The Two Deaths in Bombay

I may run into the chance of being lynched by a group of hooligans, all swearing by the erstwhile last tiger of the land and supporters of the only tiger's party in our biggest democracy, and of course a bunch of impotent  government officials for writing this blog. But then I somehow couldn't stop from writing this.

Well, the title of this blog may not be fully correct, because though one death happened in Bombay, the other not exactly in Bombay, but in Pune. Nevertheless, since we now have the Bombay-Pune Expressway, which has brought the two cities closer, I may be spared on the grounds of blogging license (something similar to poetic license exercised by the poets).

The first death is of course of the Tiger - the Late Balasaheb Thakre. The tiger population in the world has been declining, and it's a shock to lose him. There's no doubt, when it comes to guts and fierceness, Balasaheb was perhaps the only Tiger in politics. The use of its name and symbol by the legendary Shivaji was worth, given the valor and courage he'd shown and eventually converted into a folklore and myth, and so is the epithet being used for Balasaheb. People fear a tiger as much as they do a Balasaheb, even now, after his death. Irrespective of whether you are a jackal or elephant or rabbit or squirrel, you've to pay obeisance to the tiger. And so did everyone to Balasaheb - a politician jackal, an industrialist elephant, a Bollywood squirrel or a 'mango' rabbit.

From the environmental point of view, we do need a Tiger. Any species dying is an ecological hazard, so we do need to preserve everyone, like we need to make every human being live forever. Any death is sad - because a life is being lost. But wouldn't we be happier, if the Tiger were altogether different animals? Say, strong, fierce, powerful, but also loving and endearing like a rabbit and grand like an elephant? Something that even a small kid would love to play with? That would have been an evolutionary disaster, zoological catastrophe,  but no doubt a wonderful thing.

Whatever, I mourn the death of the Tiger. We need more tigers in our country. The Tiger is dead. Long live the Tiger.

The other death is that of a neighbor who had strayed into our house, killed a good part of our family, but still   stayed with us for quite long, enjoying our hospitality because we treat guests as gods. Finally when we ran out of money, we decided to punish him. We hung him - the Late Mohammad Azmal Amir Kasab - yesterday. Another death. Another loss of life. Sad, no doubt, as some intellectuals are saying.

We've been angry that we've been too soft on Kasab. Yes we were. That's where we needed a Tiger.

At the same time, when two young girls were arrested wrongfully by Maharashtra Police, rendered impotent by the followers of the last Tiger, for expressing a view which is neither wrong nor defamatory to anyone, I really feel the jungle would have been better without the Tiger.

Discussions on Govt's proposal for Common Entrance Test (CET) for IITs, NITs and other engineering schools

People have been discussing a lot on this and I felt it’s good to put up in this forum all those we’re having between us.

The contentious issues are as follows:
1. It’s proposed that the CET would have some weightage on the +2 scores of the various central and state boards – many people are not liking this
2. A common test for all schools may also dilute the brand of IIT – this is a very controversial topic
3. Few people feel govt. is interfering too much into IIT, the autonomy is being lost
4. There’s one interesting angle is being also pointed out by few – a conspiracy theory where politicians are alleged to be trying to destroy the brand IIT (Interesting)

These are discussions:

Anandaroop Bhattacharya

I also do not endorse the Common Test proposal.

However, during my short stay in IIT-B, I had some first hand experience of seeing the present JEE and interacting with some of the students. Let me simply say that the JEE today is not the same that we took in our times. Today's format is purely based on multiple-choice questions where there is hardly any scope for testing "funda", We were given credit for "how" we tried to solve a problem irrespective of whether we succeeded at arriving at the correct answer. That format is a thing of the past. To quote my good friend in KGP, Prof. Suman Chakraborty (one of the most brilliant young profs in KGP today - check his website) "In today's JEE, the students try to eliminate wrong options rather than trying to arrive at the solution." And this is the skill the coaching centres of today impart in the students, most notorious among them being the ones in Kota, Rajasthan.

So, while I do not endorse Sibal's proposal, I strongly feel that the present JEE needs a major revision

In a related context, I would also like to mention that perhaps very few examination systems in the world can match the JEE/GATE in the way it is conducted. It is really unbelievable that such a fair and efficient system is possible in a Govt. organization in India. In so many years, there has been only one instance of paper leak in JEE (1997) - compare that statistics with any other exam in our country including CAT!!

