VVS

  S.P.Balasubrahmanyam fondly known as SPB to all passed away on 25.9.2020 after battling with his health set back due to Covid-19 for 50 days at the age of 74. His demise is a great loss to Indian Cinema in general and all the music lovers across the world. He had sung over 40000 songs in 16 Indian languages and has won six national awards. Despite being not trained in proper Carnatic music he astonished everyone with his songs in the Telugu film Sankarabaranam a musical film based on Carnatic music. He has sung for all the music directors including the younger ones and ruled the roost for nearly 50 years. Despite reaching great heights he was always humble. Even when he was a judge in the reality shows he never used to give any adverse comments on the young singers and encouraged them and egged them on to do well. When the news of his death started trickling huge crowds gathered at the hospital, his residence and also at his farm house at the outskirts of Chennai where he was l...

In Tamil Nadu, all parties cutting across party lines have rejected the New Education Policy 2020 stating that it aims at imposing Hindi. Opposition to Hindi in Tamil Nadu dates back to 1962 when protests erupted across the State. From then on any education policy mooted by the Central government met with opposition from the State Government. In the present Education Policy also the political parties in Tamil Nadu see a conspiracy to impose Hindi language and they swear by the two language policy ie English being the link language and Tamil. Actually, the New Education policy does not aim to impose Hindi. It has clearly stated that the local language would be the medium of instruction up to class 5 and it can be extended up to class 8 at the discretion of the State Government. If in fact there are many states which do not have Hindi as their local language. They’re also three language formula is being adopted. In fact even in Tamil Nadu in the CBSE schools or in the ICSE schools an...

A committee on education was constituted by the Govt of India in June 2017 under the Chairmanship of Shri K. Kasturirangan former Head of ISRO.  It submitted a draft report in 2019. Certain changes were suggested, the final report has been submitted in July 2020 and the same was approved by the Cabinet two days back.  A great policy change in education has been effected after 34 years.  Let us now see the salient features of the National Education Policy 2020: 1.      It aims at Universal access to early childhood care and education. 2.      Universal access to education at all levels 3.      New pedagogical and curricular structure of school education is given as  (5+3+3+4): 3 years in Anganwadi/pre-school and 2 years 1st and 2nd classes totalling to five years. Then preparatory stage 3rd class to 5th class totalling to three years. Then middle stage 6th to 8th classes—three years and th...

As July 31 nears the government of Tamil Nadu is faced with the Hamletian question whether to continue with the lockdown or unlock completely. The Govt. of West  Bengal has announced lockdown up to 31st August 2020. The cases in Tamil Nadu are continuously on the rise. But on the economic front, the picture is dismal.  Manufacturing and production have taken a hit. The businesses are dull. The companies are announcing a salary cut for their employees.  The purchasing power of the people is low.  In this grim situation, the government may be compelled to open up. But opening up has its problems. There are not enough beds to treat the infected patients if there is a surge due to unlocking. But in this situation, the government has to take a decision in favour of unlocking. The buses have to be made to run. Lockdown cannot go on forever. Life of the people is more important than the disease. Dying of hunger is crueller than dying of infection. Whenever there i...

A new kind of virus CORONA has stuck the entire world. At the time of this post those affected by this virus has crossed 22 lakhs world over. In India alone the number has crossed 13000. It has become a pandamic. It is being told that the virus first started at the end of December 2019 in WUHAN in China. It is said that it has spread to the people of the District from bats.  Being a contagious disease it has spread from the people of WUHAN  who travelled to other parts of the world have been instrumental in spreading this virus.  Initially China had the most affected. At the time of this post China has successfully contained the spread of this Virus but other  countries like USA, Italy, Spain, France have recorded more number of affected cases.  USA is the top of it all. The symptoms of this virus are cough, breathlessness, fever.  Till date there is no remedy for this Virus. It is said that to find out a vaccine it would take at least 18 months. Var...

Journey to Gujarat Journey to Gujarat was planned together   by me, my wife , my sister’s son in law Shri S. Narasimhan, a Retd. AGM from State Bank of India, his wife and his sister in law during the first week of February 2019.   It was then decided that we could go on the trip from 9 th March to 14 th March 2019. Tickets were then booked through flight. Self and wife were to travel to Ahmedabad from Chennai while Shri Narasimhan with his wife and sister in law would go there from Hyderabad. The onus of planning and coordination was left to Shri Narasimhan who had wide range of contacts through his banking tribe. Shri Narasimhan   made arrangements for our stay at Ahmedabad in one of State Bank of India Association’s guest house for the period of stay from 9 th March to 14 th March 2019. Further on   reference from one of his bank colleagues contacted Shri Rajeev Sharma a travel agent at Ahmedabad and made the following schedule ready.   On day on...

Recently concluded Assembly elections in Karnataka was a great Natak. The election results saw BJP garner 104 seats Congress 78 and JD(S) Led by Shri Kumaraswamy 38 and two independents in the house of 224 where 3 seats will see by election in June. Immediately after the results the congress announced that it would support Shri Kumaraswamy of JD(S) as Chief Minister, the two independents also assured support to Kumaraswamy. The total became 118. six more than the simple majority. The irony is both Congress and JD(S) fought fiercely against each other but now joined to defeat the BJP. Politics they say has strange bedfellows. But the Governor had other ideas. He invited B.S.Yedurappa of the BJP to form the Govt. beng the single largest party and gave him time for 15 days to prove his majority. The other two parties cried hoarse. Along with them the entire opposition Mamta, Chandrababu Naidu, Chandrasekara Rao, Sharad Pawar, Sitaram Yechury, Farooq Abdullah et al. They resorted to res...