Tragedy of the Tsunami - Our deepest concerns

An Open Letter

Dear President & Prime Minister of India,

My wife and I share with you and all the people of the region the grief that is in many homes, and among the many homeless, these days, as the effect of the Tsunami tragedy unfolds here on an hour by hour basis.

Today, we, in Finland, also mourn around 263 of this countries nationals who appear to have been engulfed in this horrific wave. To see over 120,000 people of the world die in this tragedy and many millions more in dire situations, breaks our heart, mainly as we realise our helplessness.

It appears that none of our immediate family was lost in this event. But many dear friends still appear unaccounted for. We hope and pray that they are safe and well.

What concerns us more, however, is the news that India would be joining with the US Government in organising the relief efforts in the region. That is of greatest worry to us.

As you are aware the US Government has been part of an “illegal” war in Iraq where many hundred thousand people are being done to death, even as we write this to you.

No less a person than the most respected Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, has declared that the war on Iraq is illegal.

Also, in a effort to control the region, the US Administration have wiped out the indigenous law and industry in Iraq, and also given numerous no-bid contracts to their favoured companies, such as Bechtel, Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, to name just a few.

The rape of a tortured nation continues despite the human tragedy of that region.

For the Indian Government to be associated with a criminal Administration in such a massive relief operation associated with the Tsunami, would cast the Indian Government in the eyes of the world in a very bad light.

May we urge you that the original stance taken by your Government that the Indian Relief effort could and would be managed by itself without any association with outside Governments, would be upheld.

May we bring to your attention that the US Administration is very anxious to get information about the strategic defence organisation in the crucial Vishakapatnam - Port Blair axis, and any relief effort with the involvement of the US Administration will be to compromise the defence capabilities of your and our nation.

We all know that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condeleeza Rice, and many others in the US Administration, past and to be installed, have provided false statements in many public fora, including the UN.

It is our greatest concern that you will safe-guard the Indian nation from playing into the hands of this neo-con right wing Christian religious fundamentalist group whose only objective appears to be to establish their foothold, by means fair and foul, in the South Asia region.

Being Christians ourselves, with the family traditions of the late doyens of Kerala, K. C. Mammen Mappillai and Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan Matthan of Mysore, and Padma Bushans, the late K. M. Cherian, K. M. Philip and K. M. Mathew, and Padma Shri the late K. M. Mammen Mappillai, makes this even more nauseating as this American Christian fundamentalist group only poses to be Christian as they further their personal agenda.

May we repeat our deepest condolences to all the people of India who have been affected by this tragedy.

As the old year ends and the New Year dawns, we hope that the region will be blessed with peace and calm as it rebuilds itself from this horrific calamity.


Yours sincerely

Annikki and Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

Some Cathedralite / Stephanian News

Willie (Cathedral Physics Teacher 50s & 60s) in Canada has just updated me on some Cathedralite / Stephanian news.

He has only received a one sentence input of this year's Founders Day in Mumbai. Hasnain (59er) is travelling in India, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Will someone feed me with info.

Roshni, (wife of Stephanian Raj who is the son of former Prinipal Sircar of my era in Stephen's), who is also the aunt of my sister-in-law, is back in Canada after a holiday in Bangalore. Willie does say that Bangalore has become over-populated and polluted and as a possible result, Roshni was ill with bronchial trouble. I am fully in agreement with that statement about Bangalore judging from my last visit there a few years ago.

Willie and Pushpa are off for a 10 day, 6 island, cruise in the Eastern Caribbean. Hope both of you have a great holiday.

Ilari starts his own blog

Ilari Sohlo was a very wonderful and critical analyst who used to have his sharp columns in Finnish and English to our fortnightly web magazine "Findians Briefings". He was one of the contributors who pushed up our web hit figures amogst the younth audience world-wide.

I have just read through his first blog entry. I welcome him to the wonderful world of blogging where he will do far more justice than just a fortnightly column in a web magazine. Expect a hard-hitting blog on a variety of issues from him!!

Presently he is in Hungary but will embark on a trip to India in a few weeks. There should be an interesting travelogue blog coming out of here. His blog is available at

http://goingsohlo.blogspot.com/

Ilari and his partner, Ildiko Hamos, are the authors of new book about Finland, which will be published, in German, in a few weeks. It contains great photographs from this beautiful country.

Report that Finland tops global school table

BBC is just reporting that Finland tops global school table.

The article says that Finland's CLAIM to have the best school system was reinforced by the latest international comparisons. The results are from just 40 countries and it is a reflection of maths and reading abilities and it consists of an appraisal of 15 year olds.

Having been married to a Finn for the last 38 years, had four of our children pass through various stages of the Finnish school system (after their earlier education through the Indian system) and one through the Finnish University system (another two through the British University system), plus my own experience, having been personally educated through the Indian and British systems, and then working with University students, researchers and staff over a period of 7 years, I must strongly disagree with both the Finnish claim as well as the assessment of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Finnish reading skills are indeed excellent, but it is not because of the school system. It is part of the culture and the construction of the Finnish language, which is phonetic and develops way past any other language in the use of compound words. This helps everyone to increase their eye-grasp from the mere 5 to 10 letter words (normal to most other languages with the Roman script) to words as long as 20 and 30 characters or even more. Anyone familiar with commercially exploited speed reading systems will understand what I am talking about where it is possible to increase reading speed by over ten times with little loss in comprehension.