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Kamalesh Ghosh

Folks, anything has a scope for improvement, no matter how good it is. Of course, IIT entrance could be too.

The question to be really asked is, was it higher priority to look at it than numerous other problems facing
the education sector as a whole? Do I need to point out those problems and the seriousness of their nature?

My point is, why has the HRD ministry taken so much interest lately in shaking up the whole IIT system
with various moves like this?  I am a total conspiracy theorist  in this matter.

I have a firm belief that a lobby of powerful politicians and maybe foreign powers too, have a  definite interest
in destroying/ diluting the IIT brand. Every step has been a measured one towards that goal, be it providing 27% obc
quota, opening up 10 more IITs or now this master stroke, to destroy the JEE altogether. Inclusion of board
marks means everything will go haywire as politician's children in Jharkhand and Bihar can get 99 % marks
in board exams if they ask their papa.

We really should try to understand the game behind the scenes and not view this thing as a simple administrative
issue.

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Anandaroop

I agree with you 100% on this. Actually, I had posted something very similar in the IITians FB page sometime last year. Essentially, it's almost identical to what you are alluding to.
https://www.facebook.com/alliits/posts/197691450301855?comment_id=1735110&offset=0&total_comments=4 

"Through contacts, money and muscle power, one can get his son or daughter a seat/job anywhere in India and maybe even to some of the top univs in the world. BUT NOT AT IIT or IIM. Our politicos find this extremely hard to digest!! Therefore, be it MM Joshi, Arjun Singh or Kapil Sibbal and irrespective of party lines, the effort to kill the JEE/GATE/CAT based system has been there for a long time. I hope like in previous instances, IITs push back strongly .... let's see."

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Rahul Mehta

Guys,

I fully support the points raised in the last two posts on this forum. In fact, I saw something similar in an article by Prof Kanchan Chowdhury. This article can be found here:

http://www.scholarsavenue.org/2009/08/20/letter-from-president-iitta/

Quoting from this article,

For a long time, the IIT system has been the sore point of the moneyed and powerful persons of the country as it allows (apart from close to 50% socially disadvantaged) only the brilliant students to get into the system. Many rich and powerful have sent their children abroad because they could not get into the IITs. How long can this situation be allowed to continue!

Many private institutions have come up with large investments. Foreign Universities (not necessarily the best ones) would be allowed to set up their campuses on Indian soil very soon. How would they get competent faculty? Therefore, it has become absolutely necessary to frustrate the existing and future IIT faculty, particularly the younger teachers, by giving them a raw deal in salary and perks so that they finally decide to switch to systems that can serve the rich and the influential. The plot seems perfect in planning and execution. The first battle has been won by those opposed to IIT system. But Friends, we have to reach to the nation and the people, who are supreme and placed higher than even the Government that has let us down so badly, explaining them the present situation and projection of the future. That is our hope and the only hope to rescue IIT system from extinction.
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Kanishka

Not to be offensive, but I think this pro JEE bias stinks of a certain kind of casteism - where people who have gone through the grind somehow feel they are superior to those who haven't. If the onus is entirely on the entrance exam to define a population that's capable of growing into competent engineers, it easily leads to an institution that can abdicate it's responsibility towards it's students, since the blessed ones will sail through and shine, no matter how inferior the quality of courses and teaching. 

The GRE or SAT, in spite of being  "easy" exams, still serve as a major part of the admission criteria to institutions with much higher standards than the IITs.

There is immense scope to democratize access to the IITs, and give our teenagers the quality of life they deserve. But whether that is the motive behind the HRD ministry's moves or not, I don't know.

CET for IITs and other engineering schools in India

Recently the government has announced that there would be a common entrance test for IITs and many other government engineering colleges. This means the IIT-JEE would be replaced by a CET and would be the basis of entree to not only the IITs but many other colleges.

Subsequent to the announcement, there has been lot of debates in many forum. People are happy, disgusted, frustrated, angry and the most interesting part is that even the IITs are also not unanimous with their decision whether they should accept this or reject.

