dysenablia.com

Freia had an idea around a year ago. This week she put it into action. Her sister Reia has a few learning difficulties. Dyslexia, Dysgraphia and Dyscalculia.

You can read more about them at:
http://www.armentalearningacademy.com/pdf/dyslexia.pdf
http://www.dyslexiaa2z.com/

This meant that Reia had difficulty in studying normal subjects, understanding them and doing well in the exams. All of us helped by making notes, trying to teach her in a simplified manner, making stuff interesting and so on.

And that sowed the seed of an idea in Freia. What if all of this help was readily available ? It would help hundreds, no thousands, no 1akhs of students. A little known fact is that globally over 10% of students are estimated to have learning difficulties. Unfortunately in India the reported number is under a couple of percentage points. There seems to be some kind of a taboo in having a medical condition. It seems likely that this has more to do with parents unwilling to accept reality and hence are assuming their child is lazy. This results in them pushing their child to work harder. This results in an undesirable condition where the parents and child become frustrated and depressed.

Imagine if these children and parents had help. Resources that could help them learn in a manner that was suited to their way of understanding. And that is what Freia and her idea "DysEnablia" sets out to do. It aims to get parents, teachers, students to come together and contribute content. Even if some of them take the trouble of helping create content, in a very short time a large amount of content would be created.

The content could be a combination of notes, audio, video, animation, applications, ... I guess whatever will enable.

Freia starts her journey of trying to convince teachers, parents and students to contribute this week at her alma mater, Bombay Scottish School, Powai. Here's wishing her all the very best and hoping that her endeavor will help not only her sister Reia, but the large number of children in making studies if not enjoyable, then at least bearable.

India's Presidential Elections

India will have its Presidential Elections on July 19th. The votes will be counted on July 22nd on which day the 13th President of India will be announced. Everyone is discussing the candidature of the current finance minister Pranab Mukherjee who is being supported by the ruling UPA coalition and P. Sangma, former speaker of the Lok Sabha being supported by most members of the opposition NDA.

Interestingly not many know how exactly the elections are held and how the President is elected. Most of us are aware that voting is done by elected members of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and State Legislatures. Not many are aware as to what happens after that.

The voting methodology is pretty straight forward. All elected members get 1 ballot to select their choice for President. They have the option of giving a 2nd, 3rd, ... choice based on the number of candidates running for the election. Each ballot represents a certain number of votes. For the 2012 election each ballot cast by elected members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha represents 708 votes.

The value of each ballot of the State Legislative Assembly and Union Territories is different for each one. The highest value is for Uttar Pradesh at 208 and the least for Sikkim at 7.The values for each state can be seen at the Election Commission of India's website
http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/President_VP_Elec2012/DirectionsNumber_Votes.pdf

The question that comes to mind is how exactly are these numbers arrived at. Like most things in life this too is pretty simple. The first rule used is that the total value of votes of the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha members will be the same as i.e. equal to the value of the cobined votes of all the State and Union Territories Legislative Assembly members.

The value of each member of the State Legislative Assemblies is calculated by dividing the population of the State by the total number of elected members. The quotient is then divided by 1,000. The total value of all members of each State is then totalled. This number is then divided by the total number of elected members of the Lok Sabha (543) and Rajya Sabha (233).

The slight disappointment is that the population is taken as per the 1971 census and this has changed, albeit not significantly enough to make a major difference to the relative allotment of votes or to the final results of the Elections.

The Election Commission of India has a very simple and easy to understand FAQ on the Presidential Election.
http://eci.nic.in/eci_main/President_VP_Elec2012/Presidential_Elections-FAQ.pdf

The other interesting aspect of the Presidential Election is that in case there are 3 or more candidates, then there is a first round of counting. In the event that a candidate secures more than 50% of the valid and eligible votes cast, then s/he is declared elected. Else, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and a count of votes cast for that candidate is added to the 2nd choice if marked on those ballot papers. At each stage its checked if the leading candidate has secured more than 50% of the votes, elese the process continues till a candidate secures more than 50% of the votes or there is just 1 candidate left.

