Patna: Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron was all ears when Anand Kumar, who founded Bihar's Super 30 free coaching centre for students, narrated the real life stories of hope that his institute has generated year after year.
"Cameron told me it was amazing to listen to my real life stories of hope. He was so impressed that he hinted at using such stories with people across the world," Kumar, who shared the platform with Cameron during the Innovation and Knowledge Conference in Lavasa, Maharashtra, told the sources.
Kumar's Super 30 centre has helped many poor students enter the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
He said Cameron, the acclaimed Canadian filmmaker of "Titanic", "Terminator", "Aliens" and "Avatar", appreciated his efforts and promised to visit Patna.
The conference was held at Hill City of Lavasa on Friday in association with Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) to promote innovation in diverse fields.
Kumar said it was a matter of great pride that a teacher like him was given an opportunity to speak before such distinguished personalities. "It was an honor for my state also where I grew up and started my institute," he said.
He said he narrated some untold stories of young and talented underprivileged students from Bihar and their journey to the IITs. It drew tremendous appreciation from the audience, Kumar added.
"They clapped when I narrated my journey of the boy next door in the backwaters of Bihar, who struggled to carry on his studies due to extreme poverty, to a harbinger of hope for the poor students.
"It has ushered in a silent social revolution, which has transformed many a family. But it is just a small effort," he said, adding his dream was to set up a school for the poorest of the poor.
In the last three years, all 30 students of Super 30 have made it to the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted by the IITs. Since 2003, 212 students of the institute have made it to the IITs.
Kumar, who himself missed a chance to study at Cambridge University because he didn't have enough money, gives full scholarships to every annual batch of 30 students.
They have to pass a competitive test to get into Super 30 and then commit themselves to a year of 16-hour study each day.
Kumar, who started the Ramanujam School of Mathematics in 1992, founded the Super 30 in 2002.
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Bihar's Super 30 impresses Hollywood's James Cameron
Medicos taking interest in management
The MBA craze has hit the medical community too. From veterinarians to pharmacists, this year the CAT pool has quite a few aspirants from a medical background. About 2421 applicants are from the biology stream. Although it is a mere two per cent of the total aspirant pool of 2,04,267, it signifies a larger trend of people from diverse backgrounds wanting management degrees.
While 528 applicants are from the medical and dental fraternity, 1828 are from the pharmacy and microbiology background. In all, 65 veterinarians have applied to take the test. The registration data was released by the IIMs on Thursday.
“Medical insurance is set to become a very big industry and with a private hospital boom even hospital administration is very lucrative. Currently, people with either a medical or management background manage these portfolios. Medicos who combine their skills with a management degree will be in demand in the industry,” said Arks Srinivas from T.I.M.E, a coaching institute.
Engineering students form, as usual, the largest chunk of aspirants with 1,22,837 applying. This is followed by the commerce graduates (30,248) and business management graduates (21,809). Majority of applicants, about 74 per cent, are males. About 78 per cent of the people who have applied have less than one year work experience and a majority of them are fresh graduates.
You, me and the tube
When a teenager recently decided to invite his friends home for his birthday this year, instead of opting for his favourite pizza haunt, his parents had fully braced themselves for an evening of loud celebrations.They were surprised pleasantly when they found the bunch huddled silently in front of the computer, companionably watching the third season of Wizards of Waverly Place! “It has not even been shown on TV here yet,” squealed the group as they savoured every passing scene, showing why YouTube is the Generation Next’s new medium of entertainment.
There are many reasons for this. The primary being that YouTube puts ‘you’ first. You control what you want to see. You choose and if you are lucky you will find just absolutely anything out there. From a lost RD Burman tune to Pakistani serials from the 80’s. Rare footage from early Filmfare award nights, Doordarshan programmes, films of Kurosawa and Ray, classic ads, vintage jazz, Hindi film songs for every generation and more.
If you thought the YouTube phenomenon had only hit the big cities, check this out. Sonali Gupta, a resident of Bikaner, a small town in Rajasthan, is addicted to You Tube because she gets to watch reruns of all the Ekta Kapoor serials that have long vanished from the idiot box. It is the husband who is complaining, of course!
Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, the three friends and founding fathers of the website, may have never thought that their little innovation could actually go beyond America, or the West, let alone having an impact on a middle class family in a fairly small town of India.
The New York Times in an article in 2009 had claimed that You Tube was the most popular destination on the Internet for viewing videos, most of which were posted by users themselves.
According to the article, nearly two-thirds of all video views in the United States occur on YouTube, according to the measurement firm Nielsen. In March 2009, You Tube had more than 90 million visitors in America alone, 10 times as many as the next biggest site. While the NYT rightly pointed out the growing popularity of the website – which was interestingly invented because a bunch of pals could not exchange their dinner videos - its description of the growth of YouTube seems today merely an “understatement”.
Staying connected
The biggest advantage of YouTube is that it allows its users to stay connected by forming societies and sharing videos and other information on a daily basis. “You Tube is nothing less than a revolution and hats off to the three gentlemen for creating it. Through YouTube, I stay in touch with my son and his family in the United States, and even get to share the growing up years of my grandchildren almost on a daily basis,” says the 75-year-old retired Colonel Harshdeep Singh, who lives with his wife in Chandigarh.
While Wikipedia describes YouTube as just a video sharing website where users can view, share and upload videos, its features and impact go far beyond this description.
19-year-old Aditi Singh is a college-going girl whose Facebook account describes her as “fond of going to parties with friends.” She admits that she spends hours on YouTube to upload videos from her rocking parties. “How else would my friends in Mumbai and Bangalore know about the fun parties that I attend?” she ask innocently. Aditi is also taking guitar classes and plans to upload videos of her strumming adventures soon.
Learning curve
It’s not all fun and frolic though. You Tube is fast changing the way people learn. From speeches by well-known professors from various universities across the globe to class lectures, from lessons on music to cookery tips from experts, one can find detailed videos on almost everything on the California-based website that was bought by Google in 2006 for $ 1.65 billion.
Paramita Guha, an MBA student from Delhi, says she attends classes of her dream college, Stanford, virtually. “I just type in the name of the institute and get videos of the classroom. I not only enjoy viewing them, they help me in doing my college assignments as well,” she says.
The main reason behind the success of this website is its dynamic nature and its constantly changing and upgraded features. Observers say that consumers today are full of restless energy and get bored very easily. So, they prefer options that keep changing, and offer them more with every passing moment. And this is one medium that offers you something new every time you tune in, be it a favourite clip from Shahrukh Khan’s star turn in Fauji or someone’s funny marriage proposal or a home-spun parody of Hotel California which became an online rage in India sometime back.
How powerful this medium can be measure by the fact that Susan Boyle, became an instant celebrity the world over when her stunning audition at Britain’s Got Talent got millions of YouTube hits.
The world has shrunk even more with YouTube because it allows you to access multiple realities at the click of a mouse. Users of social networking sites like Facebook routinely share their favourite YouTube videos with friends.
Everyone wants to be famous today and YouTube is the perfect opportunity to immortalise your singing, your babies and even your pets.
There are many aspiring Susan Boyles out there and there are many lessons to be learnt from this medium. The only catch being that the internet can never help you to draw the line between good and bad learning,” says Delhi-based sociologist Dr Aruna Broota.
Social activism
YouTube is also being used to rope in volunteers and spread awareness about social causes. Many NGOs say short, video clips have a greater impact than most other mediums for it leaves a lasting impression on the minds of the viewers. Attracting volunteers online, they say, is easier too. “It’s difficult for small organisations to spend on brochures and posters all the time. Also, even the most moving story appears boring if it is not narrated properly. Hence we use YouTube to convey our messages and highlight the cause that we are working for,” says Vinlendu Jha, who works for a non-governmental organisation called Pagdandi.
Getting noticed
If Twitter is now the new medium for the celebrities to keep their fans updated, filmmakers are using YouTube as an effective tool to promote new films. The promos and songs of most of the films are available on the website, which, industry insiders say, goes a long way in promoting a film.