Here are some reactions:

Chetan Bhagat: Strongly against (He has written extensively on this in several news paper)

Many others are saying that many premier institutes like St. Stephens and others take students based in +2 scores, and a similar thing (as announced as a part of the CET) for IITs should be also OK.

Dhananjay (IIT KGP):

Let me put it on record that I am personally all for one and only one test similar to SAT and admission based on 12th Standard scores (using some weightage for ICSE, CBSE, IB, PU, etc.). It is ridiculous why these guys again want two tests on the same day. Instead, they should focus on designing one test that can grade student effectively. English scores should also be one of the criteria for admission into IITs - maybe we can consider TOEFL scores if we dont want to design our own course.

Let us also accept that current JEE is not producing desirous results. First year classes are filled with coaching school products who are just not able to cope.  NRN talks about this in his interview in today's newspaper. IITs are not producing students like old times and are now focused on mass production. Maybe that is the call of the day and I dont want to get into this discussion.

Once again, I am for one exam (not the current two exam format too) all India based on which students can apply anywhere.

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Sharmik (IIT KGP)

First off, I would like to thank Subhashis for including me in the conversation that deals with a matter close to all our hearts.

Let me start by saying while I strongly agree that one can find many things to "crib" about regarding the quality of the faculty at IIT-KGP, I think this issue is not directly related to the question at hand: Is it a good idea to have one common entrance exam for all engineering colleges and/or make the admissions criteria "broader" (including board marks, scores on personality tests, taking into account extra-curricular activities etc.)

IMHO, the answer is "no" for the following reason:

I saw the JEE as a test that tries to identify the top 1% students in mathematical / scientific ability/achievement at the 12th grade level. Not only that, it is also designed to distinguish between the top 0.001% (the truly outstanding) from the mere top 1-2%.
In such a test, it is very likely that a student who is at the 90th percentile (top 10%) and a student at the 80th percentile will be indistinguishable from each other.

On the other hand, a test designed for the purpose of selecting students for many engineering colleges will necessarily have to distinguish between the 80th and the 90th percentile student - and in doing so will no longer be able to identify the top 0.01% student from the mere top 1%.

Let me illustrate this further: In KGP, my friend Debraj (not from my dept) was much better than me in Math. In our 1st and 2nd year courses, he breezed through the Math with Ex-es, whereas I struggled to get a D (and not because I did not study). In fact he  had a much higher JEE rank than me (in the low 100s vs. in the 1200s for me). The JEE was successful in being able to distinguish the brilliant (him) from the merely good (me). However, in the GRE exam, both of us got the same high mathematical ability score.

You may have noticed that for the math GRE, a score of 800 corresponds to a the 95th percentile. Please note that the GRE did the job it was designed to do - distinguish between students at the 40th, 60th, 80th and even the 95th percentile in ability. It cannot be used to identify the top 0.1% (or even the top 1%) from among the top 5%. I fear that in moving to a system where the same test is used for a variety of colleges, we'll have to necessarily make the test more like the GRE in its resolution than the JEE of yore.

So for a very technical reason alone, I think the idea redesigning the JEE for use by a large number of universities is a bad idea. I would be happy to hear the thoughts of all people here on this.

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I also confess to have a different, and much more optimistic, outlook on current admissions.

Regarding tuitions: As a steel-town boy in the mid-90s, I was perhaps near the epicenter of the tuition mania - and one thing I can attest is the following: I never encountered a single instance of a not-the-sharpest-tool-in-the-shed type of guy making it to IIT based on the benefits provided by tuition. Over 1000 students used to take tuition from the most sought after teachers. only about 25 would make it to JEE - and maybe 100 more to the more competitive schools like RECs, BIT etc.  (The teachers would use this as publicity to attract the next bunch of suckers, er. sorry customers). The prime function of the tuition was to make sure we studied with regularity. Had it not been for the tuition, I would have probably slacked off too much to make the cut. Motivated students, like my school senior Abhishek Chandra who was AIR 10 in 1993, did not bother attend tuition.

Stress and the ripples of under-performance (dropout, even suicide) were with us even during our times (Chetan Bhagat captured some of it well in FPS). I may be mistaken - but I don't seem to think that they have increased that much (our 24-hour news channels would be on any suicide in a micro-second and make it a recurring story for a month). My personal opinion is that we could do a better job in helping students who fall behind - but that's a totally different topic.

