Thursday, June 26, 2008

Schools

Hyderabad schools
http://www.exam-results.com/schoolsinindia/schoolsinandhrapradesh/schoolsinandhra.htm

Chenni Schools
http://www.exam-results.com/schoolsinindia/schoolsintamilnadu/schoolsinchennai.htm

http://www.exam-results.com/schoolsinindia/schoolsinandhrapradesh/schoolsinandhra.htm -- All India schools

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Posted by Vision at 11:53 AM 42 comments

Monday, June 16, 2008

Children learning and development

- Main idea is to teach kids
- debating and communication skills teaching for kids ( for all indian schools )
- ability to focus : sit 30 minutes to focus and solve problems ( by age 6 ), so sit 10 minutes by age 4
- thru community approach , this can lead to measured child development between ages 4 - 10 which builds foundation to child whole career.
Need to have a comprehensive plan and resources well writeen and given to parents.
- This list will have what to expect at each 6 month period like
3.5 , 4, 4.5 , 5 , 5.5 ,6 years of age and beyond.
- more importently having tested best boards easily available for parents to buy for kids. best tested because otherwise bad games etc.. child won't use parents gets discouraged to buy later.

- for Gitu, we neglected puzzles for 6 months due parents to not paying attention . If you have above 6 month incremental plan ahead with expectations and where to buy borads etc.. parents will follow. conduct a club to meet every week end to reinforce.

1. puzzble boards 6 , 12, 24, 48, 100 piece as they grow ( see amazon for all these , see by ranking to get best games ..)
2. word games simple letter cards to form words, next level then final level scrabble
3. strategy games
4. chess

drawing
piano

physical games:
- monkey bars, climbing structures ..
- basketball
- ping pong
- soccer

---
you can conduct a picture competition with kids , give a topic and ask them to draw a picture. Here is a global warming sample ( world competition best pictures )
Posted by Vision at 11:58 AM 2 comments Labels: ,

U.S. Schools


characters

Two Million Minutes until high school graduation…Two Million Minutes to build their intellectual foundation…Two Million Minutes to prepare for college and ultimately career…Two Million Minutes to go from a teenager to an adult

How a student spends their Two Million Minutes - in class, at home studying, playing sports, working, sleeping, socializing or just goofing off -- will affect their economic prospects for the rest of their lives.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2008/june11/edfilm-061108.html
The title, 2 Million Minutes, represents the approximate number of minutes in a four-year period. As the film goes back and forth between typical days in the three countries, it shows American students attending football games in their high school's brand new $30-million stadium, while Chinese students display medals won in math competitions. Indian students meet for teacher-led study sessions at 7 a.m. on Saturday mornings while their American counterparts gather at a friend's house to casually study for a test with the television on and Grey's Anatomy competing for their attention.

While the Americans attend sports, socialize work in part-time jobs and study, their Chinese and Indian counterparts pretty much study nonstop. And while even the best American students say they do not feel challenged in schools, the most brilliant in China and India are constantly challenged to learn more.

The average U.S. student, his film states, spends 900 hours in a classroom and 1,500 hours in front of the television. By the end of high school, Chinese students have spent twice as much time studying as Americans.

U.S. Schools: Not That Bad
America's educational system is easier than those in China and India—but it's still teaching valuable life lessons.

Students have 2 million minutes—the time from the beginning of eighth grade to high school graduation—to build the intellectual foundation they'll need for professional success.

Two Million Minutes provides a provocative glimpse of the global competition now facing U.S. students. And the conclusion many are drawing is that to keep our edge, our children need to study more math and science and work harder.

