Odisha HRD

NISER Bhubaneswar advertises for faculty positions

Update:The expanded ads are now in the NISER web site. See the links below.

• Regular Faculty Positions- Humanities
• Regular Faculty Positions- All Schools
• Non-Academic Staff Positions (10)

One thing to note is that NISER is likely to implement the PRIS (Performance related incentive scheme) of DAE under which there is provision for monthly incentive of 20% of basic salary. This is already implemented in some DAE institutions. See for example http://www.saha.ac.in/cs/adm.cs/ADM/PRIS.pdf.

The expanded version of this ad is not yet in NISER website. The ad from last year is at http://niser.ac.in/notices/2009/new-faculty.php and gives an idea of how much the initial salaries will be. following is an excerpt.

ASST. PROFESSOR : Pay Band Rs 15,600 – 39,100 + Grade Pay 7,600
Basic pay on initial appointment will be Rs 29,920 + 22% D.A at current rates + 20% HRA on basic pay. Total emoluments will be approximately Rs 44,438/- per month.

READER (F) – Pay Band Rs 37,400 – 67,000 + Grade Pay 8,700
Basic pay on initial appointment will be Rs 46,100 + 22% DA at current rates + 20% HRA on basic pay. Total emoluments will be approximately Rs 67,414/- per month.

Currently NISER has the following numbers of faculty in the various disciplines:

• Chemical Sciences: 12 permanent + 5 visiting
• Biological Sciences: 10 permanent + 5 visiting
• Physical Sciences: 10 permanent + 4 visiting
• Mathematical Sciences: 5 permanent + 3 visiting
• Others: 4 visiting

This adds up to a total of 37 permanent and 21 visiting faculty.

As a comparison IIT Bhubaneswar currently has 37 permanent faculty and 4 visiting faculty with the following break-up.

• Basic Sciences (14 permanent: Chemistry -7; Math -3; Physics – 4; and 2 visiting)
• Electrical Sciences (5 permanent)
• Infrastructure (6 permanent)
• Mechanical Sciences (8 permanent)
• Humanities, Social Sciences & Management (4 permanent and 2 visiting)

1 comment June 1st, 2010

Education through entrance tests: Excerpts from an interesting article by Profs. P. Jalote and A. Singh

Prof. Jalote is the Director of IIIT Delhi and is on leave from IIT Delhi. Previously he taught at IIT Kanpur and University of Maryland. Prof. Singh is a professor at Auburn University, Alabama. Both are alumni of IITs. Following are excerpts from their article in Economic Times.

… The difficulty of cracking these tests have led to the booming coaching industry — it seems the vast majority of students appearing in these exams undergo some form of coaching for them. This impact of coaching has been decried by many. In academic circles, it is a common complain that coaching is allowing even average students to crack the exams, and how exams ought to be changed so that deserving students can clear even without coaching.

It should be clearly understood that the success of coaching is not due to the nature of the exams, but due to the low acceptance ratio in these exams. With these low accept rates, it is irrelevant whether the nature of exam is such that coaching will help or not.

… Anybody who thinks that coaching can be made redundant by reforming the admission tests is living in a state of denial.

There is another aspect of coaching that deserves attention. Coaching is big business: by some accounts, coaching for IITs is bigger than IITs themselves in terms of turnover. Consequently, it is able to attract good teachers by offering high salaries. One hears about IIT/IIM grads teaching in these coaching institutes, but one cannot come across an IIT/IIM graduate as a teacher in a school — even elite schools do not have this distinction. So, in many coaching centres, the quality of education is superior to that of schools, particularly with respect to the entrance test subjects. As the business success depends on how well they help the students do in the entrance exams, their teaching, as measured with respect to success in these exams, continues to improve and they take great care to improve it.

So, we have the following situation. Coaching institutes will continue to thrive as long as the accept ratio remains small. And coaching business will ensure that its teachers and teaching processes are well-equipped to impart training to students to do better at the competitive exam.

This situation, undesirable thought it is, can, however, be converted into an opportunity to improve education. As coaching institutes focus on the entrance tests and the syllabus for them, it provides a power to these exams in that whatever they put as syllabus or as expected knowledge, the coaching institutes will ensure that students get good at that. Even for those students who do not undergo coaching, these exams are highly influential — students learn/ study for these exams with a mission and dedication that they don’t show for anything else.

IF THESE large exams were to be oriented such that preparation for them will make the foundations for the key subjects much stronger and will force the students to really understand the subjects better, the coaching industry will ensure that this knowledge is imparted to students. That is, the syllabus and expectation is potentially a strong force on what students learn in the 2-3 years they prepare for the entrance exams, through coaching or on their own.

If this learning can be strengthened, then even if the students do not get through in these exams — which the vast majority will not — the preparation for them will give them strong foundations in some key subjects. This can be leveraged by other institutions.

… So, instead of fighting coaching by making exams like JEE harder and more theoretical every year, such large exams can leverage the competition for the larger good of improving the education and preparedness of students.

If these exams are thought of as a potential tool in the armory of the country for fighting the poor education standards, rather than just for admitting students into these institutes, then they can favourably impact the lakhs of students who attend JEE, and not just of the selected few thousands who actually enter the IITs, whose skills will be upgraded anyway to top levels by the top quality education that they will be provided. By doing so, institutions like the IITs and the entrance exams they have, will be making a solid contribution to improving the workforce in the country , as they have done in creating the top-level manpower.

I agree with the main point in the above mentioned article. Earlier I wrote my views on coaching at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/4178.

However, there is an issue with respect to many students not being able to afford coaching. Couple of things that the governments may do are:

• Provide coaching in some government schools such as Navodaya Vidyalayas.
• Provide other avenues for good coaching such as attempts to replicate the Super 30 in Bihar by other governments.
• Bring coaching classes and the +2 level under the ambit of RTE and require that certain percentage of the students there are from poorer background.
• Provide scholarships to poor students to be able to afford good coaching.

