Life At JNV

Here are the top 10 things you need to know in economics:By Balaji Viswanathan.

1. Economics has two main streams - Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. Micro deals with customer behavior, incentives, pricing, margins, etc. Macro deals with broad economies and larger things such as interest rates, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other  stuff you see in the business column of a newspaper. Micro is more useful for the managers and macro is more used by investors. Except for points 2 & 3, I will cover macroeconomics in other points.
2. Law of Supply & Demand: This is the founding block of economics. Whenever supply of something increases its price decreases and whenever supply decreases price increases. Thus, when you have excess production of corn, food prices decrease and vice versa. Think of this intuitively. You will find its applications in 1000s of places. 
3. Marginal Utility: Whenever you have more of something its use for you diminishes. Thus, a $100 would be more valuable when you earn $1000/month than when you earn $1 million/month. This is widely used in setting up prices.
   
   
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4. Gross Domestic Product (GDP): This is the fundamental measure of the size of an economy. This is conceptually equal to the sum of incomes of all people in the country or sum of the market value of all goods & services produced in that country. Right now US is the biggest economy in terms of GDP at around $14 trillion. That means, $14 trillion of value is produced in the US every year.
5. Growth rate: The growth of an economy is commonly measured in terms of GDP growth rate. Since GDP is a measure of national income, this growth rate is a rough proxy for how an average person's income grows every year. 
6. Inflation: You already know that the price of most products now are higher than in your grandfather's time. Inflation (measured in percent) is measure of how much a bunch of products have increased in price from last year. In mature economies, annual inflation is around 2% - that means on an average the prices of stuff goes up by 2% every year. The fundamental role of central banks is to manage this rate and keep it to a low positive number. Here are  the 100 year inflation numbers in the US.
   
   
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7. Interest Rates: When you loan money to somebody, you expect something extra in return. This excess is called the interest. Interest rate is a positive number that measures how much excess you will get. There are bunch of rates here. In the short term, this rate is usually set by the Central Banks. Right now it is close to zero. In the long term, this is set by the market and is dependent on inflation and the long term prospects of the economy. The mechanisms in which the central banks control the short term rates is called monetary policy.
8. Interest Rates vs. Inflation vs. growth: There exists almost an inverse relationship between interest rates & growth and interest rates also can affect inflation directly. Thus, when you increase interest rates inflation tend to come down, along with growth. One is good and other is bad. Thus, the constant tension on setting the interest rates. In the US, Federal Reserve sets the short term rates making it one of the most watched economic news.
9. Fiscal Policy: Government can control the economy in a big way by adjusting its expenditure. The group of mechanisms using expenditure form the fiscal policy.When government spends more it can lead to more demand and that means more price increase. This means both high growth and high inflation. And it works in the reverse too. Thus, governments try to spend more during periods of low growth & low inflation and cut spending during periods of high growth & high inflation.
10. Business cycle: Economies have their periods of booms and bust in cycles of approximately 7 years long. At the start of the cycle it is a boom, then it gets to the top, then there is a contraction leading to a recession (period of negative growth and/or increasing unemployment) and finally followed up with an expansion.
    
    
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Bonus:
1. Opportunity Cost: When you do an activity, you tend to equate how good the activity is when compared to the alternatives. For instance, when you are working hard a Friday night on a project, you might be thinking "man, I should be doing something else." The alternative (in this case, partying with friends) has a high value, and thus your present project better be attractive. This value of the alternative is termed as an "opportunity cost" - value of what you give up. Thus, if you quit a $120K/year paying job to do a startup, your opportunity cost of doing startup is $120K/year. Your payoff should be higher than what you give up. Hat tip: Charles Phan

2. Comparative Advantage:  You are running your tech startup and one day a client asks you whether you can build a website for them. Should you offer to build the website for them, or should you pass up the opportunity to a friend? How do you decide? A rational person might calculate how much time they will take to build the website, and whether they can use that time to earn more building their current startup product. Then, he/she might calculate whether the friend might be able to build the site more efficiently. 

If the friend can build it more efficiently and you have a lot in your plate, you will pass up the opportunity. This is called the theory of comparative advantage. Your friend has an advantage here and it makes no sense for you to take up that business. Nations, businesses and people should do only those things they are better at and leave the rest to others