Regarding "Personality tests": I think they have some serious issues here (a) they can be easily gamed by the intelligent-but-unscrupulous, and (b) some truly intelligent people - of the sort that make real innovative breakthroughs - have contrarian personailities - and would flunk any HR-administered tests (if they answered honestly - which they are more likely to do when young). I for one, would want to have them in IIT - not weed them out.

Once again, I welcome the opportunity to express my opinions on the matter - and look forward to hearing from others as well

Sincerely
~Shramik Sengupta
(Class of 98 - LLR; Biotech)

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My comments:

I think any decision is good as long as it's debated, and decided after taking into accounts all the sides. There has been discussions in forum like this, but what's unfortunate is that similar things might not have happened at the highest levels, and that's why even IITs are divided now. This is surely not a good sign that few IITs have 'broken out'. I feel that's the most important thing to take care now. IIT as a system has been working with a common goal and if they are now divided the entire system breaks down. I believe IIT alumni should try to assert their influence and make sure that the IITs are not divided like this - that's a very bad precedence. There should have been enough debates and discussions, which I feel is totally missing and people are taking unilateral decisions.

The Idea of Democracy

We're proud to be a democratic republic. Despite all the follies of our country, still somewhere there's always a hope, always something to be proud of.

Let me share an interesting trivia I came across.

There's no unanimously accepted logic why India has been known as the land of the King Bharat (Bharata varsha) since antiquity. What's special about this mythical King Bharata? How did his name stick to the identity of so big a country. There's actually a lesser known fact about this King. He was no doubt a great emperor, but when he didn't find any of his sons to be fit for running the country he adopted a commoner (in fact an illegitimate son shunned by his own parents) on the recommendation of people he trusted and made him his successor, conferring on him the royal lineage. Perhaps this is the earliest instance of democratically electing the head of a country. (And this makes the Pandavas not the biological descendant of Bharata, but that of a commoner with no royal connections)

The Oscars: 2012

While watching the Oscars in the morning and seeing an Iranian movie (Separation) again in the limelight (it got the award for the best film in foreign language category), it amazed me. Despite serious restrictions in making a movie in Iran, extremely constrainted budget, and finally the recent prejudice with which the west has started seeing Iran, it's really a worthy thing to see their films coming to this stage - much ahead of any Indian film in the recent and not so recent past. I believe they have proved that publicity, PR and size don't come in the way when the quality is really high - that's a lesson for all of us.

BTW, a passing comment - Oscars (and any big award in the world) is also a chronicle of patience. This year the award for the best supporting actor in male category went to Christopher Plummer, who is best known for the role of the head of the Von Trapp family in the 60's block buster "Sound of Music" - and this is his first Oscar, after 6 decades of hard work. Another lesson.

Multi ethnicity and excellence

I'd like to talk about our industry, the semiconductor industry in Bangalore, and especially our company, Mirafra Technologies, providing design services to our industry. When it comes to the overall multi-ethnicity and cosmopolitanism nature of the entire IT industry, of which we're a part, there's nothing astounding about our particular industry, nevertheless, it does represent the very essence of what a hi-tech industry should be. I personally feel that one of the reasons why our industry, no doubt one of the most hi-tech ones in the world - we design the electronic chips that go into the latest phones, tablets and other sophisticated electronic gadgets -, has attained its present stature is its perfectly cosmopolitan nature.

Digressing a bit, I'd like to quote historian Ramachandra Guha from his magnum opus 'India after Gandhi'. While talking about the connection between cosmopolitanism and excellence in films, he has given the example of Sholay, perhaps the most successful movie made in India. He writes, 'Its director (Ramesh Sippy) was Sindhi, while its lyricist (Anand Bakshi) and one male lead (Dharmendra) were Punjabi. Other male leads were from Uttar Pradesh (Amitabh Bachchan), Gujarat (Sanjeev Kumar) and North West Frontier Province (Amjad Khan) respectively. Another (Danny) who was dropped at the last moment, was from Sikkim. Of the two female leads, one (Hema Malini) was a Tamil, the other (Jaya Bhaduri) a Bengali domiciled in Madhya Pradesh. The music director (RD Burman) was a Bengali - from Tripura.'

