National Sports Mission

After every international sports meet is over, there is hue and cry over the dismal performance of our sportsperson. The then ruling political party leaders will do lip service of how they plan to change this situation in this space for future. Hoards of money and gifts are given to those who were able to win accolades despite all negativity and hardships. But nothing certain is done to improve the situation even after  several decades of independence. It's a shame 1 billion people cannot produce enough world class athletes. I know there are many stomachs to feed, but even by the current spendings level for sports we should have done better.

I believe it's high time we had prioritized this as a system for developing healthy citizens than mere a success symbol in Sports. It's more of bringing up a sports culture than winning medals. I believe winning medals is a certain aftermath of having a healthy sports culture.

In my vision, I propose what we need is a  National Sports Mission. This should work in tandem with the health department at national and state level. Every school should run yearly health assessments for kids. It's every kids birth-right to grow healthy It should be there right to  play the game of your choice from a pool of games that we prioritize in which he or she is interested in.

Every district should  have one major sports complex with international facilities . All the schools and colleges should be competing to send their students to that facility. Those who are stars there should be taken to a national level facility which should be for competing in International competitions.

 In developed countries what i notice is every elementary, middle and high school have certain standards they have to adhere. Most of the high schools have facilities even better than what we have in a district. Every college has Olympic size facilities. We may not be able to afford that, but definitely India can afford that in every district.

Digital Learning System

Most digital libraries in developing world if analyzed to  see how far is used,  there is only  very minimal usage. If you see money involved in running and maintaining the system it doesn't give the bang required for the bucks spent. Most of them fail eventually because there is no grass root level involvement in these efforts. Even my own state Kerala, back in India had such network. Kerala governments IT@school was great portal. But when it comes to usage you will see that these are more like show pieces than anything else. Embracing free software is good, provided it is usable. Most of the time free software is good to hear but not good enough for usage or is not serviced or well kept for usage.

I would say in India and countries like India with large land mass to cover there is a huge potential for such a digital system if implemented properly. My vision around this is different and I think my vision could be better if implemented.

How my digital library\Digital learning library system would look like ?

1) I believe current digital systems work only when connected thru regional and sub-regional nodes through-out the country. This ensures more involvement from the learners and not only from content creators. All major schools libraries should be subscribed to the network as sub-regional nodes . All libraries should be connected to this as sub-regional nodes. In US there are regional library systems working together, which is really beneficial for kids, but I think thats not enough, it should be more than that with a wide network.

2) All library catalogs should be digitized so that any village boy\girl sitting in remotest part of India should be able to access the book\cd\dvd he\she wants.  Any person in the remotest village should be able to check-out\check-in a book and thru Indian postal(or any regional postal) system they should be able to get books checked out and checked in for a nominal cost. The cost of which should be taken by sub-regional node. The cost should be covered by sponsorships.  This will reinvent the otherwise dying postal system, which has lost its glam and sham due to modern medium of communication like email and social chat engines etc . All content should be made trackable thru barcode systems.

3) All subregional node should be connected to a major library in a district which is the main regional node. The regional node should act as the liaison office for a region coordinating all literary and scientific contests which should be conducted nationwide.

4) Library books to the maximum possible extent should be converted to  digital formats. Anyone should be able to make content for the system and any other person anywhere in India should be able to access it, provided the educational content developed had gone thru prior checks for valid content.

5) All children below 18 years should be given accounts thru subregional nodes. All above 18 if unemployed to be given free access. If employed should be charged based on the income level.

6) Content should be made available in multiple screens ( mobile apps, desktop access thru browsers etc)