Frivolous Law Suit against XLRI

The Telegraph Reports :
Foul cry over XLRI entry route
OUR BUREAU

Ranchi/Jamshedpur, May 5: Admitting its first case against any technical institute in the state, the Jharkhand Education Tribunal (JET) today served a showcause notice on the XLRI School of Management, Jamshedpur, over alleged irregularities in the admission process.

The chairperson of the tribunal, Justice (retired) L.P.N. Shahdeo, today gave 15 days to the premier management institute to respond to the petition filed by a resident of Noida, Raj Gandhi, whose son had appeared for XAT this January.

In her complaint, Raj claimed that despite qualifying in the written exams, her son, Samrat, was not given admission to the institute.

Accusing the director of the institute and chairperson of the admissions committee of handling the admission process arbitrarily, she claimed that her son had secured 96.3 per cent marks in the written exam conducted in Jamshedpur and should have qualified even if he failed in the interview.

Samrat did not make it after he could not crack the interview round, a reason that has not satisfied his mother who blames his exit on the rampant irregularity in the admission process.

The candidate had applied for the Business Management programme of XLRI; the other two-year course being Personnel Management and Industrial Relations.

Expressing shock, XLRI sources said the student had approached the institute after not finding his name on the list of successful students and was conveyed the reason for his rejection. “Usually the ratio of the number of candidates called for interview and the number of seats is 5:1. So obviously there is a great chance that a good written score might not see the candidate in,” sources said, adding that this was the first time such a charge was brought against the 57-year institute.

“His parents had come to me with a request for admission. But, we could not admit him as he did not qualify the interview. The All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) rules say the candidate must qualify both. We cannot ignore the guidelines,” said XLRI director Father N. Casimir Raj.

He said the institute was yet to receive the showcause notice issued by the JET, which has said it will admit the case only after hearing out both sides.

Fortunately the JET has said it will admit the case only after hearing both sides.

Is India going the US way. Frivolous law suits are popping up all over the place.

Christian organisations have secured a temporary stay on"The Da Vinci Code" a work of fiction because they feel people will take it to be true.

Why are we so insecure in our own lives? What are we trying to prove ? & What are we trying to hide ?

Lets look at the Mother of Samrat Gandhi: Mrs. Raj Gandhi.
She feels that just because her son has secured 96.3% in the XAT common entrance, he should automatically be given a seat at the institute. She says the selection process is arbitary.

In fact XLRI is one of the few management institutes in India which has done away with the GD process for selection, because they felt that the GD was arbitrary. A lot of potential students attend GD development classes & simply t ryt o drown out the other participants voices. The ones who have good points to contribute but are too polite to shut down the others don't get a chance to speak.

Now lets look at the interview as a selection process. Specifically the XL interview process : There is a panel of 3 professors from the college. These professors have taught generations of students and are skilled in human behavior (at least one is normally from the OB stream) They would be better at finding the right student than that Farah/Sonu/Anu Malik triangle is at finding the next Indian Idol.

Just because someone has great marks it doesn't make them a great person or a great manager. (Btw there are potentials who secure 99% too) In India the education system at the school level seems to focus only on marks and not the all round development of the child. Mrs Raj expects the same to hold at post graduation level too.

To be a great manager, you need some amount of intellect, some amount of empathy, some amount of maturity, some amount of logical reasoning & a few other things besides.

Me thinks that : if Mr Samrat takes after the mother, quite a few of these qualities would be missing.

Unable to handle rejection, she has gone running to the courts, much like an AMerican citizen who sues the city muncipality if he falls down on the street. That he might have been drunk is besides the point.

Mrs. Raj Gandhi needs to examine her own son & realistically consider his plus & minus points before rushing to the courts. Otherwise this may set off a slew of law suits against educational institutions & corporates too by candidates who interview with them (thinking themselves to be the cat's whiskers) and don't get selected.

Message from a mother on Mother's Day

This email was forwarded to me & I thought it would be significant to put it on my blog before Mother's Day is upon us :


This Sunday will be the third Mother's Day that I have spent without my oldest child in my life. Casey was killed in Iraq exactly five weeks before Mother's Day in 2004.

Everyday is an incredible experience of pain and longing: for Casey and for his future and for his here and now. Special days like holidays and birthdays always seem to be harder. Casey will never call me again to wish me Happy Mother's Day. I will never get another funny card from him. I will never have a daughter-in-law or grandchild from Casey.

