Young and jobless

The tally of the world's youth (15-24 years) without work has touched an all-time high, but the situation can be redeemed says the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It is perhaps time the focus is turned away from what Amartya Sen called the other day (in characterising Europe's response to the global economic crisis) “the fetish with fiscal figures.” Figures for the jobless jumped by a staggering 7.8 million in 2007-2009, as against an average annual increase of some 200,000 for a decade up to 2006. Similarly, the proportion of the unemployed to the employable rose from 11.9 per cent to 13 per cent between 2007 and 2009, reversing a declining trend since 2002. In fact, the one percentage point increase in 2008-09 marked the biggest annual change in the 20 years for which estimates are available. The figures, says the ILO, suggest that the youth have greater sensitivity than adult workers to the impact of the global financial crisis. About 28 per cent of young workers belong to households surviving on less than $1.25 per day, a segment that is likely to behind the adults in the recovery phase.

The developing world is home to nearly 90 per cent of the economically active youth, with Asia alone accounting for some 60 per cent. India, with half its population under 25 years of age, has huge stakes in shaping the prospects of an entire new generation. The importance of guaranteed minimum income and social welfare protection for this segment of the working population cannot be overstated in a context where employment is created predominantly in the informal sector, which is under-regulated. Relevant here is also the absence of compulsory education beyond 14 years in countries such as India, which induces premature and forced entry into the labour market. Raising the national legal age of children to 18 years, as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates, is an important first step to address many shortcomings linked to education, skills, and employment. Given that a strong base in skills is pivotal to the emerging knowledge-based economies of this century, it is only logical that skills development should receive priority. On most accounts, the prospects of regaining the momentum of economic growth globally and narrowing inequities depend heavily on the performance of Asian countries. It is inconceivable that this could happen save through a fresh impetus to school education and conditions of decent employment.

How to Prepare for CAT in the Last 2 Months?-CAT 2008 100 percentiler..

This is the time when you have already prepared with your basics and have started with your test series. You would have written a few tests but soon realize after a few that it is difficult to improve on your percentiles beyond a certain limit. So you go back to your books and study harder. But still your scores don’t improve. You get frustrated, which results in further lowering of your scores. So what do you do? This is what I recommend:

There is no point in going and revising the concepts or rote learning formulae again and again. The best way to improve is by analyzing the papers you have already solved. Your focus of solving now should be on trying new methods as compared to what you have been traditionally doing. If you see the past data, most of the students who score +90%ile in the first attempt normally go down in the second attempt (i.e. their percentile in the second attempt is lower than the first). The reason for this is that you become complacent and feel that whatever method you have adopted for solving is good and with more practice tests you can only improve your percentiles but this is not true! As seen through many examples of students who despite a lot of practice do not improve on their scores. More practice does not improve your scores, but only ensures that you solve the sums with the same method. This will only ensure that your speed will be the same as before or slightly better (as you are not solving with a better method) but could slow you down as your mind is not trained to think in new or different ways.

One of the good ways to improve on your methods is to go back to the sums you have solved and see if you can solve them in a better method than what you have already done. Also the methods that you get should be even better than the methods given in the explanatory answer, else how will you score better than the rest of the students who are referring to the same explanatory answers and using the same methods. When you go through the papers, imagine that you are a faculty and giving feedback to a class regarding the paper. The students have already gone through the explanatory answer. So now how will you add value to the class? What new ways of solving can you explain to them? You need not get better methods for all the sums that you solve. Even if you get better methods for a few sums it will suffice to improve your performance by leaps and bounds over a period of time.

Another way to improve is to study in groups or study with someone who is better than what you are. Learn from other students methods. Also help the other student with your methods. The moment you start explaining different methods to others, you become stronger conceptually and can use the method in much better manner and also can use it for varied types of sums.

Solve different type of puzzles to improve on your Math and Logic section. Puzzles help you think differently as there is no single method to solve all the puzzles and you will have to think of innovative ways to solve them thus helping you with your thinking ability. You could start with Sudoku and then move on to other type of puzzles.

