Imposing greater penalties on those people who voluntarily indulge in unhealthy activities such as smoking excessive drinking and overeating.

In a slightly socialistic world where the ever lasting cost of health care is a cause fore tremendous concern health insurance policies tend to have a one size fit all approach. This has been and will always be contended. On one hand a healthy individual might argue why he or she should bear the higher cost of benefits just because someone else is at risk whereas an invasion to privacy and typecasting an individual is also not fair. On further thought I would agree with the fact that a penalty must be imposed on a person indulging in unhealthy activities.

Firstly, I would agree enough awareness is there to let an individual understand the demerits of indulging in such dangerously unhealthy activities as smoking and excessive drinking. Its basically akin to flirting with danger possibly even death. one does not need to over-emphasize the effects of these habits. So if someone knowlingly indulges in such habits he is aware of the future diseases he might incur and hence bear the cost for it. The rising cost of health care has reached such alarming proportions so as to become a widely debated issue during the 2008 presidential elections amidst a turbulent economy any step to cut down costs would be widely welcome.

Secondly a car insurance does not let the premiums to stay constant if one meets with an accident. If a person is responsible for rash driving his premiums would increase and more so in a high risk and highly volatile scenario. On the other hand a good driver discount is applicable to those whose driving is commendable and blemish free. So we could draw a parallel and say that a person indulging in healthy diet, exercise and fitness regime should be paying a lower premium akin to a "good driver discount". And to extend this analogy further we could draw a parallel with car insurance costs increasing for those with speeding tickets by saying that knowingly indulging in unhealthy practices need to be penalized.

Thirdly Why should someone who goes out of his way to stay healthy and fit pay a higher premium to compensate the higher health care expenditure that a smoker would incur to the company. This is neither fair nor ethical. Health is very personal issue and the development or destruction of the same is also personal then why should not the cost incurred for the same be personal. Why should I pay for someone Else's follies. The insurance costs are calculated on a certain median basis and that median cost increases in case its found out certain class of people incur a greater expense due to diseases directly afflicted from such addictions. Its not a good faith and practice to pass this on to unsuspecting healthy individuals.

Finally just as with life insurance we have to disclose any illness we might be carrying upfront as these might have an impact on our mortality and thereby the insurance premiums, we should be declaring these practices as these might have an impact on the diseases in future and coverage regarding the same. Any addiction we would be hiding should be treated illegal and if discovered at a later that that a disease or affliction is suffered due to undeclared addictions, the company should have a right to refuse from bearing the cost of the same.

Concluding I would agree that a person voluntarily indulging in potentially fatal activities needs to pay for his follies and not the rest. Maybe the economic burden would act as an incentive to get rid of the addiction. Let me play the devil and state that if a person has enough to blow it up in "smoke" or down it in alcohol he definitely has enough to bear the cost for it.

Primary and Secondary education should focus on training students for highly specialized jobs of the future

Primary and Secondary education should focus on training students for highly specialized jobs of the future , rather than providing them with a broad range of non-specific skills and information

The issue presented above is a highly volatile and a deeply contentious statement. As such job oriented training is a highly contentious subject but when you combine the issue of primary and secondary education the subject assumes enormous proportions. Even though early exposure to job oriented training has its own set of advantages I would contend that primary and secondary education of a child should provide him with a broad range of skills.

Firstly the idea of predicting "jobs of future" is somewhere between dream and wishful thinking. The time line between primary school education and joining the job market is a good decade and a half. In today's world where yesterday's technological innovations are obsolete even before tomorrow happens predicting a scenario 15 years hence is just preposterous. Essentially we might end up preparing a child for a job that would hit its peak when the child reached high school and tapers down by the time he graduates. Take the example of medical transcription. At one point in time near of the turn of century it was a hot job sector in India with the spate of offshore contracting happening in that sector was booming. But a few years down the line it’s faded in glory. A child equipped with skills specific to that industry would be unable to sustain himself and with limited other skills switching industries at a mature age is simply not possible.