2 comments May 16th, 2010

IIT Kharagpur to start 3 year executive MBA in Bhubaneswar and Kolkata

Following is an excerpt from a report in pagalguy.com.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur’s Vinod Gupta School of Management is starting two MBA programs for working executives at it Kolkata and Bhubhaneswar campuses. Working on a 3-year structure that will allow participants to work while they study, the courses are largely targeted towards the local population of each city they shall function in. While the Executive MBA at the Kolkata campus has a general management bent the Knowledge Industries MBA (KIMBA) at the Bhubhaneswar campus would focus on the IT and ITES sectors, explained EMBA coordinator Prof Gautam Sinha.

The intakes for both the programs would be 15 to 30 students each while the minimum eligibility will be three years of work experience and either an engineering education or post-graduate education in commerce, science or economics. More about the application system to the courses on the VGSoM website.

Prima facie, there are few differences between the EMBA and KIMBA except for a couple of core courses. The IT/ITES focused KIMBA has courses such as Technology Management and Services Management, which in the EMBA are replaced by International Management and IT & Business Applications Laboratory. Interestingly, the KIMBA has two courses on Financial Accounting while the EMBA has none. Both courses cost Rs 6 lakhs in fees, including a one-year international immersion program, which according to Prof Sinha may be carried out with one of IIT Kharagpur’s 99 tie-ups with various international institutions.

While both the courses look similar to 3-year part-time MBA courses in structure and content, Prof Sinha argues that several executive MBA courses across the world follow the part-time model. While that may be true, popular executive MBA programs in the USA or Europe wrap up in an year’s time, recognizing that the opportunity cost for working executives to stay away from work is high. To that extent, VGSOM’s Executive programs seem like 3-year part-time MBAs that give you an Executive MBA degree at the end, thus keeping you away from the stigma attached to the ‘part-time’ bit of part-time MBA.

Prof Sinha defends the three-year pattern of VGSOM’s Executive MBAs saying, “One-year or two-year programs are high pressure situations which might not be conducive for people with families.”

The links for the two programs are:

1. E-MBA at Kolkata  for all industries
2. KI-MBA at Bhubaneswar  for knowledge industries like Information Technology sector.

Note that earlier IIT Kharagpur also introduced 3 year weekend and after hours M.Tech programs in both cities. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/4118.

1 comment May 12th, 2010

IIT Kharagpur’s relentless pursuit of a medical school may pay off; AIIMS-like institute for West Bengal may be established in IIT Kharagpur campus

Following is an excerpt from a report in yahoonews.

The super-specialty AIIMS-like hospital, which was initially decided to be set up at Raiganj in North Dinajpur district, could be shifted to IIT-Kharagpur campus for "lack of land" in the north Bengal town.

"The state government had agreed to provide 100 acres land and facilities for electricity, water, sewerage and road connectivity in Raiganj. But the land acquisition by the state government has not yet started," Sube Singh, Deputy Secretary and CPIO of Union Health Ministry wrote in a reply to an RTI application. Union Human Resources Development Ministry suggested that the proposed AIIMS-like institution may be built in the premises of IIT, Kharagpur which could provide the land, he said. "The state government has conveyed its no objection for setting up of the institution in the IIT-Kharagpur premises," Singh stated. The institution would be built at a cost of Rs 823 crore which has been sanctioned by the Centre.

For long IIT Kharagpur has been trying for a medical school. It had faced many hurdles. Being aware of those efforts, MHRD seems to have played a major facilitator’s role above.

If this happens, this will be a major major achievement of Prof. Damodar Acharya, the current director of IIT Kharagpur.

Another point to note is that, one of the main reason this is being considered is because of the availability of land in IIT Kharagpur. All the new IITs and IISERs (except IIT Bhubaneswar) are constraining themselves by currently only allocating the minimal required land. Down the road they will not be in a position to avail of a similar opportunity. Fortunately, Prof. Damodar Acharya as a mentor of IIT Bhubaneswar ensured that the Odisha government allocated a large enough piece of land.

2 comments May 7th, 2010

IIT Bhubaneswar faculty list

Update on August 26 2010:

• N. Barik, School of Basic Sciences (Physics)
• Y. V. Rao, School of Basic Sciences (Mathematics)
• Animesh Mandal, School of Mechanical Sciences
• Anamitra Basu, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (In IIT Bhubaneswar 2010-11 brochure)
  • Bio: Ph: +91 9674498481 Email: anamitrabasu2@gmail.com
    Dr. Anamitra Basu is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management of the institute. She joined the institute as a faculty member in 2010, after serving tenure as an assistant professor for almost four years at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. Earlier she has also served the academia for two years as lecturer in a reputed institute. Her experience in hospital industry for more than four years inspired her to undertake field of Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology as the field of research. She was a Gold Medallist in Bachelors degree from the University of Calcutta. She obtained her Masters degree from the University of Calcutta in the year 1996. She obtained her doctorate from IIT Kharagpur and her post doctorate study from University Balise Pascal, France. She has two peer reviewed international journals in the field of Cognitive Psychology and three other
    international journals are awaiting. Her present research includes Emotion and facial expressions using electromyography (EMG) and producing a new database along with her earlier research fields. She has always been an active member in conferences, workshops. She is a life member of National Academy of Sciences (NAOP), Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) and Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI).
• Sisir Kumar Nayak, School of Electrical Sciences (In IIT Bhubaneswar 2010-11 brochure)
  • Ph.D IISc Bangalore 2009. Postdoc at Royal Inst of Technology-KTH, Stockholm, Sweden.

