Challenges faced in Enterprise Search

Challenges faced in Enterprise Search


White Paper

Vivek Anand
Retail & Consumer Goods


Confidentiality Statement


The information contained in this document represents the current view of TCS on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because thing TCS present must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of TCS, and TCS cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.
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© 2008 TCS. All rights reserved.



About the Author

I am Vivek Anand, currently working in Hallmark project Onsite in Kansas City, Missouri
My role is of team member in project called Digital Asset Management Evolution (DAMe). I am currently engaged in building an enterprise search interface for Hallmark for their digital asset management.
I joined TCS Kolkata in November 2005 and have worked on couples of project in retail and consumer goods domain.



Contents

Executive Summary
Enterprise Search Challenges
Thing which are Driving Enterprise Search?
Few Challenges You Face in Enterprise Search
The Keys to Successful Enterprise Search
Enterprise Search Solution Evaluation Guide
Conclusion
References

Executive Summary


Search is no more just finding information in the business world. Search isn’t just about finding information. Infact it is a starting point. To be valuable and of some use to an organization, a search has to result in the ability to do something meaningful and profitable with the information you find. It has to be an integral part of a business productivity infrastructure.
Influenced by the consumer search experience on the Internet, the people in your organization have clear and demanding expectations about the way Search will look and feel within a business environment — as well as high standards for the relevance of results served. As an IT professional, you’re aware of the importance of effective enterprise-wide Search capabilities, and you know what kind of Enterprise Search experience employees are looking for. But you may find it a challenge to deliver what’s required, because Enterprise Search and Internet Search are very different.
Unstructured information represents the vast majority of data and accessible to enterprise.Exploiting this information requires systems for managing & extracting knowledge from large collections of unstructured data and application for discovering patterns and relationships.
In addition, navigating the marketplace for Enterprise Search solutions is a time-consuming and confusing task, with choices seemingly polarized between low-end, inexpensive offerings with basic features, and high-end, highly customizable, expensive solutions.
This white paper, written for Technical Decision Makers and people working in enterprise search irrespective of domain, takes a look at the drivers and challenges that define Enterprise Search and examines the key elements of a successful Enterprise Search solution. It demonstrates how a winning solution gives business users/workers access to widespread unstructured sources as well as structured and line-of-business (LOB) system data while respecting an organization’s varied security needs.



Enterprise Search Challenges

Influenced by the consumer search experience, and driven by a clear need to provide business user with timely, customized access to relevant business data, companies are looking for comprehensive search capabilities that span disparate information sources and integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure. However, given the complexities of the enterprise environment, the challenge that many organizations are facing is how to ensure that an enterprise search matches user expectations, and how to make sense of the seemingly polarized choices available in the marketplace. The assets and resources of orginisation are spread wide across the globe.Further intrinsically unstructured form of information and resources poses even greater challenges.
Thing which are Driving Enterprise Search?