DI is one area where improvement can be quite drastic. The difference between DI and Math is that in DI there are only few ways of solving the sums. If you can master them you would be very good unlike Math where you have so many topics to study from. For improving on your DI, the key is to calculate approximately. There are various ways of accurate calculations like Vedic Math, etc but I think it is useless unless you have been using it for the last 5 or more years and have mastered it. Vedic Math will only make you slow. Understand this, that CAT does not require accurate answers. You have to get one of the options as your answers. So even if you come close to one of the answers you can mark the right answer and save a lot of time which you would ideally waste in unnecessary calculations. One way of solving DI is to solve DI without a pen or pencil in your hand. Imagine you are traveling in a crowded train where you can hold the paper in one hand to read but cannot use the second hand to solve. Also you have to go through the DI sheet to conduct a CAT class. Now solve the DI sums without using any pen or paper. Even the calculations do it in your mind. When you start doing this you are forced to think of different ways of solving the questions in a shorter way. Also you are forced to calculate approximately to get the answer. This is the best way to develop shortcut methods and also to solve DI faster.

Logic section is usually a part of DI. The best way to improve in the logic section is to solve a lot of puzzles. This helps to build up logical ability. The key to solving a logic problem is to be systematic while solving a problem. When you are solving a logic sum, mark whatever conditions you have already used while solving the sum, so that you are aware as to what conditions you have not used. This ensures that you do not have to read the whole sum to search for some condition and also ensures that you do not miss on any condition (which is the cause of major mistakes in logic sums).

The verbal section requires a long time to improve. But regular reading helps you to improve it to a large extent. In CAT the major question in Verbal is Reading Comprehension. So if you can build up on reading ability it could help you to read faster which in turn ensures that you can solve more questions and therefore more marks. One key technique is fast reading which has to be developed and can be done so within a period of 1 month. ‘How to read better and faster’ is a good book that can help you read faster. Also if you are weak in the verbal section ensure that you read for at least one to two hours daily. Also try and avoid reading fiction or story books. As they have a story line underlying it you read it because of the story. It helps to read from diverse topics as CAT RC passages are from diverse topics. Also by reading from diverse topics helps you to get familiar with different subject areas which ensure that a passage in the exam on a similar subject area you will definitely be able to read faster and comprehend better.

What is most important is that you remain focused and don’t give up. Keep planning and follow the plan. Don’t stop practicing for long periods because then you will lose touch. Constantly keep yourself in touch with papers and try and get yourself into a group that is also preparing for CAT. There will be times when you will feel completely de-motivated and discouraged, it’s alright to feel disappointment but you must remember the phase will pass and you can do better if you don’t lose sight of your goal.

Your mantra should always be ‘CAT is not tough and I can crack it.’ Keep yourself motivated and take the exam. If you have put in effort the rest will take care of itself.

All the very best!!!

GIVEN BY CAT 2008 100 percentiler...

CAT 2010 - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

he CAT 2010 advertisement, published in the newspapers on the 22nd of August 2009, has provided details regarding CAT 2010 to be held during the period Wednesday 27 Oct. to Wednesday 24 Nov 2010

Calendar of events for CAT 2010:
Sale of CAT Vouchers :: Monday, 30 August 2010 - Monday,27 September 2010
Registration for CAT 2010 : Monday, 30 August 2010 - Thursday,30 September 2010
CAT Test Dates : Wednesday, 27 October 2010 -Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Declaration of CAT results on the website: 12 January 2011

The important facts about CAT 2010 as announced by the IIMs are as follows:

1. The CAT 2010 vouchers can be obtained from selected Axis Bank branches between Monday, 30 August - Monday, 27 September 2010 for Rs. 1400/- (Rs. 700/- for SC/ST candidates). Use our Axis Bank locater nearest to you (to be updated soon).
2. Online registrations are open from Monday, 30 August 2010 - Thursday, 30 September 2010. The CAT 2010 Registration Guide will be available on the official CAT site
3. CAT 2010 will be held during the period Wednesday, 27 October 2010 - Wednesday, 24 November 2010.
4. The Exam will be a two and a half hour paper including a 15 minute tutorial. It will consist of 60 questions distributed over 3 sections viz. QA, VA & DILR. Click the link for details about CAT 2010 test patter and duration
5. The IIMs will be releasing the CAT 2010 Practice Test and the CAT 2010 Video soon.
6. CAT 2010 results will be declared on 12 January 2011 on the website www.catiim.in Click the link to read about the selection process
7. Further details are available on the CAT website (www.catiim.in).

