Kapil Sibal - You are right ( IITs truly in class?)

Kapil Sibal - You are right. Yes, the curricula of IITs and IIMs need to be restructured. They seem to have lost their competitive edge. No doubt they are the best that we have - but not the best when compared with what is being offered in some of the best universities. Particularly the post graduate program has never attracted the best of talents. Otherwise, how can one explain the massive exodus of its gradudates to MITs, CMM, Stanford, Berkley etc for their second degree. Seldom a graduate of IIT does his PG in India - that is their confidence level in our system and that is the brand equity of of our PG program. Prestigious Universities across the world have acquired their prestige because of their research out put. IITs have acquired their prestige because of their UG program - which is their flagship.

Prestigious Universities across the world have become research hub of leading industrial houses. A lot of research is done in IITs - but a lion's share is from the government coffer. Prestigious Universities across the world attrract talents across the world without reservations. IITs nowadyas has become a citedal of our own reservations based on caste, community and creed in the same of social justice, giving a total holiday to efficiency. The knowledge pool available in the IIT system is, therefore, of questionable quality. Establishment of eight more IITs in different states, making the total to fifteen is right in terms of concept. But the question is, has enough home work been done to ensure the quality expected of an IIT. Admittedly the Undergraduate program is the true essence of IITs' success story - what type of JEE that we have which can be cracked at will by teaching shops in Andhra Pradesh and Kota. The admission procedures, despite various experiments done to break the monotony, still remain monotonous bereft of imagination.

In synposis, IITs still remain the best, becasue there is nothing better available. If Kapil Sibal opens out education to foreign investors and if that open door policy paves the way for world renowned institutions makes a beeline to India, and if what they offer is affordable, the challenges that IIT system will face will be stupendous and may be insurmountable. That can happen - and how IITs are going to face the challenge will be indeed interesting. It will not suffice if the curricula are restructured - we need to streamline the admission procedure so that best of the brains get into the system, merit being the sole criterion. We need to take a large number of students from abroad. This will create an academic ecosystem and facilitate peer learning process - which is perhaps effective way of learning. This is critical in the current context when quality of students is being sacrificed on the altar of caste based reservation introduced recently. No innovation seems to have been made in the IITs in the teaching - learning process.

If students are doing well it is essentially because they up till now represent the very best in the society. When the system faces the challenges of dilution, how the leadership in the System is going to sustain the same level of excellence appears anybody's guess.What is the percentage of students taking up international internship? Is is not true that if someone does international internship, it is because of individual efforts? How is it no serious effort is made to send out vast majority of students to do internship with corporate of international renown in an organized manner. This will give the students tremendous exposure, give them enormous confidence and endow them with remarkable maturity required to be a world class work force. The purpose of IITs is to enhance the competency of our youngsters in science and technology. Unfortunately the reward in research is slow to come, and when it comes, it is measly. This gravitates IITians towards businesses and managerial functions. This is called internal brain drain - which needs to be arrested. True R and D, done extensively and intensively, will gravitate international corporates to set up their R & D network here in India. This will kick start demand for serious researchers, which will kick start their price for excellence, which again will motivate many a students to take up R and D as their preferred career. “High level research in frontier areas, especially when they are in the niche area relevant for the growth of the country will give us leadership position in the comity of the world”.

We need to realize that it is the leadership position in R & D that gave the preeminent position to the US. Their open door policy to talented people across the globe enabled them to creat a formidable reservoir of knowdege force. Can't we take a leaf from them? Countries like the US have not only created knowldege - but created wealth out of the knowldege so created.

Addressing an International seminar in one of the IITs, a former Dy Director General of UNESCO made an intersting remarks: " Knowledge comes from the North to South whereas the Wisdoms comes from the South to North". What he had meant was that developed countries gave science and technology to devloping countries, the priceless wisdom always germinated in the developing countries for the developed countries to adopt. One of the acerbic and interpid professors interject to say: "Sir you are partly right, and you are partly wrong". An astonished UN official who genuinely thought that he was praising the host country asked him pointedly:'where did I go wrong and where was I right". The Indian Professor said: "Sir you were right when you said that wisdom flowed from the South to North; and, you were wrong when you said the knowledge flowed from North to South". He proceeded to say: " you never part with your knowledge free of cost, where as our wisdom is open and openly available. Every knowledge, you create, you patent. Whenever you give it to us, that comes with a heavy price tag - either an economic price or a political price or both" The Indian academic went further to say: "Sir, when we did the Pokhran II, you imposed sanctions, denied certain critical technology though they were needed for innocuous research in institutions like IITs. Does it not speak for itself"

The above underscores a cardinal truth in the modern society. Knowledge is not merely power, it is wealth. It needs to be promoted and protected. If 1.1 billion people can collectively work, become people with enormous skill sets, knowledge and erudition, we can make this country truly create. We can support the entire world with out superior capabilities and make the international community to look towards for guidance - in all spheres. That will be the real hallmark of greatness. Kapil Sibal appears to having the right hang - Will our politics allow him to do what he considers right is truly a billion dollar question.