Secondly a career should always be by choice and never by chance. At the end of the day the job should be treated as a vocation rather than a profession. Only if one derives the joy from the work would the long term sustainability and ultimately job satisfaction some easily else the job would just remain a means of earning money. Forcing a particular stream down a child's mind is akin to not letting him think for himself. The education system basically teaches you a broad base of subjects so that the child can pick and choose what he likes and discard what he dislikes. This singular step of choosing the subject of choice as a major and thereby increasing the chances of excelling in it is the hallmark of our education system. Doing away with that would mean that either the system would make choices for the kid or else the kid would make choice for himself at a very immature age, both of which can lead to potentially catastrophic results.

Thirdly, the sole aim of Education should not be a means to an end. As the great Indian Philosopher and spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda has said "Education is the manifestation of the perfection that already exists in man". In essence the goal of education should never be so narrow as securing a job and also should never culminate in just a degree offering. Education should concern about the overall development of the child who impressionable mind should question, develop an inquisitive talent and seek answers rather than be taught to suppress the questions and spoon-fed answers. The wider variety of the subject may not seem to be an essential activity at a young age but with age one would seem to be more appreciative of the matter taught at a young age. Fostering a sense of competition at a young age is good but putting them through the paces of the rat race is a very bad habit. The goal as a child should always be about assimilating the knowledge and satiate the inquisitiveness rather than cram the data and spit in out in papers at the end of the term in lieu of a handful of numbers.

Fourthly most of specialized jobs of today need a multi-disciplinary approach and a narrow minded education system would just not suffice in training students for these jobs. For example a pharmacist/biochemist needs as much knowledge of biology as she needs of chemistry with ample amounts of mathematics thrown in for complex calculations. Similarly a computer scientist dealing with fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence and neural networks needs to know as much about mathematical algorithmic analyses as he does about computer theory, human physiology and neurology. Such inter-disciplinary texture forms the fabric of much of the future jobs with are greatly helped by the broad range of subjects taught in the earlier days at school in the primary and secondary grades.

Concluding I would thereby state that the training imparted to a student in the form of broad range of non-specific skills and information is essential and that would prepare him better for tomorrow rather than a narrow minded approach of education concentrating only on "highly specialized jobs of the future"

Success of a company correlates directly to the job satisfaction of the employee.

The current issue presented above is a contentious issue with having arguments on both sides of it. If we consider most of the knowledge based companies it might be exceptionally true but for most of the manufacturing sector its still the Product, Price, Promotion and place - the 4 Ps of marketing- ruling the success of the of the company. So the issue at hand has to be looked at from the perspective of the company.

For a company in today's knowledge industry - be it a Knowledge process, business process, consultancy or It development where human resource is the biggest investment, the success is greatly contributed to by the satisfaction of the employee. One predominantly talks about productivity, efficiency and operational parameters driving the growth rate and subsequently affecting the top line as well as the bottom line of the company. But drilling down to the bottom of these parameters we would see at the grass root level moving up through the ladder to the top chain of command, its imperative that the employee will only attain, exceed the aforementioned parameters if he is happy. And even though happiness is subjective indirectly it correlates to the job satisfaction of the employee.

Another factor that points to this conclusion is the following. An employee is expected to give his 100% to his work if he is satisfied with the current position at work. If he is not there would be a great chance the person would not be motivated enough for the work. Self-Motivation goes a long way in the success of the team.

Thirdly, the strength of the chain is as much as that of its weakest link. The team cannot have optimal performance if one or more players (possibly key players) are not 100% into their work due to being dissatisfied with the job. This leads to an increase in pressure on the workload of the rest of the team-mates and subsequently putting a strain on them which might hamper the quality of the deliverable.

Fourthly, human beings are social animals. Depression and de-motivation spreads very easily. Seeing one of the team members being de-motivated might force others to think in the same lines or at least reconsider their stand. One bad apple kind of spoils the rest of the apples in the basket. This chain effect ripples through hurting the company badly.

