Independence

Vidya, the five year old came to the campus on Wednesday evening with her parents. It was drizzling when they were to return. Vidya was having fun while parents were arranging rain cover for the scooter ride. Interestingly, they did not look worried about what would happen if it starts raining heavily. They had to travel to a place called Subhaspally, 6-7 KM from IIT Kharagpur campus. The father works in Govt. service in Karnataka, the mother is a homemaker.

Today afternoon our family went to meet and greet Medha, the six months old in her first rice ceremony. Vidya had some issue on why all gifts from guests were meant for the sister. The whole family of Vidya and Medha - parents, uncle, aunt, grand parents were full of joy. Medha too obliged all guests and did not treat them as strangers, was comfortable in our lap too. In a lighter mood we told the parents that we may ask when we make a telephone call, "Connect to Vidya" or "Connect to Medha" whenever we have any disconnect with our own Vidya or Medha! The gathering had old pals with whom I spent my younger days of Sanga Chhadhhang, Sang baddwadhang and weekly study-circles. My daughter was caught off-guarded once in this gathering on her Math. lessons. This is when one came to us and after exchange of greetings told my daughter that he scored poorly in Math. in Class VIII and then joined the 'Free Coaching Centre' that we used to run and learnt Math. from me.

Had fun! Environment was excellent! Second daughter - but it is not an issue for the family unlike what we hear elsewhere so much so that the Prime Minister of India needs to refer to it in his Independence Day speech. "Have we seen our sex ratio? Who is creating this imbalance? Not God. I appeal to the doctors not to kill the girl child in the mother's womb. I request the parents not to kill daughters because they want a son. Don't kill daughters in the womb, it is a blot on 21st century India. I have seen families where one daughter serves parents more than five sons. (Link)"  The names Medha and Vidya show how much the parents value education themselves and for their daughters.

Some days before one student asked me to forward a letter to be given to security section where the persons named in the letter can issue key to work on weekends. What came as sweet surprise and was somewhat unusual in this letter brought by her, is that girls were in majority in the list. In last two years, girls outdid the boys in joining as research students in our lab. The trend is there in other research lab.s too and in the institute as a whole. This increase put a challenge to our infrastructure and major steps have been taken to increase the number of accommodation for girl students.

General to more specific. Got one mail from a PhD aspirant months back. She could not be shortlisted in our Dept. due to some reason at her end but was shortlisted in another Dept. She was coming for interview and wanted to talk to me. It was educative for me to know her life's struggle. Father died early. She studied hard and did well to earn free studentship that includes engineering and completed MTech. Now she wants to pursue PhD but the mother wants her to join a high paying PSU job she got from campus and get married. Her brother is still studying. She requested another six months from the mother. And if she does not get admission in a PhD program of her choice in an IIT within that time she would take up job. The determination I saw in her made me see what was in store and I encouraged that day and later through email reply. She did well in test and joined as a PhD scholar. I was not surprised when there was a 'Thank You' visit some weeks back.

Facebook brought some distant relatives closer. She is one of our very distant relative and the relationship is so hierachical and family-tree based that I am 'Grandfather' of her who is about 20 years younger to me. Once a year we used to meet in our family function of worship of goddess 'Kali - the Mother' in our ancestral place. Kali worship used to take whole night. On the sideline, I used to conduct quiz, mental Math. for all children gathered. We used to have about 250 family members gathered in one place in this annual function. And this 'granddaughter' of mine used to be very prompt in answering.

Elsewhere I have mentioned that how our family had to struggle to get settled here at the partition of India during Independence (Link). The larger family took different number of generations to come to terms where basic needs could be addressed easily. This granddaughter belonged to such a branch of the tree who are yet to come out of the worry of 'what and how'. She completed graduation and prepared for banking service examination. She did very well in exam. for Probationary Officer (P.O.) selection and there came the time when results were to be published. She was so confident that she did not join another Govt. job of lower position that she got few months back.

But appointment letter was not coming! Did she make a mistake not to accept the other job? Is it going back to the days of despair after the ray of hope that could change their lot? She used to write occasionally, worried - some from their batch got appointment letter while she had not etc. Once she wrote that it is not Postman, she is looking at appearance of God with appoinment letter in hand in the doorway. I asked her to study Vivekananda and not to give up. Used to share how we overcame challenging times.

And then came the time. After joining as P.O. she wrote after few weeks that she wants to devote a part of her for the society and social cause and asked suggestion. The desire in her message "Ami kicchu korte chai (I want to do something)" showed the same strong determination. The attached "God has a bigger plan for me than I have for myself" is from her facebook wall.

And, may I say that I have heard the voice of  Independence?

