Oliver Wants More

"Please, sir, I want some more." So asks Oliver in Oliver Twist, a novel by Charles Dickens. That was 171 years ago. Literary world is yet to recover from the shock. Now it is IIT and IIM professors asking for more! More shocking!!!

Essentials of a Teacher are: i) he is giver of knowledge ii) he should be hungry to learn more so that he can teach more iii) he should not ask and be content with what is given to him/her. This point alone needs some elucidation.

Gurubrahma – “Teacher is Creator”. How can Creator ask or demand more? What are our scriptures teaching in this regard? Take the examples: Vamana wanted no more than three strides of land from Emperor Bali even though the latter offered more; Lord Rama took partly eaten (already tasted) fruits from Sabari and never complained; Lord Krishna happily took a fist-full of inexpensive flat-rice from Sudama. Teacher is expected to set such equally divine example and be content with what is given. They need not even read epics to learn such a mundane rule. Learn from our politicians. Most Chief Ministers take half-pay or only a day’s wage a month or some take One Rupee a month as a token salary, out of respect for motherland. Now our Congress MLAs are taking only half-pay. Babus are travelling only business/economy, not executive class. One young MP travelled by train. One minister travelled low-cost airliner. One minister, albeit unwillingly, travelled cattle-class. They are all renouncing their rights and privileges and Teachers asking more? If our Politicians are content with less, why are these Professors dissatisfied with their regular pay? This defies all logic.

One or two people in the country grumbled about the double standards of the Government in dealing with the demands of Professors and Air India pilots. One spokesperson of Ministry of Civil Aviation clarified:

“These critics are an ill-informed lot. In the first place, they should know that the subject matter pertains to two independent ministries and hence there is no question of double standards. Next consideration is Professors are down-to-earth and grounded lot. Our commercial Pilots, everyone must know by this time, fly up to high altitude of 40,000 feet and they are all highflyers.”

Ottavio Quattrocchi

What a relief! Finally, the Government of India has closed the Q-files and informed Supreme Court accordingly. Justice will prevail as Supreme Court consigns the files to archives in a matter of a day or two. Ottavio Quattrocchi had undergone two-decade long unfair trial, mostly by the vindictive media. The attempts to extradite him to India have been futile. CBI lost extradition case and had to pay for his legal expenses. His bank accounts were frozen by CBI and defrozen by Law Ministry; he was arrested and released elsewhere and he had undergone ill-treatment, as though he is a common criminal. No, he was not. He is a respectable Italian Businessman. For his acquaintance with a co-citizen Ms. Antonia Maino, how can he be treated so harshly in India? If it is so unpardonable, all her present 1.2 billion co-citizens, friends, followers and admirers in India are equally guilty.


Satyameva Jayate means "Truth Alone Triumphs".

Mr. Narasimhan Ram (also known as N. Ram and fondly known as Ram), editor in chief of the The Hindu daily now is a well-known journalist of L’affaire Bofors fame. He received Asian Investigative Journalist of the Year (1990) for “searching for the truth in the then famous Bofors Case”. He published dozens of documents on daily basis in a serial form on the front and inner pages of The Hindu replete with annotations and detailed serialized articles for over a month in his capacity as a key member of editorial board and also went on record saying “we have hundreds of documents related to the scandal but will not reveal their source”. Ram got enlightenment. Enlightenment has the curious habit of dawing spontaneously, without a warning! One day The Hindu abruptly stopped referring to Bofors scandal whithout any explanation to its readers. Later, Ram received Padma Bhushan (1990).

Indian Government has a moral obligation to compensate Quattrocchi for the mental agony he had gone through for two long decades. He faced it like a man and came out clean. India should send a clear message to the world that Indian ethos and injustice will never go together by conferring Bharat Ratna on him.

Right to get Ph.D Act

We know the fast-paced reforms the Indian Educational System has gone through prior to the 100th day celebration of Kapil Sibal becoming HRD minister. There is so much to admire and it takes very many blogs. In the present one, we shall confine only to reforms related to PhDs.