Explosion of Information
The edifice of today’s business scenario is information — and we’re all aware that the volume of information we consume, as well as the data we generate, is growing rapidly — quantified at a rate of about 50 percent per annum. The information explosion in the workplace has imposed new performance pressure on employees, who now work with an overwhelming amount of data and struggle to make sense of what they find. According to IDC (International Data Corporation) report incolloboration with EMC Corporation. Key findings are:
The 2006 digital universe was 161 billion gigabytes (161 exabytes) in size.
IDC projects a six fold annual information growth from 2006 to 2010.
While nearly 70% of the digital universe will be generated by individuals by 2010, organizations will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85% of the information.
In 2006, 161 exabytes of digital information were created and copied, continuing an unprecedented period of information growth. This digital universe equals approximately three million times the information in all the books ever written – or the equivalent of 12 stacks of books, each extending more than 93 million miles from the earth to the sun. According to IDC, the amount of information created and copied in 2010 will surge more than six fold to 988 exabytes, a compound annual growth rate of 57%.
While nearly 70% of the digital universe will be generated by individuals by 2010, most of this content will be touched by an organization along the way – on a network, in a data center, at a hosting site, at a telephone or Internet switch, or in a backup system. Organizations – including businesses of all sizes, agencies, governments and associations – will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85% of the information.
“This ever-growing mass of information is putting a considerable strain on the IT infrastructures we have in place today,” said Mark Lewis, EMC Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer. “This explosive growth will change the way organizations and IT professionals do their jobs, and the way we consumers use information. Given that 85% of the information created and copied will be the responsibility of organizations and businesses; we must take steps as an industry to ensure we develop flexible, reliable and secure information infrastructures to handle the deluge.”
“The incredible growth and sheer amount of the different types of information being generated from so many different places represents said John Gantz, Chief Research Officer and Senior Vice President, IDC. “It represents an entire shift in how information has moved from analog form, where it was finite, to digital form, where it’s infinite. From a technology perspective, organizations will need to employ ever-more sophisticated techniques to transport, store, secure and replicate the additional information that is being generated every day.”
Other key findings:
Images – Images, captured by more than 1 billion devices in the world, from digital cameras and camera phones to medical scanners and security cameras, comprise the largest component of the digital universe.
Digital Cameras – The number of images captured on consumer digital still cameras in 2006 exceeded 150 billion worldwide, while the number of images captured on cell phones hit almost 100 billion. IDC is forecasting the capture of more than 500 billion images by 2010.
Camcorders – Camcorder usage should double in total minutes of use between now and 2010.
E-mail – The number of e-mail mailboxes has grown from 253 million in 1998 to nearly 1.6 billion in 2006. During the same period, the number of e-mails sent grew three times faster than the number of people e-mailing; in 2006 just the e-mail traffic from one person to another – i.e., excluding spam – accounted for 6 exabytes.
Instant Messaging – There will be 250 million IM accounts by 2010, including consumer accounts from which business IMs are sent.
Broadband – Today over 60% of Internet users have access to broadband circuits, either at home, at work or at school.
Internet – In 1996 there were only 48 million people routinely using the Internet. The Worldwide Web was just two years old. By 2006, there were 1.1 billion users on the Internet. By 2010, IDC expects another 500 million users to come online.
Unstructured Data – Over 95% of the digital universe is unstructured data. In organizations, unstructured data accounts for more than 80% of all information.
Compliance and Security – Today, 20% of the digital universe is subject to compliance rules and standards and about 30% is potentially subject to security applications.
Classification – IDC estimates that today less than 10% of organizational information is “classified,” or ranked according to value. IDC expects the amount of classified data to grow better than 50% a year.
Emerging Economies – These now account for 10% of the digital universe but will grow 30-40% faster than mature economies.


Demand to Make Search Real
In the business world, Search isn’t just about finding information from the dataware house. To be valuable to an organization, a search has to result in the ability to do something meaningful and profitable with the information you find. Enterprise Search isn’t simply about investigating content; it’s all about applying the knowledge you gather and using it to benefit the business you’re driving. It’s about real people needing the right tools to help them get their jobs done.

The Consumer Search Experience
Influenced by the consumer search experience on the Internet, business users/workers have great expectations about how a search solution should look, feel and perform. As an IT professional, you’re aware of the importance of effective enterprise-wide Search capabilities, and you know what kind of experience employees are looking for. But you may find it challenging to deliver what’s required because Enterprise Search and Internet Search are very different. Although the enterprise corpora are smaller, they lack the highly hyperlinked nature of web, thus some of the most successful techniques for the web, based on link analysis, do not apply in the enterprise.This results in lower relevancy of retrieval documents. Another factor is that in the enterprise there are additional security, reliability, and performance issues that complicate the problem. A well publicized example is the need to protect the privacy of individuals’ personal data.

Empowering People to Find Information & Expertise
In this very competitive Business scenario to achieve business objectives, business users/ workers must have access to the enterprise people and data they need to make informed, timely, and impactful decisions. But that information must be relevant — to avoid overburdening a person with unnecessary and distracting data, or conversely under-serving them with lack of detail. It also needs to be well protected to ensure that information is transparent only to authorized users. The Head of customer relations will need a very different view of the same data as a customer care specialist, for example. It’s all about getting the right amount of information to the right person in the right format.
Particular information may be meaningful to someone and obscure to other. It all depends on latitude in which they work. Data out of scope is of no meaning. A sales executive responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP) might need to access information from her laptop, a corporate information site, and some web pages. A finance manager reviewing a budget would be more interested in data from finance systems, document repositories, team sites, as well as input from subject matter experts. An executive preparing a strategy briefing might concentrate his search on SAP, or another line-of-business (LOB) system.

Need to Increase Business Efficiencies
An estimate of IDC (International Data Corporation), reveals that a search which results in unnecessary or no result can cost an organization millions of dollars yearly — the expense of not finding the information needed costs an organization employing hundreds of knowledge/business workers about US$5.3 million per year as they search through vast amount of structured, line-of-business (LOB) system and unstructured data. Considering the stakes, companies simply cannot afford to sustain an inefficient Search solution.