How to Apply:

1. Buy the scratch voucher from selected Axis Bank branches. Click here to locate the Axis Bank Branch nearest to you on a map.
2. Register online on the CAT website (www.catiim.in). Registrations will be open from Monday, 30 August 2010.
3. Once you choose the date, you will need to choose the 10 a.m. (displayed as 10:00) session or the 3:30 p.m. session (displayed as 15:30). View the details of Scheduling and Registration. Click here for details about the procedure of reporting for the test.
4. A candidate must show original mark sheets and submit photocopies to prove his/her eligibility at the time of interview. Further, if a candidate is selected for a programme, original degree certificate and mark sheets along with their photocopies must be submitted for verification at the time of joining the programme. Check out the Eligibility criteria for the CAT exam

Test Fee: Candidate Testing Fee is Rs. 1400 (Rs. 700 for SC/ST candidates).

Candidates can choose a test date, session (morning/afternoon), and venue across thirty three centres (cities) all over India, subject to availability.

Test Centres: Thirty three centres (cities) all over India that have been selected to host CAT 2010.

FOR ANY INFORMATION AND UPDATES: http://www.catiim.in/

Patriot games

A couple of weeks ago Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit said that anyone who criticised the Commonwealth Games i.e., criticised the government was being unpatriotic. This newspaper pointed out that patriotism implies standing up for one's country and not for the government of the day. Indeed, in that the bad policies of a particular government often harm the country, it could be said that criticising the government is the most patriotic thing in the world.

While this definition of a patriot one who is loyal to one's country, but not to the government is valid in other polities, it is obviously not so in India. The reason for this is simple. In other countries which call themselves democracies, governments exist to serve the country, i.e., the people who elect them into office (and elect them out as well). In India, increasingly, it is the country i.e., the populace which exists to serve the government of the day, whichever political party, or parties, it represents.

The most important duty of Indian citizens who have come of age is to cast their vote. The party they cast their vote for doesn't really matter, because behind their fagade of ideological differences they are basically all the same and have the same goal: to perpetuate their interests at the expense of the interests of the country, and of the citizens who constitute it.

Once this basic fact on which our system is bedrocked has been grasped, a lot of things that anger us or dismay us will no longer do so. For example, take the rampant corruption and delays bedevilling almost all the Games-related projects. To question such gross mismanagement is not only unpatriotic as the CM pointed out but it is also illogical. It shows a failure to understand the real reason that India is hosting the Games. And that reason has nothing whatsoever to do with national pride, or promoting the spirit of sportsmanship, or any of that nonsense. The real reason behind the Games as indeed behind any state-sponsored project is that the individuals and institutions that comprise the sarkari network (which includes middlemen and contractors) can make a lot of money and strengthen their stranglehold around the neck of the common citizen.

And it's not just the Games. According to a recent report, over 330 so-called 'public' sector projects have been bogged down in protracted time-overruns resulting in a supposed 'loss' of Rs 50,000 crore of the taxpayers' money. Does this anger you? It shouldn't. Because the so-called 'public' sector does not belong to the public, which is you and me. It belongs to the sarkar, and its job is not to enrich the country (you and me) but to enrich the sarkar. So, the so-called 'loss' of Rs 50,000 crore is not a loss at all. It is, on the contrary, a gain for the true stakeholder in the 'public' sector: the sarkar.

Once we learn to put the sarkari horse before the country's cart we shall understand a lot of things. The deep-rooted cancer of corruption that is killing this country is not a hateful and loathsome bane, as we tend to think of it. It is quite the opposite: it is a blessed boon. A boon for the all-important sarkar for whose sole benefit this entire country, and everyone and everything in it, exists.

Members of Parliament of all political parties have voted unanimously for a hefty 300 per cent-plus pay hike for themselves. Though it's been put on hold, we should urge them to take an even larger pay hike. What better way to ensure that our servitude of the sarkar, by the sarkar, and for the sarkar, will never perish from this land?