Recently Sibal made it clear in no uncertain terms that First Class Ph.D is mandatory for a teaching position in IIT or IIM from now onwards. He is always true to his word; having said something once, he is not known retract – come what may. He is integrity personified; most others say something and immediately throw blame on media as though they have not said what they have actually said. Worse still, they insist they have said what they have not. Besides, there is pressure from all MLAs and MLCs for at least one IIT and IIM in each assembly constituency and more where ruling party's candidate has come from. MPs from both the Houses are demanding at least one IISc, AIIMS etc. in each parliamentary constituency. Sibal is known to be pro-active. He had foreseen massive demand for first-class PhDs and burning his midnight oil to bring in Right to get Ph.D. Act in next session of Parliament. One must understand the patriotism of Sibal. He is a firm believer of US adage that number of PhDs has a direct correlation with the growth and well being of the nation. He would have learnt about it during his HLS days. In a country where absolutely preventable crisis is allowed to occur routinely, his zeal to be proactive is most welcome. How I wish other ministers emulate his work culture!



Preparing an Act of this magnitude is not as easy as writing one of the Acts in any Shakespeare’s play, be it a tragedy or comedy. Lot of thinking goes into it. All loose ends have to be tied up, uphold the exsting practices and so on. Reliable sources have shared latest version of the draft (a) to (z) of the proposed Right to get Ph.D. Act, which is obviously being fine-tuned. Here it is:

Preamble to the Act: It is necessitated to introduce Class/Grade system for PhDs which is hitherto unheard of in any part of the world and thereby become a role model in the reforms of higher education to the rest of the world. In order to meet the anticipated growth in demand for First class PhDs and to make India pro-actively self reliant and keep it on fast-track of growth path, the Right to get PhD Act is envisaged.



a) All Indian citizens and PIOs who celebrated 21st birthday in any preceding year are bestowed with inalienable right to get a Ph.D degree under this act from the date and time this Act is enacted.

b) All eligible candidates are bestowed with the choice of getting PhD as per methods in vogue from any recognized or unrecognized or on-paper or paper-less or name-less or web-based or address-less or non-existing or defunct or disgraced or any other known or hitherto unknown class of University in addition to non-contact or distance education and they have constitutional guarantee that there shall be no discrimination.

c) Candidate may exercise his/her right to appoint his/her kith and kin or relatives or friends or followers as i) thesis advisor ii) external examiner for evaluation of thesis with a rider that the external examiner should have resided external to the native city/town/village of the examinee at least for a day iii) panel members for viva voce.

d) Not withstanding the provisions under (c), candidate shall have a choice of submitting his thesis or otherwise.

e) Those who submit thesis under the proviso (d) shall get the constitutional guarantee of First Class or above and those who chose otherwise shall be deemed to be First Class till the day of convocation and a regular First Class from the date and time of convocation. This also has constitutional guarantee that there shall be no discrimination.

f) Candidate desirous of submitting the thesis of some other scholar available on web should only submit the link and not the entire attachment. This link shall be deemed to be the original thesis of the candidate.

g) While the paper-less form submitting thesis is preferable for environmental considerations; complete or incomplete; accepted or rejected thesis of earlier scholars may also be submitted with or without any alterations provided the name of the candidate is suitably altered only after the application of whitener fluid. Candidates are encouraged to retain the original title of the thesis. Such thesis is considered to be the original work of the candidate.

h) to x) ....

y) All prevailing reservation laws apply.

z) For the purpose of teaching employment in IITs, IIMs or any other institution for higher learning, PhDs received under the proviso of this Act shall be pari passu with any ivy-league or any other foreign university other than those in Pakistan.

Money: the Fifth Dimension of Universe

In one of the earlier blogs titled Flyovers, I happened to use the phrase ‘money continuum’. Inadvertently I spilled the beans. Many of my friends, particularly the Classical Physicists and Relativity experts, have taken a serious objection to the idea of my fifth dimension and that too connecting it to something like money which is more relevant to today's materialistic world and certainly not to pure Science. Going by the advances made in Science till date, very concept of money as a dimension appears nonsensical to say the least. I definitely owe an explanation, but not an apology to my discerning readers.