Few Challenges You Face in Enterprise Search

The Difficulty in Meeting Expectation of User Search
Search on internet has increased by leap and bound since the launch of really fast web search engine like Google, Yahoo, and Lycos etc. Internet search has dramatically grown as a cultural phenomenon, as a business, and as an easy way to find information about any subject. Based on the success and ubiquity of Internet Search, an organization might reasonably assume that the same ranking ingredients or algorithms could be applied successfully to Enterprise Search. The assumption is partially correct. Many of the broad approaches, when properly tuned, do help with relevance in Enterprise Search. However, to adequately assess an Enterprise Search solution, it is important to be aware of the differences between the Internet and the Enterprise.

The Key Differences between Internet and Enterprise Search
There are three main differences between an Internet and an Enterprise Search: Link Structure, Cross-Site Hierarchy, and Security.
Link Structure
Although the enterprise corpora are smaller in size and scope in comparison to World Wide Web, they lack the highly hyperlinked nature of WWW, thus some of the most successful techniques for the web, based on the link analysis, donot apply in the enterprise.The hyperlink model on the Internet is rich, especially among popular sites, because web page authors tend to link content in order to locate their sites in relation to others. The rising popularity of blogging has quickly enriched this aggregate link structure, with new content rapidly linked to and commented on.This results in lower relevancy of retrieval documents.
By contrast, the link structure in an enterprise tends to be far less dense, because people at work do not spend a lot of time creating hyperlinks to other content. In a business context, these links do not figure strongly in the successful use of the content. What link structure does exist in the enterprise tends to be more introspective and navigational than editorial in nature. Information owners might provide a table of contents or a list of related items, but do not often spend time writing descriptive metadata, attaching tags, precise taxonomies, and rich, hyperlinked annotations to trigger search algorithms.

Cross-Site Hierarchy

Enterprise Portal
Department Portal



Supplier/vendor Portal


Influneced by the Organisation hierarchy its Portal will often set up intranets to be somewhat, if not entirely, hierarchical in nature. Take for example any retails Organisation the enterprise portal is typically regarded as the root of the entire intranet, departmental portals are second-order sites, and supplier/vendor portal then fold underneath as third-order sites. Often this structure is highly-planned and regulated such that sites of a given type (for example, a HR Section) always fit into the hierarchy at a predefined level. Sometimes there are multiple roots, or authoritative sites, resulting in multiple hierarchies.
This is in sharp contrast to the Internet, where some popular portal sites could be considered roots, but certainly do not serve as top-level nodes in a strict and consistent cross-site navigational structure across the entire Internet.

Security, Reliability and Performance
In an Enterprise there are additional security, reliability and performance issues that complicates the problem.A well publicized example is the need to protect the privacy and personal information (like credit card details, employee payroll etc.) of an employee.
The vast majority of content on the Internet is accessible anonymously, so a user would not expect to find information that requires authentication. This means that Internet search engines to not have to trim out results that the user should not see. So, given the same query, every user gets the same results.

Achieving Relevance When Faced With Varied Information Sources
In the context of Search, relevance refers to the usefulness of results in relation to an initial query. Relevance is a key to effective Search performed.The results returned would be of no use if it is of no use to Business users/worker. Suppose a user is looking for Java expert person in TCS India in TCS Intranet portal.The results of query would be of no use if it returns experts in Java from TCS all over the world. So relevancy is important.
Information lives in many varied places both within and outside of an organization. It also exists in different forms. Around 75 percent of the information we seek exists in semi-structured or unstructured formats such as document files, share sites, subscription services, and websites.
Take for example Hallmarks Cards a retail gaint in gifts and greeting Cards section. It has lot of organizational data. Data can be media file, sound file, image file, or even copysheet, invoices etc. Being the global organization it has office all over the world, so is its data. Data are spread across world in different databases,storage mediums and file servers.While most enterprise employees have access to these types of information, it is often inefficiently dispersed, and searchers frequently have to drill through large amounts of irrelevant information to find what they’re looking for.
In contrast, users may have difficulty accessing enough information when it comes to accessing data from structured data sources and line-of-business (LOB) systems. While frequent users of LOB systems can afford to spend the time familiarizing themselves with specialized interfaces, casual users can’t justify the same kind of investment. Search in these areas is often difficult or impossible due to the complexity involved in accessing systems such as Mainframe, CRM, SCM, ERP applications. Consequently business users/workers are unable to access relevant information and are deprived of the tools they need to achieve business results.

Which Solution would Suite My Business Need?
When choosing an Enterprise Search solution, your organization will require you to balance many factors—including cost, usability, scalibility and extensibility. However, you may be concerned about what the marketplace currently has to offer. Traditionally, the Search market has offered two types of solutions: low-end, inexpensive offerings with basic features, and high-end, costly technologies that are resource-intensive and time-intensive to implement and manage. As a result, you risk making the wrong decision and either outgrowing an entry-level solution or regretting the purchase of a costly, complex platform that under-delivers.