Young and jobless

The tally of the world's youth (15-24 years) without work has touched an all-time high, but the situation can be redeemed says the International Labour Organisation (ILO). It is perhaps time the focus is turned away from what Amartya Sen called the other day (in characterising Europe's response to the global economic crisis) “the fetish with fiscal figures.” Figures for the jobless jumped by a staggering 7.8 million in 2007-2009, as against an average annual increase of some 200,000 for a decade up to 2006. Similarly, the proportion of the unemployed to the employable rose from 11.9 per cent to 13 per cent between 2007 and 2009, reversing a declining trend since 2002. In fact, the one percentage point increase in 2008-09 marked the biggest annual change in the 20 years for which estimates are available. The figures, says the ILO, suggest that the youth have greater sensitivity than adult workers to the impact of the global financial crisis. About 28 per cent of young workers belong to households surviving on less than $1.25 per day, a segment that is likely to behind the adults in the recovery phase.

The developing world is home to nearly 90 per cent of the economically active youth, with Asia alone accounting for some 60 per cent. India, with half its population under 25 years of age, has huge stakes in shaping the prospects of an entire new generation. The importance of guaranteed minimum income and social welfare protection for this segment of the working population cannot be overstated in a context where employment is created predominantly in the informal sector, which is under-regulated. Relevant here is also the absence of compulsory education beyond 14 years in countries such as India, which induces premature and forced entry into the labour market. Raising the national legal age of children to 18 years, as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates, is an important first step to address many shortcomings linked to education, skills, and employment. Given that a strong base in skills is pivotal to the emerging knowledge-based economies of this century, it is only logical that skills development should receive priority. On most accounts, the prospects of regaining the momentum of economic growth globally and narrowing inequities depend heavily on the performance of Asian countries. It is inconceivable that this could happen save through a fresh impetus to school education and conditions of decent employment.

What's freedom to you?

How free are you?

While it has been 63 years of independence on paper, freedom continues to remain a subjective term for many around. So in practice, while one may come across as a person enjoying all freedom, it’s not exactly how it seems. Just like on the flip side, a homemaker, who’d otherwise be perceived as the one tied down in life by household chores and familial obligations, may have found her independence in just that.

We talk to a cross-section of people to find out what’s freedom to them:

Housewife
Freedom: For homemaker Pooja Bajpai, who chose to give up her career in merchandising willingly to take care of her house, feels free enough. She says, “I feel good to be living in a society which has outgrown its narrow outlook. A society that’s progressive, broad minded, that accepts women’s independence, their moving out alone, working, partying everything. That apart, I’m so glad that unlike primitive times, today, we women are allowed freedom to take our own decisions, and be confident that they’ll be heard and respected. Somewhere the idea of male domination has simmered just as women’s liberation as surfaced.” And with that, for Pooja, household chores, cooking for husband, doing up the house and more, doing make her any less independent, as she says, “So what if some of us choose to sit at home. Only we women can be housewives, men can never be house men, and that’s how God had wanted. Like I know a woman who works with the BMW company and drives a BMW herself, and still when she comes back home, she cooks for her husband. So this is something that we women do out of choice and not because we lack freedom to move out of it.”

I still wish: “On the flip side, I wish men had gotten free from their male chauvinistic attitude. For, many of them, who’d come across as progressive and broad minded outside, are just the opposite at home. I wish they were more helping towards their wives with house chores and in-laws more open to seeing their sons help their wives. I wish we were free to ask this help from men as our right.

Besides this, I wish we were free to move out alone without the fear of being eve-teased, or being run over by a truck, or being robbed by a roadside man. In that respect, I’d say, British gave us a better life – good roads, railways, education and more. I wish there was more discipline... without that, freedom is only half achieved,” adds Pooja.

Working woman
Freedom: “...to work, spend, purchase, speak my mind, have an opinion, attend late night parties, have boy friends and choose your life partner. I mean just look at what we’ve come to! It’s like enjoying freedom to do just what we want...something that our ancestors could never even dream of. Who’d have thought that a country that followed the tradition of ‘Sati’ would have women being so open to the idea of divorces or walking out on their husbands. Not to say that’s the best kind of freedom we’ve got, but it’s freedom nonetheless!” shares Vertika Singhal, a software engineer, who’s been married for two years now.

I still wish: “...that my being a woman never came in my way of achieving my goals. I wish people did away with this thinking that women are weak and lesser capable than men.. I want freedom from such notions floating with people,” Vertika adds.