Years Ahead and Miles Apart
The documentary was produced by Bob Compton, a venture capitalist. Compton says that an increasing number of companies in his portfolio are moving research and development to India and China. To understand why, he traveled to India and visited their schools. He was stunned by the career aspirations of children as young as 5 and the advanced education that middle and high school students were receiving. Indian students in the same grade as his teenage daughters were two or three years ahead in math, physics, biology, and even subjects like world history and English literature. He left India wondering how his daughters, and American children in general, would be able to compete in the 21st century.
Two Million Minutes is the fruit of that wondering. One of the two U.S. students depicted is Brittany Brechbuhl, 17, who's in the top 3% of the graduating class of a highly ranked school in Carmel, Ind. She dreams of becoming a doctor but also wants to enjoy life. Neil Ahrendt, 18, is senior class president at Carmel and a National Merit semifinalist. But he isn't sure what career he wants to pursue.
The American students are compared with 17-year-olds Apoorva Uppala and Rohit Sridharan from Bangalore and Hu Xiaoyuan and Jin Ruizhang from Shanghai. All four know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. They labor on weekdays and weekends to prepare for entrance exams at top universities. They excel in math and science. Jin even competes in international math tournaments.
The film depicts the Indian and Chinese students as well-rounded and having much more parental support than the Americans. For example, Rohit sings in an American-style rock band, and Hu is learning the violin. Rohit's parents and sister routinely help him with his physics homework, and Hu's parents hired one of China's most prominent violinists to encourage their daughter to study music.

On the other hand, Neil talks about having coasted through most of his high school years and having lucked out by gaining a full scholarship to college. The former high school football team captain works part-time at a restaurant. Brittany watches Grey's Anatomy on TV while studying math and looks forward to joining a sorority and partying in college. Both are at the top of their classes, but they lack the ambition and focus of their Indian and Chinese counterparts.

Social Skills Can Pay Off
Being the parent of two American kids and having studied for a short time in India, I can personally relate to the documentary. (I also am interviewed in it.) Education in India can be greatly challenging and fiercely competitive. Children are brought up to believe that education is everything. It will make the difference between success and starvation. So from their early years, Indian children work long and hard. Most of their childhood is spent memorizing books on advanced subjects.

On the other hand, Neil and Brittany reminded me very much of my children. Life is a lot easier here.

But things aren't as dire for U.S. students as they might appear in the documentary. As an academic, I have been researching engineering education and have taught many graduates of Indian, Chinese, and American universities. It can take longer for Indians and Chinese to develop crucial real-world skills that come more easily for some Americans. Yes, U.S. teens work part-time, socialize, and party. But the independence and social skills they develop give them a big advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks.

A Push for Improvement
The graduates of top Indian and Chinese engineering schools are usually brilliant. They are adept at math and science. Some Indian and Chinese parents invest their life savings to send their children to America because they know the education they receive there will best prepare them to be successful entrepreneurs and business leaders.
But the reality is that the vast majority of India and China's children don't receive quality schooling or make it to college. I estimate that Apoorva and Rohit represent at best 5% of the children in India.

Compton says his documentary doesn't prescribe solutions. But he hired math and science tutors for his daughters, even though they were at the top of their class at a premier private school. And this documentary has become a key part of a campaign, ED in '08, sponsored by backers such as Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates. They advocate a greater emphasis on math and science education and more study time.
There is no doubt that U.S. education can and should be improved. In the global economy, skills are going to provide the competitive edge. But it will take more than math and science. Our children also need to learn geography, literature, language, and culture. Creativity and innovation come from a broad education and independent thinking. We need sociologists and historians as well as mathematicians.
Moreover, we need to create the excitement and demand that makes our children want to become engineers and scientists (BusinessWeek.com, 10/26/07). There is no shortage of these skills in the U.S., but these professions just aren't cool. In India and China, engineers and scientists are regarded highly; here they are called nerds or worse.

Upgrading the Current Workforce
We also need to focus on the 120 million in the existing workforce. That is where the entrepreneurs come from (BusinessWeek.com, 4/30/08), and these are the people whose skills need to be upgraded most urgently. We've got to make them more competitive; we simply can't wait for the next generation.

And even though so few Indians and Chinese receive a high-quality education now, that will change with the emergence of a middle class in both nations. India's middle class now constitutes 350 million people—more than the entire population of the U.S. Both India and China are making massive investments in education. If India can become a technology superpower by providing good education to less than 5% of its population, what will happen when they reach 50%?

Bottom line: Our competitors are working very hard to be innovative and entrepreneurial like us. There are many things we need to fix—not just math and science education. We need to compete on our strengths, not theirs.




_____________________________________________________________________________________
Ivy League business schools


Who Needs the Ivies?
These schools often focus on producing the next generation of research scientists and academics—not entrepreneurs. He believes that the elitism and confidence these schools nurture may work well in large corporations, but not in tech startups.


