Collaborating for Success

Vijaya Karnataka, a Kannada daily, recently reported top rank ministers of the newly formed Karnataka government meeting the heads of some of the leading IT/BT companies based in Karnataka. This meeting was planned to discuss avenues of corporate-government collaboration to chalk out plans for both government and corporates to work towards mutual benefit.

This is a good step taken by the government in the interest of rural population of Karnataka. Further, the government should strive to make this public-private collaboration work towards increasing employability among the rural youth of Karnataka. In today's liberalized and globalized world, goals of governments to increase employment opportunities can be achieved only by partnering with private hands.

While the agenda made by the Karnataka government and corporates seems good at the outset, the government needs to categorically state the importance of employment in the rural society, and press for the private sector to play active role in increasing employability among such sections of the state. On closer observation this agenda will have to bear some points in mind to make the entire exercise successful for both sides of the deal:

1. The trainings curriculum needs to be current and effective in preparing youth to win jobs in their respective fields. The youth may also have to be trained on some non-technical aspects that play a significant role in success in industry. As a common factor, all curriculum will have to be constantly monitored for upgradation so as to not become obsolete in the industry.
   


2. The training programmes may also need comprehensive counselling for candidates to ensure the youth choose a profession that best matches his/her likes and abilities.



3. The programme must be managed such that the infrastructural and man-power needs for training masses of youth are always met, and constantly improved to match the quality levels expected in industries.

When implemented in this fashion programmes of such kind will soon set standards for establishing a structure behind successful corporate-government collaborations for attracting talent, enriching skills and encouraging the wider youth base of Karnataka to participate in shaping the state's economy. It will also set the right example for more corporate houses to follow and benefit from and in the process do their bit to serve the community they exist in.

The success of this kind of partnership should help not just the IT & BT industries, but go beyond them and find success in various other industries. In future these programs can as well spin off effective nodal centers for vocational training and pave way to building valuable pools of diverse employment resources for corporates of all kinds. This should also go beyond state boundaries and get adopted by all states so that each one of them succeeds in ensuring better employment of their youth in their own state.

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Indian cinema = Hindi cinema?

An academy of Indian films and filmmakers with a charter to help them achieve wider coverage across the globe - sounds like a desirable proposition, doesn't it? Well, that is exactly what the IIFA - the International Indian Film Academy sounds like it should focus on. And to as though support this guess the academy has put up its definition of Indian cinema, which actually throws up a very basic question on its face - are Indian cinema and Hindi cinema, one and the same?

Suprising charter this...

While at the outset, a charter to project Indian cinema on screens across the world sounds good and of huge value to movies of all Indian languages, what the IIFA has been actually doing brings big surprise. In one of its advertisements this is what IIFA boasts itself of having achieved...

Wherever IIFA has left its mark, it has promoted the business of Indian Cinema and provided it an impetus. The sale of tickets of Hindi cinema grew by thirty five percent in the UK in the six months after IIFA. In South Africa, Hindi films moved from matinee shows on weekends to mainline theatres and now there are competing distribution chains vying for the rights to exhibit Hindi films across Africa.

The difference needs to be clear!

The IIFA talks about movies from India in the same tune as it talks about Hindi films made in India as though knowing no difference between the two. Well, the real difference, apparently, is not known to the academy. All it has done since inception in 2000 is advertise Hindi film industry across the globe with the label of Indian film industry, thus sending very very false signals about the Indian film industry across the world. This has also led to a noticeably biased growth taking place in the Hindi film industry and a noticeable decline in the worldwide presence of movies of other Indian languages, including movies from the Kannada film industry.

Made in India, not Hindi!

With all these biased stands towads the Hindi film industry, and calling it the Indian film industry, they even boast of having a very qualified advisory panel consisting of not a single character from non-Hindi film industry. What a pity, this board is advising on labeling Hindi films as sole candidates for the Made in India label.

If the stand of IIFA was so clear to project, showcase and promote only Hindi film industry, it would have been apt to call it International Hindi Film Academy (IHFA). Developments under IIFA have certainly benefited the Hindi cinema, but have done little to support their claims of improving the Indian film industry. Instead what is expected of such an academy is a system to enable uniform upbringing and showcasing of film industries of all Indian languages in an unbiased manner. Such academies should eventually pave the way for making Indian entertainment truly representative of the whole of India, which is a union of linguistic states.