With this the total faculty count is at 46: Basic Sciences (17), Electrical Sciences (6), Infrastructure (8), Mechanical Sciences (9), Humanities and Social Sciences (6)

Update on August 20 2010:

• Dukhabandhu Sahoo, School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Update on June 11 2010: Since the list below was made, some new faculty have joined. They are:

• Arindam Sarkar, Infrastructure
• Dipti Ranjan Sahoo, Infrastructure
• Tarakant Nayak, Mathematics

Merging the lists at http://www.iitbbs.ac.in/ver3/facultymember.html and http://www.iitbbs.ac.in/ver3/pdf/pic.pdf we get the following list of 37 faculty at IIT Bhubaneswar. (Our earlier list was at https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/3364.) The schoolwise break up is as follows:

• Basic Sciences (14: Chemistry -7; Math -3; Physics – 4)
• Electrical Sciences (5)
• Infrastructure (6)
• Mechanical Sciences (8)
• Humanities, Social Sciences & Management (4)

1 comment April 26th, 2010

IISc second campus being pursued at Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh

Update: The Karnataka CM says the second campus of IISc will be in Chitradurga, Karnataka.

Following is an excerpt from a report in outlookindia.com.

Union Minister for Human Resources Development Kapil Sibal today said the Centre has examined a proposal of setting up a second campus of Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

Sibal, in a letter to Chief Minister K Rosaiah, said he had mooted the idea of opening a second campus with the IISc management.

The Andhra Pradesh government has, for some time now, been pursuing the issue with the Centre.

Initial proposals were to create an Advanced Research Centre, extending the Academia-Government-Industry interactions, and also creation of a Science Park and an Incubation Centre.

The IISc team visited the state to survey the sites and found a 1000-acre piece of land in Anantapur district suitable for the project as it was just 70 km from the Bengaluru International Airport, well connected by 4-lane national highway.

The Union Minister informed the Chief Minister that modalities like Memorandum of Understanding for sale of land and time-frame for making available the basic infrastructure were being worked out. "Further developments in this regard will be communicated on receipt of fresh inputs from IISc," Sibal said in the letter.

April 25th, 2010

IIT Bhubaneswar makes some key hires

Update: IIT Bhubaneswar web site is now updated and lists most of the new faculty that have joined.

A key hire that IIT Bhubaneswar recently made is of Prof. S C De Sarkar.

Prof. De Sarkar was the deputy Director at IIT Kharagpur and my teacher (in the Compiler course) when I was doing my B.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering. He was the best teacher I encountered during my B.Tech degree. He has had many star Ph.D students including some who have won the Bhatnagar award.

He has joined IIT Bhubaneswar as the Dean of Faculty. In the words of IIT Bhubaneswar director Prof. Chakraborty: "He is now a great strength of IIT Bhubaneswar."

Some of the other highlights releted to recent hires (obtained from the IIT Bhubaneswar web page) are:

• Dr. C.N. Bhende, Asst. Prof. of Electrical Sciences received the best thesis award at Doctoral level from INAE.
• Dr. Sumanta Haldar Assistant Prof. of school of Infrastructure has been adjudged as the best Ph.D. thesis in India in the field of Geotechnical Engineering by the Indian Geotechnical Society.

April 18th, 2010

News compilations: Sericulture R & D institute to come up in Odisha; Pan-IIT plans for faculty mentorship; Mumbai, Pune & Nagpur Univ to be split

1. From a Times of India Report.

Targeting a production of about 500 tons of silk by 2020, Orissa government decided to set up a State Sericulture Research and Development Institute (SSRDI) for speedy growth of the sector.

2. From a Business Standard report:

Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) — an initiative by the Pan IIT Alumni Association — has taken up a US co-guide PhD initiative wherein faculty members of Indian engineering institutes would be able to obtain PhDs in a four-year period, with the mentoring of distinguished US faculty.

… Under the arrangement, interested PhD candidates in India, who are currently teaching in engineering colleges, will identify and register with a PhD guide at an Indian PhD granting institution. The PhD candidate will identify his area of research interest.

If there appears to be matching of interests between an Indian PhD candidate and a US faculty, IUCEE will facilitate the process forward.

Also, the PhD candidate will make a trip to the US institution of the co-guide to ensure exposure to high quality research culture. The co-guide will also visit the Indian institution, to ensure adequate mentoring of the candidate.

… IUCEE is also exploring various avenues for requesting government of India to provide schemes for this purpose.

3. From a Times of India report:

Three of Maharashtra’s premier universities—Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur—will be split to create new universities.

…Spelling out some details, Tope said the University of Mumbai would be split into two campuses, with a pro vice-chancellor becoming the head of the new campus. The name, though, would not be altered, given Mumbai university’s iconic status, he added. He was replying to a discussion on the supplementary demands of his department.

… Maharashtra has also revived the plan to bring private universities into the state. Tope said that plans were afoot to help the corporate sector play a key role in the field of education. The Private University Act is being finalised in this connection, he pointed out.

April 16th, 2010

Prof. Damodar Acharya Committee reportedly proposes to scrap IIT JEE and other entrance exams

Update: Following are excerpts from a follow-up Telegraph report which mentions about the committee’s recommendation to have wide-spread consultations before making the changes.

But it has advised caution in implementing the reforms. The panel has suggested detailed consultations and workshops with the state governments, other top engineering institutions like the National Institutes of Technology, and private universities.

The recommendations of the panel can be fine-tuned based on the outcome of the consultations, the team led by IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya has suggested. The panel is likely to meet soon and may draw up a schedule for the consultations at that meeting.

… At a meeting of the panel in Chennai on March 16 with representatives of state and central school boards, some participants suggested that rural students be given more opportunities than urban students. The participants proposed two attempts for urban students and three for rural students.

The panel and the HRD ministry will also need to convince state governments that the move to end state-specific engineering tests is not against their interests.

Following is an excerpt from a report in Telegraph.