I feel Ramachandra Guha used this as a representation to make a point that excellence is directly linked to multi ethnicity and cosmopolitanism. Bombay became Bombay because people from all over the country settled there. It couldn't have been what it's now had it been just a native hole of Mumbaikars. The same is applicable to our hi-tech industry, which has attained its stature only because people from all over India have come and joined it. No other city attracted so many people from all over India and that's why Bangalore has become the Silicon Valley of India.

To take the example of our company, it was founded by Alok Kuchlous, a Haryanvi, and Shyam Sundar Padala, a Telugu from Andhra Pradesh. I, a Bengali domiciled in Bangalore for the past fifteen years, am a VP Engineering. The other VP, Bimal Bhattacharya, is an Assamese of Bengali origin from Guwahati. The Directors of HR and Sales, Snehdeep Ambarkar and Sandip Kadtane, are Marathi. Pratish Behra, one of our oldest employees, is an Oriya. Among our 200+ people we've representation from almost all the states, except for some of the North Eastern states. We've people from almost all the IITs and NITs across the country - even one from NIT Srinagar.

Our MD and co-founder Shyam is very particular about maintaining the cosmopolitanism and multi-ethnic nature of our company. And the interesting thing is that we don't have to put any extra effort to do it. We just hire the best people from the best of the colleges and we never go by any prejudice.

There's a reason why the IITs are among the best colleges in India. It's perhaps because no other college attracts so many people from across the country. No other college can claim to be so much cosmopolitan. The reason why Stanford or MIT are even better places is perhaps they attract people from round the world, which no Indian college can do. So the bottom line is that if we want to excel in any area we have to look out beyond the local region and attract people from every where. A multi ethnic and cosmopolitan atmosphere opens up the minds of people, broadens the thoughts and intellect and help create a climate conducive of growth and excellence.

The day someone says Bangalore is only for Kannadigas, that would be the beginning of the end of Bangalore.

Now We Should Fight For Accountability

Just consider the following events:

1. Mark Papermaster, a 25 year veteran at IBM who had been the vice president of IBM's microprocessor technology development, was sacked from Apple as the Senior Vice President of Engineering for a design flaw in iPhone, the problem which Apple's CEO Steve Job referred to as Antennagate. He was just out for one design flaw that had some (??) impact on Apple's revenue.
2. Carol Bartz, the gorgeous CEO of Yahoo was sacked over phone because she failed to revive the fallen glory of the company.
3. Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple, was sacked from his own company by the investors in 1985, because they didn't share Steve's vision.
4. And then there are the regular Employee Appraisal process, the Corrective Action Programs (CAP) and many other systems and processes at almost every professionally managed companies around the world where any who fails to perform properly is first warned and then kicked out.

The key to good performance of any organization is continuous tracking of the performance of every individual, whoever he or she may be, and get the under performers out of the system. It's survival for the fittest. It's veer bhogya vasundhara, the world is for the powerfuls, the intelligents. But when someone is asked to leave an organization it doesn't mean that he or she is useless. There may be other places where the same person can excel and thrive. But the key is kicking out people who fail to perform. This is applicable from the CEO to the lowest peon in an office. Everyone serves someone, my house maid serves me, I serve my company, my CEO serves the investors and the board of governors. Everyone is a servant, some private some public. And like I have the authority to ask my maid servant to not come from tomorrow if I'm not happy with her performance, I'm also vulnerable to be kicked out if I under perform.

But then why our public servants - the ministers, the corporators, all the government employees, etc are exempted of being kicked. They are our servants, very much like my maid servant. I pay them their salaries. And I should be the one assessing their performance, isn't it? But can I sack the engineer whose lack of planning has led to unprecedented delays in making a bridge. Can I sack the minister who has failed to do what he had promised before the election? At least the ministers have a five year window after which they can be dismissed by the people. But what about the equal thugs, the IPS, the IAS and the so many other servants in various departments? There's no debate on the topic that government employees enjoy some special immunity which make them lethargic and less efficient. They all know that they are not accountable to anyone and that their masters (I, you everyone) are impotent.

