Deforestation Discussion on Think Tank

him17pme , 2007-05-02 17:52:28.0 civil construction in the premises at the cost of nature.how much is it justified?

Civil construction at the cost of the greenery of the campus is not justified at all. As it is we have the 2nd smallest campus area compared to all other IITs (ahead of only IITD) and destroying the natural greenery of the campus to accomodate the extra students coming in on account of the reservation policy is not acceptable. IITR should remain a place where the open surroundings force you to think of the larger goals of life and cloistering students in a concrete jungle will only lead to much more narrow mindedness. divyeuec , 2007-05-13 18:57:01.0.

well, there is no other way out when u have ur institute sorrounded all over by the town.had it been a secluded place, we could have expanded the area, but now we have no other option mamiruec , 2007-05-16 12:12:45.0.

mamiruec comes up with an interesting argument. Isn't it? I sometimes wonder what it takes to become an IITian if not brains. Or is this just a lack of awareness that makes people so ignorant about such big issues.

I wrote:

I believe that our dear friend mamiruec is unaware of the laws and consequences regarding afforestation be it for construction or any other purpose. My friend its true that there is no area for expansion. But being a student of architecture and having some knowledge about urban planning, let me inform you that the trees and the healthy environment in Roorkee is what makes it habitable. In fact, this is true for any urban agglomeration, I hope that you have ignored the talks about balance and harmony with nature or they have routinized your brain too much that you have started feeling less of their importance. But to be honest, the trees are the real balance makers in a living. It is important to make a human settlement sustainable or else you cannot imagine the level of problems that can come up. Besides this, talking about rules, you must be knowing that afforestation still is a crime and the cutting of trees in Roorkee has been illegal most of the times since the trees are never planted elsewhere. And if you want an experience of the effect of trees being their or not being their, just have a look at the new parking area coming up in front of the new guest house which used to be a lush green spot and you could pass from their at mid-day, thanks to the trees. Try passing through that area once now and you would feel as if your walking through a desert. I suppose you should read more about how deserts are formed, maybe then you would realize that it is not that simple an issue. As far as the solution to the problem is concerned, IIT Roorkee is already working on a new master-plan, which would entail other institutes that are not a part of IIT like CBRI etc. to shift to new areas outside the campus and would give more room for construction. And let me make it clear that every land has a limit upto which construction can be done on it. Cutting trees for the sake of expansion is not a solution to the problem. ayushuap , 2007-05-22 06:54:09.0.

IIT Education System Discussion on Think Tank

IIT Roorkee recently launched its new official forum Think Tank.

I would like to share my articles on the forum here on my blog.

hem07ume wrote:
we have recently seen that the news of the md of tata steel, refusing to take on iit graduates in his company in outlook magazine creating ripples in the education community and the proffesional world.He talked openly of the degrading standard of iit's. He say's the PRESENT IITIANS ARE NO MORE THAT BRIGHT AND INQUISITIVE LOT BUT JUST A BUNCH OF ROBOTS WHO WORK ONLY FOR THEIR GRADES.Do you support him and if so please suggest measures to reverse this change that can wreck the iit image wordwide....

I wrote:
I support the above view and as a matter of fact this is the only way things can be brought about to the notice of the officials that the system of education in IITs needs a drastic change towards the interest of students. IITs are supposed to nurture the talent of students by helping them identifying the profession they are most suited for and honing their abilities to make it their career. But sadly enough our education system focuses more on marks and less on learning from the school system itself. The JEE entrance exam is made more of a milestone achievement in the minds of the students than the actual purpose behind good education. In the IIT system also, the entire focus is on grades and truly enough, IITians are not anything more than grade generating robots anymore. Those who chose to pursue their interests either end up in frustration or depression or witness a series of fail grades because of the rigid system of attendance and education. I believe that the entire education system has become more focussed on nothing more than marks and the understanding of proper education and the interest of student has been lost somewhere. The only way to change this on the IIT front is to accept the fact that students need to be given a flexible framework within which they need to produce input. The focus has to be more on input than on result. Secondly, the flexibility setup has to be good enough for the students to allow them to pursue a career of their interest instead of a focussed education. The understanding exists that the system cannot suddenly abolish the well-defined degree system and let them free. But through introducing more optional courses students can have a better chance of studying the topics of their interest. The optional system as already exists in the institute electives can be further extended to inter-departmental courses. And eventually the focus on providing a Mechanical or Computer Science degree can be shifted to providing a general B. Tech degree which indicates the number of courses or credits pursued from each department. The third important factor is to remove the compulsion of attending classes and enforcing it to such an extent that a student as intelligent who can easily perform well in a course, because he knows it or he is that intelligent, whatever might be the case has to attend minimum 75% classes and waste his time and he gets an 'F' grade if he fails to do so. Does he deserve an 'F' grade? I don't think that he should be failed for more intelligence or knowledge. The fourth important consideration is to reduce the stress on the number CGPA and grades as the entire consideration of students rests on these and in the process they abolish there interests and see them as a threat to a career rather than a career itself. What can be done instead is to provide a complete index system reflecting the students performance in various departments. (as suggested earlier, the student should be free to choose courses from any department). A fifth consideration would be to introduce arts and humanity sciences as respectable fields in the education system and there would nothing better than the IITs to start with it. Foreign colleges are a good example of this ability of their structure to allow the student to pursue their interest. And finally the bureaucracy has to realize the importance of education as an asset to a student in its present form through helping him or her in pursuing the field of their own interest instead of forcing upon them an old illogical education structure.

