Monday, December 26, 2011

From the news desk!

1. Lack of Maths.

The Prime Minister has lamented the insufficient number of competent mathematicians in the country. As everyone is aware, the year 2012 has been declared as the 'National Mathematics Year' and 22 Dec, being the birthday of the mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, has been anointed as the 'National Mathematics Day'. He was quoting statistics to underscore the fact that the number of competent mathematicians has been steadily dwindling in the country.

From the recent trends that one often hears about, the children of today are loathe to take up the study of Mathematics in higher classes. Probably, good teachers are hard to come by though I do not subscribe to this argument in toto because in a country like ours, there should be no dearth of maths teachers! It's committed teachers who can make the subject interesting to his/her students and consequently, popularise the subject.

During our childhood, knowing the tables from 1 to 16 was a must and it came in handy while carrying out tedious calculations. Today, when one finds the young ones readily taking the help of the calculators for doing simple calculations, one feels sorry for their 'addiction'! The paradox is that the western countries having realised the dipping standards of their education system have begun laying emphasis on the study of mathematics!

On a personal note, though I used to hate the subject at the initial stages(I just couldn't appreciate as to why they wanted to know the price of 100 coconuts when they already knew that of 1,000 coconuts!), thanks to maths teachers like CV Sankaranarayanan sir and JS Iyer sir in school and SH Hussainy sir and LN Jatwa sir at the Academy, I'd taken a liking for the subject subsequently.

And as our elders used to put it, a good knowledge of the subject sharpened the brains!



2. Sacking of the Army and ISI chiefs.

I could only laugh at the ridiculous bit of news that, in Pakistan, the Zardari - Gilani government is seriously contemplating the termination of the services of their Army and ISI chiefs. Ashfaq Kayani and Shooja Pasha must be having a hearty laugh at the sheer incongruity of this newsline!

On the flipside, if the news could get to be true, then we can safely surmise that democracy has gotten roots in that country. Wishful thinking though but being the eternal optimist, is there anything wrong in wishing for that miracle?

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