Gresham’s Law is a monetary principle which states that “bad money drives out good money.” In good old days i.e in 15^th, 16^th and 17^th century coins were made out of precious metal with gold, silver and other precious metals. This gave them their value. As time passed, over the years, the value of those precious metal coins increased than its face value; hence people would hoard coins and melt them and sell those coins.

Sir Thomas Gresham who was financial agent of Queen Elizabeth-1 recognized this fact; though he was not the first one to identify this monetary principle. If coins containing metal of different value have the same value as legal tender, the coins composed of the cheaper metal will be used for payment, while those made of more expensive metal will be hoarded or exported and will disappear from circulation. Sir Thomas Gresham’s illumination of 1558 was later coined by economist H.D. Macleod in 19^th century as “Gresham’s Law’.

Gresham’s law is extended to business decisions also as an analogue: in an organization when daily routine is programmed with highly amorphous and vague tasks, it only consumes time and energy of people which otherwise they could use for constructive and innovative work. The unconstructive work drives out constructive work.

The analogue is even extended to planning in organizations. When managers are forced to take string of decisions – those which are routine and monotonous in nature, the managers are hardly left with time and energy to make some considerable and meaningful decisions. This happens presumably because in as attempt of clearing their desk, managers tend to get exhausted with routine work and hardly get time to get down to serious work and unfortunately, their desks often never get cleared. In other words, you never get done the things you most want to get done, because life is a never-ending stream of disturbances.

It is so easy to get stuck in routine work; this fact makes most managers forget that there is world of possibilities out there. Organizations must therefore give time to their employees for new experiences and creativity. Only creativity can fuel business. Managers must therefore set their clear boundaries.

Carl Sagan – the man behind the popular television series “Cosmos” says “Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandons ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But a kind of Gresham’s Law prevails in popular culture by which bad science drives out good.”

So Gresham’s law sums like this: if bad and evil is not kept under check, it will drive out good.

]]> https://drvidyahattangadi.com/greshams-law/feed/ 0 https://drvidyahattangadi.com/reservation-in-india/ https://drvidyahattangadi.com/reservation-in-india/#respond Mon, 19 Jan 2015 01:30:34 +0000 http://drvidyahattangadi.com/?p=2080 Reservation In India

I think merit is a hazy concept. What we call merit need not be its worth. Our analysis of merit is biased. Our education system needs a cleansing process at the earliest. We Indians are making the bias of merit deeper by caste based reservation system. It’s becoming more and more serious. As a nation we are still ‘developing’ so what if we got independent in 1947? We are yet emerging as developing nation. Our inertia for progress is known in world.

It’s high time we take some proactive steps to curb the demon of reservation. Actually the system is nothing but a mockery. We live in a free country and this freedom is a gift of democracy to us. Our constitution gives us the right to freedom and most importantly to exercise this freedom in an equitable manner. The state is responsible to ensure that parity prevails in all sections of the society. Most reserved candidates hail from good economic backgrounds and yet they are provided with additional scholarships and the like. They enjoy all privileges at minimum qualifications. Why can’t we use the reservation parameter based on merit and economic criteria rather on the basis of caste? It’s such a joke to still give importance to caste and creeds that too in this age where people hardly about it any longer.

The point of reservation was discussed in the round table conference and provisions were made in Communal Award of 1935; it is worth a recall that Mahatma Gandhi had opposed the reservation. Dr. Ambedkar was appointed as member of Viceroy’s Executive Council and he submitted a memorandum titled ‘on the grievances of the schedule castes’. The schedule castes were allowed 8.5% reservation in central services and other facilities for the first time in the history of India in 1942. Let’s not forget the reservation system was to be followed for limited time, but our politicians have used the tool for their own benefit, for divide and rule and for creating ‘vote banks’.

What we need to examine is does India really need reservation today? What the reservation system hopes to achieve? What about equality of opportunity and sovereignty? Number of disadvantaged people who have access to education and jobs; how many people benefit from reservation every year? Are those beneficiaries genuine?  Has reservation changed anything in terms of caste distribution of the poor? Has reservation system improved quality & educational performance? What is the future of reservation? The Government has to own responsibility of taking some firm steps in this regards. Government cannot play ‘Robin hood’ at the cost of the national wellbeing.

