I was thinking about education in different parts of the world and how ideology is part of an overall education that is strictly mandated. Too many third world countries have ignored education for decades and now that they realized how important it is to survive as a nation they are helpless in many ways. Even if education reaches to people it doesn’t come without a mandated national ideology of majority. This is not a problem just with the third world countries but of developed countries as well but the difference is that there is flexibility in the developed world to fight such ideology compared to rigidness of developing or underdeveloped countries because of limited choice or no choice. Before I explain myself any further I do want to point out that any nation that wants their people to get educated after decades of ignoring the thought and moving in to poverty, cannot at once empower people with education pouring money in to the system (It is necessary to fund the system). Education happens with time, patience, free minds and it’s a slow process. The problem with education in the developing and under developed countries is recognized by the government but lack of short term incentive to an going education process for years is very minimum.

Recently I was looking at an education program in Afghanistan where the US army built schools for children and the children for the very first time had classrooms with desks and a black board. All the educational material was supplied to the kids with security from Army troops outside the school from Taliban. It sounds good that the children now have everything to give themselves a chance to educate themselves but the problem here is the immediate incentive to the kids who might be overwhelmed by too much information and regulations of the school. The same kid who has been earning $2 a day contributing to the family who attends school will find that the family is now making $2 less. Education doesn’t happen in 6 months or a year. To get a diploma it takes at least 12 years and 12 years of education without monetary support will eventually lead to the child’s withdrawal (either by him or by his family) from the school back to the streets making $2 a day again. The school in Afghanistan had a good initial enrollment in its class room but can they keep all the kids at school for the next 10 years? It’s the same problem in Africa, India and other countries. You will find a huge organization or the government making initial investments in to a school but they fail to understand that they cannot keep all the kids at school with no short term incentives. There are other programs in some countries the one I am familiar with in India is where the state government is providing a stipend if the child stays in school and shows progress making it illegal for the kids of age less than 15 to work (though this is not strictly followed).  The money offered as a stipend is still less than $1 a day, it is still being debated if this has been working or not. There are kids who enroll and stay till the family can sustain a little less income but as soon as they have bigger problems they either drop out or get lost in the ugly streets. As I can see it is not a quick fix. For education to happen there is a need for attitude change.

Going back to ideology in education, even with the children getting education throughout the world there is a deep seeded ideology in the syllabus that is a mandated part of the curriculum. For examples the history books that I have read for 5 years in school are mostly about history of India and the glorified political leaders and great kings (yes, they are extremely important I agree). The scopes of the History books are limited. Language study is the most concerning for me where you don’t read about how the language originated or how to use or learn the language and the books are not about learning a language with grammar but the Language books are filled with citations and chapters from religious books. A very good example was my Sanskrit Text book from 11^th and 12^th grade. Not a single chapter from the book was a general study other than religious citations and chapters from Ramayana books. Educational system has to display diversity of religious study but it cannot limit the study to the one major religion of the country. Socialism, Communism and Capitalism are thought right from the school then people with grows up with the same ideology just like how religion is engrained in us. The only part where education helps is when it gives the ability to the person where he/she can read and learn about other ideology and choose what he wants to follow. This is where I don’t agree with the educational system. You cannot bring up a person with a particular ideology and ask him to learn others on his own and make a choice, certainly not at the point of life where a person becomes busier in his life with family and responsibilities. There is a fundamental problem. The diversity should be thought right when the children are not attached to a particular ideology and that is when they can learn all and it will be easier for them to pick and choose or exclude ideological books from the educational system so that the children can learn what attracted them the most. This is a major problem in the Islamic world, the Madrasa’s teach Arabic and how to cite Quran as a mandatory process for a child before he can go to a proper school. In US the theory of Creationism has been introduced as an alternate theory to evolution but at least the system has a way to challenge the idea of inclusion or exclusion which is not a flexibility that other countries have. Hopefully in the coming decades information is the motive behind education and not Ideology.