Endnote: Vivekananda said, "Freedom is the song of the soul." To listen to the song of the soul or voice of independence, there may require a no-abandoning voice of care. One such voice was picked up on Saturday in NSS, IIT Kharagpur conducted medical camp (Link). Please listen to it. The conversation may be in Bengali, but the language of love is always understood.

Switching Task

I wished to continue with the fun spirit of earlier post or wait for a sunny day that would have brightened the spirit (switch to last segment to see why I say this). Wished to tell in the same non-serious tone that the worst I feared as outcome of 'Mission Independence' (Link) had happened; after cooking food and eating the same for one week. I gained one kilogram of weight. Yes, there used to be wrong estimate on quantity of rice. But, more important reason had been, couldn't throw away any food even if it was in excess and swallowed the same. Can do that easily when someone else puts her effort in cooking, to set aside excess food-stuff when I am full. Which part of our brain plays the trick, fools us ... develops attachment for own doings even when it is beyond proportion defying all logic?

We three colleagues were on our way to Kolkata. How to handle work pressure, various expectations was one of the topic in our journey. The wonderful teacher-student relationship, the respect IIT teachers command from students are largely due to devotion the students see among teachers, the amount of effort, the hours they put in, the multitudes of responsibilities they handle.

IITs started with an aim of providing right manpower to industries in post-independence era. UG teaching was the focus. The brand it created asks not to disown this family jewel. But the world has moved on. UG engineering teaching is taken care of by many. The focus is getting shifted to PG students (Masters and PhD guidance other than their coursework). But we do not have postdocs in our research lab.s. Thus, the canvas of the role of a teacher is huge (UG to PhD, taking care of academic and psychological needs of students from 18 year old to 30 year old in a walled campus). It encompasses interaction within and outside classroom, assignments, answer-script checking and other evaluations, minor and major projects ...

Getting funded projects and servicing them as per timeline and to the satisfaction of sponsors through project staffs coming from Tier-2 engineering colleges is a challenge. IIT faculty are supposed to serve various national level responsibilities by conducting various training programs for others, setting question papers of various kinds, serving various committees, evaluating and guiding funded projects conducted by others, establishing lab.s, setting curriculum etc.

There are review work for thesis, journal, conference articles, patent documents. There are recommendations to be given to current as well as ex-students applying to various places. There are research collaboration at national and international level and one needs to interact with collaborators, visit their places, host them.  There are large no. of administrative responsibilities at Dept., Institute level and beyond. Some faculty members contribute by writing text/research books for which they have commitment to publishers and need to adhere to publication timeline. For IPs filed, one needs to explore commercialization opportunities.

Besides, in a rapidly changing technology space one needs to study oneself to keep one updated as regard to UG/PG courses being taught, the research work carried out by leading universities / lab.s / industry in his area of interest and the broad area.

Finally, they have a family to take care. They have passion for extra-curricular and society at large. They cannot take their health for granted. And they have 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week like everybody else :-)

How to switch from one task to another? Remember, you are handling youth, the best and brightest of the country, and the nation banks on them. One cannot be casual in one's approach. An insincere job will be hugely costly for the nation. Standing by each other, encouraging / motivating each other, sharing the vision and experience, building team spirit, excellence in work environment and the highly sought after freedom, friendly and supportive atmosphere are behind whatever little that could be done to face these challenges.

Thanks to all. The first and foremost is of course our excellent student community. No amount of praise is enough. If there is any aberration, it has more to do with inability to set a new goal once they enter IIT. Cracking IIT-JEE was dream from childhood. What next? Faculty, Parents, Alumni, Senior students, all need to work together to help the young 18 year old set the next goal, the next dream, and how to achieve it; switching to a new role and task. Next, parents / guardians have great respect for IIT system which helps. But there is more scope for them to engage with faculty advisor and monitor progress from 1st semester itself. Call it parent-teacher meeting akin to schools, call it any other thing - but they are important stake holders and are in a position to influence. We can sow dreams in them too, how much their ward can do and they can inspire / motivate in turn. The faculty and non-faculty colleagues are excellent. If someone does not feel the pressure, it is because of them. There is always a helping hand. People who are part of the support system who are drawn from neighbourhood - shopkeepers, maids, service staffs from electrical maintenance to sanitary have such a pleasing personality; it makes our job easier. No amount of 'Thanks' is sufficient for family members. They understand, appreciate our responsibilities. Rarely you will hear, "You have time to take care of others but your own kid."

On individual plane, I find that the lessons on Pratyhara and Dharana from study circles are helpful. An excellent article of Vivekananda can be found here (Link). The article is useful for everyone who wants mastery over mind and its various tricks.