Entrepreneurial vs. Corporate Thinking
He notes that IITs only graduate 5,000 of India's 176,000 engineers every year, and that based on the number of companies started by its graduates, they were five times more likely than others to start tech companies

I decided to seek input from Carl Schramm, who is probably the world's leading expert on entrepreneurship and education. Schramm heads the Kauffman Foundation, which focuses on advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth.
The university that produces the most blue chip CEOs and university professors, the most Peace Corps volunteers, and the most productive and long-running patents isn't Stanford or MIT—it's the University of Wisconsin. Students "who do the prestige MBA route find it hard to shake the huge offers and end up becoming risk-averse," Schramm says. Graduates of elite schools tend to be book-smart and have incredible SAT scores, but they often lack street smarts and creativity, he says. Plus, they tend to have a sense of entitlement and superiority that leads to not working well with others, he notes.
Posted by Vision at 10:18 AM 0 comments Labels: ,

Friday, June 13, 2008

The real reason why oil prices are rising

M R Venkatesh mrv1000@rediffmail.com
The author is a Chennai-based chartered accountant. He can be contacted at mrv1000@rediffmail.com
June 02, 2008
asr: Can contact this author on oil trading advice , vantagepoint

Today's oil prices are believed to be determined by the four Anglo-American financial companies-turned-oil traders, viz., Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, J P Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley. It is only they who have any idea about who is entering into oil futures or derivative contracts. It is also they who are placing bets on oil prices and in the process ensuring that the prices of oil futures go up by the day.

But how does the increase in the price of this oil in the futures market determine the prices of oil in the spot markets? Crucially, does speculation in oil influence and determine the prices of oil in the spot markets?

Answering these questions as to whether speculation has supercharged the demand for oil The Economist, in its recent issue, states: 'But that is plain wrong. Such speculators do not own real oil. Every barrel they buy in the futures markets they sell back again before the contract ends. That may raise the price of 'paper barrels,' but not of the black stuff refiners turn into petrol. It is true that high futures prices could lead someone to hoard oil today in the hope of a higher price tomorrow. But inventories are not especially full just now and there are few signs of hoarding.'

The finding of US Senate Committee in 2006

In June 2006, when the oil price in the futures markets was about $60 a barrel, a Senate Committee in the US probed the role of market speculation in oil and gas prices. The report points out that large purchase of crude oil futures contracts by speculators has, in effect, created additional demand for oil and in the process driven up the future prices of oil.

The report further stated that it was 'difficult to quantify the effect of speculation on prices,' but concluded that 'there is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.'

The report further estimated that speculative purchases of oil futures had added as much as $20-25 per barrel to the then prevailing price of $60 per barrel. In today's prices of approximately $130 per barrel, this means that approximately $100 per barrel could be attributed to speculation!

But the report found a serious loophole in the US regulation of oil derivatives trading, which according to experts could allow even a 'herd of elephants to walk to through it.' The report pointed out that US energy futures were traded on regulated exchanges within the US and subjected to extensive oversight by the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) -- the US regulator for commodity futures market.

What is interesting to note is that the US strategic oil reserves were at approximately 350 million barrels for a decade till 2006. However, for the past year and a half these reserves have doubled to more than 700 million barrels. Naturally, this build-up of strategic oil reserves by the US (of 350 million barrels) is adding enormous pressure on the oil demand and consequently its prices.

Do the oil speculators know of this reserves build-up by the US and are indulging in rampant speculation? Are they acting in tandem with the US government? Worse still, are they bordering on recklessness knowing fully well that if the oil prices fall the US government will be forced to a 'Bears Stearns' on them and bail them out? One is not sure.

But who foots bill at such high prices? At an average price of even $100 per barrel, the entire cost for the purchase of this additional 350 million barrels by the US works out to a mere $35 billion. Needless to emphasise, this can be funded by the US by allowing it currency printing presses to work overtime. After all, it has a currency that is acceptable globally and people worldwide are willing to exchange it for precious oil.

No wonder Goldman Sachs predicts that oil will touch $200 to a barrel shortly, knowing fully well that the US government will back its prediction.
Posted by Vision at 11:19 AM 0 comments Labels:

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Management And Guiding Principles

Management And Guiding Principles

Principles + People = Outcomes.

