Tragedy of American Presidential Performance

Poor Obama gets attacked from every corner. Is it because he is black? or what is the reason for high pitched hatred America towards Obama. He cleaned up the economic mess, killed Osama Bin Laden and the top commanders of Al Qaeda, improved the health sector, motivated higher education managers and finally gave hope to the hopeless American society. If he loses this election then it is a punishment for performers and all the performing class people have to mourn the death of performance.

Paul Krugman writes in The New York Times on 18 October 2012

Mitt Romney talks a lot about jobs. But does he have a plan to create any? You can defend President Obama’s jobs record — recovery from a severe financial crisis is always difficult, and especially so when the opposition party does its best to block every policy initiative you propose. And things have definitely improved over the past year. Still, unemployment remains high after all these years, and a candidate with a real plan to make things better could make a strong case for his election.

But Mr. Romney, it turns out, doesn’t have a plan; he’s just faking it. In saying that, I don’t mean that I disagree with his economic philosophy; I do, but that’s a separate point. I mean, instead, that Mr. Romney’s campaign is telling lies: claiming that its numbers add up when they don’t, claiming that independent studies support its position when those studies do no such thing.

Before I get there, however, let me take a minute to talk about Mr. Romney’s claim that he knows how to fix the economy because he’s been a successful businessman. That would be a dubious claim even if he were honestly representing his business career, because the skills needed to run a business and those needed to manage economic policy are very different. In any case, however, his portrait of his own experience is so misleading that it takes your breath away.

For Mr. Romney, who started as a business consultant and then moved into the heady world of private equity, insists on portraying himself as a plucky small businessman.

I am not making this up. In Tuesday’s debate, he declared, “I came through small business. I understand how hard it is to start a small business.” In his speech at the Republican convention, he declared, “When I was 37, I helped start a small company.”

Ahem. It’s true that when Bain Capital started, it had only a handful of employees. But it had $37 million in funds, raised from sources that included wealthy Europeans investing through Panamanian shell companies and Central American oligarchs living in Miami while death squads associated with their families ravaged their home nations. Hey, doesn’t every plucky little start-up have access to that kind of financing?

But back to the Romney jobs plan. As many people have noted, the plan has five points but contains no specifics. Loosely speaking, however, it calls for a return to Bushonomics: tax cuts for the wealthy plus weaker environmental protection. And Mr. Romney says that the plan would create 12 million jobs over the next four years.

Where does that number come from? When pressed, the campaign cited three studies that it claimed supported its assertions. In fact, however, those studies did no such thing.

Just for the record, one study concluded that America might gain two million jobs if China stopped infringing on U.S. patents and other intellectual property; this would be nice, but Mr. Romney hasn’t proposed anything that would bring about that outcome. Another study suggested that growth in the energy sector might add three million jobs in the next few years — but these were predicted gains under current policy, that is, they would happen no matter who wins the election, not as a consequence of the Romney plan.

Finally, a third study examined the effects of the Romney tax plan and argued (implausibly, but that’s another issue) that it would lead to a large increase in the number of Americans who want to work. But how does that help cure a situation in which there are already millions more Americans seeking work than there are jobs available? It’s irrelevant to Mr. Romney’s claims.

So when the campaign says that these three studies support its claims about jobs, it is, to use the technical term, lying — just as it is when it says that six independent studies support its claims about taxes (they don’t).

What do Mr. Romney’s economic advisers actually believe? As best as I can tell, they’re placing their faith in the confidence fairy, in the belief that their candidate’s victory would inspire an employment boom without the need for any real change in policy. In fact, in his infamous Boca Raton “47 percent” remarks, Mr. Romney himself asserted that he would give a big boost to the economy simply by being elected, “without actually doing anything.” And what about the overwhelming evidence that our weak economy isn’t about confidence, it’s about the hangover from a terrible financial crisis? Never mind.

To summarize, then, the true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn’t dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we’re getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There’s no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people.

Wake Up Call for Madras Christian College

Craze for professional courses started in 1990s. The biggest victim for the professional courses craze was erstwhile superstar colleges. Madras Christian College which churned out charming and leading personalities of the subcontinent is the worst victim for professional courses. The hit which it got is not yet set right. Very late steps were taken to diversify and modernise the courses.But it did not pay up to the mass expectations.

When qualitative students stopped coming, faculty members too started degenerating. Compounding this crisis was AUT (Association of University Teachers)- Management tussle.

Another death blow for the illustrious MCC was the total interference of the board in day to day affairs of the college.

Religion which was the central guiding force for the great scholarship development and niche craving changed. What was the life force of MCC’s popularity – Scottish Christian Missionary got overturned. The same religion has been used for few people’s personal and group agenda.

No wonder about the sick situation today. Despite having a sincere and efficient principal, Dr.Alexander Jessudasan, the MCC might have hit the worst. I think this may be an error in the paper work of UGC -MCC correspondence. But it is a great wake up call to rejuvenate the masterpiece of India’s higher education.

D.Suresh Kumar writes in The New Indian Express, 27 September 2012

The Madras Christian College (MCC), one of the oldest higher educational institutions in the country, has lost its long-held autonomous status.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) has refused to extend the top ranking arts and science college’s autonomous status due to certain perceived deficiencies. “The UGC standing committee on autonomous colleges, which inspected the MCC following an application by the institution for extending its autonomous status for five years, had pointed out certain academic and financial deficiencies. Therefore, at our 487th meeting we decided not to recommend autonomous status extension for the institution,” a UGC official told Express on Wednesday.

It is learnt that the standing committee had pointed out that the college, which was among the earliest institutions in south India to get an autonomous status, had failed to apply for re-accreditation from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). The college had earlier obtained the ‘A+’ rating from the NAAC, but failed to renew it.

MCC principal R W Alexander Jesudasan said he was unaware of the UGC decision to deny extension of the autonomous status. “I had received a letter from the UGC seeking certain documents pertaining to the visit of the NAAC peer team and some financial papers. I have been working on it. There is nothing alarming for now. I have sent the documents and visited the UGC office in this regard,” Jesudasan said.

However, a senior MCC professor expressed concern over the development. “We have enjoyed a global reputation. If we don’t get the autonomous status extended, it will harm our standing,” the professor said.