Let us Wish Dr Manmohan Singh

Dr Manmohan Singh has inaugurated his second term as the Prime Minister of this country with a lot expectations from all sections of the populace. By all indications, their faith is not misplaced.

Dr Manmohan was till recently pilloried as a "weak Prime Minister" a "meek supplicant to Sonia Gandhi" and a "willing puppet" in the hands of "his Masters".
Unambiguously, beyond any pale of doubt, this self-evasive, unassuming and scholarly Sardar has proved all the Cinderellas of Indian politics totally wrong.
The Prime Minister has demonstrated his inner strength and shown the doubting Thomases that he is tough without being rough, meek without being weak and aggressive without being abrasive.
In synopsis, the soft-spoken Sardar has taken all his detracting bulls by their horns. Result: DMK is shown its place. Lalu is silenced. Mulayam is sulking. Maya is cut down to size. Old haggard like Arjun is shown the doors.
Now, his attempt to project a clean and neat government should work.
However Dr Manmohan has a heavy agenda on his plate. Challenges are many and varied and what is more important is that totally independent parameters that are liable to impact our public policies are as much unpredictable as they are powerful.
People as a whole expect a clean governance, a responsive administration, a secure environ and a better quality of life that can ensure, good drinking water, a roof on the head, controlled prices which can give two square meals to everyone, affordable health care, avenues of education and access to all the tools of science and technology making the life livable.
Admittedly these are not, by any stretch of imagination, tall aspirations - but looking practically, in the current context, they are indeed tall orders.
What needs to be done is clear to all: Create job opportunities on a massive scale - both in rural areas as well as in urban centers. Every able bodied Indian must be assured of a job. Job creation will put a lot of money in the pockets of ordinary citizen. That will kick start consumption, which will kick start production, which in turn will kick start the entire economy.

The American President Franklin D Roosevelt, popularly called as FDR, did precisely this in the early forties in the US under his famous "Great Deal" initiatives. US were bleeding profusely due to the Great Depression generated by his predecessor President Herbert Hoover. There was all round depression of unprecedented dimension bordering outright panic in the US. The economy was tottering, the social fabric was getting torn, the political edifice was facing menacing challenge and the internal stability of the country became a question mark.

FDR ordered massive construction activities; roads were laid, railways were expanded, airports were constructed; waterways were cleaned and deepened. That was a turning point of America. What Industrial Revolution did to UK, what Dairy and Dairy Product did to Denmark, what Oil did to the Middle East, the Railways and Roadways did to the US.

We need to take a leaf from the others and create opportunities for every Indian to be productive force. While agro based industries, irrigation work, expansion of highways, aqua culture have the enormous potential for creation of productive jobs, care must be taken to supplement them with meaningful social infrastructure so that the benefits of development really reach the common man.
Grand infrastructure Development like connecting all the places in the country will provide a lot of employment besides pushing up cement, steel and related industries in a gargantuan way.

Building major and minor dams will result in considerable saving of water resources, expand agricultural operations and provide extensive employment for our people. Building more airports, expansion of railways and modernizing our ports will yield a lot of benefits.

Urban Development is crying need of the hour. Urban slums represent the ultimate in squalor. Poverty rules the roost here, as do prostitution. Crime is generated here as mosquitoes are. People live in unlivable shanties, eating and excreting in the same place. There is no good drinking water, except poisonous arrack, illicitly brewed and illegally sold. The central government needs to have a comprehensive and deep look into the most deplorable state of affairs, though these are essentially state subjects. Such a comprehensive plan of action will not only improve the quality of life of the most hapless people in the urban slum and give them a respectability which will bolster up their morale and self esteem, but generate enormous job opportunities embedded in the developmental activity.