And thus is the President of the country elected.

Golden Wedding Anniversary

On June 5, my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. It was intended to be a grand affair. Much larger than the original ceremony. Ideas were being thrown around and plans being made until my Grand-mom passed away in December.

Tradition has it that you do not have any celebrations or functions for a period of 1 year. And so the grand plans were all nipped in the bud. Nevertheless the fact remained that it was a BIG event and so we decided to have a small get together at home. Just the kids, their kids and my parents' siblings.

Don had flown in for the event, a journey that took him longer than the time he spent here. Frank remained consistent. He surprised us all. Everyone expected him to show up, possibly at the last minute. And this time around he didn't. Although it wasn't until the next day that anyone was willing to believe that he didn't make it.

All of us started the evening by going to Mass at the Blessed Sacrament Chapel in Colaba. This was the place we all went to every Sunday for many, many years. The short and sweet 25 minute service was a pleasant difference from the traditional 1 hour Sunday service.

And then we all went back to our Home where 35 of the 50 years had been spent by my parents. Home cooked food that was brought by Annie Aunty, Mabel and Ivy made for an amazing and sumptuous spread.

Henry uncle raised a toast that was touching and from the heart. To quote him, "Inaas and Helen have shown all of us the way. Leading by example and showing us the way." And my favorite part, "And they have brought up 4 wonderful kids, who in turn have become role models".

To Dad and Mom, for making us who we are. You'll sacrificed the things you'll did, so that we could get more. And for that we're eternally grateful. No words can ever say a Thank You that would be sufficient. But THANK YOU. We love you'll and pray that you'll live a long and healthy life. Filled with Love and Happiness. Cheers !

Efficiency and Effectiveness

A couple of weeks ago I left for a trip to the US. During my trip I had an opportunity to pass through a total of half a dozen airports and several flights. It gave me an opportunity to study the various processes that were used at the airports.

Let me discuss just 3 aspects of processes at the airports. Security. Amenities. Boarding. It seemed like in the European and American airports these were similar. Whilst there may be variations in quality and efficiency amongst them at a macro level the processes and levels of these services were similar. Very Good.

In India these standards were poor. The actual difference is not major. The impact however is major. The difference is in managing the processes efficiently and effectively.

Security
As you pass through Security, you get your boarding pass stamped. And a baggage tag on your bag stamped. As you move towards the lounge, a Security Officer physically checks that your bags and boarding pass have the stamps. Then again when boarding, yet another Security Officer checks that all your bags have stamped tags and that your boarding pass is also stamped. This is a pure waste of security officials. And an irritant to several whose tags fall off sometime between security and boarding. If your checks are good, then by definition everything within the secure area would have been checked. More importantly anyone can get as many additional security tags as required by having multiple bags when going through security and then putting them in side the larger bags.

AmenitiesThere are several people employed to ensure that the lounge areas including the washroom are cleaned and kept well maintained. I have yet to come across a washroom even in the brand new airports that do not have a couple of urinals not functioning. Or taps not working. And areas unclean. Even in the food courts, the table are perpetually unclean. I guess we are as much to blame as the staff. We are used to other people cleaning up our mess. I strongly feel that the most effective solution would be strict laws on littering and effective monitoring and fining. Nothing teaches us as quickly as paying a fine.

Boarding
An announcement is made and theres a mad rush to board. Once inside, there is no hurry and most people spend several minutes in keeping their bags, moving them several times, etc. instead of just allowing other people to go past and then completing their arrangements. The fact that most carry more bags and far heavier than that allowed does not help. Once again strict implementation of cabin baggage will majorly reduce the problem.

The bottom-line is that when it comes to spending or resources, we are investing as much as is required. What we lack is Efficiency and Effectiveness. And as soon as we are able to put in processes, especially processes that are relatively independent of human subjectivity. The good news is that we've come a long way. And there's just a short distance to where we'd like to be. And hopefully that will be in the near future.