… The panel, appointed by human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, has recommended replacing the four-decade-old IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and myriad other engineering entrance examinations with a common test modelled on the US-based scholastic aptitude test (SAT).

The panel has suggested that the IITs accord a 70 per cent weightage to board examination scores in picking students, ..

Scores in the common aptitude test that will replace the IIT-JEE will contribute the remaining 30 per cent weightage in determining which candidates are selected, the panel has recommended.

Unlike the current engineering entrance examinations including the IIT-JEE, the common aptitude test will not have questions on physics, chemistry and math, but will test students’ powers of logical reasoning and communication skills.

If the recommendations are accepted, the IITs will for the first time admit students based more on their board examination marks than on their performance in a special entrance test.

…The minister had announced in February that he was setting up a panel under IIT Kharagpur director Damodar Acharya to study proposed reforms to the IIT-JEE. The panel was appointed in March, with the directors of the IITs in Mumbai, Roorkee and Chennai as the other members.

…  The panel has recommended that the government develop a Comprehensive Weighted Performance Index (CWPI) to calculate a student’s overall score based cumulatively on his performance in the board examinations and in the common aptitude test. The report appears principally based on discussions at a meeting held with other government representatives, including Central Board of Secondary Education chairman Vineet Joshi and select state representatives in Chennai on March 16.

The HRD ministry is already working towards a plan to introduce a common high school curriculum in the sciences and math, cutting across the 35 boards — central and state — that govern Indian school education.

The common curriculum would make easier a comparison between the board examination scores of students from schools affiliated to different central and state government boards, Joshi had told the meeting.

The CWPI proposed by the panel is aimed at normalising any differences that remain between difficulty levels of school-leaving examinations under different boards.

There is a big danger that the above approach will make the XIIth exams a high stakes affair and bring it under the microscope with every aspect of it being scrutinized and judged by everyone. Most coaching classes may reinvent themselves and start coaching how to score more marks in the XIIth exam and the proposed SAT type exam. This approach may bring in bias favoring students from families with educated parents. English being a compulsory subject in XIIth, this may put students in rural areas and other areas where English is less used at a disadvantage.

So one has to wait and see how this will pan out.

My guess is if the above idea is adopted, it will go through some changes such as specific types of colleges may be allowed to give different weight to Class XII marks in different subjects. Some may introduce interviews or other tests.

One change that should be made is that when possible specialty branches should not be assigned to most  students (say 70-80% in any college/institute) immediately after they join a college/institute after the XIIth. That should be determined after a year in that college/institute based on the performance in that year. This will make the class XII exam less cutthroat and ensure that students after they get into a college/institute continue to give importance to academics.

One alternative idea may to test the proposed idea (of using class XIIth marks) on 50% of the seats for a few years before deciding whether to completely abandon the current approach or not.

7 comments April 14th, 2010

Why mention of IIT coaching classes in Orissalinks?

In https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/4059 we mentioned about some of the national tutorials that have now set shop in Bhubaneswar. A close friend and elder of mine (Sandip Dasverma) whom I respect a lot was surprised (and even dismayed) that I gave space to them here, and was wondering how come I am promoting institutes that to him are so harmful to our society.

I have mixed thoughts and feelings about the whole thing, so I decided I will write my thoughts and feelings, which at this point may not be fully coherent.

1. In Orissalinks we are writing about *all* kinds of educational and HRD infrastructure and opportunities in Odisha. When we write about ITI or Diploma or vocational schools we are not necessarily promoting them; nor it is our intention that every body should do ITI or a diploma. (On the other hand we do not think there is anything wrong in going to an ITI or doing a Diploma.) We cover them so that these pages serve as a dynamic directory of opportunities and infrastructure of various kinds. In that sense IIT tutorials are educational and HRD infrastructure elements and we cover them. Our coverage does not necessarily mean we promote them. In case of ITI and Diploma institutions, having them listed here helps industries who may be considering to move to Odisha.

2. To us IIT tutorials are HRD infrastructure elements that for whatever reason are an important component of a city/town/metro/population-hub. Students are looking for them, the parents are looking for them, the top ones at other locations have been successful in sending large numbers to the IITs, and parents in Odisha due to the lack of such institutes have sent their kids out of state. Moreover, Odisha has been sending comparatively very few students to IITs, thus not taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the well-funded and reputed IITs. So in that sense having top national coaching classes in Odisha is good. The kids who want to go there need not now go to or be sent to (by their parents) locations out of state and hopefully there will be more number of people getting to IITs from Odisha because of the presence of these nationally reputed tutorials in Odisha.

Hopefully we have clarified why we covered IIT tutorials here; We covered them because as the situation in India is now, they are an important educational infrastructure of a place/town/city/metro.

Thats that, but what do we think about these tutorials and their alleged harmful impact on the education system and society. To us the issue is not so simple nor black and white. To initiate a debate we will put some pointers and arguments.

