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.

Thank You Congress!!

This may sound ridiculous that at this point of time I'm thanking the very party that's at the center of all the storm, or in the words of Manish Tiwari, steeped in corruption from head to toe (he had used this for Anna though).

Well, that's the irony. There's a concept of Srishti-Sthiti-Laya in Hinduism. We believe that to create something you have to first destroy something else. That's what we've learnt in our basic physics too - conservation of energy. You can't create new energy, but only transform one to another form, kinetic energy gets converted to potential and vice versa. Congress has proved the natural law in a very interesting way. Lot of potential energy was stored within 1.2 billion people. But somehow that untapped energy was not getting converted into kinetic form to move things. India is a massive country of billion plus people and trillion plus bucks. It needs serious kinetic energy to move and lo, Congress has enabled this conversion of potential energy (in the form of angst, frustration, helplessness, hopelessness, depression, oppression, inflation bla bla bla) to a fission and fusion of kinetic energy that's now moving, rather shaking, the whole country!!

Thank you Congress and all the thugs (do you have anything else) in your party to arouse a country that had slept for thirty plus years saying 'chalta hai'. Thanks to you for making Anna a household name from Jaipur to Jhumritalaiya, from Calcutta and Cuttack to Cochin, from Guwahati to Gandhinagar, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari; thanks to you for making all of us realize that India is still ruled not by you but the Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka; thanks to you for making us realize that we're stronger than you; thanks to you for making us believe in ourselves; thanks to you for making us believe that no matter how bad you can be, we would be still good; thanks to you!!

BTW, last time too, it was you who had aroused us - in the 70s, under JP!! Great. Keep doing the good work and arouse our country every after 40 years!!

Thought of the Days

For the past few weeks one of my colleagues, Pankaj Arora, has been sending a mail every morning with the subject - Thought for the Day. Initially, like any other forwards, I would glance through the mail casually. But very soon his mail became a part of the morning. He was on leave for a week and every morning when I would open my mail I would feel something was missing. That's what I would say is becoming a habit. Good things come and become a part of your day, without you knowing what it has become.

Here is the collection, sent one each day.

When someone is telling you that you can't do something, don't quit, just smile and say I'LL SHOW YOU !!

"When You Do Anything New,
At First People Laugh At You,
Then They Challenge You,
Then They Watch You Succeed,
And Then....
They Wish They Are Like You"

You have enemies? Good.
That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life !!

"Many Of Life's Failures Are Men Who Did Not Realize How Close They Were To Success When They Gave Up"

Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior.

"Don't be Afraid of Pressure , Because Pressure is What turns a COAL into DIAMOND "

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, 

But often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.

"Do Not Be Afraid Of Going Slowly, But Of Standing Still”

Ship is safest at the harbour . But that's not the place it is meant for . 

"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer."

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." 

- Thomas Edison 

Falling down is Not Defeat. Defeat is when one refuses to Get Up!!! 

"Your Life is Defined By How You Correct Mistakes & Not By How You Avoid Making Them"

"Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live" 

If you learn only methods, you'll be tied to your methods, 

but if you learn principles you can devise your own methods

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. 

I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, 

I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. 

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. 

And that is why I succeed." 

- Michael Jordan

I’m a great believer in LUCK , 

and I find the harder I work the more I have of it .

The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to 

excellence,regardless of his chosen field of endeavor

"Vision without action is daydreaming and action without vision is a nightmare"

“We Cannot Direct The Wind… But We Can Adjust The Sails”

"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own" 

"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there"

There are three kinds of people in the world, the wills, the won'ts and the can'ts. 

The first accomplish everything; the second oppose everything; 

the third fail in everything.

Happiness doesn't mean everything's perfect. 

It just means you have decided to see beyond the imperfections!!

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; 

that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

There's something you may give, 

To a friend and a stranger too; 

It seems that when you give it, 

It's given back to you. 

This present is worth a million, 

But doesn't cost a dime; 

It's lasting in effect, 

But doesn't take much time, 

This simple little gesture 

Can make the day worthwhile; 

It's just as good as sunshine; 

It's what we call a smile

If An Egg Breaks By Outside Force, Life Ends, But...... 

If An Egg Breaks From Within, Life Begins, 

Great Things Always Begins From Within .

If You Think You Are Too Small To Have An Impact, 

Try Going To Bed With A Mosquito In The Room

When God Solves Your Problems, You Have Faith In His Abilities,

But When He Doesn't, Then Presume He Has Faith In Your Abilities