College student
Freedom: Shares Indu Bhrit, a third year student of BTech in Trichy college, “I have travelled more than 2000 kilometers from Kanpur to Trichy in Tamil Nadu, only to study here. That’s freedom! For me, freedom is being able to do things the way I want, and here, in a place like Tamil Nadu, that’s so far from my own, I get to do just that. Far from our homes, with friends all day long, parties till late night, not to miss studies in the morning classes, and no restriction from parents whatsoever. And that’s freedom, for sure!”

I still wish: “...I had the freedom and power to make my voice heard in things that matter at the bigger level. Things like stopping institutions from taking bribes, freedom to tell a teacher that he’s being partial, or the administration that the mess food is messy or that the washrooms need a revamp.”

Married man
Freedom: “...to be invited to couples’ parties, spend money on the love of your life without family interference, hold hands or hug your spouse in public, take decisions for your family, invest in things you like the most and so much more,” says Aditya Arora, who works in an MNC, adding, “As for more, we men always enjoyed freedom, it is actually women now who have got more freedom and are enjoying it in every respect.”

I still wish: “There’s no more freedom that I wish for. If given more freedom, we will become an unbridled lot and perhaps go the American way completely. Any living being needs to have certain boundaries and more freedom would only break open those bounds, which is likely to lead to unreasonable and irrational behavoiur,” believes Aditya.

Not so healthy

A recent dispute between general insurance companies and certain categories of health-care providers has snowballed into a major controversy calling into question the relevance of health insurance for meeting medical expenses. Over a month ago, the four public sector general insurance companies, who collectively hold a majority of health insurance policies, decided to withdraw “cashless” facilities offered by them either directly or through third-party administrators (TPAs). Initially projected as a marketing tool, the cashless option is now a common feature in all health insurance policies. Since the insurance companies undertake to settle the bills directly, the policyholder is spared the burden of making the payment upfront and then getting it reimbursed, a tedious process in the best of times. The number of network hospitals, those that participate in the scheme through a contractual relationship, has increased enormously, aided substantially by the cashless facilities on offer. Health insurance has become the fastest growing segment of general insurance — it registered, on average, an annual growth of 35 per cent over the last decade. With less than 10 per cent of the eligible population covered so far, there is obviously a great potential to be tapped.

Given this context, the withdrawal of the most popular feature of health insurance plans is a setback for not only the policyholders but also, in a larger sense, the orderly growth of the health insurance business. The insurers have alleged that the network hospitals, in collusion with doctors, inflate the bills that are settled by the TPAs under the cashless scheme. Health-care providers are largely unregulated, and there are no standard treatment protocols, no benchmarks of costs to be charged, and no standardised data maintenance. Insurers complain that the present business model is becoming unviable with loss ratios running in excess of 120 per cent. The public sector insurance companies are trying to provide some of the benefits of the cashless policies through a newly created category of preferred provider-network of hospitals with agreed payment schedules for standardised treatments. On the other side, the leading hospitals have their own reasons to offer: the cost of health care, like everything else, is rising, and in the course of treating the patients they cannot stint on tests and procedures that could turn out to be expensive. Policyholders and insurance companies as well as hospitals and doctors would all be better off if a greater degree of transparency is introduced in health insurance.

Nature’s fury in Leh

With the death toll in the flash flood in Ladakh up to 145 (and 500 people missing), and hundreds of houses destroyed, the magnitude of the havoc wrought by the natural calamity cannot be underestimated. The floods affected Leh town and the surrounding villages, the main population centres of this thinly peopled district and also the focus of much of its economic activity. It is going to take many months for that remote corner of India to return to normal. The immediate priority is to ensure that survivors are rescued and taken to safety and provided medical care, and that all affected people have access to relief. The Army and the Air Force have already been deployed for rescue operations, to which the continuing bad weather poses a challenge. Moreover, sections of all roads leading to the ravaged area have been washed away. This means the only way to reach Leh now is by the air-link, itself dependent on the weather conditions. But all this only gives the task of rescue and relief an added urgency. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah's early visit to Leh, just hours after the calamity struck, has sent out a positive signal. It is to be hoped that his government, despite its preoccupation with the turmoil in the Valley, will not be found wanting in its response to the crisis in the days to come. The Centre must provide the Jammu & Kashmir government all the assistance it needs to cope with this emergency.

