Indian Education System

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 06 Jan 2015 03:48

I think something our education should change is what we have learned and discussed thus far.. that, our education poilicies changes how not only we employ teachers, teaching curriculum, but also look at from the angle of how the educated going to use that knowledge and would it be really useful and career oriented.

I think applied education on the chosen career path fully completes an information cycle use within each learning candidate.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 06 Jan 2015 14:42

RamaY wrote:We are going OT but a small post.

Let's assume a medium size (1 cu.ft volume) metal printer costs about $20,000 and a wooden CNC and Laser cutter cost another $10,000.

With a $30,000 budget (RS 20L) a village can have local maker lab that serves 90% of building, tools and machinery needs.

Repeat it in every village of India, this is your quick ticket to industrialization.

NOT.

In my humble opinion, creating sustainable enterprises , essentially means finding a good customer, and then building to his specifications. This involves and includes tooling and factories. When you repeat this cycle, you can industrialize a large area. But , finding the customer comes first.

Supplying infrastructure to all villages first , to build for some mythical , not-yet-found customer is not a good idea.

dsreedhar · Post by **dsreedhar** » 06 Jan 2015 19:52

Mahadevbhu - In RamaY's post, the village and its people are the first customers with the assumption that a typical Indian village is underdeveloped with lack of basic infrastructure and various amenities, which is true for the most part. This (3D printing) empowers the village for its own development and then export out excess. Development inside out. Good idea. At the nation level for both India and China, it was export first and then use the generated wealth to develop internally.
RamaY garu may clarify.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 06 Jan 2015 20:43

I would say this.. standardization is the first step for a distributed development model..

take a normal case example (3D as template or for real):

send an email/message payload with instruction to different construction/factory sites. products and parts get assembled by various men and printers, assembly lines.

the above case need massive standardization.. areas where it applies is civil and road infra, pre-construction blocks.

dsreedhar · Post by **dsreedhar** » 06 Jan 2015 21:18

Agree about standardization.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Jan 2015 20:19

Matrimc and RamaY, There is a 3-D printer start-up company in Bengluru that makes many of the parts for their product by 3-D printing. Will get the name soon.

Meanwhile,
Not at IIT, No problem: Online courses from IITs

Kanpur: Now even non-engineering students can listen to lectures by professors from IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Madras online for free, as part of an initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Under the 'Massive Open Online Course' (MOOC), students from both engineering and other courses will have access to 18 courses online which will be conducted by seven professors from IIT-K and five professors from IIT-M.

Professors from IIT-K and IIT-M have made 18 courses available online, by recording their lectures, for non-IIT students, Professor Vimal Kumar of IIT-Kanpur, who is also the director of these online courses, told PTI.

These courses are of tremendous value to those students who have dreamt of studying by IIT professors, said Mr Kumar, who has lectures on 'Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory' under the initiative.

About 6,000 students have already enrolled for the courses which will continue till February 28, 2015. Mr Kumar said he is hopeful of 50,000 registrations soon.

The professors participating in the initiative will be given a suitable stipend.

Agnimitra · Post by **Agnimitra** » 18 Jan 2015 10:54

X-post from Sanskrit nukkad:

"Nation-building Education" - "Being literate is not the same as being cultured".
Short documentary on an English-medium school that successfully incorporated Sanskrit as mandatory 3rd language.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzy5YWT7sQ0

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 23 Jan 2015 15:52

In some place, I would like to cast a humble vote against both online courses and the GIAN thing.

Just because you can disseminate a lecture does not mean you are teaching anything to anyone, and the GIAN thing results in only "foreign-returned" syndrome. Online courses result in false sense of knowledge ("I have learnt MS Word from IIT Kanpur!").

There are hardly any teachers left in the west to begin with. I cant see where they will get theSe thousands they want to import. If visitors want to teach in India, they certainly should not be paid for the privilege and the material evaluated before hand to make sure its worth being foisted upon unsuspecting students (bias: experience with a McMaster visiting professor three decades ago).

Yes, the Indian academia is several rungs below the western folk but unless things have changed dramatically, it does do a fantastic job of rote-learning. Messing with that using half-hearted GIAN would leave the system neither here nor there.

I dont really see much sense in imitating the US higher education system. As it is now, its basically a huge sweat shop of chinese and other foreign nationalities.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 24 Jan 2015 11:29

There is no magic bullet to fix the education system.

Online courses and Western trained Profs will at least result in students being exposed to different kinds of knowledge and ways of doing things . I am talking about the 'ordinary' colleges, where the situation is real bad. And rote learning is fine upto.. class 3 maybe. Indian system has too much of it, even the so called higher education and colleges.

We should take the good qualities of the US higher education system, not the bad.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 24 Jan 2015 16:14

^^^ Therein lies my complaint -- regular exchange programs have cultural value. People to people contact, and demystification to the point where people understand most American schools are also just as bad.

This GIAN idea of mass import is not any better than Obama proposing free 2 year community colleges in the US or for that matter US graduate school scholarships, any and all. Most of these professors will not pass any of the classes the schools they will teach while visiting already offer.

The success of US graduate school is in providing unlimited access to educational material. Their classes or udacity to khan academy are uniformly useless. But if you already have a sound foundation, you will sing their praises.