The Keys to Successful Enterprise Search

A good Enterprise Search solution will be as effective for the people who use it as it is for the people who are responsible for its administration and security, so it’s not surprising that there is no single component that defines successful Enterprise Search.
While relevancy is a key, the user experience is also important, because an unfamiliar, complex, or inconvenient user interface will be a barrier to adoption.A good search engine is one which makes good use of meta-data attached to the asset/resource.
An effective Search solution will also provide efficient access to unstructured data and unlock information stored in line-of-business (LOB) systems. It will provide easy access to people and expertise—making it a one-stop-shop for finding all the organization has to offer to solve a problem. And it will meet the needs of IT professionals by providing a secure, manageable, scalable and extensible platform.

Enterprise Search Solution Evaluation Guide

Relevancy
· Relevance should be tuned for the organization, taking into account differences between Enterprise and Internet Search, such as link structure, hierarchy across sites, security, and the level of difficulty involved in finding documentation (document findability).
· Relevance should also take into account a rich and broad range of additional factors, such as click distance, URL text matching, metadata extraction, language detection, file type biasing, and text analysis.

Reach
Reach of an enterprise search solution refers to the types of information it can provide search over, and thus, find for the user. Users have come to have certain expectations for search engines, and those include being able to find every single piece of content “out there”. Reach can be measured along three dimensions:

· The type of content it can provide results for. Content can be classified in structured and unstructured content. Structured content refers to that one found in databases and line of business applications. Although different business applications provide some level of search functionality, the problem is that users must log-into the right business application to find that content – which seriously limits the usefulness of those search capabilities. Unstructured content refers to documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other files that don’t have a pre-defined or standard schema. Enterprise content, information and knowledge is increasingly located in unstructured content.

· The places it can reach the content in. While structured content primarily lives in databases, unstructured content can be found in file systems, web sites, file shares and other places. It’s important that the enterprise search solution you deploy can get to all the places where your enterprise content lives.

· Formats it can support. Format is something that is more relevant for unstructured data. Regardless where the content is located, it is important that the search engine is able to open and index it – independently of what program was used to create the file
User Experience
· The interface between the user and the search function should be simple, intuitive, and familiar, to encourage and enhance the experience.
· Search should be available from the interfaces of frequently used applications.
Efficient Access to Unstructured Data
· Although people generally have access to unstructured data, the process of finding it is often inefficient, with files in multiple locations (for example, multiple file shares containing duplicate copies and different versions of documents). Look for a solution that provides a clear, direct, and quick path to relevant information.
Access to Structured Data and LOB Systems
· Many organizations lock down much of their structured data, for fear of unauthorized users seeing more than they should — resulting in users being deprived of information that could be useful to them. Find a solution that helps secure and protect information where necessary, allowing appropriate access to structured data and LOB systems such as Siebel, SAP, CRM, and enterprise resource planning (ERP).
· Where users do have unobstructed access to structured data, differences in the search interface, syntax, and query methods can result in challenges both during the search for information and when interpreting results. Look for a solution that provides a common Search framework, regardless of the information source, and make sure that the interface allows casual users to have easy access to complex data sets.
Security, Management and Scalability
· Look for solutions that provide custom security trimming, as well as standard features to help protect corporate information from unauthorized access. Find out how granular the administrative controls are and check for customizable interfaces, scalability, and extensibility.

Conclusion

The hot debate over Enterprise Search and Web Search will go on. But one must understand the pros and cons of both the way.Enterprise search cannot as extensive as web search but positively it can incorporate many feature of web search and of course add some extra features like faecet search, filtering of search results based on the meta-data which matches with search query.

Simply put, the market place is not monolithic in its requirements. The diversity of demands on search technologies has been a disincentive for vendors to focus on the distinct niches and place more efforton the area like e-commerce.This seems to be shifting, especially with all the large software companies now seriously announcing products in the enterprise search markets.


References


[1]http://www.emc.com/about/destination/.
[2]http://www.endeca.com

My Girl

"Perhaps this one, sir?" asked the salesman pointing to the card — a massive affair of cuddly teddy bears and roses. I looked at it and smiled. It was the most beautiful card I had ever seen.

"I'll take it", I said. Somewhere in my mind a fatherly warning resonated: "Don't spend foolishly on a girl".

I had spent a small fortune but she was definitely worth it. And aren't college students like me allowed occasional indulgences?

I had a good hour and a half to personally gift-wrap her present and receive her at the station. She was coming all the way from my hometown because I had pleaded with her to be with me on this special day.

I had known her since I was a child. We shared every little thing and knew each other through and through. Yes, we had had a few squabbles and days when we wouldn't speak to each other but hey, what's a good relationship without a fight or two?

