blog@Yantrajaal

While hanging the rapist or castrating him may cause smug justification to society at large, it is of little value to the victim and the immense anguish that she has to suffer. Here is an idea that uses the technology that almost every woman has in her hands to help prevent rapes in the first place. It is based on a mobile app that can be used with a phone equipped with GPS, a data connection and camera -- things that are not too difficult to find on modern smart phones. The app -- Save Your Sister (SYS) -- has three major functions, namely (a) to identify the users current position, (b) to alert others  of where she if she is in danger and (c) to take and transmit photographs of the attacker should an assault actually happen -- and it could work like this. In the "dormant" state when the woman is under no apparent threat, the SYSapp simply keeps a record of the current position of the phone ( and the woman carrying it) and makes sure that both GPS and data transfer is...

The current national outrage about the absolutely heinous and brutal rape in a Delhi bus is understandable but in our anger and frustration we are missing the wood for the trees. Well meaning ( and good looking ) participants in TV channels are asking for anything ranging from castration to capital punishment and criticising everyone from the police to the judiciary  ... but hardly anyone is interested in identifying that elusive "deeper" cause ! image from GovernanceInnovation Because if one were to pause and think, it will become clear that this rape is a symptom and not the disease. When you get a high fever, the fever is not the disease -- it is merely a symptom of malaria or dengue or something worse. Trying to cure the fever by throwing ice water would not work -- you need to drugs to kill the bacteria. And for that you need to find the cause. In fact, that cause is quite well known. From the personal rape to the nationwide CWG / 2G / Coalgate scam to localis...

Distance learning is a very seductive idea. If we go back to the era of the Mahabharata, we learn about Ekalavya, the tribal boy, who on being denied access to Dronacharya's classes on warfare on account of his caste, taught himself archery simply by observing the teacher from a distance ! The tragic consequences of his effort are well known and should perhaps serve as a warning to societies in general and teachers in particular. In a more realistic timeframe, approximately a hundred  years ago, correspondence courses appeared and over a period of time these courses became an integral part of various Open Universities. Unfortunately degree granting programs based on correspondence courses never acquired the popularity or employer acceptability of their classroom counterparts for a variety of reasons. With the advent of computing technology, computer based training (CBT) programs appeared and while these never quite made it to the level of university courses, a lot of voc...

Here the pictures of our visit to Khajuraho.