As media consultant Akash Raha says: “I watch promos and songs of all upcoming movies to decide whether I should watch the film or not. Invariably, I land up at the theatre because the promos on YouTube capture the best moments of the film.”
Moreover, unlike films and daily soaps that test patience at most times, videos on YouTube are short and crisp. With the advent of the concept of “high-speed internet”, a common feature in almost Indian households, the popularity of the website has literally tripled. Especially for the people with gruelling working hours, YouTube has come as a blessing. “I haven’t switched on my DVD player for the past six weeks, but have checked out all the movies on You Tube,” says Delhi High Court lawyer Siddharth Khattar.
It is not just Bollywood that is using the potential of the website. More and more local rock bands and documentary makers are using the website to get noticed. For them, YouTube becomes a cheap and an extremely effective tool to reach out to their target audience. Not only that, viewers’ comments on their video uploads keeps them motivated and help them to improve their work, they say.
“YouTube allows artists like us to connect with people from across the globe. It provides a platform without any geographical boundaries or linguistic barriers,” says guitarist Arvind Singhal, who plays in a local band at Delhi’s famous Turquoise Cottage every Thursdays.
“The secret behind YouTube’s popularity lies in the fact that it helps you in getting noticed. This is something that every individual, irrespective of their socio-economic background desires,” explains Dr Amit Sen, a clinical psychologist, referring to the phenomenon that has a college fresher to a housewife spending hours on internet.
The consumers are happy and the only issue music companies and film makers have with the website is that many times content posted by users violates copyright laws.
Also often the open-minded medium is misused when objectionable content and comments are posted. Many wonder at the morality of those who upload or enjoy content they have not paid for. Still the success of the website shows that the future of entertainment is in the hands of not just those who create it but also those who consume it. So are you hooked, yet?
Pre-school fees rose 120 percent in last five years
New Delhi: Branded pre-schools across the country increased their fees 120 percent between 2005 and 2010, a survey has found.
The average fees for the kindergarten segment have gone up from Rs.1,500 to over 3,500 per month, the survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) showed.
The survey also found an increase of 150 percent in security deposit which is paid at the time of admission which it says has gone up from Rs.10,000 in 2005 to over Rs.25,000 at the beginning of academic session in 2010.
According to the study, close to 70 percent from over 6,000 parents who were surveyed, demanded a regulation from district education departments to stop the soaring fee structure.
The survey also showed that branded pre-schools were concentrated in the metro cities and that parents with high disposable incomes, nuclear families and population growth were the reasons for this phenomenon.
It said that the pre-school industry in India is worth over Rs.4,000 crore and is expected to grow up to Rs.8,000 crore by 2013. The industry is dominated by the unorganized sector, including small neighborhood schools which accounts for over 75 percent of the market.
Chinese kids learn English from toons
Beijing: Mickey Mouse, AristoCats and other cartoon characters have now got a new job - to teach kindergarten tiny tots in China how to speak English.
English learning centres run by the US-based cartoon movie maker Walt Disney Company are open for children between the age group of five and seven years.
A large number of children attend classes where they imitate American accent shown by characters such as the AristoCats, Mickey Mouse and Snow White, according to China Daily.
Walt Disney opened its first English language centre in Shanghai in 2008 and has since expanded to 14 such centres on the mainland. The classroom also includes touch-screen boards, props, games and online media.
"When the words appear on the big screen, the teachers will say 'Go' and they will tell you what they want. When you reach for the correct object, the screen will say "You have won!" said Paul He, 5.
Disney has also plans to double the number of such schools in the country in a year. So far, Disney English has 10 centres in Shanghai and four in Beijing, with plans to expand the programme to China's tier-two and tier-three cities.
"It's been very positive both in terms of our enrolment figures and the responses we've heard from parents. We have enrolled several thousand since 2008 and are expecting triple digit growth into next year," Sugerman said.
English standards in China have remained poor despite compulsory English education in schools. Most lessons are taught in Mandarin.
Yet, with China's rapid economic development, there has been a drive for English-language education, especially in the big cities such as Shanghai and Beijing.
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