Corruption is a Cancer that eats into our body politic. It eats away roughly 40 % of our total revenue. This cancerous growth needs a drastic operation.
One way is to invoke technology intervention in our governance. E Governance is the answer. It is generally known that local bodies are given enormous funds to lay roads, provide sanitation, supply drinking water, open schools and arrange for common facilities so essential for a minimum decent life.
What is verily happening is as follows: Contracts are awarded - but roads are never laid - or not laid as per specifications. But bills are passed and money is paid. The entire operation is fictitious and fraudulent. Settlement of Bills for the entire civil work must be system- generated. The terms and conditions of every work awarded together with technical specifications, time schedule and the cost must be loaded into the system. Electronic sensors using aerial satellite should capture all the features of the work done - in the case or road-laying, whether thickness ensured, extent covered, material used etc must be captured through special software. Based on the successful screening of the quality of the road, the System should give instructions to Banks to make settlement within 48 hours.

The above arrangement will ensure effective delivery of government service to the common man and totally eliminate man made mistakes and outright corruption.

Let us see another example: People make traffic violations. Traffic cops stop them. Quite often the dialogue takes place between the two and that results in some mutual understanding -- and after "give and take" the chapter is closed. Very often, the traffic cop harasses innocent citizens and "fine" them for a crime not committed. This unfair practice creates a lot of heart burning and the "proceeds" never reach the government coffer.

Electronic surveillance of all traffic violations using satellite communications will cut out police- public confrontation. Violations will electronically communicate to the offender with a clear mandate to pay the fine in the nearest Bank. Corruption goes lock, stock and barrel and with the police harassment perishes.
Elimination of corruption especially in places where common citizens are involved will bring a lot of revenue for the government and bolster up the peoples morale in the democratic set up.

Dr Manmohan is a free market economy man. He is also progressive in the sense he is sensitive to all progressive ideas. The word "progressive" is not be understood in the sense the Fellow Travelers quite often champion. He can delver the good - and he will.
Adios...

Shhh...dad is learning!

"As clear as the sounds of the ocean, as pure as the honey in the blooming flower;
As clear as the winds of the high end mountains, as pure as the mother’s milk;
As clear as the glowing spring sun, as pure as the spring water;
As clear as the sharpness of the dew, as pure as the tears of doting mother;
As clear as the God’s Blessings, as pure as the wishes He gives us;
As clear as the new born kid’s heart, purity …?”

Purity is what we inculcate.

Why do I say this and why did I pen this – or rather - What made me pen this? A sudden rush of la-poet came in as a different personality with in. I walked through to the nearest coffee shop at the waiting lounge of the Chennai Airport. The movie “Abhium Nannum” was still running in my mind. The movie was a revelation in terms of being father centric storyline and I really admired Prakash raj’s guts to produce it as well. ( Note: this is not a review – but a translation of thoughts after seeing the movie)

I could relate with immense amount of emotionality – for I am a proud dad as well and as the movie beautifully puts it, I was born as a dad when my son was born. The feel of holding my son, touching his small feet and fingers, the cute little eyes, the wonderful innocent smile – Oh my! I really loved it and something with in me was exuberantly dancing with joy.

Fathers play a very important role in an excellent upbringing of their kids. To be honest, I became more disciplined after the birth of my baby boy. I suddenly realized that he is going to take me as a role model and the house being the first school for him, I have to demonstrate better standards of life to him. Even though, I was relishing the fact that I have become a father, the thought of being disciplined in all the ways possible – was I felt – becoming a bit hypocritical. But then seeing the wonderful bandwagon of kids competing in singing competition being hosted in television channels, I felt that it is an imperative necessity that I become disciplined first and learn the facets of wonderful talents that are available in today’s world.

Then the mission started - I have started reading before my son. This has lead to increased reading abilities. I have started listening to good music before my son. We stopped fighting over petty maters at home. The family started eating together in unison – to showcase the importance of family bondage. I have started painting to showcase that life offers a lot in terms of nature, culture and family.

And, now, I am finding that I am becoming a more refined person and thus, unknowingly, my son has himself become a teacher in showing me the better part of life and today, I am enjoying the better aspects of life.

As Prakash raj’s beautifully puts it in his movie, we can learn a lot from kids. I was able to relate instantly – for my being a party guy and an outdoor guy all through, this metamorphosis was a well needed one. I would suggest young parents and prospective parents to watch this movie – at least for the thought that I have shared.

So, purity is what we inculcate to our kids, and unknowingly, the inculcation becomes self-within. Cheers to praksh raj and the director of the movie, for my mind would not have thought about this. May your breed increase. Adios….