For quite sometime I wanted to write something on changing social structure, family values ... desire for personal space, better things in life ... losing grip over of patience, tolerance .... the idea of 'self before everything else' ... till sometime back separated parents fought each other over custody of child, the other day the newspaper reported a case where none of the parents wants custody of the child as they separate (Link1, Link2)... it started with nuclear family concept which kept uncles, aunt out; then ageing father / mother were kept out; then husband wife stopped seeing each other, and now off-springs are obstacles to have 'good times' in life  ... it appears that, the younger a person, the more is the ease and pace to disown a relationship and disregard advice / suggestion / feedback, the ego is higher ... it is so sad, it is so painful in the land where 'sacrifice' and 'service' were the twin pillars which held the society together ... need to ask, what we are getting educated at, are we not ignoring those family jewels ... can we call ourselves educated ... Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there .... The training by which the current and expression of will is brought under control and become fruitful is called education ... says Vivekananda. 



My elder sister says that there were always challenges. But tolerance level was higher to tide over a crisis phase which is cyclic in nature. Now we have become more fragile. The relationships are casualty. We have breadth, but we lack in depth. We have knowledge, we lack wisdom. We are after Preya (pleasure driven) and not Shreya (welfare driven). We look for maximizing today, we do not care for investing in tomorrow. We care for matter, we do not care for spirit.

May we develop the strength of character which stands the trials of life, the test of time. May we all be blessed to overcome challenges being humane in our approach. May we be at peace with ourselves and society around.

Scaling Heights

Came a request to attend a project monitoring meeting which we are mentoring for long. The project is executed in one of the farthest of the North Eastern states. This was my first such assignment, belonged to a region which is trying to catch-up with the rest of the country also in terms of scientific R & D, and the problem definition had hundred percent correlation with what we do at our own research lab. here. Therefore, even if the meeting was scheduled during very important 7-10 days period of checking end-sem. answer-scripts, I was not in a position to skip it. Got prepared for a KOL-GHY flight and then 6-7 hours of road journey. Had been there before and liked that place. Suddenly, I was told that the meeting would take place in GHY itself, the project execution team was coming down there.

Had to prepare a contingency plan. This is the time where we need to make everyday, including weekends count. And I am awfully slow in checking scripts, average about fifteen per day. What to do?  Each answer-script is like a novel. Answers to questions are like chapters. Concepts are like characters. And there are so many shades of characters! In my mail to students when I asked them to come for checking their evaluation of end-sem. answer scripts I wrote, "... an answer-script tells lots of things - the strength and weakness of a student as seen by a teacher. It won't be possible tomorrow to address each of you individually. If you are interested, you may visit day after tomorrow or later by taking an appointment (you may try without appointment too but I may be in some other meeting)." Whether students like this or are more worried about grades .... whether they want to be treated as customers where we are service provides and the customer satisfaction is directly proportional to grades awarded, is a different issue which we can take up later. It is suffice to say that I am proud of our students. I understand their sentiments regarding inflationary tendencies seen at many a places and if 'no inflation' weakens their career prospect in anyway or if it is for greater good. At personal level, I find a lot to improve from the student feedback and each year is a different learning experience.

Coming back to where I was, the contingency plan was to carry answer-scripts with me and utilize slack hours during the journey or stay, for evaluating them. I do not find difficulty with concentration level as I am practising similar things from childhood. I remember waiting in long queues (which extended to main road from the shop and often one had to wait for hours) for weekly quota of kerosene oil in 'Fair Price Shop' pouring over a study book in my hand. This of course was no 'child labour' but sharing a responsibility; my father (link) was doing more than what he could do. ToI reports felicitation function of toppers by the state Chief Minister, Smt. Mamata Banerjee (Link), "She tried to inspire students by quoting Swami Vivekananda in relation to several spheres of life. "If there is no problem in life, how can you solve them and move ahead?," she asked. Adding," never lose heart or be disappointed. Do not feel depressed amidst the challenges that life throws at you. But, work hard to overcome them. " She further said that a needy student managing own study expense by offering tuition, was common place before. Now that very thought frustrates a young meritorious student. One should be always positive about life. I hope the student remembers what the state higher education minister said, "Behind your success, there are contributions of many people in this society - from your parents, to the cobblers who mend your shoes to the tailor who has tailored your school uniform. When you grow up and establish yourself in this society, do not forget them." Incidentally, after my Higher Secondary examination result, the felicitation was done by then Chief Minister, Shri Jyoti Basu. Surely, it is a overwhelming experience and gives lots of confidence to a youngster.

