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August 24, 2005
Kingdom & Democracy
People will immediately think that this is the aircraft owned by the King of Saudi Arabia or the King of Brunei. You all have got it wrong, it is one of the 3 Legacy Executive aircraft delivered to Indian government by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer for exclusive use of the Prime Minister and the President. The government is planning to order 2 more planes to have a fleet of 5 such planes for the exclusive use of the Indian top brass.
Is this what people call the narrowing of gap between the Kingdoms and the Democracies?
Posted by Vasanth at 08:31 PM | Comments (4)
August 22, 2005
Punishment
I was listening to Radio City while driving to the office in the morning and there was a debate on punishments meted out to students in schools. There were many people who were vehemently arguing that punishments have an adverse impact on a student and the schools should stop meting out punishments to students.
I find it hard to buy this argument. Threat of punishment is the only way, I think, you can bring about discipline, be in the school or in the larger outside world. Can you imagine a world without punishments for wrong doing? Only anarchy will prevail in the world. We are living in a society where there is least level of tolerance and so much of hatred among people.
What people should be arguing about is the severity of the punishments meted out rather than the punishments itself. I have seen many instances in my school days where the punishments meted out were harsh and nowhere commensurate with the mistake the student had committed. However, if there was no fear of punishment among the students, it would have been a different ball game altogether. There wouldn’t be anyone who comes to school on time, there won’t be any respect for teachers. People might argue that teachers gain respect by the way they teach and the kind of knowledge they posses, however, without a stick approach along with it, it is never going to work (come on guys, we have all been students once and we all know how naughty and notorious we were in school?).
My sincere apologies to all of you who have patiently read this post and thought that you have wasted your time!!
Isn’t this also a kind of punishment for visiting this site?
Its been long since I posted a blog, so I am rusty (Don’t I have the right? Only the Indian cricketers can claim that benefit??)
Posted by Vasanth at 06:27 PM | Comments (5)