Though I was often charmed by other pretty faces I always came back to my one and only love. And she always welcomed me back with a smile that was equal parts unalloyed love and undisguised amusement at my fleeting infatuations.

The beeps from my alarm clock reminded me that it was time to go. On my way I bought a rose — a resplendent crimson one — and set off, walking on air.

When I reached the station I saw the train pulling in. I started walking towards her compartment straining my eyes for her first glimpse. And there she was!

The most beautiful being on earth. And she was mine! I rushed to her with a yell and the next second had enveloped her in a bear hug.

She kissed me lovingly on each cheek and then let out a delighted exclamation when I presented her with the rose and the gift bag.

My special gift took her breath away. It was a copy of Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul which she had been searching for since last month.

"This is the loveliest surprise ever", she said and gave me a warm hug. I picked up her luggage and walked out of the railway station with her, she whom I had loved every second of my life. My mother.

As Ash

As Ash
I have surrendered
To your fire,
And burnt ~
I come alive
as nothing more than ash
And scattered by some holy wind
I reach everyPart
Of You
...as winds blow across
the ashes of love
to lands far away
I rejoice in the thought
of how many will share
in this sacred dance
...as one alone
cannot behold
such a great love
it was meant for all the universe

Reserve Versus Deserve

Open a news paper and you would see the insistent remarks of politicians on increasing the quota seats for the OBC in premier institutes like IIT, IIM and AIIMS. According to third law of Newton: “Every action has equal and opposite reaction” .So when action is so protuberant then massive reaction is poise to result. The agitating encounter started with few AIIMS medical student and now it had captured the minds of entire medicos in fact the entire student fraternity.

In developing country like India where every day lot of us struggle for the limited resources which is at our disposal. Aftermath if these scarce resources are inundated with these reservation microbes then frustration is liable to show its wings of desperation.

Reservation which was introduced in constitution for 5 years, to bring the downtrodden lower and backward castes in main stream is still there even after more than 50 years of independence. Reservation principles which are so simple has been made conundrum by our teeming political personalities. Even a naïve has this idea that reservation is nothing but the tool for well off people to become more significant in the society.
No one is completely against this reservation. But the thing is that really needy people are not getting the benefits. If we want the weaker boughs of tree to flourish like other sibling boughs. Then we cannot do that by trimming the healthier boughs in order to make way for the weaker one. But the profound solution is providing the much needed water to it. So that weaker boughs can grow along with the healthier one. Analogous to this, weaker sections should be raised not on edifice made by slaughtering upper. But if we really want them to flourish then we have to start it by giving reservation at entry levels. Reservation should be done at primary school level. So that when this educated youth come in the coliseum of life. Then they can fight with the other gladiators with equal arms in their armory.

Reservation should be there according to the economical background of the candidate irrespective of which caste or class he/she belongs. Let the really deserving candidate throat is not quenched by this gallows of reservation. One of the repercussions of this undue reservation could the increase in the divisive attitude among the students. There could be two sects in our future campus. Minor upper castes and flourished lower and backward castes. When the time has arrived to completely dislodge this reservation then government is looking to make it more prominent. This assiduous policy is nothing less than divides and rule principle followed by British prior to independence.

But let these people who are responsible for this divisive measure know that we are youths who are gel by an adhesive which is made of comrades and love for each other.
Yeah Fevicol ka Majbut Jodd hai tu te ga nahi!

Profile of India's President: APJ Abdul Kalam

Born on 15th October 1931 at Rameswaram, in Tamil Nadu, Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, specialized in Aero Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology.
He initially worked in DRDO in 1958 and then joined ISRO in 1963. Dr. Kalam has made significant contribution to Indian satellite and launch vehicles of ISRO and also in the missile programme of DRDO. As project Director, SLV-III, he contributed for the design, development and management of India’s first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) to inject Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit. He was responsible for the evolution of ISRO’s launch vehicles programme and configurations. He rejoined DRDO in 1982 and conceived the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) for indigenous missiles.
He was Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research & Development from July 1992 to December 1999.
As Chairman, Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), he generated the Technology Vision 2020 documents – a road map for transforming India from Developing India to Developed India. He provided overall guidance to a number of Homegrown Technology Projects and major technology missions such as Sugar, Advanced Composites and Fly Ash utilization.
Dr. Kalam has served as the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, in the rank of Cabinet Minister, from November 1999 to November 2001. He was primarily responsible for evolving policies, strategies and missions for generation of innovations and support systems for multiple applications. Also, generating science and technology task in strategic, economic and social sectors in partnership with Government departments, institutions and industry. Dr. Kalam was also the Chairman, Ex-officio, of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C).
Dr. Kalam took up academic pursuit as Professor, Technology & Societal Transformation at Anna University, Chennai and involved in teaching and research tasks. Above all he is on his mission to ignite the young minds for national development by meeting high school students across the country.
Dr. Kalam was conferred with the Degree of Doctor of Science (D.Sc. Honoris Causa) by 30 universities/academic institutions. He is recipient of several awards including the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration 1997.
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has been awarded Padma Bhushan in 1981, Padma Vibhushan in 1990 and BHARAT RATNA in 1997.