Compared to study in Kerosene Oil queue and standing, the study in crowded suburban train and sitting used to be a cake-walk. Thus, checking answer-scripts during the KOL-GHY flight was not at all a problem. And I was fully engrossed in it. Quickly finished snacks offered by flight personnel. And then was waiting for them to clear the space to restart. An elderly lady with N-E complexion was seated next to me. We had a language barrier. And I was sweetly surprised when she smiled at me and indicated to me to keep my food cutlery and  waste materials in her desk so that I can resume my work. Thanked God that I am in this noble profession and remembered the Chanakya Shloka studied in Class VII, "Bidyatwancha, Nripatwancha, Naiba Tulyam Kadachana / Swadeshe Pujyate Raja, Bidyan Sarbartra Pujyate." (My weak translation : The King and the Learned can never be compared. The former is worshiped in his kingdom while the later is worshiped everywhere.) This is not to mean I am being worshiped or so. Rather I worship the virtue, the gesture I saw in that lady and feel grateful. This is to place before all the respect society showers on us due to our profession, the care we provide and the responsibility associated with it. Interacting youth in the age group 18-24 years, for months and years where we are seen as teachers is a big, big responsibility and is much beyond customer-service provider relationship. If it is so required I would say that the nation is the customer and the students are the products and it is our duty to get a well-rounded personality of them who are ready to take challenges of life, nation, the humanity as a whole. The age group we serve makes men out of boys when they face important transitions in life - hope and pray I have the capacity to contribute by which the nation gets its greatest gift, youth as characterized in our scripture - Ashistha, Drarishtha, Balishtha, Medhabi i.e. hopeful / of positive attitude, resolute / confident, strong (in body and mind), and meritorious / intelligent.

Soon the seat belt sign was on. We started approaching GHY airport. I had an opportunity to look at the gentleman at the other side of my aisle seat, across the walking bay. He smiled very friendly. I also smiled. As we two stood up one after another to deplane, he started the conversation - where I am from, where I am going etc. He is returning from KOL after US visa interview and offered me to drop at my destination in his car (he has further 6-7 hours of road journey left). When I asked his profession, he said that he is in farming. What for US visa then? He said, "I want to climb the highest peak in US. I have already done that for three continents - Asia, Africa, Australia. I would like to do that for the rest of the continents." "OMG! Do you mean that you have climbed Mt. Everest?", I asked. "Yes", came his boyish smile. He is Tapi Mra. And he was proud to show his certificates which he took to KOL for visa interview. I felt proud for him and for myself to be acquainted with him, such a simple, down-to-earth person. We exchanged contact numbers. I inquired about the funding constraints he faces and if mainstream media highlighted his achievements (which can fetch sponsorships). Told that I have very little experience of mountaineering. In fact, I was under awe to go through a twelve day long adventure course when I was half this age, under supervision of Ms. Bachendri Pal (the first Indian woman to scale Mt. Everest). It was tough - staying in tents and sleeping bag in freezing cold, preparing own lunch after trekking more than 20 KM in the morning, rafting in mountain river and bathing in freezing cold water, acclimatization at scaling of every 2000 ft. to get used to lower oxygen environment, facing hailstorm when evening descended and we were short by 2-3 KM while trekking in narrow mountain trek - what not but worth such an experience. There were five ten-member teams to go through this course and I feel proud to say that our team came first and we got certificate of recognition from Ms. Pal. I shall try to locate some of those rag and tag pictures of that time and put up here.

Later I found several pages on him (Link1, Link2, Link3, Link4), none in national media though, one of which says, "He had to struggle against poverty and lack of sponsorship to give shape to his dream of becoming a seasoned mountaineer. Those who think that climbing Mt. Everest is all about grit and stamina are mistaken. Scaling the world’s highest peak also involves a lot of money and to meet his expenses and gather funds for the expedition, Mra sold off his four mithuns (bos frontals), semi domesticated cow like animals flaunted by Arunachalees as a status symbol in the tribal society. The government of Arunachal Pradesh and some local clubs in Arunachal Pradesh also provided substantial financial assistance to Tapi Mra to meet his expenditure to scale the dizzying heights of Everest." And when the expedition was about to be abandoned due to bad weather, "He felt like he had to abandon the expedition when an avalanche killed some members of the expedition. He was so terrified that he almost decided to return home. However, he thought of the faces of several persons whose help made the expedition possible and this spurred him on. Crawling over the bodies of members of earlier expeditions imprinted on ice and which still looked fresh, he remembered he went past somebody sitting in a meditative posture near the summit with a flag in hand only to discover later that it was a body lying there for several years. After his successful descent from the peak, when asked how it felt on the top of the world, he proudly said that it was a divine feeling and felt like standing on top of the world as for the final moment of the assault he felt that he had an out of body experience and he forgot everything. A grateful Mra on his return after conquering Everest presented the Governor and Chief Minister a piece of the rock that he collected from the top of the world and the photographs of himself with the tricolour atop Everest."

The last pic is  recent photograph gifted to me by Headmaster of a local village high school when I attended a function there. The second last picture is from our recent Mirik-Darjeeling-Kurseong tour. I may describe these experiences in subsequent posts.

