e Magus

For past few weeks, I’ve been reading in the Times of India news items on Examination results and College entrance. The keywords like – Top scores, Cut off marks, First list, preferred courses, college preference, etc all reminds me of that time in my life I wish I could forget :) I’ve done most of my schooling and college in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. As Bryan Adams crooned “Those were the best days of my life…” but it had some days that is best forgotten One thing I must mention is that during my studying years most of my thickest friends from my class have been the brightest students. As any bright students, they were the source of admiration of other students. And I thought, me in their company would get a share of the admiration (or that is what my developing mental faculty at that time used to think). But during the examination period and the results thereof they became my source of depression and dejection. The 10th Board Exams: In the great Indian Education Challenge, the 1

This can be part – 2 of my earlier blog on how technology affects human behaviour. Couple of things that has come to my notice in the past few days made me think… is the popular technology more of a communication enabler or disabler? A colleague of mine has recently been to Singapore for holidays. An interesting observation, he mentioned, was that how people seem to be in their own world – the ear phones plugged, listening to their ipods, mobile phones, etc… or they were busy fidgeting with their mobile phones, either playing games or watching some video on the phone/ipod. They seem to be in their own world as if they have created an invisible wall around them. Another is a report that was mentioning about the increase of mobile VAS. Currently the mobile VAS contributes to 12% (in India) of the revenue. While text (SMS) seems to be the major revenue generator in VAS services, contribution from other VAS sources like – Music downloads, Ringtones, Caller Ring Back Tone (CRBT), screensav