the end of patronage

In the last 7 years of my stint with management reading, education and profession; I have always come across cases and situations where the quality is given utmost importance. IF one delivers quality, they say, the long-term prospects are sure to be very bright. The front page of today’s ToI covers Anil Ambani’s mopping up 8 trillion bucks is a testimony of that principle.

But the article on page 9 is shocking – in more than one ways. IITs, it reports, doesn’t have enough funds to pay the next month’s staff salaries! It refers to the same IITs that are around for more than half a decade and making us proud in all corners of world through its alumni, its innovations and through Asok. IITs have nurtured and churned out best of the intellectual property in the country. Its admissions test JEE is considered one of most competitive and challenging tests in the country alongside UPSC and CAT exams. But now it falls of greenbacks to pay its teachers, and it is as sick as it can get.

But why has this happened? And how to counter this problem?

The education of IIT students is highly subsidized and the government spends a he sum on educating each one of them. This is one of the reasons why their going abroad to ‘contribute’ to western world and their switching over to management side have been considered blasphemy. The cost incurred by IITs is budgetary allocation given from the government (read taxpayers’) funds. Some money would definitely be coming in from the alumni and from the industry projects and consulting work taken up by the IITs. But still not enough.

I don’t mind government shelling out more moneys to support IITs even though this money is going out of my pocket. Not doing this will be e bigger loss to the country, a bigger crime. But for how long can this model be sustained? The costs burden, I am sure, will keep mounting. And will further stain the budgets. While writing these pages, I peeped into some articles written by Pankaj Jalote of IIT-K and the very well-known P V Indiresan. Both are of the view that the cushy days of government support are over.

So what is the way out?
For one, why not increase the fees (taking cue from the principle of premium education)? On the first thought, if this is done, a lot of well-deserving brilliant brains will find be unable to pay such high fees and will be lost in the crowds. My recommendation is to ask the banks to lend them money. And the banks will be glad to do so realizing they are investing in very high quality assets. This is one of the ways IIM aspirants have managed all these years!

Another way out will be to increase the output of the IITs. As Jalote points out, the output in IITs is 1.2 B Tech students per year per faculty as against 2 in any elite US engineering college. It is again not rocket science to understand the economy of scale. And also not to confess that the capacity expansion requires a budgetary outlay – though this one will be more productive in the long run.

There’re many more recommendations thrown out here and there by the columnists with whom I can agree only halfheartedly. These include mandatory 1 year stint for IIT graduates in teaching/ at grassroots/ as trainees; a corporate adopting a certain number of students and bearing their cost; etc.
Whichever way is taken off this road-to-nowhere, it better be taken VERY soon.

Feminism

Heard anything? Or better put – read anything? Sunday Times of India (13 Jan ‘08) reports that as per a Delhi court – “Sex after false promise of marriage is rape”. Even if I were not a feminist, I’d have taken a sigh of happiness thinking that one more ill has been squashed by the honourable magistrate.

Blame it on the too-tempered-with grey cells; I’m tempted to look at another angle of this story. Does this premise mean that if a couple plans to tie the knot, and then has physical relationship; the guy is in a soup if he then wants to back out (especially if the damsel has read Sunday ToI in question)! No Sir – I am not against THIS judgment as the case facts clearly indict the man here. But what if some other case comes up which is as per the example I’ve quoted above? Does this mean that it’s only the guy who cannot back out of a relationship; and that the girl sure can? Does this also mean that in a society where premarital sex is still a taboo and a matter of guilt, the responsibility of maintaining this moral equilibrium is entirely on the man? So if that is so, is the court trying to say that the fairer sex is weaker or powerless? And if that is so, doesn’t THIS line of thought account for gender bias?

Do I now have some votes from the feminists?

Honour – misread

It doesn’t happen too often with normal people (as you and I like to call ourselves) to feel sorry about our own name that would have been spoken, heard, written, read zillions of times across the years. Considering myself normal, it never happened with me, till 10 minutes back.

In the last 10 minutes I went through the article saying some Prakash Thakur has filed a case against Sania Mirza for putting her feat pointing towards the national flag. Is it a sorry story for Ms Mirza who, knowingly or unknowingly, became the Indian pin-up tennis player, or for the honour that has been supposedly been hurt? More has been written about the former (and more read), I’m sure so I am, as I had wanted to, concentrating on the latter.

I sometimes wonder why the sensitive citizens and self-proclaimed moral police go for all possible things that garner best media attention! Sue a tennis starlet for her feet pointed towards the flag? So what happens to people who throw flags on the street or in the sewer after every national holiday? Sure they are numerous and can not be caught for filing against them! And those who do not honour for what the flag stand for (or they think it stands for)?

fyi, the case is filed under National Honour Act. I feel myself not wanting to dissect whether it is pity or obviousness that we can sense the dishonour only in symbolic things like the national flag and anthem and all the motionless idols across the country. And fail to sense it in senseless political vandalism, big-brotherly attitude of self-contained political outfits and offshoots; not to mention the other more conspicuous phenomena like corruption, illiteracy, degradation of health, etc.

I can think of numerous counts of such senseless petitions in recent times – the row over SRK smoking being the latest. I wonder what plays in the minds of such petitioners. Do they really think they are right in doing so? Or is it five minutes of fame? Or is it simply a high they get outta emphasizing the power of a citizen (aam aadmi) over a celebrity? I donno where does this khujli comes from! Mr Thakur is too insignificant to occupy so much of my mindshare. What I sure know is that the increase in number of such cases, because of too many “good folks” around, is putting burden on the judiciary system and frustrates me.