AICTE has only an advisory role

In a landmark judgment, Supreme Court has ruled that AICTE has only advisory role and is not a controlling authority over affiliated colleges. In an earlier judgment (TMA Pai case), the Supreme Court had held that universities are autonomous and AICTE can not control them. The new judgment has essentially enlarged the scope of the previous judgment by ruling that affiliated colleges are part of the university.

This means that a college does not have to seek approval from AICTE for starting its courses, it only needs to do so from a affiliating university. So, now onwards, AICTE can no longer be blamed for starting excessive number of engineering colleges. I foresee that all technical universities will compete with each other in affiliating as many new colleges as possible. So we are in for a quicker growth of technical education, not necessarily the need of the hour of the country.

Of course, I am happy with the judgment since I believe that education policies need to be decided at the state level and not at the central level, even while admitting that this may lead to many technical universities competing with each other in reducing the quality of education. And my contention is that a central body like AICTE had no teeth anyway, and the quality of technical education can not go any worse than what it is right now. Those universities who will compete for poor quality will be taken care of by the market place, and the market place is a better regulator than a single central regulator.

But the happiness may be short lived. My reading of the judgment is that the parliament is free to legislate an act which curtails the autonomy of universities, given that some aspects of the technical education is in the union list of 7th Schedule (Item 66), and in general the higher education is in the concurrent list of 7th Schedule (Item 25), and hence a central act where it is in conflict with a state act will have precedence over the state act. So a university set up by a state act will be subservient to anything set up by parliament, if the act so dictates.

AICTE will surely go for a review petition, and if it does not win back its powers through the review petition soon enough, the pending NCHER bill in the parliament will be taken up, suitably modified, and quickly passed to bring back control in the hands of a central regulatory authority.

Also, the Supreme Court ruling clearly states that while AICTE has only an advisory role, UGC can play a more important role, and that AICTE can give its advice to UGC on how to control the universities (not just affiliated colleges). So I suspect that UGC will now become more pro-active in "controlling" technical education in the country. So some of the freedom won by this court ruling may soon be curtailed through other mechanisms.

Let us enjoy the little freedom that higher education got yesterday, while it lasts.

My Meeting with Ranjan Kumar

Today is Holi, the festival of colors. Frankly, not my favorite festival even in best of the times. Not that I lock myself up inside my home. But today I will avoid Holi. You see, I have to meet Ranjan Kumar in the evening. He is coming from New Jersey, in the direct non-stop flight of Air India to Mumbai.

Ranjan has been a friend ever since I joined IIT Kanpur as a young under-graduate student over three decades ago. He was in the same batch, and in the same hostel. We became excellent friends, and we decided to live in the same wing from 2nd year onwards. He was a good Phatta cricketer, an asset to our wing, but more importantly, he was the conscience keeper of the wing. If you were ever in doubt whether something is right or wrong, he was the man to approach. His enthusiasm was infectious. One fine day, he just decided that it was a good idea to go to Lucknow on our rickety bicycles, and off we went. You couldn't question Ranjan, you still can't. He has always been different from the others. Engineering for him meant building things, and he loved Mechanical Engineering, since it gave him freedom to spend hours in the Workshop. Of course, later, he will switch to building software, but he never forgot his first love. We used to spend hours chatting about problems in the world, ranging from who should America vote for in its presidential elections, to how we could use science and technology to solve the real problems of the disadvantaged sections of our society. If one wanted to showcase a patriot, it would be Ranjan Kumar. If one wanted to meet an idealist, it would be Ranjan Kumar.

We have kept touch all along. His joining IIT Madras for an MTech, and then joining Citicorp Overseas Software Ltd. I recall the day I reached London airport around 1990 without a visa, and somehow managed to get a 24-hour visa at the airport. His mission was to get me to experience the best of England in 24 hours, starting from the Greenwich village to London, the Westminster, the Buckingham Palace, the London Bridge, Madam Tussauds museum, a walk along the Thames, a small pizza at the Pizza Hut for 10 pounds, to a pub in the evening where he asked me to taste a coconut drink (since I couldn't take the alcohol), and the bull session through the few remaining hours of the night, before sending me off to Heathrow in the early morning. He was the perfect host. Of course, the discussions had to be about the society, and how all of us - the privileged few to receive an IIT education - must do something that will uplift the life of the under-privileged. He hadn't changed a bit.

Soon most batchmates settled down, got busy in their careers, got married, and all that. All that happened to Ranjan too, but there was no change in that idealism. I recall his wedding in Patna, where for some reason I could not spend as much time with him in the day as he had wanted to. He was keen to know how I was doing at IIT Kanpur as a faculty, and how could my position at IITK could be leveraged to do something in the education space for the masses. So after all the ceremonies were over, he and Sayali, his newly wedded wife, came to my hotel room, and he wanted to spend the next few hours chatting till I leave back for Kanpur. I knew the topics. I was sure he would have a lot of new ideas, he is always full of ideas, and very practical ones at that. But I insisted that they leave my room. They left, of course, but not before informing me that it was important to discuss those ideas at the earliest, and hence their honeymoon location would be the IIT Kanpur Visitors Hostel. Sayali knew him well, and supported him, and they came to IIT Kanpur after a couple of days of ceremonies and festivities in his home town of Gaya.