Abolition of reservation will help diminish the frustration and discouragement level among the deserving candidates. Reservation system has corroded the merit of the society. Undeserving teachers, undeserving researchers, undeserving engineers and doctors have spoilt the social fabric already. Because of the reservation the middle class is the worst sufferer. They can’t beg and they have no doors to turn to; any chances of reservation for them?

The past century has been exemplified by a massive worldwide educational expansion. Lot of innovation has taken place in most parts of the world. Each nation is struggling with increasingly complex economic challenges and these challenges can obviously be faced with logical and scientific educated workforce. Moreover, in a globalized world culture, developed nations are calling shots and developing and under developed nations have to rely on buying outdated patents from the developed nations. It’s shame on us that we are piggybacking on reverse engineering and outdated patents from the West. Educational expansion is the need of hour. While we need explicit affirmative action in the education, we first need to suspend thorny issue of reservation from the system. We have been diluting the essence of education since long.

Rote learning has plagued our system so much that students study only to score marks in exams. Marks are everything. Students can go to any length for the sake of marks. Poor quality teachers please students by giving undeserving marks.  Reservation has played havoc; we have the most undeserving academicians and administrative heads in the most significant posts in the universities, colleges and schools. This is how the entire educational system has gone to the dogs. The colonial masters introduced education systems in India to create clerks and civil servants, and we have not swerved much from that pattern till today. If once the youngsters prepared en masse for civil services and bank officers exams, they now prepare to become engineers. If there are a few centers of educational excellence, for each of those there are thousands of mediocre and terrible schools, colleges and universities that do not meet even minimum standards. The entire system is being dragged by terrible inertia and corruption.

Let us at least be aware that our education system is terribly flawed; we do not care for the originality of a student.  Memorizing only gets marks. Thinking is discouraged, risk taking is mocked. Look at those pathetic PhD theses in most state run Universities – students have earned PhDs by cut, copy and paste from Internet and many have earned PhD by changing only titles, rest is somebody else’s work.

Our testing and marking systems need to be built to recognize original contributions, in form of creativity, problem solving, valuable and original research and innovation. If we can do this successfully Indian education system will have a positive change overnight. Thousands of terrible teachers all over India are wasting valuable time of young children every day all over India. Their thinking and questioning is killed at the primary level of schooling itself. They are killing the very learning spirit of the students. Appalling teachers are producing appalling output from schools, colleges and universities. These youngsters are not fit for the jobs. The industry is demanding creative and innovative youngsters but, we are unable to provide them. Therefore, our labor pool is also of poor standards. We have created a vicious cycle and we need to break it as soon as possible.

In my opinion, we need to redefine our education system by deregulating the rules and regulations. We have the biggest number of engineering graduates in the world, but that certainly has not resulted into much technological innovation, why is it so? Rather than producing some world-class products, we are busy running the call centers of the rest of the world in which we are using our engineering students. What a pity? How many entrepreneurs as a nation have we produced? The goal of our new education system should be to create entrepreneurs, innovators, artists, scientists, thinkers and writers who can establish the foundation of knowledge based economy rather than the low-quality service provider nation that we are turning into. We will soon be labeled as ‘call center nation’.

We are seeing big number of politicians and corrupt autocrats entering the education sector to hide their black monies. These people are earning hefty profits from education; yes, education is a big business in our nation. These shoddy educationists are amassing hefty profits through clever structuring of fees and donations and thus sidestepping the rules. The loopholes in the system are such that people are making money left, right and center. There is an urgent need for effective de-regulation of Indian education sector so that there is combination of sufficient capital and those who provide or create extraordinary educational products or services are effectively rewarded.

Coming back to the reservation point – we need to use the rationing system; though this is not a permanent solution. If we want to emerge as a country built on a knowledge economy, and drive it by highly educated people, we need to make high-quality education universally available so that reservation will lose its meaning automatically. We don’t see reservation in online education because it depends on scales. You can access to the notes and lectures online of the top universities of world. Already many students are opting for various courses online. Virtual classrooms are the future of education and I think this is the how we could beat reservation and make it insignificant. Let’s accept that merit and creativity has no caste, creed and gender.

