what they are. They are like you. And trust me, the life and its successes are going to be a lot more than a single admission process. And several of my batch-mates who were ex-SRCC would definitely agree.

Of Constitution: The little Indian inside me.

Nitin Gadkari, quite recently was hawking from the rooftops, post Ramdev arrest, about the alleged assassination of Constitutional Rights. For someone as naive as me, it is only natural to gain interestto discover what rights is Mr. Gadkari talking about. Afterall, if he could understand and comment on them, they musn't be very difficult to fathom.

My inquisitiveness was to know, what does the constitution imbibe that makes it so sacrosanct and ubiquitous in reference? What is it, that we take refuge into, assuming it to be an omnipotent salvation for common man's misery by the rule of law?

And yet, the fact that there are so many disgruntled by its virility, betrays its status as an aphrodisiac for the masses drove me to atleast start with what we know, as the Constitution of the Republic of India.

If it were a book review, which this is not, my first disappointment would have come with the opening lines itself. The oft quoted Preamble. The poetic flow of words which has tried its level best to meaninglessly encompass every word relevant for a nation as diverse as India. However, the beauty in the 'wordy' start represents the dilemma to speak in one flow for a nation as vast as ours.

What disappoints about the preamble is the irony. The irony that the words that presumably are to be symbolic of any Indian life, have lost relevance in the common day of any individual.

It promises and pledges rights, which 'We, the people of India' best know aren't redeemable to them.

The justice spoken of in the Preamble is best available to the choicest few.

Liberty, is infringed and violated upon, or even removed depending on which voice you chose to support.

'the constitution resolves to secure to all its citizens' an equality of status and opportunity, a pledge so void, that it isn't even worth commenting upon.

Ofcourse, there is an easy way of looking at things. We may chose to pat our back and compare the better state of affairs than several other nations. Or we may hang our head in shame when constitutionally bound pledges of sovereignty are broken by corrupt leaders, committing nothing short of treason.

We live in times which are difficult, not because there are hardships in only our systems and governance, but the level of inertia to now change the wrongdoings is tremendous. That, which was gauranteed by the constitution has been raped and abused. Even more sadly the same has been accepted as a norm and we lookon if not look away, helplessly.

Today, the Supreme Court, the guardian of the constitution,tries bring the blunders in following the code of the constitution by the Government. Sadly though are the pricks of the small mistakes regularly committed which miss the discerning eye of the Honb'l Court.

What we have to look forward to is whether the documented hopes of those who brought us freedom remain to be known by coming generations as the 'constitut'ion or lead to what might be the 'con'situation.