• Coaching classes in various countries and their purpose is given here. In India, coaching classes are a reality and they thrive because (i) admission to top schools is extremely competitive and (ii) the admission process is fairly well defined. In this regard one may read the article at http://hosted.law.wisc.edu/wilj/issues/24/1/steiner.pdf which explains why cram schools for getting law license is common in many other countries but not in the USA.
• Coaching classes are not so common for college admission in the USA because of two main reasons: Decent students can fairly easily get into decent universities in most states; and admission is not based on a single exam and the process is not very clear and on purpose not well explained to the public.
• At this point the fuzzy processes adopted for admissions in US institutions will not work in India as there will be a lot of chance for corruption. One of the aura behind the IIT entrance exams and its admission process is the lack of corruption in the process of IIT admission. Many a professors and IIT directors’ kids have not been able to get into IITs. That is not the case in most US universities (even the most elite and most competitive ones) where kids of alumni, faculty and big donors may have an inside track to admission.
• Recently a committee chaired by Prof Damodar Acharya has been formed to revamp the IIT admission process. Among other things they are considering to take into account the marks obtained in the 12th grade. I am not sure if that will eliminate the coaching classes. The coaching classes will just adopt and start teaching how to also ace the 12th exam.
• However it is the case that mastering (how to answer) the kind of questions asked in the IIT entrance exam requires coaching beyond what is taught in the regular school curriculum. If the question pattern was changed to closely follow the regular school curriculum then coaching classes will possibly be less effective and thus their attraction could possibly decrease. But the questions may then be too simple making it difficult to pick 10,000 out of 5 lakhs. Also, there is a reason behind the kind of hard questions that are asked in the IIT entrance exams. Students with aptitude to answer such questions are good at problem solving and thus the kind of students the IITs are looking for. But IITs have not been able to figure out how to separate these students from students  who have trained (and been coached) to be successful in the IIT entrance exams.
  • It is common in India to believe in the notion of  "inherent ability" which is behind the elusive goal of finding students who have the inherent ability versus students who apparently do not have that ability but train hard (in the coaching classes) and get through the entrance exams.
  • But this view is being challenged. See the book review at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/review/Paul-t.html?ref=books. Following is a quote: "David Shenk with “The Genius in All of Us,” which argues that we have before us not a “talent scarcity” but a “latent talent abundance.” Our problem “isn’t our inadequate genetic assets,” but “our inability, so far, to tap into what we already have.” The truth is “that few of us know our true limits, that the vast majority of us have not even come close to tapping what scientists call our ‘un­actualized potential.’ ” At first it would seem that Shenk, the author of thoughtful books on information overload, memory loss and chess, has veered into guru territory. But he has assembled a large body of research to back up his claims. … Shenk doesn’t neglect the take-home point we’re all waiting for, even titling a chapter “How to Be a Genius (or Merely Great).” The answer has less in common with the bromides of motivational speakers than with the old saw about how to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice. Whatever you wish to do well, Shenk writes, you must do over and over again, in a manner involving, as Ericsson put it, “repeated attempts to reach beyond one’s current level,” which results in “frequent failures.” This is known as “deliberate practice,” and over time it can actually produce changes in the brain, making new heights of achievement possible.
  • In light of the above, is it really right to look down on students who worked hard for whatever number of years in a coaching class and trained themselves so as to succeed in the IIT entrance exam? Can we really fault the coaching classes who provide the students the opportunity to train, train and train? Who are we to tell that train, train, train following a goal or someone’s life’s ambition is bad? Do we do that with respect to an athlete or an aspiring musician? No, we are impressed by their dedication.
• Few years back IITs changed their requirement for admission and now one can enter an IIT only the year he/she passes the 12th or the next year. This was aimed at stopping people from spending multiple years in coaching schools in preparation for IIT. I guess it addresses that problem but raises other questions such as: Why is it wrong to work hard and long and prepare? Why can not some one decide to pursue an engineering degree at whatever age they become interested in? The later is a problem in most programs in India and is understandable because of the resource crunch. Coming back to the former: Why is it wrong to work hard and long and prepare? Does the society penalise an athlete or a music student who decides to fully focus on their goal of being a world class athlete or a musician? In case of the IITs, the problem is that most students who work hard and long to get in, do not often work hard once they get into the IITs. But then the IITs should design their course work accordingly? Also, they should assign majors for most students (say 80%) after the first year. That way students after they get in will have to work hard to get the major of their choice.
• Who are bad? The students going to coaching classes? Their parents? The owner of the coaching class? The faculty at the coaching classes? The System? If it is the system then as we mentioned we can not fault the nature of the admission process as a non-transperent one (used in the US universities) will not work in today’s India where corruption is endemic and because of that even national tests are conducted for clerical jobs in the Railways and Banks. So the only approach is to have enough good institutions/colleges/universities so that the situation is not as competitive as it is now. But even then there will be coveted institutions and admissions to them will be extremely competitive and their will be coaching classes for them. Just look at France, where 5% of its high school graduates spend 2-3 years in cram schools so that they can get into the Grandes Ecoles.
• The increase in the number of IITs, NITs, central universities, the creation of new IIITs, IISERs/NISER and the plan for 14 innovation universities will increase the number of  good institutions in India and that would be helpful. They will also help in the more serious issue that plagued India where most good students out of high school went for engineering and medicine.
• However, India needs to figure out how to improve the standards at its state universities and colleges which have degraded badly over the years. Just creating new creamy layers on the top and letting the bottom rot will worsen the situation. 

I hope the above thoughts explain why I don’t agree with the crowd and follow the fashion these days among many who put all the blame in the world at the door of coaching classes. I can see some adverse results (such as the story about an IIT JEE number 1 who was coached three years before he got JEE 1 but flunked in many of his classes in the first year) but it is not easy for me to just point blank think coaching classes as evils. In fact there may be evidence to the contrary. The coaching classes seems to have helped students from far flung areas without access to good schools to get trained  and get into the IITs. The success of the super 30 in Bihar has now prompted the Punjab government to start similar coaching for rural students in Punjab. Similar plans are also afoot in Tamil Nadu and Chhatisgarh. The Orissa government had also announced similar plans in collaboration with the Institute of Mathematics & Applications. I am not sure if that has been implemented.

Now some other related thoughts.