Our next interaction was in Japan. He was working in Tokyo when me and Rashmi (my wife) decided to have a tour of Asia in three weeks. The maximum number of days were to be in Japan. He made all the arrangements, which train we will go by to which city, when, which hotel we will stay in, what local bus we will take, which places we will visit. He gave us a paper with standard English phrases and their Japanese equivalent, just in case. His attention to details has always been impeccable. Shinkansen took us to Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and so on. Tokyo was seen with Ranjan around. Again, a perfect host. And again, a lot of discussions on what we should do.

He soon moved to Pune, and we met a bit more frequently, about once a year. He became passionate about improving technical, skills based education in India. He had found his calling. He became a member of the Pan-IIT group called, "IITians for ITIs."

Our batch is special and is different. We celebrated our Silver Jubilee twice - silver jubilee of joining IITK and Silver jubilee of graduating from IITK. And he came both times, with his usual enthusiasm. He would make sure that our batch reunions are not just about having fun and nostalgia. They must include serious discussions of what we as a batch can give back. He is the prime mover behind the batch agreeing to support the setting up of the tinkering lab in IIT Kanpur. His passion for engineering and building things would never die or even fade.

Where did my thoughts wander. I am getting ready for my meeting. It is actually a mini get-together of the batch. Many of us would be meeting him at the airport. He does not know about it. It is going to be a surprise for him. Today, we will take our revenge. We will be speaking continuously, and not let him speak a word. In all the batch get togethers, he has been setting the agenda, he has been leading us, forcing us to think, forcing us to get out of our comfort zone. But today, we don't want to think.

Ranjan is used to travel between New Jersey and Mumbai, must have done this scores of time. But this journey will be a different experience for him. He would not be sitting in the passenger cabin. He would not be telling his co-passengers how they can change India. He would be sleeping throughout this journey in a casket, which will be placed in the cargo area of the plane.

Yes, my dearest friend is no more. This act of God proves that God too is not perfect. What is the justification for taking away a person who is only helping others, who is an ideal rarity in this Kalyug. Can we try God in a court of law. Can He defend himself.

All that remains is a body, which too will be consigned to flames soon. But, no, he leaves behind tonnes of memories. Memories are no substitute for the real action. The only hope is that he will upgrade God's communication system soon, and one day, I will receive a skype call from up there. He also leaves behind a lot of his writings, some of which are available at his blog. Such beautiful writings. I am sure can remain a source of inspiration for long.

When I think about him, a face which is always smiling comes in the front. I can almost hear him crack a joke, a subtle one, he had that gift of language whereby he could turn a difficult situation into a lighter environment, makes everyone feel part of what was being done.

The family is shattered. But then these are the times when they come closer, to give each other strength to withstand this unbearable loss, to wipe the tears of each other.

But who will wipe my tears.






Note: If you knew Ranjan Kumar and would like to say something, please don't write that here. His family has set up a page in his memory. Please visit this page and write your thoughts and memories there so that they reach the family.

GATE 2013: Demand for MTech (CSE)

The result for GATE 2013 is out. The paper in Computer Science was given by 2.24 lakh students. Overall, 13.88 percent students were declared eligible for pursuing higher education. Some media reports say that for CS, a smaller fraction is eligible. One can safely assume that there would be around 25,000 students who have cleared the GATE hurdle for doing MTech in Computer Science. It is probably safe to assume that almost half of these would be more interested in jobs, IAS, MBA, going abroad, etc. So we need to take care of about 12,500 students who want to study MTech in Computer Science.

The number of students that we will be able to handle in our existing programs is just about one tenth of it. As a nation of 1+ billion people, where IT is one the largest foreign exchange earner, we do not have the resources to handle just about 12,500 students in our MTech programs.

Fortunately, this can be done overnight, at least a program of the quality similar to those MTech programs which are not in top 20.

We could start a course-based MTech program. For this purpose, a university could be set up (or an existing university could take the proposed initiative). The university would get into an agreement with top 10 institutions, say old IITs, IISc, and a coupe of more. These institutions would promise to offer just one course every semester in MOOC format. The university would let students do self-study and only conduct exams. Why would IITs agree to offer courses? Well, they are anyway thinking of doing something in the MOOC space, and this university could provide some technical/platform support and an obscene amount of honorarium. The university could also have a tie up with industry to offer such courses, and may also join hands with external platforms like coursera, etc.

Certainly not the same quality as a full-time, residential, research based program, but would be better than what is being offered by everyone other than the top 20 places.