Thoughts on IIT JEE

 Tried to make few changes based on inputs that I received later. I probably should have indicated  that the first one was only a beta version of the post :-)  .... A follow up post appears here (Link).

Thanks to all the contributors!

The decision making process for new IIT JEE appears more interesting to me than the proposals themselves. Each of the proposal I read in various forums has its own merit and all contributors deserve thanks from the IIT community. It shows the amount of concern people have for IITs and this goodwill, perhaps is the single most achievement of IIT system in 60 years of its existence. Contribution develops an ownership and when you own it, you care for its well being. Thank you all the contributors in various forums. You own us, you won us!

The dilemma

I tend to agree with almost all the proposals when I find how strongly the arguments are put in their favour, even if they contradict each other!! The decision makers need to take a final decision after weighing pluses and minuses of each proposal. The maxima and minima of different objectives being articulated may not converge to the same point. For example, the maxima for getting the best students to IIT and the minima to be achieved on coaching centre effect may not lie at the same point. There must be some cost-benefit analysis for this before it swings from one direction to other.

Should I, should I not?

Do I have an opinion of my own? I believe that I need NOT have an opinion on everything and comment on it. I may not have sufficient expertize. It could be so that I could not study the issue enough or I lack ground raw data to build an hypothesis. However, being a part of IIT system for long, taking IIT-JEE in 1986, graduating from Electronics and ECE of IITKGP in 1990, working for PhD here during 1994-1999 and serving as a faculty member for little less than 10 years now, I may share a few words not as an expert, but as a simple onlooker who is with the flow.I don't know what I say is in synch with the time - it may be ahead of or it may belong to the time we have left behind. But history repeats! Does it not? :-)

Not my cup of tea

It may not be easy to curb coaching class effect by introducing any change in IIT-JEE. This is more of a social issue. The parents who can afford, will go all out to give any extra edge, even if it is minuscule 1-2%, for their wards in a highly competitive examination like this so that the probability of getting admitted increases. Way back in 1986, I have seen parents who can afford, engaging three private tutors for single subject - each tutor was assumed to be expert in one aspect of the subject. The corporatization of coaching came to take advantage of this space where entrepreneurs saw an opportunity . If some benovalent group provides free but quality IIT-JEE coaching then there will be coaching centres to prepare students to get admission into those free coaching centres. I read in some post (Link) of Times of India that higher dowry associated with IITian label, is the motivation for some. I believe that with the single child family on the rise, the burgeoning and aspiring middle class creating an assertive space for itself and the high stake involved in clearing the exam. will not allow the coaching centres to close, even if you, I and they wish to. They will evolve to fit into any new paradigm to cater to the demand of you and me.

Core issue asking attention

We may speak ill of many things, but when our own turn comes we usually do not fall short of using it, to make our son / daughter reach an advantageous position relative to other children who may be equal or more meritorious. This is my take on the society which is yet to stress on man-making, character-building education and is trying to address the symptoms - not the cause. My little experience is that the young are very good, are more ready to embrace an egalitarian society, give people their due and they need to be nurtured well from early age. We elders inject selfishness into them to protect our interest and cry foul later when they become too selfish, more than what we wanted to make of them.We expect that all challenging jobs will be taken care of child of somebody else, not mine. All comforts and no hardship for my child in life's journey - after all, it is a competitive environment where other children are opponents! But, in this land of Mahabharata, a son goes to his mother to seek blessings before a do-or-die battle. Life's sadhana, tapasya made the mother so powerful that had she wished the son would have won. But in her lips came, "Yatha Dharma, Tatha Jay" i.e. whoever is fighting for the dharma (truth, justice) should win and she knew that the son was not exactly following dharma. I am talking about Mother Gandhari when son Duryodhana goes to her before the battle of Kurkshetra. And we know how Dhritarashtra's unfulfilled ambition was channelized through Duryodhana. I cannot help if it sounds idealistic, but we cannot achieve an ideal system (the motive behind IIT JEE or any reform) without adopting idealism ourselves, in our dealing with our children who are the future of the nation. It will be like pushing the garbage from one corner of the room to other corner and never getting rid of it. With reform in the education sector on the anvil, we can give a deep, hard look at the core issue without which the much discussed 'inclusive growth' will just be a matter of statistics obtained from parametric adjustment of few control variables. The future of the nation depends on how we educate our youngsters, how we educate ourselves before that.