• In my school days, middle class parents would find a tuition master or send their kids for tution if the kids were not doing well in school. So being "tutored" had a negative connotation similar to the connotation of "remedial classes" in US schools. Of course in US now parents and kids are being sensitized to not look down on students with reading and learning disabilities. But things started changing in India and students doing well also started getting tutored to do even better, and at times this was encouraged by the teachers themselves, some with motivation to augment their income (their pay was always pathetic). Some of these teachers neglected in their teaching in their regular classes giving bad names to the "tutors".  These two underlined aspects have contributed to the negative connotation behind coaching in the mind of many.
• Personally, I have never had a tuition master in my life. I did take postal coaching (Agrawal Classes) in my 12th class (ISc 2nd year) to prepare for  IIT and got in that year. The postal coaching worked as follows: I would get booklets with some theory and solved examples and some questions. I would solve the questions myself and send it for evaluation. Some one (a faculty) at the coaching center would evaluate my solutions and give me a grade. Thats all. This was better than the alternative of reading the IIT entrance guide books and doing the exercises there as in case of the later, one was not sure if the solution was correct or not. Also, in case of the postal coaching, the solutions had to be sent in within certain time, thus creating a discipline on the preparation. I have not met a single person in my life who got through the IIT entrance exam without preparing specifically for IIT outside of the class syllabus and that meant at least going through the IIT entrance guide books.
• So I have no direct idea about how the current classroom coaching classes operate. I only know from second and third hand descriptions.

Having said all this, what would be my advice to students in their 11th and 12th grade?

• First, one need not focus on IITs, engineering or medicine. India now provides successful careers in many many fields. One can go for science and math in the top institutes such as IIISERs, NISER, ISI, etc. One can go for law in one of the National Law Schools. One can go for Economics and other social science subjects in various good colleges. One can go for accountancy and other commerce subjects. One can be successful in any of those. Also, down the road the IISERs, NISER, National Law schools and the Innovation Universities will have similar name recognition as the IITs.
• However, if one aims to get into the IITs, until further changes happen one still need to prepare beyond their Class 12 syllabus. Here I would recommend the aspiring students to get into the best coaching class (in terms of their past performance) that is available. In that regard it is good that Bhubaneswar now has some of the nationally known top ones in FITJEE, Vidya Mandir and Resonance. However, in case the teachers in those coaching classes do not emphasize the following, I would have one advice to the students: There is no substitute to the ability and understanding one develops when one is pondering on a question (on his/her own) for hours or sometimes days and is eventually able to figure out how to solve it. Memorizing a trick told by the teacher to solve that question is an extremely poor substitute and does not develop the critical thinking ability that the IITs expect their students to have. On the positive side, the periodic exams conducted by the coaching classes have some advantages. Doing well in them and getting encouragement from the teachers who are able to compare a current coaching class student with successful students from yesteryears gives the students the much needed confidence. (In general I have noticed that less students from Odisha get into IITs because of the confidence problem during their 11-12th. But where ever the good ones go, they do well and become very successful in their careers.) Also, the coaching classes provide a routine and a discipline in the preparation. This is hard  for a 16-17yr old to do on his/her own.
  • In this regard one may note that bad coaching classes or not using the coaching classes in the right way could be very harmful. As an anecdotal example, a nephew of mine was telling me that he was not confident about his IIT exam as he did not have a tuition master in subject X, though he had tuition in Y and Z. After the IIT entrance exam he said he did well in X but not in Y, Z. I explained him and he agreed that in X, he studied himself and developed the understanding while in Y and Z, he was told various problem solving tricks; but that did not develop a deeper understanding in his mind and he could not apply them to the questions he encountered in the IIT entrance exam.

8 comments April 3rd, 2010

IIT Bhubaneswar pitches a Climate Change research center to the Odisha government

Following is an excerpt from a report in Expressbuzz.com.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bhubaneswar has proposed establishment of Innovative Centre for Climate Change (ICCC) here.

Director of IIT-Bhubaneswar Madhusudan Chakraborty who met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here at the Secretariat today along with a team of experts gave this proposal to him.

Chakraborty said school of earth, ocean and environment is being established in Bhubaneswar IIT.

The school will impart teaching on land, water, air and environment and proposed research in the subject.

The IIT is keen on establishment of research institute of this school on climate change, he said.

Prof Abhijit Gangopadhyay of the American University of Massachusetts, said the institute will conduct research on climate change, adding, information on climate will be availed from different sources for research.

Rise in sea level, extreme weather, changing eco-system, air quality and pollution, affect of the changes in the human health, shortage of drinking and energy needs will be dealt with in this advanced research centre, he said.

The institute will also conduct research on the impact of climate change on the ecosystem of Chilika lake. He requested the Chief Minister to provide land with necessary infrastructure for the institute.

A similar center proposed in 2007, called "Center for Climate Change Research" (CCCR), was established at the Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune last year. This center has 20 scientists positions.

March 31st, 2010

IIT Kharagpur offers 3 yr weekend and after hours M.Tech in Bhubaneswar and Kolkata for faculty

The deadline for the coming year is past. But one can get the details for future years from http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/downloads/mtech_new1.pdf. Following is information from that page.

The following two M. Tech programmes will be offered for faculty members of AICTE-recognized programmes of Engineering Colleges:

1. M. Tech in Electrical Engineering
2. M. Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering

The programmes will be offered from January 2010.

Programme Features

The features of these programmes and the mode of delivery are elucidated below.

• Each programme will be of three-year duration.

• These programmes will be offered in the holidays and beyond office hours on weekdays to facilitate the teachers employed in the engineering colleges to attend the classes.

• The programme may be offered during summer vacation.

• Since the potential student base for these programmes exist in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, these programmes will be offered in the Extension Centers of the Institute at Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

• A mixed mode of teaching through video-conferencing and face-to-face interaction will be adopted in these programmes.

• A faculty will deliver a lecture at any of the locations (primarily Kharagpur) and the students at Kolkata and Bhubaneswar will be able to attend the lecture and interact with the faculty through video-conferencing.

• The tutorials, seminars, and comprehensive viva-voce examinations will be conducted also in the above-stated mode, as and when required.

