Issue writing episode 1

With this I begin the part I've neglected most for GRE till now - the Analytical Writing section. Here's a look into what makes a 6-pointer essay (the maximum points you get in essays in GRE)

• The essay develops a position on the issue through the use of incisive reasons and persuasive examples.
• The essay's ideas are conveyed clearly and articulately.
• The essay maintains proper focus on the issue and is well organized.
• The essay demonstrates proficiency, fluency, and maturity in its use of sentence structure, vocabulary, and idiom.
• The essay demonstrates an excellent command of the elements of Standard Written English, including grammar, word usage, spelling, and punctuation—but may contain minor flaws in these areas.

I request you to please give me what you feel I should get out of 6 (with a least count of 0.25). Please see to it that your personal bias to the topic does not come underway in giving points, because the stand we take in GRE hardly has any impact on the score.

Here's the first topic I've taken up -

"No one can possibly achieve success in the world by conforming to conventional practices and conventional ways of thinking."

The statement does sound iconoclastic but I happen to concur with it fundamentally. If not impossible, it's indeed very difficult to achieve success in the world by conforming to conventional practices and conventional ways of thinking.

Undoubtedly, the conventional approach is imperative for the stability and growth of our system. Conventional ways are time-tested and give expected, guaranteed results. But, inspite of this all, conventional practices offer almost no scope of thinking out of the box, to discover, to invent and to venture into unknown territories. Infact, come to think of it, the methods and practices now being considered conventional, were at some point of time a revolutionary idea which brought success to the proposer. Only then, with prevalent usage did it become conventional.

Had no one dared to think beyond established practices, we still would've been in the early-man era. Newton would never have gone one step ahead and asked the question, 'Why did the apple fall down and not up?' We won't have known about Archimedes who broke conventional practices of finding purity of jewellery by his principles of buoyancy. We would still be resorting to age-old simple machines instead of the now available complex ones. Countless examples in the field of research corroborate the fact that a revolutionary approach begets success. The scientific world, infact, can hardly advance if they stuck to the conventional ways of thinking.

A look at the industrial world would tell us how much of a fierce competition exists for survival and successful growth among companies. Conventional practices ill certainly keep them running but only until one of them breaks the norm to do something ambitious and succeeds. Yes, the risk factor is high when one does so, but the dividends that could be reaped far outweigh the risks involved. All the successful names we know - Microsoft, Google, Unilever, Shell - each of them are at the pinnacle of their fields because they dared to think different, to break the conventional trends. There are a number of organizations in the market which follow the conventional ways, but then, do we even know which are they. The slogan of Apple Computers - "Think different" captures the essence of the idea beautifully.

The sphere of art has always thrived on breaking cherished and established trends. Every successful name you take - Picasso, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, MF Hussain - all of them command reverence only because they have a style of their own, one which distinguishes them from the conventional themes and practices of creating art work. Indeed, their talent was fundamentally raised on established principles and rules guiding art, but success betrothed them only once they chose to define a style of their own.

Even in the social scenario, the ones successful are those who defied prevalent practices and ways of thinking. Martin Luther King is an apt example who made it a point to express his views about the black-white divide openly and fought for the blacks' rights. In a time when seeing blacks as slaves had become a convention, even thinking that blacks could gain equal rights was unthinkable. But Martin Luther King did not only think about it, he made it a reality and recorded his name in the annals of history.

Examples can be sought from every facet of life, and the conclusion would always be the same. Conventional ways of thinking and conventional practices could hardly bring success to one's doorsteps. The quintessential human mind is always on the look out to explore new avenues and improve upon existing ones, and this very quality presses us to break the fetters of conventional wisdom for good.

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That's it. It comes to 607 words. The recommended length being 400-700 words. Though I took a hell lot of time to write this, much more than the time limit. But I've written something like this after a really long time, and hence I believe I should be able to write fast enough after a couple of more such essays.

PS1: Please do not forget to give suggestions to improve the essay. It could be the one I get in the exam
PS2: There are a list of around 240 issue topics given by the examinees. This is one of them.
PS3: This is #100 of the list - suggested by my brother
PS4: Have to wake early tomorrow .. 5 am :O
PS5: Don't forget the 0-6 rating (and be serious about that, chap!)