I don’t know if Shah Rukh’s story has a motive of promoting his upcoming movie ‘My Name is Khan’ or if he was really a racial profiling victim. It’s just that, some very common name trigger a screening alert in the current security system. It looks like every Khan or Mohammed has to meet a representative before the boarding pass is printed and then follow a different line at the security check point to get frisked before you can even begin you walk towards the gate. I do understand the need for security and I am all for it only if was implemented in a sensible manner. You cannot screen every person with a Muslim name, nationality or a brown person with a beard. A big name like Shah Rukh khan should be stopped for security check there is no compromise but I don’t see the point in why he was denied a phone call or why he was made to wait for 2 hours instead of just getting his figure prints, retina scan and check his documents. This would take less has 15 minutes. Any person first has to go through a security check through a metal detector where you are required to take your shoes, jacket, belt and any material in your pockets off. They go through a Scanners followed by a random security check on people (generally brown) where you are frisked. I think people should not mind such security check even if the random pick from the crowd is generally a brown person. It’s the level of tolerance one should have or should make them self get used. It seems that this incident happened when Shah Rukh was coming to US.

One of the recent Incidents that was really ticked me off was frisking of our former President APJ Abdul Kalam in India before he boarded the flight. If former President Bill Clinton visits India then how would we welcome him? Would we frisk him or send government representatives to pick him up at the airport. The question is not about VIP cultures in eurpoe and Asia but dignity. We hold our former president with great respect and trusted him with representing the Nation as a president. When US President talks about dignity and mutual respect among nations isn’t this mistrust on Indian at the highest representative instead of helping him with security has to go thru extra security because he holds a Muslim name. This nation has just had is first Black president and so much fuss was created over him having a Muslim middle name. Tit for Tat shouldn’t be an answer to such incidents. This should go to highest authority in US and India should not bargain for a semi apologetic diplomatic answer but a reform on the screening process at the airports where not every Muslim has to stop and justify himself and prove that he is not a terrorist.

I had a recent travel incident at LA airport with Ale where we were to board a flight to LIT, the Kiosk allowed us to print Ale’s boarding pass and it won’t let me print mine even though both the tickets were purchased together. I was asked to meet a representative, so I walked up to a United Airline person asking him for help and she said her computer is down and I have to go and join the Manual Boarding line which I did. I had less than an hour for my flight to take off and I tried to talk to people at the airport if they can help me with my boarding and everyone simply denied to help with an attitude and the answer was always “This is all I could do to help” is to let me stand in the line and miss my flight even though I was there at the airport 2 hours before the flight departure. The flight boarding was at 3.30 and at 3.30 I was still behind 2 people waiting for my turn to get my boarding pass. Ale’s sister has to barge in and create some fuss for people to notice that I was really late. Now I did catch my flight after my name was announced at least a few times for the last call. That pissed me off. I was more than happy at smaller airports for the waiting but at LAX the inefficiencies and unwillingness to help are way too many to let go. All of this because I have Mohammed as my last name. This isn’t the first time this happened to me I have had to meet a representative for clearance almost every time I travelled.

 

The heated debate about health care reform is getting more and more interesting and repetitious. Though I have been away for a long time I just wanted to point out few things I think should be included and that are already discussed in this bill. I am pretty sure any bill will pass the House but Senate is always a difficult fight. Before I start I want to say that I want a Health Care Reform.

