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Sunday, February 05, 2012

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Recession-free industry!

From halwai to broker and from politician to banker, everyone is investing in up-market schools, coaching institutions and hi-tech universities. Not for any innate desire to educate the masses but more because it offers a business opportunity in the only recession-free industry of its kind. From what was considered a pious philanthropic initiative, education has been reduced to an unethical profitable business. Watch out, foreign direct investment in education is round the corner!

Attractive infrastructure, overseas affiliations and assured placements are robbing the parents of their hard-earned money and the wards of their creative instincts. Lifelong savings are being invested on ‘degrees’ that can ensure quick-return-on-investment. Far from places for attaining knowledge and enlightenment, educational institutions have turned into assembly-lines for producing human clones. Can business of education really 'educate' society?

Choice or 'sperm racism'?

By seeking sperm for artificial insemination 'preferably from an IIT student', a Chennai couple has not only put Darwin's 'evolutionary ideas' to test but has demonstrated the impact of free-market economy on 'procreation' as well. The couple has apparently weighed the inbuilt architecture of sperm over other aspects of human evolution. Culture as a form of evolution, for instance, has been compromised for 'the choice of sperm'.

Charles Darwin was against ranking any species or sub-species superior to others, opposing his fellow biologist Ernst Haeckel's flatly incorrect racist ideas of human development. To the father of evolution, any such ranking smelled of 'slavery'. Humans have triumphed over centuries for not being born to a specific sperm but for the rich interactions it has had with other species, Darwin had argued. Sperm racism is clearly uncalled for!