Is monopolistic nature of IP regime a boon or bane??

wow!! It sure has been a long long time since I updated my blog. Neither am I adding anything substantial here. My first night-out of 2009 is spent writing a paper on the topic aforementioned, firstly in MS word, and then making its hard copy. A 1000+ word paper to be written on a topic I've barely been introduced to was nothing short of torture on a winter night. Almost the pangs you get when you hurt yourself out in such a weather. Written in the haste I was, the paper did get wordy and you might find ideas repeated. Actually, I guess you are better off not going through it at all. Oh! and don't you complain about the conclusion. In fact, don't bother complaining about anything .. these are no better than what a new born child could tell you about a cow :D

Intellectual property law, by definition, grants the holder legal rights of exclusivity over intangible assets, viz. literary works, musical compositions, commercial symbols, scientific inventions and technological break-through. The IP regime is broadly classified into four stays – patents, trade marks, copyright and design. The IP regime gives complete exclusivity rights to the owner, that is, the owner has statutory backing for his work and can seek legal action in case he feels someone else took unlawful advantage of the work without giving due credit to him. This, in another way, gives the creator of the work a monopolistic right on the product.

No doubt that we are moving towards a world which is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, and hence IP laws would only gain considerable importance. But, how far could we justify its monopolistic nature is up for a debate.

At present, the laws seem too formalistic and certainly need to be revamped for better results. Every product/creation needs to have a specific treatment. The regime presently grants the owner complete rights over the creation for a time period irrespective of its implications. This actually is quite the right thing to do if we chose to ignore socio-economic conditions in most cases.

Let’s understand the situation with an example. Say an individual Mr. X succeeds in developing an effective medication for a deadly disease such as tuberculosis. Now, given the cost incurred by X (who in this particular case could also refer to pharmaceutical companies) in research and development of the cure should definitely be allowed a right over the medication. This would mean X should be able to gain substantial profits from the product, thereby justifying the investment he put in during the initial stages. Now, the IP regime gives X an exclusive right over the cure and it now completely depends upon X as to how he chooses to market the medicine and what price he charges. In other words, it provides X with monopolistic rights over the product. This very idea of X having the sole right over the economics of the medication fails fundamentally when X tries to maximize benefits out of it. In the process, the price tag of the medication would undoubtedly become very high, maybe even out of the reach of common man. To put it differently, in a more grim perspective, it would mean that the richer section of the society would unjustly get more right to life than their poorer counterparts. A situation would thus be created which would definitely be unwanted, but inevitable due to the set of laws in place.

Where was X wrong in this? Nowhere, I suppose, given the fact that the world thrives on just one mantra – ‘my profit’. In fact, if there wasn’t this incentive for X to discover a cure, he might as well not have gone on to do so. Apart from this, if X is a company, it would need to constantly endeavor to stay a step ahead than its competitors. This would lead to further monopolizing of the whole sector as only X would have the knowledge to prepare the medication which it wouldn’t share with others. IP laws would ensure that X could not be forced or coerced in any way to divulge what he has learned. In many cases X might resort to business malpractices such as reducing the supply of product (which is in good demand) it has right over and thus controlling the price structure in an unlawful manner. The monopolistic nature of IP regime proves to be a bane under such circumstances. The situation would be much more precarious if it so happens that a foreign company has the rights over the medication/product and it has to do business in India (for example). In such a case, the company would work with ‘maximum profit’ as the single most important agenda of business completely ignoring social responsibilities. Certainly, measures could be taken to subdue the effect – like government subsidy (in case of life-saving drugs and essential commodities) and by making sure such products are licensed by the government to ensure overpricing does not take place. But again, such steps are specific and would vary from product to product. Unless such a law is not in place which specifically deals with each and every product separately, the monopolistic nature of IP regime would continue to hurt in the ways mentioned.
The assumption that innovation is the sole prerogative of a lone conceiver and copyright norms are the preserve of authors and writers who have tie-ups with huge publishing houses disconcerts us in more ways than one. Another example could be found in the world characterized by computers – software and hardware. There was a time a decade back when a proprietary model existed in the industry with just one or two giant corporations doing all the coding and placing products in the market at monopoly prices. With the advent of Web 2.0, open-source movement swept the world in a manner which wasn’t ever imagined. A network of programmers brought to us highly innovative and free software products giving competition to the giant software companies. In fact, in many cases, the open-source freeware these programmers make are literally far better than those offered by organizations where people work in lieu of huge monetary incentives. User-generated content are posted at breath-taking speeds in social networking websites like Orkut and uploading websites like YouTube and FlixSter. Torrent websites and other file-sharing forums like RapidShare have allowed for mass-scale sharing of knowledge as well as other contents like works of art. Blogs have completely changed the definition of sharing literary content. These are things which continue to contribute in growth of the society as a whole in ways which can’t be achieved by the monopolistic disposition of IP regime. Just imagine what would happen if suddenly all that information which is available at our fingertips when we connect to the internet vanishes because everyone wants to keep his or her work monopolized.