PRIDE

The Ten Commandments Of Leadership

Ten Commandments of Effective Communication
Posted by Vision at 1:54 PM 0 comments Labels:

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

India's top 20 engineering colleges


India's top 20 engineering colleges

June 28, 2005

ALL RECs are now called NIT ( National institute of technology )

During spring, just as flowers bloom, rankings of engineering colleges pop out of national magazines. It is time to rejoice for students of some of the highly ranked colleges; while for others, it is time to worry and introspect.

Why do we need these rankings?

College ranking is a controversial yet a useful guide for many.

Consider this:

* For college-entering students to decide the best option available.
* For colleges to know what they need to improve and where they stand in the pecking order.
* For recruiters and human resource managers to decide the college they would visit for campus interviews and negotiate pay packages.
*
For the teaching faculty to decide which colleges to aspire to teach in.
*
For students and alumni, for whom it is a matter of pride.

Type of rankings

There are basically three types of rankings:

Government rankings: The central government carries out a survey of engineering colleges every few years. The survey, conducted by the World Bank, is used to arrive at a funding formula for financing colleges under United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and to monitor the progress of the colleges receiving funding.

The government survey is highly respectable and includes comments/suggestions for the improvement needed by the colleges. These are generally not available in public domain.

Academic rankings: These is carried out by leading institutions around the world and sometimes by academic and scientific magazines. The survey is authentic and unbiased, but is of limited use. It is used mainly to boost the ego of a college among similar colleges, to attract talented faculty and to keep flow of money from its patrons.

The Asian Technology Information Program, Tokyo, is a prestigious, non-profit think-tank, which monitors research programmes from universities/institutes across Asia and classifies some of the leading universities in a specific research area.

For example, according to ATIP, Indian Institute of Science is among the world leaders in the field of nano-crystal technology research. Similarly, it puts Banaras Hindu University among the leading research universities in the world in the field of application of hydrogen energy to two-wheeler vehicles.

Magazine rankings: Also known as popular rankings, these are the ones that are mostly read by common folk. These are carried out by national magazines as a guide for students and faculty, and for the college themselves.

Dataquest survey results

Following results have been published with the kind permission of Dataquest India for the 2005 engineering college rankings. (Note: IIT-Delhi did not participate in the survey):

Table A: 2005 Overall Rankings

The Top 20

Overall Rank


College


Composite Score

1


IIT Kanpur


77.5

2


IIT Bombay


75.6

3


IIT Madras


73.8

4


IIT Kharagpur


73.1

5


Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi


72

6


IIT Guwahati


71.6

7


NIT Warangal


70

8


NIT Trichy


67.6

9


Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala


66.7

10


Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (DIT), New Delhi


64.5

11


NIT Suratkal


64.2

12


Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad


62.1

13


Punjab Engineering College, Chandigadh


60.3

14


International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad


60.2

15


Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani


59.9

16


IIT Roorkee


59.2

17


NIT Rourkela


58.5

18


NIT Kurukshetra


57.5

19


Indian Institute of information Technology, Allahabad


57.1

20


Delhi College of Engineering, New Delhi


57.1

Table B: 2005 Top 5 on Parameters

The Top 5 On Parameters

Placement

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Chennai


31.2

2


IIT Kanpur


31

3


NIT Suratkal


27.1

4


NIT Warangal


26.4

5


Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (DIT), New Delhi


25.9

Intellectual Capital

Rank


College


Score

1


IT-BHU, Varanasi


11.8

2


IIT Guwahati


9.3

3


Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala


8.3

4


IIT Bombay


8.2

5


IIT Kharagpur


8.2

Infrastructure

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Kanpur


14.8

2


IIT Bombay


14.8

3


IIT Kharagpur


14.8

4


IIT Guwahati


14.8

5


Krishna Institute of Engineering And Technology, Ghaziabad


14.8

Industry Interface

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Kharagpur


3.2

2


IIT Bombay


3.1

3


NIT Trichy


2.4

4


Jadavpur University, Calcutta


1.8

5


IT-BHU, Varanasi


1.6



Table C: 2005 The Perception Factor

The Perception Factor

Rank


College


Score

1


IIT Kanpur


25

2


IIT Bombay


25

3


IIT Chennai


24.5

4


IIT Kharagpur


24.5

5


IT-BHU, Varanasi


22.4

According to the HR heads' perception, IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay topped the list