More than ritual

If we try to go beyond ritualistic celebration of 150th birth anniversary of Vivekananda, it will do us a world of good to listen to him and direct policy implementation related to education on what he said as essence of education, "We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one's own feet." We need not interpret the last point of the sentence as making enough money. Standing on one's own feet goes much beyond that in making men out of boys. If we want to listen to Tagore who conceptualized Vishwa Bharati, we hear, "The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence". The very first point of Radhakrishnan Report (1949, Link) on education says, "The quality of a civilisation depends not on the material equipment or the political machinery but on the character of men. The major task of education is the improvement of character." He further says, "Education is the means by which we can tidy up our minds, acquire information, as well as a sense of values. Education should give us not only elements of general knowledge or technical skills but also impart to us that bent of mind, that attitude of reason , that spirit of democracy which will make us responsible citizens of our country. A true democracy is a community of citizens differing from one another but all bound to a common goal." It is high time to do what is necessary to benefit from the wisdom our greatest teachers. For us, the teachers, the Radhakrishnan's birthday should be more than the celebration of Teacher's Day to remember what he said, "The right kind of teacher... not only loves his subject, he loves also those whom he teaches. His success will be measured not in terms of percentage of passes alone... but equally through the quality of life and character of men and women whom he has taught." or "The real teacher is like the gardener who nurtures the plant and not a carpenter who cuts pieces of wood to fit into certain locations .... Unless the tutor stimulates thinking rather than mere memorizing, deeper intellectual interests rather than aversion to thought, better perception of values rather than in appreciation, he serves no useful purpose but may nourish wrong habits which will be difficult to eradicate. The tutor has to bear in mind that he is not merely teaching a subject, but is educating men and women to take their places as intelligent citizens of the nation." and ask ourselves how far we are conforming to this.
 
Back to specifics

IIT-JEE can focus on achieving what it is supposed to achieve i.e. getting the right kind of students for themselves. Will inclusion of board exam. marks solve the problem? It may. What about the concern of some that there may be issues with some board? The answer given is that this exercise will make those boards do better. To me, it is a risky proposition in a high voltage situation like this. But the proposer must have thought about a way else there may be litigation one after another. Will it give rise to state quota? Nothing wrong if we are talking about inclusive growth and it may not compromise with meritocracy too as we the top 1-2% of a board will be under consideration. But the smarter among the population may try to migrate to certain boards which may appear to provide some extra edge. Probably, higher board percentage (than 60%) or percentile as eligibility to IIT-JEE can be a middle ground.

Virtue of ISEET

I like the idea of the pan-India common test like ISEET which if treated as precursor to IIT-JEE, becomes important and gets proper recognition. I like it because this prepares some sort of national level merit list and takes away much of the load from All India Rank of IIT-JEE and obsession around it. AIEEE is there but it does not get that much of an attention as it is not linked to IIT. Whether IIT will conduct another test with top x percent student of ISEET etc. and with short and/or long answer type questions is another issue. Probably they should conduct such a test to decide and it should be a subjective type. I see all coaching centre executives seeing red in this proposition. I wonder if they worry more about something else than subjectivity of evaluation. People who talk about golden days of IIT-JEE where best of the best could be selected, are talking about those days where subjective test were held. Also when the nation keeps watching every move related to IIT-JEE there is no such scope. The debate we had before was not on evaluation of answer-script but arriving at cut-off marks. And now perhaps IIT-JEE is the most transparent of all. My interaction with students here show that they appreciate the importance of subjective test and not worried about subjectivity as part marks are well defined in the evaluation procedure. If we are talking about evaluation of scripts of top x% then it can certainly be ensured. On one hand we talk about incorporation of 40% marks from Board Exam., and on the other hand we doubt the credibility of examiners of the nation's most credible entrance exam. - it does not go together. That the coaching centres do not want it (if I could hear the noise) tells that this is the solution.

Importance of 1st Year

Those who are in IIT know that all Dept.s are not equal in demand. I would like to go with the suggestion where institute is chosen based on ISEET IIT-JEE rank and Dept. is chosen after 1st year based on 1st year rank. This will give a major incentive to study in the 1st year where students tend to relax after rigorous IIT-JEE preparation. Once they slip in 1st year, with no parental control and new found freedom with high bandwidth internet and LAN working on body and mind, it is very difficult to recover. If they get into the habit of studying once in IIT, a new environment (parents too will be watchful as a lot is at stake on 1st year result), they are expected to continue with it. The other rationale is that the students go through common curriculum, stay in same environment in 1st year and thus there is a 'level playing field' (Link). The best way to judge their relative merit is at that time which will reduce the noise in merit list due to wide diversity of their background when they enter IIT system.

