Mission: Driving License

So this was my first peek into the lives of our sarkari offices- the R.T.O (supposed to be the Regional Transport Office) to be precise. I turned 18 recently (read the postscript), so my papa finally realized that he could get me a driving license. It’s not like you have to wait till you get 18 to get yourself a driving license at least in this part of India, but then I guess I've inherited the laidback attitude from my father.

Okay coming back to the R.T.O rendezvous, I was escorted by one Yadav dude (albeit a fifty year old dude!), who is probably in this business for quite sometime but still seems nervous like an amateur.

Would you like to be born on Earth again??

The other day a thought came to my mind when i was playing with my one year old niece. I was asked to get an appointment with the doctor as per her vaccination schedule. A peek in her vaccination chart showed me some three dozen entries.Most of the diseases that this vaccines were preventing weren't even present when I was a kid. Well nothing wrong in developing new vaccines, but does this not imply that over the years we are also producing so many new diseases that can affect our kids.When our parents were kids there were hardly any vaccination drives, when our time came there were some of them and now the new generation faces a book full of diseases..!!

An Evening of Horrors

"Mama would be angry..." I sure was scared that day, it was already eight-thirty when I took the bus. and I was alone that day. My tution sir lived about a thirty-minute bus ride away and so my parents, always too cautious, sent me there only because one of the kids from my apartment went there too. but that day he had a headache, most probably caused by the thought of missing sachin's batting in the india-england match. so his parents let him a day off from the tution.

However too many things that shouldn't have happened, happened all together. After the class I went to the place of another friend of mine to see his new videogame. the videogame was pretty much addictive, and two hours , or more aptly sixteen levels of that game, passed very swiftly. "time to go back..." first I called up my mum and told her that I went to a friend's place and that I would be back soon.

Voila... Even Miss Maya reads my blog!

And I thought nobody took my blog seriously... Only to be read in the papers last week that UP CM ordered the closure of all Reliance Fresh outlets in Lucknow, following agitation by traders' association, and subsequent inquiry into the functioning of the working on retail chains. If you haven't been a regular reader then this please read the first post on this blog: "Prologue" [ http://dump-mart.blogspot.com/2007/05/prologue.html ]

Now tell me, don't you think my blog did bring about an effect!! Lol... okay fine, that was just a break from the usual cribbing...

Tax on students working abroad...

A parliamentary committee has put forth a recommendation for taxing students from central government institutes like IITs & IIMs who opt to work abroad. What say? I say a great idea...I'd say this resentment of mine (against using nation's resources to produce engineers for developed countries) isn't totally self-cultivated, maybe it is a result of reading some high-voltage articles on brain drain, Swades and even Five Point Someone. As you might know the basic aim for forming the IITs, according to Mr. Nehru, was to produce the most brilliant engineers who'd help develop a newly independent India and let it compete with the developed nations on the technological front.

The IITs sure have produced the most brilliant engineers, but have they really fulfilled their purpose? These brilliant engineers have invented things, innovated existing technology... but where? Almost all have done these things not in India, but in various American and European companies. Can you recall any major invention done by an IITian that has helped the rural populations, or solved the problem of a common man... Barring a few solar power generators and the likes, have they even developed a simple technology that can be used substantially. Atleast I cannot, and I would love to read about them in the comments section if you do know about them.