Furthermore, people might try as much to keep home away from office, still its not always possible to separate our inherent emotions from our job mindset. They are not robots at the end of the day. Any such thought would impact the productivity and subsequently the success of the company.

Dissatisfied and disgruntled employees also tend to badmouth the company and its policies and if this comes from a senior employee for whatever be the reason, it’s a lot of bad press and publicity for the company. If the public image of the company is hurt it becomes all the more difficult to salvage it back.

Concluding this I would like to state that in today’s knowledge based economy where the human resources are the biggest capital investment of the company and on whose supply chain the balance sheet depends , its imperative that job-satisfaction of an employee is guaranteed. After all a disgruntled employee hurts the success of the company.

Media Censorship

The subject of media censorship, extending to violent footage, music and television programs is a rather sensitive and controversial one. One is dealing very troubled and disturbing consequences which on one hand can cause young minds to be left with a very deep impression of on-screen propaganda, while on the other hand it imposes an iron hand on the free speech and expression rights which takes extremism as a stand. Evaluating both stands I would conclude that some censorship is required as I would believe this has a direct impact on the society in general and a specific age group of young impressionable populace in particular.

Firstly the issue regarding the lyrics of popular songs is as old as music itself. In popular culture the satanic and often dark lyrics associated with major rock bands (BLACK SABBATH instantly comes to mind) has been denounced by all and sundry. Latino Reggaeton lyrics strictly deals with sex, drugs, mob culture and has a profound influence on the crowd that listens to it. Also it paints a very bad picture of the community linking it as always to the drug cartel mafia. Sex, drugs and rock and roll seem to be inseparable trioca. Whats more shocking is the fact that the followers of the various genres actually assume it to be normal and hence the image of the rock star is painted with someone who seems to enjoy an ample amount of all the above. Hence the aspiration of a youngster to be a rock star or a rapper has a lot more to do than just music. And as a method to the madness the songs seem to be advocative of such decadent behavior. Alternately we have even seen a lot of people "Learning to Fly" and killing themselves in the process.

The second largest issue comes with television advertisement commercials. In a bid to sell their products and outsell their rivals the product manufacturers not only make ludicrous claims about the efficacy of their products but also carry along unbelievable example to spawn a population of confused youth. An example of this being the promulgation of fairness creams in the countries which are non-white, it has generally been accepted in such countries that you are not beautiful if you are not fair - with people spending money to get rid of their melanin, as if that was a possibility. Other examples of those being able to walk the ceiling upside down because the shoe was light enough to do that. young children try that out and lead to disastrous consequences. Many commercials promote the miracle pill for weight loss and people jump into that leading to bad often fatal conditions.

Modern Media has brought live footage of action to our drawing rooms. Be it the war in Kargil, India or the anti-terrorist operations in Bombay, live footage of the scenes have been beamed across the globe, in some cases leading to fanatic acts by the watching population as well as compromising classified security detail. In a bid to make a quick money the television crew actually held the security personnel, who battle for our safety, to ransom. Some sort of discretion needs to be advocated while beaming such footage. A sort of self-advocated screening to determine what should be shown and what should not.

Movies and television programs should probably shoulder the most blame. A visual makes the biggest and the longest lasting impact. Some of the programs and movies seem to show the gruesome scenes with such panache that its difficult to tell the reel from real. And in a bid to be unique it spawns high ideas as well. For example showing of an ice - cone as a stabbing murder weapon leaving no evidence of a murder weapon as well as disguising the fingerprints led to a spate of murders across the globe with this technique. Had the idea not been beamed across the globe such an innovative technique to kill people would not have come out in the open. Amazing skills and techniques to deal with the villains that heroes use lead to a lot of young people try the same with seemingly brutal consequences.

