Sunday, July 4, 2010

Election season

Institute has election season during April-May and everyday you are bombarded with manifesto of one or another candidate. Basically manifesto's of each candidate seems similar only difference being that it has different construction of the sentence. Some even copy one another’s manifesto and that’s really gross. For the first time I was seeing an election upfront. I had decided that I was not going to side any candidate. Our departmental election was one heck of a political plot. It had all the mix of being a Hindi Movie, regionalism along with show of strength and bitterness among the candidates. It was really interesting to see how people even at student level play political games and do whatever they can to swing the votes in their favor. I was shocked with one thing that even at place like IIT where the most educated lot of our society lives, the votes are decided by loyalties and not merit. Regionalism, like any other place was a deciding factor so this system of “Democracy” although seems good has it flaws and they cannot be rectified as it takes people’s power to think as a basic assumption which is not at all true. Every election in institute is fought with loyalties, for department, for hostels, for regions and for academic programs. Although I fear to say, but this is a sorry state of affairs in student politics, in every university and college across India, and if these are the leaders of tomorrow then we better have Dictatorship. One good thing that we have in place is the Impeachment clause that if someone elected to a post does not fulfill the promises that he has been making, then that person can be removed from the post. Although this seem trivial but plays an important in keeping the elected candidates on track. Also one more thing they have implemented is the negative vote. You can say that you do not want a candidate or you can select whom do you want.

The Great Debate

First things first. I will confess that Post Graduate in IIT is like under-rated or say is not as pompous as Under Graduate. Well there are reasons for this and me and two of my friends went on a soul searching spree. We have this garden restaurant in campus where you can sit and enjoy and have tea, lush greenery, morning dew, dim light and a hot cup of tea. What else would you want? Our main topic was why in this whole world are PG’s not recognized in the same manner as UG’s. This issue was a pain in our heart since we entered because we were constantly reminded of this fact. Indeed this is really bad because you won’t expect this kind of difference among IITian’s. For outer world an IITian is an IITian but for us there are two parallel worlds that exist. In IIT itself you can see stark difference between a UG and and PG. One is handling the various activities which IIT’s are famous like the cultural festivals and technical festivals, while the onus of research lies upon the other community. This divide is increasing and is surely a thing which could be noticed once you are here for few months. Our issue was why PG students are not so participative in various activities of the institute and is only interested in being online whole day and making friends in cyberspace? Also when we have so many facilities provided by the institute why aren’t they utilized by them? We tried to reason this out and found various issues which are bogging them down. Although I am not trying to defend this community by giving any alibi it’s just that this problems exist and they need to be looked into before writing them off as someone who is not interested in the institute issues and activities. First thing which affects them most is the duration, the course duration is 2 years which are insufficient and if we are looking at effective time frame then think of this, first six months need to be removed as they are required for settling in the environment, in last six months the only thing which is on their mind is placement and once that is done the story ends. So only effective time they have is a year and in that too we have a break of 3 months so how in the whole world do we expect them to do everything else along with their studies and their projects. Although they should be able to do it cause “WORKLOAD” as they say in IIT is not that much but still the duration is so short that if you miss a chance then you have lost the chance to participate in anything. Second is that they are here for finding a socioeconomic security and to have this they need to study and get good placement. For this they need to concentrate on academics even in second semester. So this is one reason I find which leads to non participation of PG’s but still we decided to take upon us the work to infuse some energy into the PG community so that at least they can be represented well in the institute and they would also be looked upon as someone of importance and not as some third person.

Start of the second semester

The feeling of being an IITian has seeped and we are accustomed with the system by now. So the first humungous task was selection of subjects. Well this sounds a very easy thing but in IIT where you can select any subject from an array of so many subjects it’s really maddening. Figure this, out of 4 subjects I studied one was in Aerospace department, one was in Energy department and only 2 were in my department although the subject in Aerospace department was connected to my course the course in Energy was on how to harness solar energy. I swear this subject did not even have the farthest relation to what I am studying. This subject is like solar power for dummies and I took it just for the sake of grades. Because everyone knows that in the end what matters are grades! But well I studied something and sure it was interesting at the end. Another subject which ripped my mind apart quite literally was “Fracture Mechanics”. Its seems good to hear but the actual theory behind it is something which involved great concepts like singularity and complex mapping and god knows what all. It was really startling to know that to what depth has the science progressed. This subject I swear can really cause madness as can be seen from our faculty. Anyone who can master this is nothing short of an astro-physicist. Last subject was such a bore that I always stood last in all the quizzes including the last exam and barely scored well enough to keep me afloat in that subject. All said and done this finishes the academic part of this semester. (THANKS A LOT THAT THE ACADEMIC PART IS OVER)

Long time no see

Well haven’t been able to post anything since last six month may be I lost the touch. But am back and wish to follow it as long as I can. It has been a eventful six months so have many stories and views to share but slowly and steadily one after another, not an overdose. Lets see how long can I keep my promise.