Table D: 2005 Performance region-wise

How They Stack Up

N o r t h

S No


College


Overall Rank

1


IIT Kanpur


1

2


IT-BHU, Varanasi


5

3


Thapar Institute of Engg & Technology, Patiala


9

4


Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology, New Delhi


10

5


MN-NIT, Allahabad


12

S o u t h

1


IIT Madras


3

2


NIT Warangal


7

3


NIT Trichy


8

4


NIT Suratkal


11

5


IIIT Hyderabad


14

E a s t

1


IIT Kharagpur


4

2


IIT Guwahati


6

3


NIT Rourkela


17

4


Jadavpur University, Calcutta


25

5


SIT Kolkata (Formerly IIIT)


27

W e s t

1


IIT Bombay


2

2


Government College of Engineering, Pune


24

3


Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Bombay


26

4


International Institute of Information Technology, Pune


34

5


Bharatiya Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering, Bombay


42

In India, there are two popular ranking surveys for engineering colleges: one is by India Today magazine and other by Dataquest magazine.

India Today survey

The magazine has been conducting such surveys for the last several years. This year, the survey was carried out in association with A C Nielsen ORG-MARG.

The ranking shows top 10 engineering colleges in the India, along with the rankings in the field of business management, medicine, commerce, science, law and arts.

The survey takes into account institute's infrastructure, research, admitted student quality, placement statistics, perception among academic and industrialists, etc.

Dataquest survey

The survey, done for technical schools only, was conducted for the first time this year in India by this magazine. It was done in collaboration with International Data Corporation and the National Association of Software and Service Companies.

IDC is a world leader in the market research for information technology and software industries. Nasscom is India's most powerful IT industry association -- which even the country's Planning Commission consults for IT and software-related forecast and planning.

The survey has a no-nonsense approach, as the study claims: "The Dataquest-IDC-Nasscom survey findings are most likely to send some of the Tier-I schools into a tizzy. However, instead of breathing fire down our necks, these institutes would do well to ponder a little on where exactly they have erred."

The survey takes into account the infrastructure of the college, placement scenario, intellectual capital (faculty quality and strength, research, et cetera), interface with industries and perception of recruiters.

How reliable are these surveys?

With different surveys showing different rankings for the same college, the common man asks the question: which of the surveys to believe?

Well, the answer is that there is no clear answer.

Different surveys take different criteria, ask different questions for the same criterion and give different weightage while arriving at a composite score for determining overall rankings.

Hence all these surveys are correct up to some extent in their own way.

A good survey will not be afraid of the public criticism and the most popular colleges need not be the best in the ranking. The list should not be the same year after year and, at the same time, there should not be any drastic changes in rankings at each year. Good examples are college rankings in the United States by magazines such as Business Week and US News & World Report.

Each survey has its own drawbacks of some kind. For example, the India Today survey, although based on acceptable criteria, mostly reserves the top six to seven slots for a group of institutes, while the next three to four ranks fluctuate every year.

It may be advisable for it to publish the expanded list, such as top 20 overall ranks and provide rankings under different criteria/sub-categories.

On the other hand, the Dataquest survey is geared towards requirements of the IT and software industry.

Moreover, students need not depend solely on college rankings for the selection of a college. Other factors beyond rankings are also to be considered. Such as quality of study, selecting proper branch, proximity to home, hostel facilities, etc. They should visit the campus to get first-hand information and also find out from their friends who have studied there.

In conclusion

The surveys have a welcome move of also including colleges which do not have a favourable public perception. Bold surveys give the masses a second chance to know about the good colleges unknown to them so far.

This is an important step since the mass media in India is saturated with success stories of only 1 per cent of the total of 1,200 engineering colleges, giving a distorted vision for many and false pride for some. It is expected that the coming years, the surveys will be more refined.

In such a scenario, beacons of college rankings from the lighthouse of magazines will guide the boatload of applicants to the islands of academic excellence.

Yogesh Upadhyaya is a chemical engineering graduate from IT-BHU and an MS (chemical engineering) from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Arvind Gupta, also an alumnus of IT-BHU, is CEO of e-Enable Technologies, New Delhi.
The Dataquest survey rankings are published by the kind permission of Dataquest , a CyberMedia publication.
Posted by Vision at 1:38 PM 4 comments Labels:
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