The devastating floods were caused by a cloudburst over Leh that lasted less than two hours. A cloudburst is high intensity rainfall in a short period of time, sometimes accompanied by hail and thunder, and can cause floods. A cloudburst over Mumbai in July 2005 saw the skies dumping 950 mm of water in eight to 10 hours, paralysing the city and claiming several lives. The exact measurement of rain that fell during the reported one-hour cloudburst over Leh on August 6 is still not available. While the rain on the two days may not come anywhere close to what Mumbai saw, for Ladakh it is a huge amount. This is what puzzles meteorologists. It never really rains in Ladakh, which is geographically categorised as a “cold desert.” The destruction in the floods was all the more because people in Ladakh, confident of dry conditions, have traditionally used mud in much of their architecture. The Leh disaster has come at the same time as Pakistan experiences its worst floods in a century. Across South Asia, weather patterns are changing in unpredictable ways, and require to be studied so that we are better equipped to deal with them.

Freedom from biology

What happens to our soul when our body turns to ashes on the funeral pyre?

Our physical body is called sthulashariram or gross body. Our limited self is called sukshmashariram or subtle body. There is a third entity called karanashariram or casual body. Now the sthulashariram is the abode of jeevatma, the spirit of life. It is not the body, but it gets identified with the body. The soul, along with the mind, is the seat of consciousness. The body is only a vehicle, and when it is consigned to flames after physical death, the soul is set free from its mortal coils. Then it searches for another body that will be its vehicle for another lifetime. At the end of this search, depending upon its karma, it is assigned to a particular body. The soul begins life anew in that body. In reality, the soul is immortal.

For example: The space in the room appears limited by the room. Is the space enclosed within the four walls of the room or is the room a small enclosure in the vast unlimited space of the universe? The room is a tiny speck in space. But we say there is space in the room. Think of the jeevatma as space and of the body as the walls of the room that encloses part of the space. Now suppose the walls of the room crumble down. Will the space previously contained within the room suffer any damage or dissolution? No, the space returns to its state of continuity which had earlier with the space outside the walls. To realize this is gnanodayam or the dawn of knowledge.

Doesn’t the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth negate the law of karma?

No, it does not. It means the soul is on an unending journey of evolution. The question is whether you want to hasten this process, or you want to allow this process as it happens at its own pace. For example, if you are into agriculture, you pump water into your fields when there is no rain for a long period. The water enriches the process of crop growth which would otherwise be slowed down by delayed rains. Irrigation technology speeds up the agricultural process. Likewise, there are spiritual methods to enlighten the process of birth and rebirth.

Is time a dimension of the world of life even after death?

When you are conscious of the soul’s essential transcendence of physical dimensions, you are beyond the confines of time. But if you don’t have this awareness, that is, if you are operating from ignorance, you are subject to time, even though you have the potential to transcend it. For example, we know that space is not limited by the walls or the roof of a room. But space, not being conscious, is incapable of extending itself to its vast expanse outside until an external agency brings the walls down. It stays confined within concrete boundaries. The liberation that the heightened consciousness leads to is called jeevan mukti – liberation from biological life. If we remain ignorant of our true nature, we remain in bondage to our body nature with its trappings of kama or sexual desire, krodha or anger, lobha or non-restraint, and moha or greed. True knowledge liberates, whereas ignorance binds.

Student, “Where can I find God?”

Master, “Right in front of you”

Student, “Then why don’t I see him?”

Master, “Why doesn’t a drunkard recognise his own house? Find out what you are drunk with, and then you will find God in front of you.”

Online testing cos knock IIMs’ door to replace Prometric

Education companies that organise online exams for various universities have started knocking on IIMs’ doors hoping to land the contract to run the annual CAT exams if the current deal with Prometric is cancelled.

Pearson VUE, Eduquity Career Technologies, MeritTrac and Aptech are among those that have shown interest in bagging this high-profile $40-million contract. Some of the companies have informally approached IIM, while others are waiting to see the outcome of the review that IIMs are conducting of Prometric’s performance this year.

The annual CAT exams, which was organised on an online basis for the first time this year, saw a number of glitches. US-based Prometric, which was organising the exams in association with Delhi-based NIIT, has been sharply criticised for its poor handling.