47 Million Un-insured American coverage is the selling point of the current Health care debate. As we have heard the way they want to pay for this is by cutting the wastes from the current health care system in America and limiting the itemized deduction for people earning more than $250,000 year. The debate gets more interesting when the question arises if this bill will cover all the undocumented illegal immigrants (11.9 million). 8 Million out of 12 million illegal immigrants are employed in US. The question is, is it fair to pay for all the undocumented immigrants at the cost of the tax payers money. The finance committee bill limits the coverage to legal immigrants, US residents and Citizens which sounds reasonable. When it comes to moral issue where if an illegal immigrant falls sick or met with an accident and he comes to the Emergency Room would we deny care to that person? This is where I think we should be a little flexible. In my opinion we should not deny care to the person who arrives at ER. If we can save a life then we should, be it any person. Some might argue that it is the risk the person took when he entered the country illegally and he should pay for the price and so we should be denied care. I think we should give care and hospital should inform INS about the incidence so that they can take appropriate action. Every one’s situation is different, this opens a broader and emotional debate of opportunity, family support etc. This can be dealt better if the Immigration reform is immediately followed by health reform where we provide a way for all the illegal immigrants living in US for more than 5 years a way to residency or legal status. Among the 8 million illegal immigrants with the jobs I am sure if they are provided with an opportunity in the current system they will pay their share of health insurance. One way I think to solve this problem is to recognize the illegal immigrants with a certain Semi-legal status and apply a different tax code or to mandate a penalty to their annual income till they attain a different status like the US residents or any legal status. This is definitely in consideration of people with families living in US and other circumstances. Let’s not forget this is a nation of Immigrants.

Public plan is another option that is being discussed. Looking at the way people are looking at it this option might be dropped. I personally think and strongly feel like we should have a Public option that is not for profit. The debate around this is if we are already limiting the insurance companies to follow a particular coverage standards like no denial of insurance to anyone with pre-existing condition, no discrimination, coverage of preventive exams, no life time cap on benefits etc then everyone will be happy with their coverage and we shouldn’t need a Public plan. Let me just point out with what happened with CARD act recently signed by the president with limits on credit card. I am pretty sure a lot of people received letters just as I did from credit card companies about the how they had no choice but to increase the annual APR to compensate the market situation. (I even called Chase to see if there was anything in my credit history that made them increase the APR but the representative clearly said its nothing to do with my credit history and I can close my account if I don’t like the change of terms) and these rates might not go down because the law isn’t applied on the CC companies till next year. It has a good 1 year for people to get used to higher APR than before and never bother to fight for lower APR’s. 8 % APR is the minimum for a person with credit score more than 750 so an average American always ends up with a 12-18% APR with a score between 650 and 750. So going back to my point of having a Public option is to keep the insurance companies not to raise the premium because the government passed new laws and we might get a letter soon saying due to recent legislative changes we have no option but to increase the premium. If there is a public plan then people will have an option to switch to a public option which is more reasonable or this will keep the insurance companies to keep the coverage and the price reasonable. As far as with the debate where the private sector cannot compete with a public plan then I think it is a debate people need to understand how this public plan is being paid for. The public plan is not being paid by any taxes instead it will be similar to how an insurance company runs or how USPS runs. The budget to the public plan is not allotted by certain percentage of tax money but from the monthly premiums that people pay. The other points raised are that the government run firm doesn’t have to pay local taxes and other taxes like the private sector. Well to be honest I don’t know the answer but anyways I do want to support a Public Plan because things will be under control and I DO NOT TRUST Private Sector.

Pulling the plug on grandma is one of the most laughable debates that are going on. The proposal was to pay for voluntary meeting with the doctor every 5 years to talk about how you would want to plan the end of life question. This proposal is being dropped just because people don’t understand or misunderstood.

A step towards single payer system, Well this is something that can is very debatable. The insurance industry can learn from UPS and FEDEX or they can give up and we might end up wanting a Single Payer system. Even in that case so many countries in the world have both single payer system and the very good insurance Industry. Lou Dobbs on CNN every evening is introducing 30 best countries with better heath care and with a good insurance industry. The other day at a town hall meeting in Montana Obama mentioned Netherlands as a good example.

 

 

Jai ho, Slumdog Millionaire Rahman and Gulzar

 

Smile Pinky, Megan Mylan

Man on Wire, James and Simon.