Vox Populi

The people of America have spoken out (vox populi). Its "Election America" and finally the race to White House has ended with a spectacular showdown with Barack Hussein Obama becoming the 44th President of the United States. The leader in himself has an excellent orator, a powerful lawyer and a strategic leader. The America that 'was' when he started his election campaign bore no resemblance with the one it is currently in! Lets put aside Obamian tactics and the disconcerted situation that Americans are facing now. The focus of this post is to analyze the attitude of the two candidates for the Presidential election that was expected to be a tight finish but it proved the other way with Obama getting the clean chit!

The famous speech that fetched Obama this scintillating victory was delivered by him at Illinois, the constituency from where he was elected. His speech clearly enunciated his background i.e, who and what his parents were, about his education and his entry into the US Senate. The comparison can be started right away from this point. Indian politics has its own flavors. Each one accusing every other candidate. Obama never accused McCain publicly, instead he insisted on how his principles and ideologies will take America to a new dimension both in terms of wealth and intellectual enrichment. Politicians in every level, in India concentrate mainly on acquiring crowd and make impossible promises. The decency that Obama and McCain maintained during public campaigns is worth emulating.

The post electoral reactions from these two candidates was even more amazing. McCain calling up Obama and wishing him good luck in his tenure! Never can we imagine such a noble gesture from a single politician in India, how nobler he may be in other spheres of life. Politics in India is simply considered as a race to power and not as an opportunity to take the lead in improving the nation's prospects with immediate involvement. McCain announced that he would render full support for the decisions that Obama would be taking in the future. Such is the trust of an opposition on the ruling party. Indian politics and politicians must learn a lot of moral lessons from one of the finest elections and these lessons are worth learning too.

Rejuvenate admissions

Admissions for most educational institutes, if not for all in India are based purely on the higher secondary school examination marks and the entrance test scores. One good aspect of this metric is that students with high problem solving skills enter into the institutes. But, there is the darker side of this procedure. Students with not so good attitude enter into institutes and violate the very purpose for which the institutes have been established. Mere numerical abilities don't command an excellent character from the student. These abilities can be acquired by anyone through rigorous preparation and regular practice. To be more precise these abilities are not inborn but imparted.

Then what's that thing that is unique or which distinguishes one from the other? Its the passion for study and the future goal the students wish to achieve through their course. Studying high speed databases to steal money would be of no use to society and would go to trashes! The motive behind study is all the most important. In this aspect, its better we learn from other nations. Countries like the USA and almost every European nation adopts this policy where they require a letter written entirely by the student stating his purpose of study. This letter will speak one's heart and any artificial manipulations will be easily found out by the evaluation team. Numerical scores are also taken into account by the selection team and an overall criteria is established which determines the student's admission into the university.

Yet another policy that is outstanding with foreign universities is their selective appraisal of undergraduate courses for admission into graduate courses. For example, if one plans to do an MS in Computer Science and submits his undergraduate score sheet, the evaluation team evaluates his/her performance in courses pertaining to computer science only and give lesser importance to courses not so related to computer science. This method of evaluation clearly filters out students who have a zeal for computers. Similar methods can be adopted for other engineering disciplines. Still, the post graduate admissions for IITs follow the entirely mark based metric and it must be revamped. It would be a sea change if this procedure is adopted for undergraduate courses whose admissions strictly command a high numerical score and not measure of other required skills. This all round evaluation of candidate avoids future complexities like lack of required skills during job interviews, where the candidate is required to take up special soft skill classes. Research oriented minds can also be found out with ease if multiple criteria are established. Lets hope for this method to get established in India in the earliest possible time.