“We are having informal discussions with IIMs and presenting them our capabilities,” said a person from one of the testing company who did not wish to be quoted.

“Even though this exam was conducted on a large scale, we believe we would have done better then Prometric,” said a person who participated in the bid last year for the contract.

Companies such as Pearson VUE, Eduquity Career Technologies and Aptech were among other bidders chasing the contract that was awarded to Prometric.

Officials familiar with online CAT said IIMs may cancel the contract with Prometric and float a new tender, but they are under great pressure to start from the scratch again.

“Floating a new tender and selecting a new player is a long process of 8-10 months, IIMs may shorten this period,” said a person familiar with the matter.

Sources also said that IIMs may consider other option of continuing the contract with Prometric and switch to a new player for 2011 CAT. “They may tell Prometric to change its partner NIIT for 2010 CAT, which was given majority chunk of the work,” said another person.

There are several large-scale exams in the country that have migrated from offline to online successfully. Eduquity Career Technologies said that it successfully conducted test for 1,25,000 candidates during a window period of 20-22 working days.

“We have also conducted similar exams for organisations such as HAL in which around 48,000 candidates appeared,” an Eduquity official said.

MeritTrac recently launched ‘Pariksha,’ an integrated examinations service, capable of administering over 1,50,000 online tests in a single day across the country. The company said that technology platform is supported by a network of 50,000 testing terminal in 185 cities across India.

Around 23,000 candidates successfully appeared for the Gujarat Common Entrance Test (GCET 2009) conducted by testing company MeritTrac and Gujarat Technological University (GTU) over a period of four days said GTU registrar NN Bhuptani.

“We simulated the exam and did very rigorous checks in advance dealing with areas such as the load capacity, networking, connectivity to internet and sanitised computers against any virus threat,” he said.

Manipal and BITS Pilani have also been conducting online entrance exams for around one lakh students since 2005. Manipal University registrar GK Prabhu said that they did not go for large number of students initially.

Instead, they first experimented these tests on their post graduate students who are relatively low in number and then scaled it up by conducting exams for undergraduate students.

The online exam for the under graduate students is completed in a period of 45 days and empty slots are kept in advance, in case the students miss the examination.

“I also monitor the online tests, while they are being held by getting real time videos from various centres through a dedicated network,” Mr Prabhu said. Manipal claimed that its online entrance exam achieved a zero per cent failure rate for exams spread across in 20 cities over 40 days.

Pearson said there is a silent period one week before any online test, in which mock tests are conducted in various centres.

Resolute action needed

London is ready to host mini Olympics-style games right now, two years away from the Olympics. Delhi, with less than two months to go for the opening of the Commonwealth Games, is in a mess, literally and figuratively. To the formidable technical and logistical challenges of getting the facilities ready in time has been added the task of cleaning up the financial act, with scams and scandals tumbling out every other day. As if the unedifying sight of the leaking stadia roofs was not enough, the charges of corruption and ‘doctored' e-mails against the Organising Committee (OC) officials have started flying thick and fast. The public authorities have not been spared either for some shoddy work in building stadia and beautifying the city. The so-called ‘world-class' facilities are still incomplete and have been found to be sub-standard or lacking in several respects. At least one of them, the swimming pool, has come in for adverse comments from the international federation's delegate. Low quality material and poor workmanship stick out at many a venue.

Extravagance had been the striking feature of Delhi's bid to host the Games. At the 2003 bid in Kingston, from offering free air passage, accommodation, and local transport to every member of a delegation to promising $100,000 to each participating country for training their athletes, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was set on a splurging spree. The overall costs shot up from an original estimate of Rs.655 crore to the present Rs.11,490 crore, with the Delhi government expected to spend another Rs.17,000 crore. The promise of the OC to reimburse the government the organisational expenditure that could cross Rs.2,400 crore sounds rather hollow. The projected revenue is nowhere in sight, though IOA President and Chairman of the Organising Committee Suresh Kalmadi is sticking to his optimistic calculations. Even allowing for some cutting of procedural corners in the hurry to complete the facilities, the outlandish figures being quoted as hiring charges for air conditioners, treadmills, and chairs can only heighten the revulsion among the tax-paying public. Attempts at damage control through the new enquiry committee notwithstanding, with every passing day Mr. Kalmadi's position is becoming more and more untenable. With the deadlines long past, the government needs to show a greater resoluteness in the task of completing the facilities in the very short time left, and in starting enquiries to bring to book the perpetrators of the multiple scams, evidence of which is pouring out. The present Organising Committee has shown itself to be unequal to both these tasks