Admission impossible

THIRD EYE Barkha Dutt
April 10, 2006
The romance of rebellion can blur ideology. I was 18 when I marched down the streets of Delhi against Mandal; wide-eyed at the war cries of young men who were all IAS aspirants, but seemed at the time to be icons of radicalism. So, every morning, we would huddle together in the protective shelter of an ageing tree at St. Stephen's College, listen to long and fiery speeches on the murder of merit, and then, armed with the ammunition of youth, take to the roads.
A few years later when real life brought me face to face with the complexity of caste, I was embarrassed that the milestone from those years would read 'anti-Mandalite'. Perhaps, I wondered, we had just been a bunch of kids desperate to have something to get angry about; a generation in search of a cause. Either way, looking back, it all felt hopelessly elitist and naïve. Not anymore.
Life has turned full circle, and I'm finally stepping out from the shadow of political correctness, to think, maybe we weren't so wrong back then; our reasons may have been uninformed and uneducated, our motives questionable, but we had batted on the right side, even if by accident.
Reservations have become a joke. We all know the statistics. More than 80 per cent of Dalit students never make it past Class X; more than 80 per cent of the reserved seats in vocational institutes remain unused; and in engineering colleges it's even worse — more than 90 per cent of seats in the reserved category just lie empty.
What does this say? Two things. First, what's the point of all these reservations if there aren't enough qualified people to make use of them? But second, and more importantly, who should take responsibility for this gap between promise and possibility? Surely, this is the failure of governance, the failure of the State?
This is my objection to the reservation policy as it has come to be. It has become an excuse for the inaction of our political establishment; a cloak for its failure to deliver development or create equity; the refuge of the lazy. No wonder then that there is complete agreement among political parties across the spectrum over the ever-expanding reservation pool; just competitive one-upmanship over who should get to swim in it. Every couple of years a new quota is created; a new group granted admission to the reserved category; but there are always others pushing the door down for entry. The more the quota regime multiplies, the more it is beginning to look like a hundred-headed hydra.
The problem is those who oppose the quotas are often pretty monstrous themselves. Usually urban, often rich, always upper-caste, their pedigree only seems to worsen their prejudice. Some of the comments I have heard in our television studios make me want to throw up. A professional socialite declared that it was best her kids studied outside India because the 'social environment' in educational institutes here would decline now that quotas had opened the gates for 'all kinds'. Another pointed me to a stunningly beautiful and articulate young woman in the studio audience and whispered "she doesn't look like an OBC". It's never said out aloud, or in so many words, but all the remarks suggest only thing: for India's elite, the 'backwards' are imagined as dark, ugly, dirty — a stain on their perfectly starched canvas.
There's also the innate dishonesty in their arguments. If we debate reservations in the private sector, they will say if you must block off seats, do it in schools and colleges, so you can create qualified people who can compete for jobs. If you talk about quotas in education, they will be just as indignant about the 'decline of quality'. They will declare that cash is more of a barrier than caste, but try suggesting quotas for poor students in public schools, and watch them run.
But their prejudice can't be the reason for a reservation policy that is increasingly unsustainable and directionless. It's a tough nut to crack but my own view is that quotas would probably be most effective at the school level, but here too there should be an economic benchmark. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Meira Kumar's kids, for example, should be able to compete like everybody else.
In the end, I still think it all boils down to an apathetic, under-performing State. If we had created an efficient and equal government school model, like the neighbourhood schools in the West, this entire debate may well have been irrelevant. Sure, the super-rich kids would have still gone to snotty private schools, but at least everyone else would have studied with some sense of parity and quality. Right now more than 60 students compete for a single IIT seat. Isn't it our right to demand more premier engineering institutes rather than this mad scramble for a handful of seats, made yet more acrimonious by the politics of reservation?
Maybe you agree, maybe you don't; no one in India ever has the same view on reservations. Perhaps that's the point. I got an ominous glimpse of what may lie ahead on We the People this Sunday while debating the new quotas for the IIMs and IITs. The battle-lines were drawn not just between the two obvious camps, but also between the Dalits and the OBCs in the audience. Outraged by Dalit writer Chandra Bhan Prasad's declaration that "Mandal had killed the spirit of reservation", a group of 15 young OBC students sprang to their feet, close to violence and stormed off the set. Left behind in the audience were mostly those who had opposed the quotas to begin with. It seemed to me that those who had walked out had displayed a siege mentality, a heightened sense of victim hood and bias, a feeling of not being heard even when everyone was listening to them on a readymade platform. But to listen to those who had stayed back was as terrifying. There was a gloating, we-told-you-so atmosphere in the studio; mostly everyone said the same thing; the boys who had walked out hadn't deserved to be part of the programme, and were apparently proof of why "such people" should be best kept at a distance. It was, I thought, an index of how deeply this issue has come to divide us as a people, in ways that are ugly, primal and unresolved. It was a scary preview of a fractious future.
Are we sure this is the India we want?
The writer is Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7

