$100 laptop, Child Labour and other random thoughts

Well, Nicholas Negroponte's $100 laptop is almost ready. I am sure it may be something really great for children of underdeveloped and developing countries.

What caught my eye was his comment:

"In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint," Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools."

That is very true.
This throws up some interesting questions:

1. Can a child of an artisan learning ancestral art be considered child labor?
2. If a child is learning science and maths in a school, or learns to write a software program, should it be considered child labor?
3. Should the baby who acted in "Baby's Day Out" be considered child labor? In the same breath, should all child actors be considered child labor? What about child musicians and other prodigies?
   

Why is child labor rampant in underdeveloped countries? One of the greatest reason for that is that most countries fail to implement proper minimum wage policy. The policy is faulty, and sometimes not enforced. Sometimes, the amount of minimum wage is so low, that it does not allow a person to sustain himself/herself and additional 1 defendant (say a child). Think about large families with several children. Only option left for them is to beg, work, and somehow make their living. Can the countries raise their minimum wage to allow a person to survive himself and feed an additional person? If that is possible then those parents would be ready to send their children to schools.

Sun's site to teach calculus

Here is a nice website from Sun. It is showcasing use of Java. It teaches Calculus. You can use it to refresh your skills. GELC

Thank you - I

I wish to thank a few people. I believe that there was a contribution from these individuals to my learning during my time at Satyam.

• Krishna Pera, Kirti, and Pritham Nambiar
• Sadagopan Singam and Rajesh Rajput
• Ashutosh Kumar, Srinivas Raghuram, Prabhu Planisamy, Harish Jagavkar, Arunabh Dhar
• Elu, Sundar, Rajeev, and Narendra
• Sourabh Jha, Ravi Challa, Venugopal Chikkaveeraiah, Hamsanath Hegde, Thaviti Jami, Manoj Bandagonda
• Alluri Srinivasa Chowdary (Thai Mobile)