Update: Had a discussion with a group of 2nd year IITKGP UG students this morning on various aspects of these. They do not like allocation of branch after 1st year. As a student they may want to go to a newer IIT to get a branch of their choice if rank is low and movement across IITs may be difficult. However, they fully subscribe to the idea of giving more incentive to 1st year result. Their suggestion is to increase the current 10% Dept. change (from a less preferred branch to a more preferred branch) option to 20% so that a larger number of students have a realistic chance to go for Dept. change and work for that. The students appear to have a more practical sense than me on this and I am sure on many other things too :-)

From the view point of a commoner

How does people unconnected to IIT-JEE, who outnumber IIT-JEE aspirants, look at all these? The common man in the street is entitled to think that these public funded institutions with huge capital and operational expenditure behind them, should do more than shaping the career of certain select individuals. How can the RoI (Return on Investment) for the country be improved? The Mission statement at IIT Madras website (Link) says,
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The purpose of educational programmes in the IITs should be

• to develop in each student mastery of fundamentals, versatility of mind, motivation for learning, intellectual discipline and self-reliance which provide the best foundation for continuing professional achievement;
• to provide a liberal; as well as a professional education so that each student acquires a respect for moral values, a sense of their duties as a citizen, a feeling for taste and style, and a better human understanding. All these are required for leadership;
• to send forth men and women of the highest professional competence with a breath of learning and a character to deal constructively with issues, and problems anticipated in the next decade relevant to the programmes of development of our country.

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We need to ensure that we have the right ingredients in place to achieve this purpose in letter and spirit. Since the nation looks up to IITs as role model, such achievement will have a snow ball effect and will positively influence secondary and higher secondary education. The leaders i.e. IITs should show that its students acquire 'a respect for moral values, a sense of their duties as a citizen, a feeling for taste and style, and a better human understanding ... a character to deal constructively with issues, and problems anticipated in the next decade relevant to the programmes of development of our country'.

Maximizing RoI for the country

Is competence in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics enough to ensure right kind of human input to IITs? Is it possible to inculcate the character qualities at UG level at IIT or should it start earlier? Could there be any way to evaluate that? Could there be a personal interview of 2y (y = no. to be admitted) people, similar to current GATE interview which will look into extra-curricular, involvement in community service activity, attitude? Who will conduct these tests? The IIT faculty needs to be trained. Even if the student do not enter the IIT system with the above character qualities, it is the duty of IIT faculty to impart them and thus the training cannot be avoided. The more we empower, the more is our responsibility to see that a student is groomed as a responsible citizen of the country and a good human being. Each IIT has extra-curricular program at 1st year level like NCC, NSS etc. It can be revitalized as it provides the scope for the two worlds to meet - the privileged and the underprivileged. Due weightage can be given to participation to this which is to get counted in the Dept. selection.

The pitfalls

Doesn't the proposed flow chart contain flaws? Yes. But it may have less flaws and can be worked upon. My experience is following: In any two populations A and B of sufficiently large size (say 1000 or so), the top z% of B will always be better than bottom z% of A. Consider, A as the ones who clear IIT-JEE and B who do not clear IIT-JEE but some other exam. The aim of the selection process is to minimize z but it can never be made zero. Coming back to the flow chart, one possible criticism could be the increased stress level in a multi-tier test. Closer scrutinee will show addition of only one personal interview to get admitted and that carries only 10% of the weightage. This is to send a message that the attitude and extra-curricular are important and students should develop healthy life style in parallel. The offering of Dept. at the end of 1st year is to tell that getting into IIT is not enough - one has to work hard here too. If required, the end of 1st year ranking may consider x% weightage from 1st year score and (100-x)% from IIT-JEE.

Past projected to future

Let us see the genesis of IIT JEE and how students were admitted when it first came into being in the year 1955. We may see that it had a flavour of what is talked about here. I quote from one article of April, 2012 issue of Twastha, a journal of Technology Alumni Association, IIT Kharagpur. In this, a senior IIT KGP faculty pays tribute to the institute.

"Admission to the institute were on considerations of merit only. Till 1954 admissions were made on the basis of recommendations of Regional Interviewing Committees which met at 9 different centres throughout the country. On 3rd July, 1954 the Board of Governors resolved that from 1955 admission be made on the result of a competitive examination held at various centres at the country followed by an interview and medical examinations of candidates successful in the written examination. However, on the suggestion of the Ministry of Education, it was agreed that 15 percent of the seats be reserved for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students and 37.5 percent of seats be reserved for backward sates. Under technical cooperation scheme of Colombo Plan some seats were reserved for students from Nepal, Burma and Indonesia."

Endnote

Let me come back to the decision making process with which I started this post.  IITs should do what it needs to do to serve the country as a whole so that the benefit is accrued to the common man and not to select individuals. Today at the cross road, when decision is being made to get the finest manpower for the finest institution of the nation, it is worth remembering father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, "Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?"

Indian Innovations

Today the special edition of Economic Times ran a cover story on Indian Innovations. The web edition can be found here (Link). The author Kamya Jaiswal writes in the introduction "There is no rumbling of change. The transition has not shown up in any statistic. But it has happened. India is innovating. It is genuine, it is grass roots, it has commercial value-and it is distinct from the jugaad we are best known for." Later the difference between 'jugaad' and 'innovation' has been graphically illustrated.

