Archive for January, 2005

Tying education with Microfinance

Microfinance is a powerful concept for eliminating poverty. Could we introduce some change in the process of microfinance so that it ended up giving a boost to efforts aimed at educating underprivileged children?

Misc

Usage scenarios of a teacher wishlist in India

Lets look at a usage scenario for a wishlist for schools in a particular district in India: At the district level, each school that agrees to participate in the programme is assigned a school ID A school decides that it needs some help: say, 2 tables, 15 desks and 15 benches Someone from the school [...]

Misc

Project Ideas

A couple of project ideas I have been mulling on recently: – A wishlist similar to Craig’s for teachers in India. – A Wiki that would enable educators, volunteers and NGOs to share their experiences with each other. – Making instructional (flash?) videos documenting ‘what works’, ‘what to expect’ and so on using the experiences [...]

Misc

Oh dear, so snow!

Shulabh was a great guitarist in college. But he couldn’t get the right student to learn from him: his missed his chance. Nowadays he is ‘making music’, and trying very hard to win a carnal bet he placed with Yagnick. He studies in a school where everyone loves guitars. Shulabh played the guitar while everyone [...]

Trivia

Aati kya Khandala!

Yagnick, my very good friend from college, and a nerd, a geek, and a super-smart pseudo engineer was in Khandala recently. He looks more duder, thanks to his colleagues at Mastek, and his new girlfriend who seems to be taking good care of him:

Trivia

Spring break plans

I’m planning to do quite a few things this spring break: – Visit Yash and Shweta at their new house in Chicago – Visit Amit at U-Utah and visit the Grand Canyon etc. – Visit Hazel and Sagarika in Toronto – Visit Shulabh in Montreal, and team up to the Niagra falls phew! so much [...]

Trivia

the Train to Lawrence

I met three spirited dudettes: Missy, Chrissy and Ruthie on my way to PJ’s house in Morgan Hill: They however claim they look much different, normally: Missy and Chrissy go to school in Illinois, while Ruth studies at the nearby Santa Clara University. They are from Watseka, a nice, small town in IL. I also [...]

Trivia

Images

We had a talk last week by Len Kleinrock, one of the fathers of the Internet. I caught a ‘decent’ shot of a boat-trail while visiting to see the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Just entering the Golden Gate Bridge Cold does this to you Later that day, we went to Pallav sir’s house [...]

Trivia

A story of two women sitting at a table, and one of them smoking

“Well, Mary. I do think he loves me.” “What makes you so sure?” I ask. “ummm..not much, yet sooo much.” Tara ia used to being vague in all she says. “The other day, he got bowled out soon so he could talk to me. He was batting so well.” She looks up dreamily, blowing a [...]

Poetic

Writers-blocked

I am getting writers-block’d nowadays. No story jumps out to me. All I get in my mind are weirdo poems: A surge of emotions flows huddles close to the river, then goes. Life is a terror for tiny chicks who, stuffed with masala are fed upon by geeks.

Poetic

Jhajee is Texan once again

Jitu(Austin’s counterpart of Bhikhu Matre) is back to his campus, after havng been kidnapped by us for 2 days. Jhajee was on his way from a village called Sindri to his school in Austin. The journey was supposed to take 4 days (Yes! though it eventually took six). No, he wasn’t travelling around the world [...]

Trivia