Last week I came across this wonderful memory from 25 years ago while cleaning up my stuff. I secured 19th position in UP Board high school (class 10) examinations and was interviewed by almost all the daily newspapers in Kanpur, with photograph and interview published in them the next day. In my interview, I spoke about aspiring to be a computer engineer in future. I am grateful that life gave me a chance to fulfil my childhood dream and be a software engineer. However, this

The NEET scam recently has brought the vagaries of the maligned Indian Education System to light again. Supreme Court, the parliament, and the CBI have all been involved. The social media and tea-time conversations are abuzz with how rotten our system is. And I have seen the ugliest of remarks about our education system surface again. As a result, I couldn't find a better time to write this post about my favorite student—"the NEET Topper", but not the kind whose photograph yo

When I was exposed to the concept of combinations (selections) for the first time, my teacher told me: " Vivek if you are selecting 2 people out of 3 then you are automatically rejecting 1 person ". Hence selecting 2 out of 3 is the same as rejecting 1 out of 3. The above explanation makes perfect mathematical sense but the experiences in my classes for the past 2 years paint a very different picture. A selection exercise is very different from an exercise in rejection. For i

Over the years as my classes have evolved, they have become synonymous with bright and gifted kids wanting to learn something over and above the school curriculum and learning to appreciate the beauty of math and science. This has resulted in a bit of fame and reputation but access to it has remained restricted to the elite class due to the cost of tuition. Last year I tried to change that by integrating underprivileged kids into my system by offering free tuition to them. Th