Economic Times has taken up 6 works in detail and another 3 to illustrate their points on innovation culture in India. Our work on heart sound analyzer and lung sound analyzer (patent filing process at IIT Kharagpur is just completed) gets a major referrence (page 15). I have attached a few screen shots here. Click on them to enlarge. ET has come up with another article titled, "Nine innovations that are likely to change our lives". This is available here (Link1, direct Link2 and Link3)

Yesterday, while delivering the 43rd convocation address of Utkal University, Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Innovation Council said, ''Only innovation and technology can save higher education in India." Later he said. "We don't need lots of teachers. The teachers don't need to create or impart content to students anymore. The role of teachers has changed to that of mentors." 

As mentioned in earlier posts (Link1, segment 9 of  Link2 ), the students here are being motivated to come up with prototypes through system level developments. For younger ones, where lot of theoretical understanding is still to be captured, a reduced feature versions are encouraged. For seniors, we would like to encourage team work. Some work on the data acquisition subsystem, some work on decision making subsystem, some work on the display and platform which will house the technology etc.

I thankfully acknowledge the contribution of my research team which include present and past students as well as technical staffs, in whatever little we could achieve. I am just the face. It is these individuals who deserve all the kudos. Proud to be a part of this great team and this great institute. Thankful to colleagues, family members, collaborators, well-wishers for their constant encouragement. Seek good wishes from everyone so that we can live up to the expectation.

Healing

As I read the Kolkata edition of TOI this morning, two articles in the same page appear to be far from ordinary, yet can be considered very close to our heart.

In one interview, Lisa Ray on being detected cancer remarks, "Life drags down and that is good". She continues, " I suspected something was wrong with my health but we always push ourselves, don’t we? That has been a big lesson. I was relieved rather than hugely distressed to hear I had cancer..... I have been running around the globe for the last few years and neglected my personal needs. This healing is needed at every level. I plan to ..... live passionately and truthfully — laughing when needed but also acknowledging the pain.". It appears that the thought of dying makes huge difference. Death is evitable. Yet we don't want to acknowledge it. How about rebooting ourselves and make a restart to our life and enjoy it at its fullest, make the best of it?

The other article is titled 'At Madrassas Hindu students make a mark'. One needs to dig deeper into the article to find that there is more than breaking of boundaries like Hindu-Muslim. I am talking about gender divide and the way we treat girl child and their education aspiration. The article says "This year, Muslim girls both outnumbered and outshone boys in madarsa exam in Fauqania (equivalent to matric) and Wastania (equivalent to middle). ‘‘That more girls are joining madarsa and pursuing education is encouraging,’’ Ahmad said. He said enrolment of Muslim girls in all districts, including Muslim-dominated Kishangunj district, which has the lowest literacy among women, has increased."

I see a healing touch to some of our wounds at personal and soceital space.

Great Time

Having a great time. The feast is on - the spiritual one!

Yesterday evening I was sweetly surprised when two students came to our residence with Prasad after a Bhagabat study. The day before yesterday another two students from the same group came to invite us for this program. How much I like that the students are taking interests in studies like this! It was to be held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in Prof. - Rao's residence. By that time my Saturday evening was already planned. I said that I would try, if possible else next time.

Yesterday afternoon as already discussed in Vivekananda Study Circle's TUE meet (and group mails), we assembled at IIT Prembazar gate at 5:00 p.m. Then we cycled towards a nearby Lodha settlement ina village named Soladahar. Lodhas are one of the most bacward tribes in this part of the country. There is a primary school in that village that teaches up to Class IV. There is none there who has passed Class X (even after 60 years of independence) board exam. Met one young school drop out of class VIII. There are 6-7 students who are still continuing study in class V to VII in a high school situated at another village. The village head and the elders (that included lady members) showed lots of interest, enthusiasm when we proposed to assist them in children education. We met one boy and a girl from this V-VII group who too appeared quite interested and serious. The villagers said that earlier NSS volunteers used to visit on Saturday and Sunday and interact with primary school students. That inspired the students a lot.

We plan to start an activity with some long term targets in the village. On our way back we discussed few models. We shall visit again to talk to their primary school teachers and make another survey on financial condition of the villagers. The children education program is to start after Durga Puja.

Besides TUE study circle, on every WED institute lecture is being held at Kalidas auditorium (5:00-7:00 p.m.) where Ramakrishna Mission monks are discussing Gita as a part of lecture series on Indian heritage. I saw a notice in gmail that IIT Tech. Club is organizing a spiritual discourse where a monk from Kriyayog order will deliver talk. And now I learn that there is this monthly Bhagabat study where too students and Prof.s assemble and study together.