We know Albert Einstein’s quest to understand the ultimate Universal Truth is incomplete despite the fact that his life at 112, Mercer Street was spent entirely to prove it mathematically. All great physicists of his era were overawed by the beauty of his equations but were unanimous in their polite disagreement. Till now, Hawking and Penrose are having roadblocks in their models of Universes. Clearly something is amiss here.

At home, Indian philosophers for long and post independence Indian Politicians in short span of time have made considerable gains in Spiritual Universe and Materialistic Universe respectively. As a keen observer of various systems of thought, I realized that the Ultimate Universal Truth can only be explained, beyond any doubt, by fully integrating these three systems of thought: The meeting of minds and philosophies of East and West; past and present! I am researching in this area. It may please be appreciated that it would be premature on my part to disclose my findings here before publishing at least on the cover page of PNAS. For this reason, I am not giving away my proofs. Out there, there are too many Watsons on prowl to purloin my findings and later get a medal, citation and a fat cheque apart from cornering the glory without deserving. I owe something to my readers and friends: here is a rough outline.

Indian Philosophy states Universal Truth (= Ultimate Truth) is congruent to Bliss (anadobrahma means Bliss is Universe and vice versa). Post independence Indian Political Philosophy knew all the while (it is a well kept secret) that Bliss has no existence without the dimension of money and existance without money = non-existance. None of Einstein’s theories have factored the dimension of money. Being simplicity personified, he was content with only space and time. You can't balme him.

By extending space-time continuum, 4 dimensional model of Einstein, with this fifth dimension popularly known as money, we get a complete, stable and cohesive model of Universe. One can never realize the Ultimate Truth of the Universe (=Bliss) without this added dimension! For minor details and proofs, please browse future journals. Q.E.D.

Now we know the secret of missing dimension and where it lies.

Flyoevrs

Flyovers have some positive traits. They keep Contractors, Babus and Politicians happy. They keep public both happy and unhappy depending on the space, time and money continuums. During the construction time of any flyover, people are somewhat unhappy as it impedes the traffic thereby takes more time to pass through the area, space available on road for hawkers becomes limited and business (money) in surrounding areas gets effected and so on. Once the debris is cleared and flyover is inaugurated by politicians and suitably named after a current generation politician from a family of politicians, people are somewhat happy as they can commute in lesser time, at least for next few days and save a little on petrol (money) and also the space below flyovers becomes available for extra-curricular activities. Some Hyderabadis are sure to disagree; they argue that it is difficult to get away from traffic jam on the flyover. They do have a valid point there. Some motor-cyclists complain that not all flyovers are suitable for their daily acrobatics and aerobatics and they are so much unlike necklace road which gives them a long reckless driving pleasure. Set aside these minor grouses, people are generally very happy to have at least something concrete worth few lacs for a project costing thousands of crores to the exchequer. Indians have learned to be happy and content; it has not come easy or too soon, it is all hard learning and took centuries of disciplined upbringing by ancestors. We are living in an era where, as a rule, most projects worth thousands of crores do not leave any trace behind. They are cleanly executed. Some projects have the knack of getting fully completed on paper before starting. This is all the more reason for people to be happy with flyovers. Just to sum it up, it is a win-win situation to all concerned.

Believe me, these Flyovers are thinking beings. They do have thought process of their own. The fact is, from very early stages they start thinking in English! Local vernacular would have been better. Alas! It is not so. I am not joking. Their logic goes somewhat on these lines: if they are known as flyover, why shouldn’t they try to fly over? It is complicated, a bit absurd and splitting the word to a perverse end from our point of view. Aerodynamic laws do not permit them even to take off! Simply they are not good students of science.

Nevertheless they do try to fly over their surroundings. The flyovers in the making are even naughty; they try to fly before they are ready. This is what exactly causing the collapse of flyovers and bridges, both during the construction and soon after, in all metros and in the whole of the country; a poor low paid site construction engineer gets arrested by police for no fault of his.

Premier Educational Institutes & Autonomy

I don’t recall any Union Budget which has not tampered with the duties on tobacco products over last four decades and more i.e., ever since I started reading the budget speeches. Every Finance Minister is addicted to increasing the taxes while only some people are addicted to tobacco products. The point is addiction exists and it is contagious. HRD ministry and Health Ministry are no exceptions. They are addicted to tamper the higher education of which they have no understanding.

