14-20 December 2012
Vol. 2 No. 17 Pages 24 ` 7
RNI No. HARENG/2011/39319, Postal Regn. No. GRG/35/2012-2014
Slipping Through The Net
{Inside} The IIM Next Door
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IM Rohtak has a global vision, and a wish to be the moghul for the supply of management graduates to the NCR establishments. A meeting with the Director, Prof Rameshan.
Marriage Mhaari Style
...Pg 9
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et a peek at the way the locals do it – wed, we mean. Something similar, something new. ...Pg 14
Join The Club
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t’s easy to be social in the City. Groups and Clubs abound – in fact a new one springs up every month. And the membership is truly diverse.
Where are the future jobs?
...Pg 19
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e have the Master Plan 2031 but we do not seem to have the wherewithal. IT has been globally hit, BPO finds the City too costly, Auto wants to move out, no one new is coming. Manesar, the Industrial Model Township, is more a real estate play now. Meanwhile, HSIIDC and the State are fiddling. ...Pg 21
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I
t’s the awkward age. Or maybe no longer. Does a teenage love affair still mean clumsiness and embarrassment? Or has the feeling of love been replaced by just feeling each other? Are we seeing normal evolution, or the start of a sexual revolution in India? There surely is an over-load of information, in all forms, out there; but it seems to be providing precious little knowledge. And a little knowledge has always been more dangerous. This seems to apply well to sex today – especially underage sex. The change today is that boys seem to be increasingly defining themselves as men the moment they become teenagers – as long as there is no responsibility. Yes, premature is the new mature – though hopefully the learning curve will lessen over time. Women, more sober and intelligent, are changing too. However, with the law still defining a man (an adult) as 18 years and above, we are set for a showdown. One fallout is this surreptitious issue of underage sex. This new millennium issue seems quite evident in Millennium City. It cannot any longer be swept under the carpet. Has the Gurgaon new millennium life and lifestyle contributed to an increase in this phenomenon? A life of exclusive world schools for the worldly children of jet setting parents; of even more exclusive (read, isolated) condos; of supposedly cosmopolitan, liberal parents being too busy, of grand-parents being only visitors, of leisure time of the children being spent alone (yes, Net/Mobile time is not face time – it will take some time for that to sink in). It is also dangerous for us and our children to believe that we can live isolated and content in our islands, in our own world. It will slowly build up to a frustration with the society and life ‘outside’. Is this also the kind of life coming up next for future-cities’ folk across India? There are also the consequences, and side impacts. Would relationships later in life mean the same, if physical intimacy and sex take centre stage early in life? Are we happy for the institution of marriage to start crumbling, as in the West? Guess it happens when you no longer talk warmly of your parents, and their love, and of family time together. The side impacts are issues like drug abuse.
For A Rainy Day T
hat our millennium goals could be upstaged by the lack of a most basic element called water is indeed disturbing. Water supply and water storage is less than adequate even today; and the water table is already at an alarmingly low level. With a new Gurgaon, Gurgaon II, taking shape, it can only get worse. Already the High Court has stopped usage of ground water for the construction of Gurgaon II. The Administration and civil society have therefore been frenziedly talking of multiple solutions. Water Harvesting, a worthwhile project, has unfortunately become more of a fad – not unlike the ‘let’s plant a tree’. Water harvesting pits have sprung up in the hundreds – and plans for a few hundred more are in the pipeline. Everyone rests happy that they have ‘done their bit’. What should it be for, where should it come up, what shape should it take, and how should it
An imponderable is whether we will see an Indian version of ‘growing up’, or would we continue aping the West. Are we really anything like the those Westerners? For example, are we really independent? The babalog, and we too, need maids and drivers, and everything laid out for us – we are spoilt brats. We are liberal when it comes to our sons – we claim to be friends, enjoying everything together; and conservative when it comes to our daughters. There is a link to sex education here. Education means knowledge, not just scattered information – not twits, but facts. There is a big role for elder siblings or relatives – more even than for the parents/elders. They need to help add face time value to the teenager, helping sort out the information explosion coming from the MMSs, SMSs, tweets and facebooks – and the Net. They can be a good safety net – like sex education. The parents, the family, the safety net of yore is disintegrating. The Net is not quite safe. In fact the Net seems to promote a surfing tendency – just moving from site to site, switching frequently. Hopefully the new generations do not develop this surfing trait in their human relationships. Should we be worried? We probably cannot stop this phenomenon of underage sex, but it needs to be taken seriously. Unfortunately it is not even discussed seriously enough. If an adult is involved with a minor, it is actually a criminal offence.
{ Shilpy Arora / FG }
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mall children disturb your sleep, big ones your life. Namita (name changed), a parent of a 15-year-old girl, can very well relate to the proverb. According to Namita, her daughter became sexually active at the age of 10. “She lost her virginity when she was just 12. I came to know about it when I chanced upon a text message on her mobile. It was from a boy, and said "Last night was great." I also found some of her objectionable pictures with a boy. When I spoke to her on this issue, there was shockingly, no regret,” she says. Namita is not alone. A resident in a condominium, Contd on p 6
be maintained, are questions that have not been well thought through. There is therefore precious little harvest of water/ rain water happening in Gurgaon. Most of the money spent to date has been ill-spent. In fact in many cases it has led to a worse situation. And now HUDA has started talking big numbers, for the setting up of Water Harvesting pits. The idea seems to be to show a lot of activity – actually just talk, most of the time – for the benefit of the Court.
{ Maninder Dabas / FG }
W
hen Koudan, the farmer protagonist in the famous Gandhian and environmentalist Anupam Mishra's book 'Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talab' went to his king with a piece of stone having a Midas touch, the king advised him to make as many Talabs (ponds) as possible, by using the gold made from that stone. And soon that area in Rajasthan, with all the ponds created by Koudan, became an oasis for humanity. Habitations have forever depended on water sources and water bodies. Neither is the distance nor the topography of Contd on p 7