Kashmir's crisis of authority

Ever since July, when a tear-gas shell ended the life of a Srinagar teenager who had committed no crime other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jammu and Kashmir has inched closer to the abyss each day. For all practical purposes, the authority of the state has collapsed. The State police personnel have been beaten on the streets; their weapons snatched; their homes torched. Most tragic of all, ever-growing numbers of young people have been shot in the course of increasingly desperate attempts to restore order. On Monday, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called for additional central forces to restore order, and is believed to be considering a large-scale reorganisation of his administration. Even as Mr. Abdullah reiterated his demand for dialogue between the Indian government and a cross-section of political opinion in the State, he made clear that mobs could no longer “put a police station on fire and expect the policemen there to exercise restraint.” Even the harshest measures, though, are unlikely to immediately deter the young people leading the protests: appeals for restraint from politicians like Kashmir's Islamist patriarch, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and even Hizb-ul-Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yusuf Shah, have done little to still the violent tide.

For all its scorching intensity, the violence this summer ought not to have overwhelmed the state. Secessionism has long been an entrenched part of the State's political life, fed by ideology, economic resentments and human-rights violations. There is no evidence, though, that its base has expanded dramatically in recent months. Far larger secessionist mobilisations were seen in 2008, after all, when competing ethnic-religious chauvinisms tore Kashmir and Jammu apart. The crisis is, in fact, the culmination of two years of drift. Ever since he took power in 2008, Mr. Abdullah reached out to the secessionist constituency — much as the opposition People's Democratic Party had done, with considerable success. The National Conference, Mr. Abdullah's advisers argued, had come to power only because it won eight seats in Srinagar, where there was little voter turnout, and its prospects would depend on developing a base in low-turnout urban areas where it has had little presence historically. But Mr. Abdullah's failure to develop effective administrative instruments and the resentments within his party cadre ensured that the National Conference ceded authority to secessionists. Mr. Abdullah is right: his overwhelming priority now must be the restoration of peace, with the very least bloodshed possible. But unless he begins focussing on building an administration and a political system that addresses those who voted him to power, the next crisis will not be far away.

Behind Facebook's success

From a start-up six years ago to the world's largest social networking site, Facebook has come to define contemporary social communication in the digital world. The exceptional popularity of this social networking site (SNS) in tricky cyber terrain is evident from the fact that the number of its active users has crossed 500 million. The imagination boggles: if Facebook were a country, it would be the third most populous in the world, behind China and India. Two other social network sites — MySpace (300 million) and Twitter (124 million) — would occupy the fifth and eighth slots, pointing to the magnitude of the revolution in cyberspace. The key to understanding the success of Facebook is that it rode on what social media theorist Clay Shirky characterises as the ability of the Internet to transform the manner in which information is created, shared, and distributed. The ease with which users can air their views and moods is an empowering attribute that prompts a global clientele to sign up. The SNS revolution started in 1997, and Facebook was not among the pioneers. Between 1997 and 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched the facebook.com as a site to share with his fellow Harvard students, many such sites came into being. Most of them vanished without a trace.

So why Facebook? Over the past six years, it went from being a closed user-group to one that gradually opened up: to high school networks, corporate networks, and finally anyone on Earth with an Internet connection. This expanding canvas for inter-personal communication has important lessons. At its most basic level, it reflects the success of an idea that forced society to sit up and take notice. Facebook's effectiveness is in its user-friendly approach behind which lies the application of cutting edge Internet technologies to serve a basic urge: the quest for information. It also ties in with contemporary knowledge society, marked by the ability of individuals quickly to create, package, and share content around the world. Mr. Zuckerberg's success is also closely linked to an innovation by which the site opened itself to other developers, thereby building a network of applications that piggyback on, and bring in users to, the site. Facebook's success has its caveats, such as privacy concerns, which it is obliged to address regularly. All said, these are still early days for social media. The path to success for rising social networking sites lies in their technology-led ability to connect people round the world seamlessly and capability to navigate the uncharted waters of business in cyberspace and actually garner revenues.