Recollect the ordeal faced by the director of AIIMS not so long ago. Supreme Court had to intervene to give some solace by negating what parliament did by rallying around Health Minister blindly. Arjun Singh clearly had the better of IIMs and taught them what management is all about. I wonder if all IIMs collectively failed to manage Arjun Singh, even though illustriuos people were chairing their respective boards, what can they possibly teach at IIMs in the classroom. Their collective failure in itself is a good case study for IIM students. Giving a lecture to a bunch of kids with 99.9X percentile in CAT is a cake walk and putting into practice and demonstrating is different. They are all wizards in their subjects but when it comes to dealing the politicians, even collectively, they are just as inept as the next man.

In the present imbroglio at IITs, I wonder why IIMs are not actively involved and also the safe distance IISc, ISI and AIIMS are keeping. I am not suggesting that they should form a trade union but if they have common issues why not express at a common forum?

I do have some vague idea why TIFR has not figured anywhere. Fortunately, right from its inception, it has rightfully enjoyed a special status. TIFR owes everything to Homi J. Bhabha and Jawaharlal Nehru as these visionaries (have they anticipated 2009 events at a time when Kapil Sibal was just a toddler?) ensured that TIFR and subsequently BARC become part of DAE which has been traditionally a domain of PM considering the sensitivities involved in the work. Other ministries think twice, perhaps more, before poking their nose.

IITs, IIMs, IISc, AIIMS and ISI should jointly put up a simpler charter of demands i) autonomy ii) better pay-scales and non-negotiable iii) shift to DAE from HRD/Health ministries so that these institutes come under PM which leaves lesser scope to meddlers of higher education. The third point has a long term impact in the sense the academia will have time to concentrate on their work instead of fighting with persons of Kapil Sibal’s ilk after each cabinet reshuffle. I hope the point is clear.

Colored Money & D-15 Problem of Swiss Bank

Most of us have been hearing about Rupees 70,00,000 Crores of money stashed away in Swiss Bank by very few Indians and political parties. Some of the readers in the other parts of the world should know that in India, a crore means 10 million. There is no need to confuse people by expressing this number in billions or trillions since UK and US friends will interpret differently. Being a hardcore IT (not Income Tax) person with some grey hair, I developed a phobia that poorly written programs and ill-designed systems would collapse any Pico-second. The trauma of Y2K just about a decade back is still fresh in my memory even though I called it a day nearly 1K days back.

Very recently Pranab Mukherjee made his usual courtesy call and asked the director of Swiss Bank about the current balance as his system is down due to power shortage in New Delhi. Usually affable director retorted saying don’t throw your telephone directory at me. Clearly Pranab would not think of doing that at a friend sitting some 5K miles away when he is not adept at throwing even in the dust bin kept next to his table. Understandably, Pranab was aghast.

Obviously there is a crisis at Swiss Bank and we need to get to the root of the problem.

Swiss banks are known for keeping secrecy. If you are not good at keeping a secret, kindly stop reading now.

It is learnt from reliable sources that CIO of Swiss Bank was discussing a statement indicating the total of Indian money of some dark color just when Pranab’s call came in. Both the CIO and the director were in a jam as the collapse of their system is imminent. The rate at which the balance is swelling, the amount would cross 99,99,999.99 crores at any micro-second meaning it exceeds 14 digits and becomes a 15 digit figure.

So, what? Actual problem is here. CIO was explaining that very moment their computerized color banking system is so designed to take only 14-digit numbers (fractions do not pose much problems). They also discovered dynamite like bug in the system which resets entire balance to zero due to what is technically known as overflow problem, once the balance becomes 15 digits. Incidentally this vindicates my right to have my own phobias. It is a poor system design but obviously they can not let the customers know of it; clients will move their funds away electronically, with a click of a mouse, to competing Banks which leads to natural collapse of the Swiss Bank just as so many other US banks collapsed recently for wrong reasons. This is the real reason why director lost his cool which you can reasonably expect him to regain only after this D-15 problem is resolved by re-designing the system with a new RDBMS engine which can handle figures with any number of digits on the fly and retain Indian clients.

