TED Community » Deepak Shukla

More About Me

I'm passionate about

TED, Cloud Computing,Improving Education in India, Traveling and Writing Poetry !

Talk to me about

Travelling, Incredible Human Achievements, Love, Helping Others, Philosophy, History & Culture, Education !

Comments

• TEDCred score: +650.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +1

  A comment on Conversation: For non-US TEDizens: Can you tell us about your country's education system?

  2 days ago: To elaborate more on the issues in Indian Education System, highlighted by Krishna in response to this conversation, following are my personal thoughts for this very important question:
  
  I would not blame the students or their parents completely for having the salary-oriented-degree-education perspective that they have. I think, India, as a developing country for the last 50 years so, is still in a transitory phase where money plays a very crucial role. Especially, when you have the worlds second largest population to cater to for the three basic necessities of humans - Food, Clothing and Shelter.
  
  If in this 21st century of Information Age, where on one end, you classify your country as a superpower in IT and Software Technologies and on the other, you struggle to pass an all important bill like "RIGHT TO FOOD" or "RIGHT TO EDUCATION", its difficult to understand the direction we're moving as a country.
  
  The majority of students in professional courses like Engineering, Meddicine, Law etc in India belong to the larger Middle Class of the economy. Their families have to shell out lacs of rupees to get their children enrolled in these prestigious courses, even if they have a high merit ranking. This is due to large number of private universities, government reservation systems based on caste, region etc. This, in way, makes our entire education system unfair for a huge part of our population. Not to forget, the reservations in government jobs, parliament etc,
  
  So, a students enrollment in a course ends up becoming more of a banking investment for the parents rather than a basic noble right of the child to get educated in thier fields of interst. To put in very simple words, "SUCCESS in EDUCATION, IN INDIA, HAS BECOME MORE OF A COMPULSION THAN BEING A DESIRE".
  
  So, when we have families ready to treat their children as investment commodities, you'll always have business people trying to make a university on the lines of an assembly line for manufacturing degrees.

• A reply on Conversation: For non-US TEDizens: Can you tell us about your country's education system?

  2 days ago: Hi Krishna, you've highlighted on of the most common problems in India w.r.t to Education as an industry and the outlook that students and their prarents tend to have in general towards education.

• A reply on Conversation: Do right and wrong exist?

  Feb 21 2013: My reasons were independent of any belief in God. What I had said was; "even without God, there is something called your own "consciousness" that will always be an "observer" for whatever you do.."
  
  To point out again: , "there are many things that are inherently wrong with what they represent"

• A comment on Conversation: Do right and wrong exist?

  Feb 20 2013: I would disagree with your statement "there is no such thing as right or wrong, only the things we call right or wrong..".
  
  When you've expressed your own perspective on rape by saying " I believe very strongly that sexual abuse is one of the greatest evils in the world. ", you have already answered your question. Then you ask "Why is it evil ? ". I'd love to hear about your reasons in believing so if you really think that "nothing is right or wrong objectively". Its because there is a reason for you to believe in such a way. No good reason can then justify a rape or any kind of sexual abuse, even though it may be the right thing for the ones who commit such acts.
  
  I don't believe in God completely as I'm an agnostic. But what I believe is, even without God, there is something called your own "consciousness" that will always be an "observer" for whatever you do. So, as far as I think, its humanly impossible to be completely objective while making a judgement on what is right or wrong. Your heart and mind will always give you reasons to believe in whatever you may want to. However, there would always be things that are fundamentally wrong even without any reference to God.
  
  So to answer your objective question, to me, even without God, there are many things that are inherently wrong with what they represent rather than their after effects.

• A comment on Conversation: How would you advise a person who would like to explore the world, yet has no money at all?

  Feb 12 2013: If you have friends at different places, you might be able to travel to those destinations first and explore them with their help. Your friends could help you with accommodation and food at least briefly during your stay.
  
  You might also in turn get acquainted with other people through your friends and then travel further in the same way. In your own country, you can take up local jobs in different provinces an stay there for a while. This would give you some cash and allow you to explore those places.
  
  In addition to all of this, couch surfing sounds helpful and I would love to experiment with such a thing !

• A comment on Conversation: Is there anything that a human being can never possibly do?

  Feb 12 2013: We have achieved a lot but world peace is yet a distant dream. We try to prove our government systems secular and democratic but they are from being truly secular or democratic. Ideally, in a peaceful world, weapons need not exist in the first place; but it seems that shall never happen.
  
  Gender Inequality is another issue prevalent at least in the developing societies. God knows when people will start treating each other equally.
  
  So there are a lot of basic issues and goals that we as humans with our present attitudes might never be able to achieve..
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Can Money Buy Happiness?

  Feb 10 2013: Money, on itself can never give happiness or joy unless you have a complimenting attitude when it comes to using your money for buying happiness. As it would explain, an unhappy soul cannot be satisfied with fancy dinners, expensive holidays, luxury clothing etc.However, such things might make you feel better for a while. When saying this, I agree with Leo Taylor when he explains the transitory and permanent states of happiness.
  
  Money with all its powers and magic, is only capable of buying a suitable environment, those perfect conditions and setup for your heart and mind to start feeling happiness. I have personally seen and known people, who have been happy in their lives in the longer run even if many phases of their lives has been a struggle for survival.
  
  Also, the happiness that comes without any influence of money is far more divine than what money can buy.

• A comment on Conversation: Data can explain everything. Or can it?

  Feb 10 2013: "Everything" is an overrated word when it comes to the capabilities of data and the knowledge that lies hidden in it.
  
  However, it is fascinating of what all data can reveal if analyzed and observed carefully with the right perspective. Much of the businesses and research are data driven and the technological progress that our generation has witnessed is self explanatory.
  
  From my perspective, our methods need to be perfect to get everything out of our data and the same applies to the quality of data under examination. As many would agree, in statistical methods that we apply, some margin for error is already taken into account.
  
  So for me, I would not expect my data to tell me everything that it knows unless and until I apply my perfect statistical methods on it. Unless everything's perfect around it, Data does not explain everything !!
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What's a degree worth?

  Feb 8 2013: Traditionally, college degrees have cultivated skills that become obsolete in a short span of time, as per the industry standards in todays dynamic and innovative workspace.
  
  I would like to stress on the wide gap between the academic and industrial operating models. The existence of this question in the society itself is evident of the fact that academia and industry are looking in different direction as of now.
  
  There is an increasing need to make any kind of education more practical and application oriented; Only then a person with a good university degree would be an obvious choice for an employer seeking a combination of education and real life skills.
  
  As for this question specifically, the choice is at the discretion of the organization of whether to prioritize experience over college degrees or vice versa because at the end of the day what matters is "productivity" of the employee.
  
  However, a college degree will always allow you to learn far more importat values than some specific industry skill sets. So, I would personally recruit someone who has a good college degree and demonstrates the ability to learn and apply thier knowledge over someone with no college degree and specific skill sets.
  
  Not to forget, there are always some cases where you come across individuals who for some reason could not go to college but can become assets for the organization. So its always an arbitrary decision on the part of the employer.