George and Laura Bush will probably celebrate Mother's Day with their daughters, secure and happy in the fact that they are together. Jenna and Barbara will never be put in harm's way for the avaricious and destructive policies of their father, policies that have sent too many of us world's mothers into a tailspin of grief
and emptiness.

This Mother's Day, I will be joining CODEPINK and mothers from all over the country in holding a 24-hour vigil in front of the White House beginning Saturday, May 13th at 3 pm. We will be demanding an end to the occupation of Iraq before too many more Cindy and Casey Sheehan's are produced. We mothers and children of the world will
also demand that our government not invade Iran and kill any chance for a peaceful world that we may still have. We will be joined there by Susan Sarandon and many other mothers of peace and courage who are working for the same thing.

George Bush has never met with me to answer what noble cause Casey and over 2400 brave young Americans and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have died for.

Fighting a War on Terror with a War of Terror to enrich the war machine is not a noble cause. Peace is.

Please join us to make our noble cause dream a reality. Come to Washington DC if you can
click here for more info.
or
Participate in a local Mother's Day activity.


Support our efforts by
sending a rose
or
making a donation

And work with us in the months ahead as we build a movement of mothers and others powerful enough to stop this war -- and the next one.

Peace,
Cindy Sheehan

Interview with Usha Prabhakaran ~ author of Ushas Pickle digest.

Usha Prabhakaran is an amazing woman. She has just written a recipe book of Pickles. Since she could not find a publisher for her effort, she has self published. To learn more about her & some "quick n easy" recipes that she doles out in her interview.

Visit CelebratingWomenintheKitchen

The lady who has interviewed Usha is Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal. Time Out Mumbai readers would be familiar with her work.

I'm desicritic of the day

Hey all loyal readers. I'm desicritics "Desicritic Of The Day" today.

Read all my articles on Desicritics.org

Movie Review : Munich

Director : Steven Spielberg

A brilliant, serious, hard hitting movie. It could almost be a documentary ! with the amount of facts that it feeds you. But its a very well presented, excellently told story which has you on the edge of your seat very often.

The movie is set on the backdrop of the Israeli athletes who were massacred during the Berlin Olympics in 1972 by Black September. Israel's secret service the Mossad, forms a squad to assassinate all the people who had a role in that massacre. Mossad gives this squad monetary resources & then disclaims knowing their existence. This squad painstakingly has to locate each target & neutralise him. A slow cat & mouse game is played out with international politics forming part of the intrigue. Spielberg gives you glimpses into the key protagonists family life to humanize the sacrifices & pressure faced by members of the squad.

The editing is really taut & this turns the movie from an excellent flick into a Brilliantly Outstanding Masterpiece. Spielberg handles international political intrigue much better than "Syriana". Why compare these 2 ? They both have terrorism at the core of the story. Both stories span continents, nations & races. Both are key elements of political masterplans. But "Munich" ends up far superior to "Syriana"

In Syriana, so much is tried to be conveyed in a short time that you can't really get into the skin of the characters, the movie keeps flitting about all over the place. Speilberg's characters are each well etched & you can really become one with each of them. You can feel each ones fears, you understand each ones motivations.

Especially when Avner is waiting for one of the targets to turn off the lights, you
actually empathise with him so much that you can feel what he is feeling, his nervousness, apprehension & fear since Spielberg makes you wait for the event & makes you want it to happen & happen quickly.

Munich moves you, Munich makes you empathise, Munich gives you logic, Munich makes you think. All qualities of a great movie.

Munich was nominated for 5 Academy Awards (Oscars) including Best Director for Spielberg, Best Movie, Best Editing and Best Writing, but sadly did not win in any of the categories.

A lot of Israelis have protested the movie saying that it portrays them in a bad light. I don't think so. I think the Israelis did what they had to do to protect their own.

Even if you are a non violent person, you can see the logic behind why Israel did what it had to do. And in the long run, it seems that they did the right thing, because no one wants to mess with Israel any longer. Maybe India can learn from this. When K Suryanarayan's beheaded body was flown back from Afghanisthan yesterday, there were a lot of cries for India to take a harder stance at terrorism against Indians, in & outside of India. Maybe there are some things other than those pertaining to agriculture that we can learn from the Israelis.