• The recorded lectures, tutorials, and interactions will be recorded in the two Extension Centres and will be stored at the library of each extension center. They will be available to the students for study during specified hours.

• Students cannot copy these recorded lectures.

• The recorded lectures, tutorials, and interactions will not be used in subsequent semesters as a substitute for live presentations.

• Laboratory classes will be conducted in one weekend of every month at IIT Kharagpur campus at Kharagpur.

• Laboratory classes may also be conducted at the respective extension centers in virtual mode, depending on the availability of the required facilities.

• Projects and supervisors will be assigned to the students by the Programme Coordinator after the completion of first two semesters.

• Students will carry out their project work at their institutions and have to be in constant touch with their supervisors. The sponsoring organizations are required to provide laboratory facilities to the students to carry out their M.Tech project works.

• There will be two class tests in every subject. The class tests will be conducted at Kharagpur when the students come to the Institute during the last weekend of a month for the laboratory class.

• Mid-Semester and End-semester examinations will be conducted at the respective Extension Centers with faculty members as invigilators.

• Comprehensive Viva-Voce will be conducted through video-conferencing.

Number of Students to be Admitted

• Twenty-five in each programme at each Extension Center.

Programme Fee

• Fee for each programme is Rs.2 lakh for each student to be paid in two instalments – the first instalment of Rs.1 lakh to be paid at the time of admission and the second instalment of Rs.1 lakh to be paid one year after the admission. The programme fee includes the tuition fee and the examination fee.

Eligibility for Admission :

• Faculty members associated with the AICTE-recognized programmes of engineering colleges are eligible for admission into the programmes.

• An applicant must have passed B. Tech in appropriate branch with a minimum of 60% marks in the final qualifying examinations (for SC/ST candidates it is 55%).

Application Fee

• The Application Fee of Rs. 2,000.00 for general candidates and Rs. 1,000.00 for SC/ST candidates should be payable by Demand Draft drawn in favour of ‘IIT Kharagpur’ on any nationalized bank payable at Kharagpur.

Undertaking from the Sponsoring Institution

The sponsoring engineering college must give an undertaking that the college will upgrade its own facility (such as laboratories, computer facilities, and library) to enable the sponsored student to carry out his/her M. Tech thesis work in that college.

Selection of Candidates

The candidates will be asked to appear at a written test and an interview to be held at each Extension Center.

Some time back we had suggested something similar. See https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/501. Even with the IIT Kharagpur’s program there is need for more such programs. Perhaps IIIT Bhubaneswar and BPUT can make efforts in this direction.

1 comment March 29th, 2010

Alma Fiesta, the student organized socio-cultural festival of IIT Bhubaneswar, March 26-28th 2010: http://www.almafiesta.com

The web site of this event is http://www.almafiesta.com/. Their blog is at http://almafiesta.com/blog/. Following are some planned highlights of this festival.

We start with the most important one:

Alma Fiesta, IIT Bhubaneswar and Smt. Nandini Satpathy Memorial Trust Presents

Perspective: The Social Case Study Competition

Problem Statement:

Politics in India continues to be a murky and tabooed business which is being rarely taken up by the youth of present generation. Youth owns the key to dynamic thinking and action and thus are the indispensable part of a country’s politics. Present your views highlighting the current scenario of the youth participation in politics, the plan to increase this participation and also the plan to bring out the transparencies in the work of a politician.

Method of Submission: The participants are required to submit online their aforesaid visionary plan in form of a presentation in .pdf format by 25 March 2010 before 11.55 PM. The selected participants will present their plan before judge and audience on 27 March 2010. The presentations can be mailed to submissions@almafiesta.com before the deadline. No registration fees are required for submitting your presentations. So pen down your ideas and get the title of ‘SNSMT-IIT BBS Social Change maker of 2010’ along with various exciting prizes. For any queries contact: Mudit Sharma mudit@almafiesta.com +91 93385 75352.

Following are the rest of the events.

• Topsy Turvy : Inter College Group Dance Competition

  Topsy Turvy, Put your best foot forward, because Topsy Turvy inter-college dance competition is sure to excite everyone to put on their dancing shoes. Be a part of our fiesta and drink in from the excitement.

• Face Off

  Imagination is reality; dreams, thoughts and delusions are no less real than the "outside" world. Reality is a consensus, the same consensus the audience accepts when they enter a theatre to see a play and, for a time, pretend that what they are seeing is real. FACE OFF, an intercollegiate stage play event, is one of those platforms to experience the "reality”. So come, witness the reality on the stage and the director’s mind at work behind the scenes.

• N-Circled

  Give the audience a hint of a scene, no more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the Street Play meaning: when it becomes a social cause. So be there to be a part of a social causes @ N-CIRCLED – an intercollegiate street play competition.

• EUPHONY

  In the Iron Maiden edition of the Dream Theatre pluck the MetallicaStrings to elevate from the System of a Down and let the world Parikrama around you to attain Nirvana. If music is your passion and life then euphony, an inter college band competition for both eastern and western genres, is the right chance to test your ardor. The vim and vigour of music bands will be at its peak and the spirit of music is going to fill the entire ambience with a tone of mesmerisation.

• TRACK THE TRACK

  Music is the harmony between melody, rhythm and expressions and thus for a song to touch the soul one needs to properly ‘Track the Track’. This sing-along karaoke event is a unique opportunity for the music enthusiasts to show up their talent. So hit the music loud and prove your mettle.

• ANTAKSHARI

  A contest for the movie track fanatics who are experts in the lyrics. A common, Classic game yet can be mind-boggling at times. To triumph in the event means to be quick and sharp enough to get the right song. It is time to fine tune your musical knowledge and portray it to the world.

• Decoding Shakespeare
• Gone in 60 seconds
• Lit-Spree
• IIT Bhubaneswar Youth Quiz

  A Quiz on Pan Youth Topics. Be it movies, music, gadgets, ads or IT-this quiz comes as a whole some package of fun entertainment.