I would better not be judgemental over this ... But I would just try to list few pros and cons and few events that occur in JNVs. I leave judgement part to you.
1. You won't have exposure to competitive environment but you will see students working hard to get better at what they are. You will never be sure about who will top the exams. It's fun how things change at every end of the year.
2. You will be deprived of digital world. But it is a good thing considering that you don't have to waste hours and hours on Facebook and other social networking sites. But You get to use internet and computer in school hours i.e. Sufficient time for what you want to find.
3. Best thing you get is special connection with teachers. Every night you can discuss your doubts with House masters.
4.What else can be more wonderful than to be with your friends 24 hours.
5.Once a Navodayan,always a Navodayan. You will never find students so possessive about their school.
6. You have various activities running every Saturday like singing,dancing,speech competition,drama etc etc.
7.You will learn 3 languages.You won't be surprised to see a guy/girl from Chhatiagarh speaking Gujarati fluently if you are in Navodaya.
8.Silly but important. I know songs in Punjabi,Tamil,Odia,Bengali and Gujarati. Pretty handy when you want to befriend guys from other states.
9. You will not have a stage fear after giving speech no. of times in 3 different languages. All you have to do is grab a chance when you have one.
10. Sports clusters and music clusters. No school in India gives chance to reach nationals in just few levels. Cluster,Regional and National.This point needs a lot of elaboration and I am not the right guy :)
You visit so many other JNV schools during this period at the same time new friends in every school you visit.
11.Lab facilities from class 6th for simple experiments.
12. Live quiz in front of whole school is a show you will never get to attend in other school.
13. House Cleaning competition teaches you cleanliness.Quite a show it is...including gardening.
14. Only bad thing is not everybody gets coaching for IIT exams unless you clear Dakshana exam after class 10.
There is so much to tell bro but I think this provides enough information for you to compare it with other schools. Sorry this is not well versed,wrote all this in hurry :)

JNV MESS

How do you decide what was famous among all those variety. I can think of a few reasonable ways, like Queue, Rush ,  general sentiment, Bragging and number of Seconds/Doubles ( "Double Marna" was a thing of pride) which might have made me believe something was more famous.

Seconds: Mess workers were instructed strictly not to let anyone have seconds for most food items. We had an expert non bribe-able Rampal Bhaiya famous for catching Doublers (Double marne wale) .  
But that never stopped anyone from trying, we are talking about Navodaya here.
Challenge makes it more fun. We take pride in doing the "Impossible".

So after a heavy breakfast or heavier meal when people retire to their classroom or dorm you get to hear people bragging like, I took 3 doubles, or I got pass Rampal Bhaiya and he didn't even suspect anything.

And that is how we know what People like -the Bragging, the thing people bragged most about was definitely poori. others include Non-veg , evening Snacks, sweet.

and yeah Special Tea made for teachers. it was like rare Tricky little forbidden thing everyone wanted a sip of,  The trick was very simple, to sit near teachers table and wait for them to be out of sight and then toot paro. taste was worth all the trouble. not to mention bragging rights you get off of this.

Queue/Rush:  Sometimes the Production speed was less then consumption, and it used  to happen mostly for famous items on the list specially on special occasions, this was further factored  by people taking doubles. most of us would generally rush and wait only for Poori or nonveg . ( this was the only thing I stood in line for  after I was promoted from Half Pant to Full Pant category in 8th std)

General Sentiments : 
 Almost everyone seemed to like Poori chola, Poha, Fried rice, Pulao Chola, Halwa, most evening snacks ( including Parle-G, was it just in my JNV's menu? )

JNV MESS

What is so Special About Poori:

After everyone is beaten up by hard physical work like  Gardening(juniors) or micromanaging(seniors) on a Freaking Sunday  morning, the mob is hungry and no one should ask them to wait,

Everyone had a bad Saturday dinner already and they are eagerly waiting for this rounded little oily thing, you are asking them to wait, not fair but they will stand on the queue sometime for hours.

and after all the waiting and fighting in queue when you get your hands on those hot Poori with Chola, and you eat with a mob of hungry friends sitting around you. what is not to love.

I think this could be the reason for Poori being the  most famous food.

KHO-KHO AT JNV BASTI

I wish I knew answer to this question at very early days of Navodaya. But it is not as hard as you think (well, you will say the same after you leave the school) .

But its the luxury that class X and +2 students enjoy in the name of board exams(they dont have to attend morning drill from december to March.) I hated it till I reached class X. Let me mention few ways
-Get a medical slip from the medical rep which says you cant run or do yoga. How?? You need fake your injury or show some fake medical certificate from outside which you can get it for free..
-Make your house leader your best friend (my option) and he ll always say you are sick during morning drill. Problem solved.
-Just dont care. Yes, even I never considered this as an option but I saw a very good example, there used to be a guy who never cared for thia drill he was punished so many times but he dint change. Then our PT teacher stopped caring about him.

Having said all this I would recommend not to miss the morning drill, even though you have no interest in whatever you are forced to do. It is helping you in lot many ways. People outside are paying heavily to learn what you are trying to avoid. I know you will stop doing all these as soon as you come out of school. But mark my words, one day you will start doing it again. This time no one forcing you.
Being friends with house leader is the simplest option, while counting the no of students in drill, he will always add one. 

One more way is if the PT teacher is taking attendance in the beginning, it would be easier for you to skip the drill after attendance in dark (even sun is lazy to show up early in winter, so take this advantage)

Also, don't forget to hide under bed if you heard PT checking the dormitories.

