Friday, December 2, 2011

24th Week @XIMB

24th Week - 20th November to 26th November

20th November - I woke up early for SKYPE meeting with a scientist at IPC. There were classes on Sunday. RMAX election. The election revealed one more basic fact about group behaviour. People don't like monopoly of a subgroup in a close community. The popularity meter affects the deserving candidate due to democratic nature of the elections.

21st November - Not selected in Summer Internship of another company after GD round. I need to improve my communication skills and a lot of introspection is needed in the career strategy.

One job opportunity was told to us by our program coordinator : PMRDFs. The Ministry of Home Affairs has identified 60 districts of the country as Left Wing Extremism (LWE) districts. The Government of India has launched a special programme in these districts called Integrated Action Plan (IAP). PMRDFs (Prime Minister's Rural Development Fellows Scheme)will basically function as development facilitators, they will assist the Collector and his/her colleagues in each of the IAP districts and provide them with the necessary analysis of situations and how they should be handled.

22nd November - Ours presentation in SRM class was postponed. I read an excellent article about Innovation. The DNA of Innovation: The DNA of innovation is an idea. Nothing happens until someone has an idea.

23rd November - RLLE orientation started in CIP, Bhubaneswar. I am going to Koraput. This project is about root tuber crop and food security.

'Cotton for my Shroud' is a documentary on farmers' suicide. It is very useful, to discuss what is plaguing Indian agriculture and to create debates around what needs to be done now.

Cotton for My Shroud



It captures what's going wrong in Indian agriculture in general and Vidarbha in particular - gambling with cotton, wrong technologies, Bt cotton, expensive seeds, crop failures, increasing costs, indebtedness, villages like Dorli near Wardha up for sale, anti-farmer trade policies, suicides nay genocide, agitations and firing on farmers, market machinations, the callous attitude of elected leaders etc. etc.

24th November -  Most of the fellow students had left for RLLE. Hostel is vacant and felt like a deserted place. My train is at 7:35 PM to Koraput.

25th November - The day was passed in the preparation of the trip. Many people were leaving the college for RLLE trip. I got the train for Koraput at evening. I was suffering from fever and cough.

26th November - The Pace of the life is too slow in Odisha in comparison to UP also. I will not call it lethargy as that is described by my friends here.

I reached Koraput in the morning. Koraput is a small place with lot of government offices. Transport Service charged very high price and our stay was provided at very very costly Hotel Lemon Castle at Semiliguda block of Koraput district. There was no hotel available at main district headquarter due to by-election in the neighboring district. I traveled around 120 Km with public transport on the day of arrival only at Koraput. It was tiring and long day!