Choose your companions wisely....

Paul Erdos remains one of the most revered mathematicians in history. His name sits right alongside Newton in the golden halls of academia. Erdos was eccentric, foregoing wealth and riches, living out of one suitcase. He often worked 18 hour days, focusing on new theorems and pushing the boundaries of research.

He often arrived at various universities, knocking on the doors of local math professors' homes in the wee hours. Erdos knocking on your door was not an event any reasonable mathematician snoozed through.

Years later, an interesting phenomenon emerged from the large social network that Erdos built. It is called “The Paul Erdos Number”. Through math communities, it was a game of how many degrees of separation you were from Erdos. What is most interesting: you can trace math competency to how many degrees removed someone is from Erdos. If you are one degree, with him being your teacher, you are assuredly brilliant. If you are two degrees, with your math teacher studying under him, you are still likely very smart. You can see how competency radiates outward like an earthquake.

The lesson is very simple: surround yourself with fantastically competent people in that one skill you are strong in. The saying that you are the average of the five people you spend time with has significance.

Ciao!

Treat Teachers also as Frontline Workers

As the second wave of a pandemic continues to haunts the country, the teaching community has also been hit hard. Universities like Delhi University, Mumbai University, Presidency University and many schools and colleges have seen the tragic inter-generational loss of promising young teachers and veteran academics. Schools all across the country are grappling with teachers death. For government school teachers, who are deployed on Covid-19 and in panchayat election duties are more prone to this dangerous virus. In Uttar Pradesh, 700 teachers are estimated to have died of Covid-19 after allegedly contracting it while on duty in recent panchayat elections. For their students, colleagues and families the grief is collective and hard to measure. The loss of vital academicians is grim implications for any possibilities of the education system returning to Normal.

                                  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5LcagWEmYc)

It has now become vital to include teachers also as frontline workers. One of the many misses in India's vaccination program is not having allowed teachers and school staffs, regardless of their age, to jump the vaccine queue. Many international institutions have called to include teachers also as frontline workers and many countries like Sweden, Canada and France are aligning to this philosophy. The economic shock of the first wave has been a heavy one smaller schools mostly in the semi-urban and rural area, which was already facing a downfall in student enrollment, resulting in many teachers losing jobs and income. As India has learnt the hard way, the pandemic is not likely to fade away soon. The second wave has caused an unprecedented loss of lives and livelihood to many innocent people. As the future waves (3rd and maybe 4th) are inevitable the education system has embraced the difficult disruption from classroom to screen, with no support to teachers who have managed this transition on their own by putting in more working hours. But, as several surveys have shown, the online classroom is an imperfect and iniquitous solution. 

While the society as a whole must learn to acknowledge and recognize its contribution, both state and central government must do more to secure their well being. That would be a wise investment in a shared future.         

Reality Check

Last year in March our government decided to impose a complete lockdown in the country on a short notice of 4 hours. Just 4 hours! It takes more than 4 hours to travel from Kandivali to Thane by road on a usual weekend evening. This show the lack of planning from the government side. But if we look at the brighter side, it shows that the government was aware of the danger of the pandemic and it was taking it seriously. They were trying their level best to break the chain of Covid-19 in India in its initial stage only. 

But a lot has changed since March 2020. Around 2.6 crore people have had Covid-19 and more than 3 lakhs people have lost their lives, and these are the official government data, so consider its authenticity with a pinch of salt. 

Covid-19 global data (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

Now we see government at complete back foot. What happened? Why our government which was emphasizing the severity of Covid-19 until last year suddenly decided to turn a blind eye to the second wave? Why the decision to open everything in-between, when the scientists were advising them against it? Why religious congregations were allowed even when the CM of that state was advising the HM against it? Why didn't the government tried to negotiate the terms with farmers and persuaded them to call off the strike Was it all because of ELECTIONS? Is that the only reason, or is there something related to the image building of one man? 

I read different columnist and I somewhat agree with what global media is saying about the handling of the Covid-19 situation in India. But I am still not able to come to terms with the oblivious answers and yes, I am still trying to find a silver lining in this black swan event. But these questions keep haunting me.

If you are also facing the same dilemma then comment below.