The other day, I had gone with a friend of mine for a painting exhibition of teenagers. As we stood before a painting titled as “Winning Energy,” which was an awesome abstract painting by a young girl of 13, we both were struck by the brilliance of it. It was a painting portraying a galloping horse; the colors, the expression, the energy and the milieu – everything was awesome. Every detail in the painting stood out and it simply showed the strength of the young painter. My friend and I immediately wrote our remarks in the space provided for visitors. While writing my remarks, I heard another lady speaking some unwanted things about the artist, about her background and her parents. The lady was quite loud. Like me, many other visitors did not appreciate the lady’s remarks.

Is it so difficult to appreciate somebody’s good work? As a society are we so narrow-minded to value good work? Why do people criticize and snub others’ great works – we cannot appreciate other’s good work, good deeds when we are jealous of them. Many times we do not appreciate others due to some petty and insignificant reasons, and trust me; it is our own weakness of not recognizing the goodness in others. Even if we don’t appreciate good work, there are millions of people to appreciate and support those who are doing something good for the society. There are some great artists, physicians, scientists, architects, lawyers, writers, journalists, politicians, and philanthropists who are doing good work and making our living better. I believe not appreciating others for their good work is our own loss.

Remember, when we learn to appreciate others, we never lose anything, instead we become better persons. Appreciating others helps us to enhance our gratefulness and will also boost the doers’ capacity and fortitude.  The world requires good work of people. If we cannot do some good work, at least let’s appreciate other’s good work.

May be you don’t stop when you see an accident on road, but somebody else does stop; maybe you don’t contribute for somebody’s illness, but somebody else does; there are some good hearts who are helping people in emergencies, there are some generous people not very rich but, they still help some patient have better facilities in hospital. We don’t need to be rich to help, we need a strong heart, and we need compassion to lend other a support in their crucial times. If we can’t, let us at least appreciate those who go out of their way to reach out.

Learning to appreciate others’ ideas, sincerity, contribution, good deeds etc enhance one’s life. If we really take some time to ponder on how many people have helped us – done well to us so far in our lives; if we really count all those people and their contribution to our personal growth, and just bless them, it will harness the power of gratitude within us. Please try doing this, and it does feel really good.

Harness the power of gratitude within you. Many people for many good works, good deeds, good art, have never received any appreciation or reward in their lifetime. Do they need to be remembered after they pass away from this world? It is much better to say a word of appreciation while they are living than writing a beautiful biography or carrying a bouquet on their death ceremony. It is simply an act of hypocrisy in my opinion. The dead people – those imparted souls cannot see or smell beautiful flowers or read great biography written on them in their praise. While the person is alive, a simple appreciation is what is required.  Appreciating others and talking good of others after they are dead is one of the weakest attitudes of mankind in this world.

But friends, many people work hard regardless of others appreciation and recognition. But what about those young children who need to be held, who need to be supported, who need to be appreciated and recognised? Let’s not be cruel – let’s appreciate the youngsters to have a better and bright world tomorrow. Let’s harness their talent and their worth – so that we have more innovations and advancement for the future generations of our. Appreciation should come from our heart. If we do not appreciate others from our hearts, it is better not to show our artificial appreciation because it only wastes energy and time.

By appreciating we can boost and harness our relationships with others. A simple ‘Thank you’, Get well soon’’, ‘Happy Birthday’, Congratulation’, ‘Love You’, ‘Care for you’ can make great wonders in relationships. It’s so easy to forget and be aloof by not cheering others, by not loving others, not sympathizing with others, and not appreciating others.

In fact, to recognize others for their small good deeds is so beautiful. This simple tactic can literally transform an important relationship like a marriage, an employment, or friendship. If you constantly are ignorant about seeing the goodness in others, you will see your relationships will slowly deteriorate. Nobody wants to be associated with a self-centered, uncouth person.

It’s not too late to learn to say ‘’thank you’’ whenever someone shows you the least bit of consideration. Doing this will make you feel better and it will encourage others to be more considerate. There are plenty of rude and inconsiderate people out there in the world, but you can be a force for good people by simply spreading some appreciation and gratitude around. When you notice some good work of others, be quick to express appreciation and watch what happens – you will only see kindness, goodness, and uprightness around you.