The Media also has a tendency to hero worship those who have a criminal past making them figures with halo. Please try to understand that dietifying criminals serve only one purposes and that is to encourage others to take their place. Never make a martyr of a villain nor make heroes of criminals because it spawns a generation of youth to aspire to be in the same throne adorning the halo of the past. In my junior school on an essay written about future aspirations a couple of classmates had written bout being a fugitive like Charles Sobhraj - imagine the impression that sleazy criminal 's media coverage had painted on the kids.

While concluding would like to say that on grounds of the above reasons i do firmly believe that media as a whole needs censorship and scrutiny possibly from a central unbiased apolitical organization in addition to self scrutiny.

People Value Things More When They Have Suffered for Them.

Quoting from the very famous book by Indo-Anglian author Upamanyu Chatterjee - English August - The ecstasy of arrival never compensates for the emptiness of departure. In short the whole of this line encompasses the feel and thought of the statement made above.


We, human beings have the tendency of taking things for granted. We never really feel the presence rather ironically we miss the absence of it. So in essence the value of that thing is more apparent when we miss it not when the object is there just beside us. This stems from the very root of the human psyche - A deeply en grained thought that has its roots in the short term memory. We have all heard about the cliched adage "Public Memory is very short". This is in essence the main string that causes us to devalue things over prolonged usage

We never really value what we have, rather we always rue about what we don't have. In short the very nature of our mind is greed. There is a constant battle that we have between the haves and the have nots. We fail to appreciate all that we have and only miss that when its absent on a later date. How many days do we pray for having our daily bread - but we do definitely say a prayer the day calamity strikes and we are left fending for that bread. On a very personal note I never said a prayer after every safe train journey till the train I was supposed to catch , and fortunately missed, met with a gruesome accident. Since then I have been very thankful for every safe trip, be it by road, rail or air.

In terms of relationship the oft complaint one partner has against the other is that he/she is taken for granted. There is no butterflies in stomach feeling that used to be a prelude to the meetings, the joy of seeing each other the thrill of holding hands - in short the very spark that characterized the romance in the early days of the relationship seem to wane down after a while. The running Joke that goes in a marriage is that of a 7 year itch - that if partners can survive that they can sustain their relationship for life. Jokes apart its only if the relationship does not work out dows one sit back and introspect what could have been done and miss the other person. The value of the person somehow is more when he/she is not there anymore.

In this world of great divide where the gnawing difference between the developing and the developed nations its tough to envision the effect of the unit value of currency. In the USA thinking of getting a meal for a dollar is just not possible but for a lot of the developing nations a dollar a day makes for the salary of a bulhk of the labor population. The water and the Gas we take for granted today and wastefully use , would come back to haunt our progeny in the coming days. Almost any tangible natural resource that we use today, not judiciously, would pinch us in the future. The effect of inflated Gas prices last summer made us shudder to think for a second and ponder over the fact that what could happen if we suddenly run out of it. We have to understand that the oil quantity that can be drilled from onshore and offshore rigs are finite and if we don't really appreciate and conserve it today we might be staring at a very dark tomorrow.

The same holds good for electricity. Between Oil, Electricity and Water we have three resources and energy component that we just cannot do without. Do we thank our light company for ensuring the electric supply 24*7. Its only when the storm hits us, like the December 13 2008 Ice Storm that struck the Northeast states and took nearly 60% of households without power , some for over 2 weeks, till power was restored - that we really sit and value this resource. Sitting as I write this do I have a backup plan if tomorrow I am struck by a storm of a similar nature - Yes I do, check into Motel 6 at Wethersfield, and dine on KFC, Town Line Diner and Subway. At the end of it maybe I would be able to appreciate my daily bread and electricity and be grateful for the bucket of water that I take for granted every time I step into the shower.

The value of anything, people, place , object, thing, money, resource can thereby be said to be realized more when they are absent and one longs for them. While they are there just by your side you fail to realize or recognize them even neglect them. Nothing could be truer than the comment made above. The loss of the goose who laid golden eggs is only understood after killing it.