The monopolistic nature of IP regime certainly is a boon to individuals who need their rights to their work protected. It also promotes innovation because of the incentives attached with success. But, it needs to be reconsidered so that it could be more relevant to the changing scenario.


P.S. I used a couple of websites as my source of information, the links to which I conveniently forgot. I apologize ( **yawn** ) for that

another chance

It is eating into me.
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let me give it another chance (or the first chance??)

kharcha, paani

Khorcha Koro

God chose Netaji's birthday to jolt pagla ladka with these words. God chose a fine spring day to introduce free India's way of working. It should have been no surprise, it should have been no shock. But it was. It struck him.

Twenty pious years, pagla ladka(referred as PL/pagla from now) was kept away from the cruel world by his parents. But for how long?? He had to confront it one day. And this was the opportune moment, when he least expected.

CORRUPTION - huh!!! PL remembers a survey he read somewhere at a time when he was pure. India was placed on a lowly 88th spot out of around 150 nations on the corruption index (1st is the least corrupted). The survey termed it as a 'severe situation'. But where was this devil?? PL did not get a chance to see it. But for how long??

'Source' - this was something PL heard often. There were instances when he saw that one having proper 'source' could actually make things do. Unfortunately(??), this was something PL could never take advantage of. But that was the worst of all viciousness he had seen until the 22nd of January.

PL was now in an institute of repute. A place where his mom n dad would've thought their pagla son would be shielded from the iniquitous world. Sad....they were wrong.

December'07, PL sets off for his first 'sarkaari' mission. To get his passport done. ehh!! not that he needed a passport...it was a just-like-that thing. Maybe to get a feel of doing things for the first time for himself, without the help of his parents.

With the Kolkata tour, begun proceedings. With almost no queue in the passport office and things done with in just around an hour, PL was pleased with himself and the 'system'. Though, the return journey to his home was painful (that is another story).

It is the second step which holds the crux of discussion - police verification. Even after as many as 3 rounds to the police station, the concerned officer was always missing. This guy comes all the way from midnapore(not very sure) on particular days which interestingly turn out to be sundays and national holidays. That too, he is quite irregular. Anyways, finally, on the 23rd day of January, the two - PL and the officer meet. Infact there was a third, the officer's assistant.

The passport officer turned out to be the cartoon of the century. With extremely poor, or no english & hindi speaking skills, he was turning out to be irritating. Adding salt to wounds was his habit of giving unvalued opinion on almost everything. Anyways, somehow, he managed to extricate both PL's and dipa's forms out of the pile he had.

Now was the turn of the assistant, who created a furore over a certain new rule introduced. This rule was supposed to make second year students(PL fell in this category) almost ineligible to get a passport. Though, after much coaxing, he accepted that the rule is often not considered in cases like PL's. Hence he would get the passport unless some other trouble crops up.

This cheered up PL(and his friend dipa who incidentally was also with him). Pagla filled up the form in haste - his name, father's name, village where he was born, the post office and what not. Anyways, after much deliberation with the passport officer over what should be filled in the 'village' column, the form-filling ceremony was over. The officer, thankfully, did not take time for signing their forms.

It is the next thing which is the reason for writing such a long prelude. The passport officer handed over the form to the assistant who took PL and dipa in a corner(for something dirtier than you might think). He straight-away, with no hesitation whatsoever uttered -

khorcha koro

For the convenience of non-bengali speaking junta(though you might have guessed already), 'shell out money'. PL had seen the assistant taking people earlier to this corner, he never guessed it could've been about money (or probably he had thought about it sub-consciously). The money was obviously to assure that your form goes through the police verification part with no hassles. They call it 'bribe'. Yeah, it exists - PL couldn't immediately break out of the realms of his fantasy-India.

200 for each. Whoa!!! PL brought himself in terms with reality and immediately bargained to 300 for the two. The devil immediately agreed. And in no time did the two fools pay and leave satisfied that their passports would reach them soon.

Huh!!! and now pagla ladka regrets. frets. rues. repents. The image he had of the 'system' was no doubt shattered. But why did he bend?? Why couldn't he do something about it?? Why didn't he do something about it?? And, why does nobody do anything about it?? questions, questions and questions....ohh!! pagla's head is in an excruciating pain. he is cursing himself. something needs to be done. but what?? do you do something against it?? do you have the answer??

India is prospering...hmmm

pagla regrets. frets. rues. repents.