Why NEET doesn't increase number of seats like JEE each year?

In this great country, with a saddening doctor to patient ratio of 0.62 per thousand (assuming 80% availability), how many of you would like to visit one with a failure rate of 1 every 5 patients?



This is but the unfortunate tragedy in the doctor's line of work. If you are an engineer or a lawyer, you are allowed to commit mistakes. Because your mistakes would best get you kicked you out of the company and demean your reputation. Yet you can still start from the bottom again. But getting a patient killed just because of a few more drops of anesthesia is not something everyone can afford to live with.

Also in the line of doctors and lawyers, your reputation is all that there is. Once you are out of the game, you are out. No one will risk their lives on you because absolutely no one gambles with it.

The NEET committee understands that and therefore tries to increase the seats only in some linear proportion to the population rise to keep the standards high. India is proud to produce the best doctors in the world. But who is to loose credibility if the quality of the doctors begins dwindling? The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test is one for sure.

The level of frustration and anger for Biology students is high because they don't consider any other profession than a doctor in their field worth it. Not everyone gets into MBBS and people count an agriculture scientist or a Bio-Technology major below them. Even BDS students are looked down upon by MBBS doctors. 

Students then blame the government for reservation and increase in seats to reach the exclusive club of noble workers (or actually a club for minting money, who knows?). But in doing so, they themselves are asking to make this elite club a local one. We are witnessing this happening to the Joint Entrance Examination each year, as a number of new IITs opening up each year and an IITian present in every street of the city. Slowly the IITs would loose their charm as everyone becomes one. This is a different case though since doctors are a necessity and not a charm. But degrading qualities of doctors can be a problem in the future. 

If seats are increased beyond control, people would start visiting only the ones with an AIIMS tag on their name, and fresh graduates would have to fight to make their mark in the community. The name of private practitioners is already degrading with huge mess-ups in their operations and their acts to extract the most cash out of you. 

Let us instead work hard to actually deserve a seat to this noble profession or treat other professions equally noble. Otherwise, the number of candidates per seat would shoot up indefinitely and so will the number of depressed and unconfident students.

Why is India's Air Pollution not so bad news?

While the pollution in India is not something I am proud of, there is a bright side to it.

Thick haze and smoke along the Ganga Basin in northern India, 2004. Source: Wikipedia.

India is in a transition phase from last two decades from a poor, helpless and dependent country to realising the potential of its able minds and providing them an opportunity.  When people see that they possess the capability to do great, they want to see it turn to fruition. Earlier, we had the mindset that "Videshi (foreign) goods are better". This was the case until Indians started manufacturing or innovating the same way as the multi-national companies. Now not only are such products cheaper and of competitive quality, but there is also a sense of pride in using them. How great it feels to boast that Prime Minister of UK uses a car manufactured by JLR, a subsidiary of TATA Motors. 

But this transition had come with a price for other countries too in the past. The Industrial Revolution of Britain, the Industrial Revolution of the United States, and the rise of China's economy led to increased dependency on coal and fossil fuels over the years eventually leading to the Great Smog of London, The New York City Smog and the current situation of China. 

               Great Smogs have been a face of great transitions for a country.

1966 New York City Smog. Source: Wikipedia

The first two countries had many years to improve their situations and are in a much better state now. China had taken effective measures to reduce their pollution levels each year. All these three countries are now a face of development and many countries look up to them as a role model. 

India, on the other hand, currently has 9 cities in the top 10 polluted. All this happened because at the time when indigenous manufacturing began in India, it was still green at large, and people didn't put in much effort to protect it. When you are competing with cheap foreign goods, you don't want to waste money on more expensive technology to check pollution since you are not going to get a certificate or medal for it. After all, everyone thought - "How does my input matters in such a vast country?". 

These little additions have brought us to the state we are today. This increase in pollution does indicate that we are expanding our manufacturing and production, but it also means that we are still using the old and inefficient technology for our cause. The people and the government have been quick to realise the problem (or actually breathing the polluted air have finally made them realise it) and the government is trying to control the situation before it becomes irreversible (still the public at large don't do much, after all, Indians don't take much responsibility for anything and blame everything on government). India currently has the fastest growing solar power industry. The government has also subsidised LEDs and updated the vehicular emission standards. I cannot say much about the public because people actually rushed to buy the BS III standard bikes the day they were sold at puny prices by manufactures because they were declared illegal on road in 2017!.

I hope you got the idea about the transition I am talking about. I wish that the people too will devote to the cause and help us change the face of India into a cleaner and more progressive country. Let's not make pollution a cause for people dying in future or fleeing the country.

Kindly share your views on the topic.

Meet the new Governor of Reserve Bank of India

It has been a day since the appointment of our new RBI governor after the unexpected resignation of Dr. Urjit Patel on 10th December citing personal reasons. Without getting into the debate of whether the resignation was personal or not, let's look into the profile of the latest personality assuming the chair. Like many RBI governors, not many know about the chief before they assume office.

Mr. Shaktikanta Das is the 25th governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He assumed office on 12th December 2018 after being appointed on 11th December. He is an alumnus of St. Stephen's College and IIM Bangalore. He is a retired IAS of 1980 batch.
The Sensex and Nifty responded positively to his appointment due to the successful tenure of IAS officers as RBI governors previously.

He was the personal representative (Sherpa) of India to G20 before being promoted to RBI Governor. He was the Economics Affairs Secretary of India before that. He was also the Fertilizers Secretary of India and also held many positions for the Government of Tamilnadu.

As evident, we have ourself a highly decorated governor who has proven himself in other fields. But will be able to keep the market at a steady and solid growth is yet to unveil. After all, he will be judged by the people for the rest of his life for his role as an RBI governor, and not as his roles in his previous positions.

Hopes are high for him with his first comment being 

"Inflation targeting is an important function as it is a mandated requirement of RBI now."

He is to preside over the RBI board meeting scheduled on 14th of December.
More about him on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaktikanta_Das.