kagaz ki kashti

Bhale Chheen lo mujhse USA ka Visa...........
magar mujhko lauta do college ka canteen,
vo chaay ka paani vo teeKha samosaa..........
kadi dhoop mein apne ghar se nikalnaa,
vo project ki Khatir shahar bhar bhataknaa,
vo lecture mein doston ki proxy lagaanaa,
vo sir ko chidhanaa ,vo aeroplane udaanaa,
vo submission ki raton ko jagnaa jagaanaa,
vo orals ki kahani vo practical ka Kissaa.....
bimaari ka reason de ke time badhanaa,
vo doosron ke assignments ko apnaa banaanaa,
vo seminar ke din paironka chhatpatanaa,
vo workshop mein din raat pasinaa bahanaa,
vo exam ke din ka bechain maahaul,
par vo maa ka vishvas - Teachar ka Bharosaa.....
vo pedon ke neeche gappe ladanaa,
vo raaton mein drawing sheets banaanaa,
vo exams ke akhari din theatre mein jaanaa,
vo bhole se freshers ko hamesha sataanaa,
without any reason common off pe jaanaa,
test ke waqt table mein kitabon ko rakhnaa,
isi tarah teachers ko dena Jhansaa........
college ki sabse purani nishaanee,
vo chaiwala jiseke yahan tha ghanto bethna
vo uske hathon ki Adarak (ginger) ki chaay meethee,
vo chupkese journal mein bheji hui chitthi,
vo padh tehi chiththi uska bhadakna,
vo chehre ki laali vo aankhon ka Gussaa.....
college ki wo saari lambisi raatein,
vo doston se canteen mein pyaari si baatein,
vo gathering ke din ka ladnaa Jhagadnaa,
vo ladkiyon ka yuhin hamesha akadnaa,
bhulaaye nahin bhool sakta hai koi,
vo college, vo batein, vo shararatein vo javani...
kaash hum phir dohra sakte kahani......
vo kagaz ki kashti vo barish ka pani

Punishment in kindergarten: by Kamala Das

Today the world is a little more my own.
No need to remember the pain
A blue frocked women caused,throwing
Words at me like pots and pans ,to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace,
"why don't you join the others,
what a peculiar child you are?"

On the lawn ,in clusters ,sat my schoolmates sipping
Sugarcane,they turned and laughed;
Childrens are funny thing, they laugh
In mirth at other's tears ,I buried

My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain

The words are muffled now,the laughingfaces only a blur.
The years haveSped along ,stopping briefly
At beloved halts and movingSadly on.
My mind has foundAn adult peace .
No need to remember
That picnic day when i lay hidden
By the hedge,watching steel white sun
Standing lonely in the sky.

Mien Exotic and Eternal Journey to Parsvnath

Being Hindu by birth I never really believed in idol worship. Though I am not completely atheist any how, I like going to temple. I have never been a complete devotee but I like the serene and calm environment that lies in the ambience of temple. So in search of this serene and calm ambience I decided to join three Jain friends in their journey, rather I would call our journey to Parasnath (also called Parsvnath). On one of the Thursday evening we started our journey. We left our lodging about two hours to journey but Kolkata traffic dared to challenge by sticking us in jam. It was drizzling outside the taxi but there was only twenty minutes to reach the Howrah station. Our taxi got stuck in the jam’s deadlock so we decided unanimously to leave the taxi and run as fast as possible with our luggage. We didn’t want to miss the train as it would spill water on our plan. So with luggage on our backs and shoulders and heart in our mouth, we ran sweating profusely to reach the station before the train leaves. Drizzling falling on us resembled heaven showering flower for our effort. But God help those who help themselves. With firm determination we ran desperately and there was no one who could have defies us from reaching the station on right time. As we all set ours foot on pedestal of the train’s coach it left the platform.