• Heads or Tails: Citius, Altius, Fortius!

  Bored of traditional quizzes of Tech, Biz, India…? Want a change? We could sense that. So here is an offbeat quiz purely dedicated to the Sports Turf. For all Sports Frenzied Junta Heads or Tails? Call it right!

• Youth Marathon
• Your Honour: The mock board room event.

  Motion:

  Ostracism, humiliation and mistreatment at the hands of family members, community and the medical fraternity are increasing in Orissa. Not only people living with HIV and AIDS but also their family members are equally suffering and facing the challenges in different setting. The question is whether we need to practice a differential treatment/approach to address the issue of people living with HIV-AIDS or not?

• PALETTE

  With the brush in your hand swipe the fog out of the sky and give life to your imaginations. Let the world acknowledge your endless dreams. Colours being your mouthpiece tell the unspoken and leave the beholder standstill. Mismatch the colours on this palette and paint life.

• LEAF COLLAGE

  Attention!!

  Dare not miss this opportunity to expose your ingenious dexterity. Let the foliage mirror your imagination and creativity in your grey cells. Leaves are waiting to reflect your artistic thoughts. Share your ideas, feelings, no matter what you want to express, through leave collage. Give a shape to your imagination and let the clutters of leaves take the pride to represent the artist in you.

• Mahfile-E-Hansi: Dr. Kumar Vishwas
• Classical Reloaded: Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Salil Bhatt; Akram Khan
• Leela: Orissa Dance Academy led by Aruna Mohanty
• Headbang: Kryptos
• Celebration of World Theater Day on 27th March in collaboration with Natya Chetana
• Commemoration of Earth hour on 27th March

One important aspect of this festival is that it is mainly organized by the students with some (minimal) guidance from the faculty and a very small percentage of funding from the IIT. The students find sponsors who cover most of the budget. They organize the events.

1 comment March 26th, 2010

Some future plans of IIT Bhubaneswar

Following are excerpts from a report in expressbuzz.

IIT Bhubaneswar will have four more schools with inter-disciplinary approach by 2011-end.

While the first one would be on mines, minerals and material technology, the other three would include school of chemicals, school of design and creative arts and earth and ocean sciences.

While the campus construction will start by the year-end, within 10- 15 days the contract would be ready for awarding the architectural and design side of the new campus, said IIT-B Director Prof. Madhusudan Chakraborty.

… Prof. Chakraborty said, however, the institute plans to have a marine campus on the coastline for research on rise in sea-level, effects of climate change, extreme weather conditions, changing ecosystems, air quality and pollution and human health.

… The marine campus will be called Centre for Climate Change and would be established on the lines of marine centres of University of Massachusetts and University of California, he said adding even the varsities have expressed their desire to have future collaborations in research and exchange of faculties and students.

As the marine campus will be very close to the sea, the State Government would be requested at an appropriate time to provide adequate land, he said adding it would have specialists in geology, geophysics, atmospheric and ocean sciences, he added.

Following are some excerpts from a report in Telegraph.

IIT, Bhubaneswar, is planning a marine campus as part of its upcoming School of Earth, Ocean and Environment Science.

The campus, probably be the first marine campus in the country, will study climate, sea level rise, extreme weather events, changing ecosystem, fishery development and wildlife, air quality and pollution, water shortage, human health and hydrological cycles.

Such a campus exists for schools in the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and University of California, Santa Cruz, said IIT, Bhubaneswar, director M. Chakraborty.

Expected to come up by 2011, the school will be “interdisciplinary”, conducting research focusing on geology, geophysics, marine sciences, ocean science, atmospheric science, atmospheric change, disaster mitigation and management, he said.

… The IIT also plans to open three other schools — school of mineral, metallurgy and material engineering, school of chemical sciences and school of design and creative art,” he said.

… “IIT, Bhubaneswar, believes in a border-less academic environment. We do not have departments like other IITs. We are trying to break the barrier so that people from various disciplines come together and work in tandem,” Chakraborty said.

The above plan of IIT Bhubaneswar opens up opportunities for the South Odisha people who wanted the IIT to be located there. If they co-ordinate intelligently (and even offer their own land) they could now have a piece of the IIT. Other parts of coastal Odisha may also go after this.

I think similar opportunities will open up with respect to NISER and AIIMS. In particular, a branch of either in Gandhamardan hill foothills of Balangir/Baragarh in Western Odisha focusing on medicinal plants could be a possibility. (Dr. Sanjib Karmee was championing for an institute like that in that area.)

Water and rain forests are big attractors.

Other locations (such as next to Hirakud or Mandira Dam) could vie for a pie of these national institutes by coming up with an idea about an appropriate research center and approaching the leadership of these institutes.

2 comments March 20th, 2010

IISERs will have their own aptitute test on July 18 2010

(Thanks to the Suryanarayanan’s comment number 147 in https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/285).

The IISER admission site at http://www.iiser-admissions.in/ says that there will be three ways to get admission in the IISERs: (i) KVPY (ii) IIT JEE and (iii) Direct.

But by "Direct" they mean through an aptitude test that will be held on July 18 2010. They say: 

Direct Admission is open to applicants who have Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and/or Biology in their class 12 board examination. Aptitude Assessment consists of a written test. It will have multiple choice questions on Physics Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology based on CBSE syllabus up to class 12.

The NISER NEST exam will be on June 6th. Details at http://www.nestexam.in/index1.php. 

IISERs and NISER should have co-ordinated to have a single test. It does not make sense to have separate tests for admission into similar programs. Such lack of co-ordination and foresight is what encourages the government to interfere and issue diktats.

4 comments March 15th, 2010

IIT Bhubaneswar landscape – next to picturesque and historical Barunei hill

March 1st, 2010