I feel the next biggest fight, after fighting against corruption, should be the fight for making the Public Servants accountable and 'kickable'. Their appraisals should be published publicly, because they are public servants, they too should be brought under the ambit of three sixty degree feedback where their masters, we, will be asked to assess their performances, and their hikes and promotions should be based on annual appraisals.

Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaye He

That's what I felt when Anna broke the fast. Yes, this is the victory for the power of the Mind of the people, power of the Jana Gana Mana. And yes, I do accept that the most supreme is the this power, this power of the people. The constitution, the parliament all come later. So when this people's power demand for something then there's no other way than to accept that, implement that. Very aptly Anna said today after breaking the fast that this victory is for the people of India. It's unjust to say that the parliament or anything else is the supreme. Tagore had pointed it out long time back that the victory is always to the Jana Gana Mana. We've been chanting this for so long but how did we forget this? How did our politicians forget this that nothing is above the people of India?

Thanks Anna to remind us all that the supreme power of the country is with the people. If people say something better listen to it.

Arundhati is back again with what she does best: WRITE SHIT

Arundhati Roy's article:

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2379704.ece?homepage=true

This is what happens when an engineer tries to be a doctor and a writer writes to be an activist. She is really the Goddess of all small things, I mean all meanness. She can sleep with the Naxal (who have killed more innocents than perhaps the police), and can openly support the Kashmiri separatist movement (that has created the second largest displaced community of the world - the Kashmiri Pandits), and now she speaks like Manish Tiwari about Anna. Does she mean that she is more intelligent than so many intellectuals who are supporting this movement? I don't think so. She has the right to voice her thoughts, but she can't demean someone, or someone else's thoughts. That shows how mean she is.

Have you ever heard her saying anything about the Sikh riots of 84 that had killed more Sikhs than Muslims killed in Gujarat riots in 2002. No, she never writes. Did she ever write about the Kashmiri Pandits? Did she ever write about the Bhopal Gas tragedy which has been the biggest genocide in India till date - that was something like the concentration camp and still she is quiet. Why? She finds it interesting only when it augers her agenda, I don't know what. She is just a media hungry hypocrite who shouldn't be taken seriously at all.

And what the fuss about using Vande Mataram? Arundhati Roy writes in English. But she could have been a little more aware of Indian languages. I'm not expecting her to be an authority in Sanskrit (thanks God, at least she doesn't shit in that language), but still she should have referred to any Sanskrit dictionary to find the meaning of vandana.

Let me quote from the Monier Williams' Sanskrit to English dictionary. The word vandana comes from the root vad, which means to speak, to utter, to praise etc. And vandana also means praise, other then just worship. Sanskrit is a very metaphoric language and one word has multiple meanings. Vande Mataram doesn't mean only to worship the motherland, it also means to praise the motherland, to speak of the motherland. What's the wrong in that. Is any religion of the world against praising his or her motherland. If yes, I do condemn that religion, and those thoughts.

But I still maintain, she is a good writer!!

BTW, our movement is to fight corruption, and everything that she has mentioned is a fruit of some corruption. We're fighting with ourselves too, because the root of corruption is within me. Whenever I don't want to take a bill to avoid the sales tax, I'm being corrupt. Everytime I ask my CA to find ways to evase tax, I'm being corrupt. Everytime I jump a signal I'm being corrupt. Every time I use office resources for my personal use (even taking printout of fligth tickets) I'm being corrupt. We're fighting against all these. Once we're free from corruption only then we can change the world. And what's the problem in doing that? If Arundhati doesn't want to be the Anna, thanks. Let her sleep with the Naxals and the Kashmiri terrorists!! We don't need her in our movement.

From Freedom Park

by Tapas Datta

www.owasfilms.com
Founder & Managing Partner,
OneWithoutA Second Films LLP Company,

I just came back from the Freedom Park in Bangalore today after sharing a few hours with the people fasting in support of Anna Hazare. The old patriotic songs were playing - among them the songs of Nazrul, songs of INA (Netaji's) and you would be surprised - of Charan kabi Mukundadas who raised the fire amongst Bengal Independence fighters. Although many people didnt understand the Bengali words - they were shedding tears ! Great things never die, I suppose.