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Numerical Factor

Corporate Social Responsibility deals with the social and conscientious aspect of business. Organizations always have an orientation towards a profit motive. Though CSR has become a much talked about issue in most of the good organizations, still the factor of profit generation keeps this aspect at a secondary status. The responsibility is expected to be understood by the organizations and it is quite evident that stringent rules cannot be framed abruptly. What can be done instead is that, instead of regulation, a motivation can be created for the organization. In this respect, I would like to propose the idea of introducing a new factor, a numerical value that could measure the scale of CSR being fulfilled by any organization. The factor would be a measure of how far an organization is able to achieve the social issue while generating profit. The numerical value might just be a part of the balance sheet. The factor would include all the parameters of the social aspect and that in it would be a mammoth task. A fact to be observed here is that introduction of such a numerical value would actually be a good motivation for organizations if the factor is given a national or further an international stature, in a sense that it is recognized by the government. In that case, the social factor would be a good enough resource for the organizations to further analyze there policies, they might intend to use the factor for advertisement value as well. The factor may be extended to regulation later by introducing restrictions like a minimum value of the CSR numeric factor to be met by all organizations. The major issue however is how the factor can be so simplified a value that the entire concept of CSR can be inculcated into a single number. For this, we would have to study the various aspects of CSR including responsibility to consumers, shareholders, employees and the environment and nature. A measuring system will have to be formulated for each of the acts that can be performed outside the limitation of law for the interest of any of these aspects. The list of actions that the organization might perform, the methodology to calculate them and finally the weight given to a unit action will have to be decided which can then further be developed and added to give the final numerical index.

The IIT Selection System

The IITs were established with a vision to provide the country with institutes that would nourish the most intelligent individuals of the country through good education and resources to contribute in the development of the country. The IITs have used a fierce selection system since they established and grew to the present stage. There have been frequent revisions in the selection system and the recent trend is to change the selection system each year itself. The stress however remains on the fact that a student should be excellent at physics, chemistry and mathematics and should have performed well on the one day event of examination popular as JEE. Once a student is on the merit list prepared on the basis of marks, there is a counselling session in which the student is provided with a list of the options in terms of branch and institute and the last year rank cut-offs for the same. The counselling session or the entire selection process for that matter does not lay any stress on the aptitude or interest of the individuals for a particular field or branch. Students have only one criteria to decide their branch and that is the last year cut-off. A little difference that occurs is due to some external input from people who have been or are a part of the IIT system and know how things work. But many of the students who land up in the IIT find themselves uninterested in their branch. They find it difficult to cope up with their academics because at this age they even start working on their actual interests. It hardly occurs that the time and resources invested in nourishing a student with respect to a particular branch yields any results because ultimately very few students from each branch choose to continue in the fields they have been studying for four or five years. Does this practice seem justified? On part of the students, yes, because it is a matter of their future and they should decide what they have to do after passing out. But on the part of the IITs themselves, this practice is more of a failure. The aim of teaching the students is not just to keep them within the boundary of the institute but also to help them achieve their aims and create options for them to do so. The foreign universities generally follow practices like a statement of purpose and other things to decide on the selection of students. It is true that the Indian system of governance is corrupt enough to make use of the fact of such a thing like a statement of purpose to become partial and lose the glory of being the most clean examination of India. But still, there has to be a solution to the problem of aptitude and interest for a particular branch. Either there should be a separate section to achieve this purpose. Say, physics, chemistry and maths are compulsory. But there is an optional smaller section in which you have to attempt, say any three of mechanical, electrical, chemical, computer science, civil and so on. This is just an idea, a suggestion. But the point is that there is a problem that exists and that needs a solution. The recent increase in suicide cases in IITs maybe a reflection of this fact as far as my understanding and experience of the system goes. The situation becomes so difficult for students that they revolt out of frustration and even start failing in courses due to lack of interest. Some people might find it difficult to handle the pressure of failure and this results into students getting into states of depression. They start smoking and even using drug abuse to keep off the depression. And besides, at a broader level, it is becoming more difficult for the good brains who land up at this place only to struggle to achieve what they wish. I believe the responsibility of any institute is to support progress and not obstruct it.

Web 2.0

The video provides a simple introduction to Web 2.0 for those who are unaware of this term. Web 2.0 is basically a modern movement on the internet which is very much a part of our daily lives as we use its features almost whenever we use the internet. This video provides a good and basic introduction to what Web 2.0 is.

The video below is a reaction to the Web 2.0 and is an effort to highlight that in becoming a part of Web 2.0, people are actually starting to enter and be a part of a virtual world. Where there is a virtual identity, a virtual personality, virtual communication, virtual trading and it tries to suggest that everything that we have in connection to us as human beings would slowly be transformed to a stage where the word 'virtual' could be used before anything that exists naturally. And so, it tries to express the need of implementing the organization of data and co-existence as systematically as it exists in nature. You get the message clear when you have a look at the video.