So we reached Parasnath at about 4 o’clock in the morning. At about 5 o’clock I saw the first stroke of sun beam splashing on my face. The rays itself were so pious that I thought that by just putting my first step itself I got nirvana, for which our Holy Saint took so many years. I don’t remember when I have last seen the sunrise in Kolkata. It was pleasant morning and a cup of tea in the earthen pot (called kullad in local language) made it even more enjoyable and memorable. Then at thirty past Five we left for Sammet shikhar. Sammet shikhar is the place where Lord Mahavir along with many Jains Saint has been believed to get Moksha (Nirvana). We booked the room in the dharmsala which is managed by Digamber Jain society (There are two sects in Jain, one is Digamber ,who worship moksha form of Lord Mahavir and other is Swetamber,one who worship birth form of Lord Mahavir) . We had decided prior to journey to rest for a day and then start our journey in early morning next day.

As per our plan we started our journey at sharp thirty past three early in the morning. It was all together 27 kilometers of journey, broken into three equal parts of 9 kilometers each. First 9 kilometers was walk on acclivity of the mountain. Then second 9 kilometers was distance to be covered between many peaks which hold the signs (tuk) of place of moksha of various Jain saints. Then finally the last 9 kilometers, the toughest one because it is to be done barefooted down the slope of mountain in hottest part of the day and in completely enervated condition.

One of my friends said to me that if I had done this pilgrim about 100 years before, then foots of mine would have been washed up by people and that pious water would have been equivalent to elixir. There are rarely any people from other religions who dare to do this journey for no cause. But I did this for the welfare of mankind. I don’t believe in saying that religion is made to divide people in different sects but only sole purpose of religion which I feel is to unite people.

I was happy with the arrangements made by the Jain community there. Food was served at about no cost. There were lots of temples in the small premises of Sammet shikhar. But the only thing I think lacked there was sere motive to raise the economically backward adivasi, native to that place. Lot of money was donated in the name of making temples but none was spend in uplifting the poor and poverty stricken people of the society. Like other parts of India, here also we can clearly see the thick line of demarcation between rich and poor. This was not I expected from this place. At least at holy places people should forget the materialistic desire and try to serve the society in which lots of people are leaving, who are still not getting two times meal a day. Even Lord Mahavir renounced the world and served the people. So people should learn lesson and should continue to build the temple and shrine but should also spare some wealth for the downtrodden.

Sammet shikhar was like Isle in the sea of poverty and completely neglected people. As we stayed in our destitute room in Dharmsala, there was continuous peeping into from the undraped window and unlatched door. Peeping into our room were grief stricken children and women, whose face itself said the entire story. It was amazing to see where the entire donation was being utilized. No doubt it was used in building temples and monuments. This would remind the generation to come, about the sacred religion. And these half naked people would be still be there begging for the much needed jest to live.

So with this truth of life I completed my journey, which I still define as an exotic and eternal not because I came close to God, but due to profound truth which was revealed to me. By serving others only we can get Moksha not by performing any pilgrimage.

Serve the needy; it’s the Nirvana in this Kalyug.

Know Me

I am Vivek Anand, currently working as Assistant System Engineer Trainee(ASET) in Tata Consultancy Services(TCS),Kolkata,West Bengal, India(http://www.tcs.com).I am graduate in technology and have done my B.Tech from Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technolgy,Meerut(http://www.miet.ac.in).

Basically I belong to Uttar Pradesh. I was born there and continued living there till the age of 4.After that I shifted to Jamshedpur. I have done my schooling from Beldih Church School (http://www.beldihschool.com/ , http://www.jamshedpurlive.com). Thereafter I move to Meerut for pursuing my Bachelor degree in Computer Science.

My hobbies include reading books and Playing Cricket.I read mostly Nonfictional books.The thing i love the most is Autobiography/Biography of eminent personalities.Few of the books which i read in recent past are:

• 
  
  Mein Kempf-Adolf Hilter


• 
  
  Alchemist-Paulo Ceolho


• 
  
  Da Vinci Code-Dan Brown


• 
  
  Count Your Chicken Before they Hatch-Arindam Chaudhary


• 
  
  Who Moved My Cheese-Spencer Johnson


• 
  
  The Story Of My Experiment With Truth-Mahatama Gandhi


• 
  
  The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari-Robin Sharma


• 
  
  The Goal-Eliyahu GoldRats


• 
  
  Five Point Someone-Chetan Bhagat


• 
  
  Social Entrepreneur


• 
  
  Code Name God-Mani Bhoumick


• 
  
  Godfather-Mario Puzo


• 
  
  God of Small Thing-Arundhati Roy


• 
  
  FountainHead-Ayn Rand
  
  http://mietfriends.blogspot.com http://www.toufeeqonline.com