JNV LOGO

6th standard ; - Stepping into the campus , many eyes staring at you , asking ,if you are newcomer to class 6th of this year ???And simultaneously you feel like school is so big , student playing ,living in hostel with friends will be so much fun ,but then, the first night at hostel, you start missing your parent (coz might be ,it was the first time you lived apart :'(     )......& then stream of nonstop tears flows down through your eyes which continues for about an year :'(  , you make resolution to leave school by next year :p

7th standard :- You give yourself 1 more year to test, if you can live in such condition, waking up at 4.30 am , going through hectic schedule ,but meanwhile this year your PET teacher allot you some game at which you are good ,and frequency of crying gets lessen :p ,You start getting involved into chatting with people around you ,become amiable with teacher and people and your 1 more year ends somehow

8th standard :- In those past two years , teacher treats you like kids( though they still think you are ,but who weeps lesser than earlier  :p ),Teachers expect from you to play well , study well ,take responsibilities of junior kids..... phheeewww ,and yes you see your progress in washing your cloth better than previous two years , a good gardener :p , less crying baby ,gradually start opening up to your teachers ,and if you are good at sport ,you get a chance to attend sports meets :D :D ......

9th standard :- Woah , you're now topmost senior among junior hostel people ( some become topmost senior when they are at 8th std. ) :D ,taking care of juniors, serving in mess according to house's duties,conducting assembly and weekly to do things .when it's comes to be done by your house ,you try to get appreciable points ,to be entitled by "BEST HOUSE OF THE YEAR :D " , In order of that ,participating in every competitions, (games .cultural , cleaning or whatever :P ) to emerge out as best :P,teachers start treating you as pretty grown up,( IF you are having terms with your teachers, they invite you with group of your friend, secretly sometime to watch movies even ;-) :P )

10th standard :- Scariest year , board class, CBSE Board, waking up at 4.00 am , attending morning classes b4 PET classes , attending weekly tests, reading and reading,playing gets lessen,you get lil time not even enough to wash pile of dirty clothes :'( ,reading ,solving question :'( , but the best part is , Your teacher's suffer with you too , they have to follow the same what you go through , you might be having doubts with question , those ppl stays around to clear them up :) :) :) ,board exams done , so did your another year :D ,,,,,,

11th standard :- Once again the feeling like free bird comes back :P [( not for girls coz they were asked to not go outside of the campus like boys :'(  >:( , but yet you won't be called hosteler unless you break off the boundaries :P ) convincing your lady teacher so well that they would allow your to go out with her on the name of so called morning jogging with people :P )]                                                                                         { ( You can call it typical "JUGAAD " :P )} ......                            though you are not topmost senior yet you are just to be (board student are so busy with studies :P ) , so ultimately you act as 2nd topmost seniors

12 standard :- Last year of your school + board = sad :'( ....  ,once the kid,who used to babble to quit school when was in 6th class couldn't realize how soon it's 6 years passed so easily :/ :/:/ , for the reasons one used to weep now laugh at itself for :P :/ ...didn't know how did we grow up made strong bonds with teachers, pals , and of course with creatures of school like dogs , monkeys , cows ,and many more , cause we had got used to see them that we even baptized their pet names :P :'( ......                                                                                                                Waiting eagerly for sundays , attending sports meet trips , making friends in other navodayas , living in narrowed facility conditions were all so gruesome but yet we explored our self so well that yeas we are someone and this school made me to realize this

1. Its a blessing for the students who hail from rural areas and do not have access to good educational institute.

2. Education is good. CBSE curriculum.

3. Sports facility. All game's facilities are provided. Hockey, Football, Basketball, Kho-Kho, Cricket, Handball, Volleyball, TT.....

4. No Fee ( although they started charging a nominal fee few years back)

5. 30% seats reserved for Girls.

6. Daily used Items soap, toothpaste, brush etc are provided for free, every month.

7. Uniform is provided for free.

8. Books and stationery provided free of cost every year.

9. Shoes/slipper/socks - no charges.

10. Generator electricity if there is no power (for limited hours)

11. Fix number of intake every year i.e. 80 students. So total no more than 560 students in one Navodaya. Small family. Every one knows every one.

Holi celebration


12. Inter state migration (Student exchange program) in 9th class. One of the best things many students get to enjoy.

13. Exam result are always good. JNVs always top in terms of %age of passed students. Kendriya Vidyalays are always second.
@JNV Tops CBSE Class X Chart

15. Friendly teachers. (Not teacher but Gurus. They will not only teach you but will guide you through your ups and downs). Available ALMOST 24 hrs.

16. Good and Free mess food. Most of the time quality is also ok.

17. Physical exercise. Dedicated hours for PET and Evening sports.


18. National level sports meet and events.


19. Lush green campus.




20. And last but not least the unlimited masti with your hostel friends.
     a. Stealing Food from mess.
     b. Stealing fruits/vegetables from teacher's garden
     c. Stealing sugarcane from nearby village fields.
     d. Sneaking to nearby village and having Samosa etc.
     e. Making paratha from stolen chapati.
        and list goes on ......................

In short
You will cry on first day because you do not want to join the school. You will cry last day because you do not want to leave the school.

A recently held Alumni meet at JNV Meerut.