Cattle & Shashi Tharoor

We have been reading so much about Shashi Tharoor’s tweeting. Is it Much Ado About Nothing? Our ever forgiving PM did what any nice person like him would do without batting an eyelid. Sonia being a disciplinarian, like most moms, may deal with the matter differently. Lot of discussion in papers and on TV is centered on the technology used, right or wrong aspects; also to some extent whether his tweeting is offensive.

In this debate people forgot which one is the offended party.

We can’t really find fault with anyone for the simple reason there is no well defined way of communicating with Cattle and elicit their feelings on the subject. One expert, who prefers to remain anonymous as he is afraid of TV reporters, interviewed several cattle with his extra-ordinary skills in communicating with them.

It turned out that cattle did not like Tharoor to travel in their class and somehow he got the scent. Thinking cattle would never know, he played smart by tweeting. Now the cat is out of the bag.

Sibal-ising the Education in India

The truth is our politicians believe that excellence in education will eventually lead to problems for them. They have been countering this in a planned way. Now you have more IITs, IIMs, B-schools and engineering colleges (with additional seats) and so on with 50% Engineering/MCA seats going unfilled in India. 85% of the graduates, as per a study, are unemployable (that’s the word for unfit for a job). Andhra alone churns out 45,000 MBAs every year without having an IIM.

By denying what is due to faculty members of institutions like IITs, IIMs, IISc, ISI and so on they hope to eventually normalize and bring these institutions on par with other mediocre colleges (i.e., national standards). Taking away autonomy, increasing reservations should be understood in the context of vote bank politics.

By the way who owns most of the engineering colleges and b-schools that have come up over past two decades? It is politicians and their followers. How many people know that a large percentage of these institutions are owned by (country made) liquor barons (not Vijay Mallya variety)? It is a pity nobody understands their spirit to improve education in India. Well, part of these liquid assets and colored money, instead of going into already swollen Swiss accounts, is getting invested in Sibal-sed system of education - is it not something to cheer about? Look, we have already forgotten the foundation laid by Arjun Singh just a couple of years back in teaching IIMs what management is all about!

Politics of Statues

This refers to a recent PIL Against the proposed Statue in the Ocean to the memory of Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Hon. High Court of Mumbai.

A precedent was set by politicians in Tamil Nadu sometime back which has gone unnoticed. Vivekananda Rock Memorial is familiar to many for its historical and cultural significance and remains a major tourist attraction of Kanyakumari. Recent addition of 133’ high (to represent 133 chapters of Thirukkural) Thiruvalluvar statue simply dwarfs the rock memorial. Just take a look at any photo available on web. I have great respect for Saint Thiruvalluvar for his teachings are relevant to even present day corporate governance and today’s life style.

It is a political move to dwarf a national memorial and draw attention to another as a part of vote-bank tactics and politics of hatred. I wonder whether anyone ever questioned this. If the idea is to have a befitting statue to a saint, surely they could have found any number of locations.



Mayawati institutionalized statue erection process and has taken it to sublime level. In a different way, recently the state governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka displayed maturity and statesmanship in signing truce to stop decades old war-of-statues between them and entered into a collaboration of unveiling statues in each other’s state with the participation of statesman of both the states. With this inter-state water disputes have taken a back seat. Bereaved state of Andhra Pradesh is seriously planning a memorial (obviously with a statue) for late YSR. Nothing short of it will be befitting as around 500 people have committed suicide or died of heart attack on watching the helicopter debris on TV.

The era of 6’ size statues for Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar is clearly on wane. It is positive sign in the sense our politicians have realized the need to live in present. Now dawns the new era of global size statues with Olympic size budgets. This clearly defines a new paradigm and a quantum leap in the thinking process of our wise politicians.

Since I am not in the profession of politics my dream may remain largely unrealized. I had a dream to utilize 0.0000001% black money lying in one of Swiss Banks to erect a statue of one of our late national leaders on Mount Everest so that his direct glance will bless the entire nation. Beijing may not view my idea sympathetically as the shadow is bound to fall on their nation.