The maths education in Finland is highly laborious and it is quite queer as to the way that maths is taught - it does not give much to doing mental maths. It also leaves those poor in maths scarred for life. I am sure from watching my wife (a product of the early Finnish system of the 50's) to one each of my sons and daughters, products of the 80's, and now my grandson (00's), that the system is nowhere near any of the other systems that I am familiar with - English, Indian, American, French, German and even the closely related Swedish system.

However, the more realistic way of assessing the school system would be to assess the level of "education" provided. In that, the Finnish system is totally at the tail-end of the world table. My own experiences in handling Finnish students in a Finnish University, as well as in various other fora, tells me that my understanding of education just does not exist in Finland.

The Finnish kids are great at mouthing and parroting the words of the "teacher". They have little assessment skills, no debating skills, very little international skills, a large amount of "nationalism", and many more defects which expose a totally flawed schooling system.

It is many a time that I would throw in utter rubbish at my university students, and they would gobble it up as the gospel truth!! They have poor reasoning skills, and the lack of the ability to make an argument, makes them, in my humble opinion, very poor students.

Also, having edited countless articles for international conferences and scientific journals, masters and doctoral theses, over the last 20 years, I have found that the students were generally very poor in presenting their arguments. Exceptions, however, prove the rule. I had one student who finished his normal 5 year masters in less than three and completed his doctoral thesis in record time - but such examples are few and far between.

Finland is, however, the best country internationally in presenting an "image" and polishing that image that even they believe that it is the fact.

Sadly, my personal experience has been that there is a vast difference between the image created and what lies underneath - just as the claim that Finland is the least corrupt country.

My analysis and experience is that Finland is one of the the MOST CORRUPT COUNTRIES on this globe!! And, that corruption starts at the top of the political system, and runs through the judiciary and the entire legal system, the police, the bureaucrats, and right across the corporate system.

But that is another story, part of which was exposed in two of our books "Handbook for Survival in Finland" jointly authored with my wife and my own book "Seven Years Hard Labour in a Finnish Holiday Camp - A Finnish University". Both books were published a decade ago.

Visitors from South Finland

Yesterday, we had visitors from South Finland. Gopa, Sadhana's (Cathedralite 54er) daughter, her husband, Timo, and his son, Peteri. Timo's mother lives about 80 km east of Oulu and they had visited her over this long weekend, as today is a holiday - Finnish Independence Day.

We had lunch at Michelle's Chinese restaurant. Michelle is of Chinese origin but very much a Calcutta girl. The food she makes us is great. Annikki could not join us as she was busy looking after her mother, so we brought back food for Mika and her.

Tonight, most Finns will be glued to the TV as they see the parade of their dignatories at the Presidential Ball in the Palace. Ladies dress up to see who gets the best coverage, sometimes those with the least coverage, in the tabloids!! Annikki watches if she has time. I do not as they never show the foreign dignatories. They always break for the news when the Ambassadors are being welcomed by the President and her husband.

Last night, Annikki was busy with her art creations from snow and ice in the garden. They are truly outstanding. I hope I can learn to put some of those images here on the blog.

Whenever thoughts flash through my mind on any subject, I will post them on this blog. So do come and visit it when you have a few moments to spare and do post your comments.

First post in Jacob's blog

I have blogged before, but due to problems with my server in Canada, the entire set of blogs and my domain name, findians.com, have vanished with about 10,000 web pages created over the last 9 years..

In this new blog I hope to share my personal thoughts and feelings on a variety of subjects with the thousands and thousands of my friends around the world - including over 80,000 findians, my Maliyakal and Kandathil family roots, my wife's Reinikka and Räihä family roots, my alma maters - Bishop Cotton's School in Bangalore, Cathedral and John Connon School in Bombay (Mumbai), St. Stephen's College of Delhi Unversity (Delhi) and the National College of Rubber Technology (now the London Metropolitan Polymer Centre in the London Metropolitan University, Holloway, London), as well as my professional life as a Polymer Researcher and Consultant and a Microelectronics Materials Specialist. I will also cover my life as Mac addict and my successful life as a web page designer.

Today is 6th December. It is the Finnish Independence Day. It is also the birthday of a dear friend who is married to my niece (daughter of my cousin), K. P. Philip, who lives in Singapore. Happy birthday Anian on your 48th birthday.

To see my very very undistinguished biodata you can make a trip to my site which I have called Polymer Technologist, Microelectronics Materials Engineer, Macintosh/Apple Addict, Innovator, Motivator, Connector, Technology Leader - JACOB MATTHAN.

Personal comments, however critical, are welcome. I am in a firm believer in the motto that only criticism can help improve a human being - and God only knows how much of my life needs improvement!!

Annikki and I are both retired now, but life is more hectic than ever, as you will realise as you share our life with us.

Welcome again to Jacob's Blog.