Dont put down rote learning. Add sufficient practical experience instead of made up internships, make them apprenticeships (paid and regulated jobs) and you will have the best of india/EU/US.

This powerpointship of mass invitations will lead to a further clash of cultures, and loss of any remaining confidence in going through "hard" or rote needing classes.

I cant comment on small/private/for-profit education or even the likes of NSIT, Dwarka? types for that matter. But few furrin folks will venture out to them any way. And the issue with IIPM/Arindam Banerjee? types is not lack of teachers.

The bigger/main problem is lack of apprenticeship culture (all interns, IITians included) used to neither get an opportunity to practice nor did they want to. In IT/vity types, and IBM research labs included. Getting students exposed to professional culture reamins the biggest obstacle to not having the mela that is on campus recruitment at the end of a degree course. Getting your hands dirty needs to be promoted instead of being put down.

GIAN does not solve this. Jobs and on the job learning is also an interpersonal exercise. Not necessarily a competitive one either. This is a big deficiency. Instead of inviting visitors, create internship opportunities for second and third year students in industrial r&d (or appropriate equivalent divisions for science/commerce/education). Select via a test nationally and ship them out instead of paying furrin fat cats.

No curriculum will teach you everything, and opening the eyes to the bigger world early and makung students independent learners pays huge dividends.

By the way, china is doing this even for small town students. By the $$Billion. Japan has always done this. As has Germany. They are also doing GIAN type things tjough, to be fair.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 24 Jan 2015 23:03

Shrimaan Shreeman ji,
At the risk of stepping into a pond of piranha, a school of skates (=sharks), a coterie of crocodiles, a band of barracuda, a school of sting rays.....well, you get the idea....here are my two pieces of raupya (yani ki silver, chandi, argentum).

1 GIAN and accompanying powerpoint-giri can be an issue. But it does provide an opportunity for students and teachers alike (in desh) to see a different way of thinking and teaching (thinking as in less 'rote' etc.). For this alone, I think it is worth trying it out for a couple of years. And if the approach needs changes after that, changes should be made, or cancel it outright at that time, not at this incipient stage. I have not seen the details, but it seems like a limited engagement (2 months) in a year. So, that still leaves about 8 to 10 months of shudh desi instruction to tide over any loss of confidence or shortcomings in the bideshi maal. Quite possibly, the visiting professors might start to see the value of rote learning from their vidyaarthis (see pt. 3) and import it here

2 US grad school does seem to incentivize professors towards research than teaching, atleast till tenure, and profs continue in on that path after tenure, to the detriment of teaching unfortunately. But having said that, there is enough of a cultural difference between the two systems that an interaction will be beneficial in the long run (with some control/oversight, of course).
3 'Rote learning': It means different things to different people. I'll use it within in the context of memorization (and not necessarily at the expense of learning/understanding). I think it is an important skill. I've done a 180 degree turn on this....used to not like it, but having lost that ability in significant degree, I am trying to re-learn some of it. A lot of thinking and progress happens in meetings/discussions (technical or otherwise) and if one has the facts/formulae/results or details of references in one's mind, one can make a more effective case, and in general have a more productive discussion. Desi system is one at the expense of the other, but by god, the ones who actually are good memorizers and take the trouble to understand the foundational knowledge have a huge advantage.
4 Agree 400% with the point of having interships etc.
5 About online courses not up to snuff etc., here is my general comment. For someone with no access to teachers in a particular subject or topic (there are tons of examples in this regard), online is the only way. For someone with access to reasonably good teachers but who may not have all the answers to some questions, online provides another 'teacher', so to speak.

Ultimately, if we are trying to encourage independent learning, online is a great way to do it. If a student wants to learn some material, the onus is squarely on the student to do one or more of the following to learn the material: (i) read a book/books (ii) discuss a topic with a class mate, (iii) try one online material....it does not have to be formal course from 'The Ultimate Institute of Astounding Technology', it could simply be a video put up by a grad student explaining a concept. If one is referring solely to formal online courses in lieu of class-room learning...yes, I concede there are issues (having faced it first-hand). But online courses, at a minimum, open up each course to 'n' number of students, whereas the non-online limit would have been at 50 (or 100) students max. in a physical classroom with any hope of hearing an instruction on a topic.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 25 Jan 2015 03:00

mahodaya sri kumar,

1. I speak from extensive personal experience when I cast my vote against GIAN. Visitors will be lallu to begin with, and then they will be out of their home environment. This is not to say this already has not been tried before. Tenure reject Indians routinely find IIT employment (disclosure -- graduate school room mate, major IIT professor). Utterly useless, I pick one among a few dozen such individuals only as an example. This was favored for several indian elections -- bring back some foreign trained indians to teach. Do I see them actually meeting any expectations? No. In addition, the local staff rebeled and wanted union style control. The returnees were of no merit whatsoever, except for a furrin degree.

2. This is a huge myth. Today, US research labs are chinese and east eueopean run sweat shops. And then fraud is so prevelant that this level of admission raises no eyebrows -- http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/ca ... t.a1400192 -- read down to kroll. This is not when they are going after each complaint. This is when they actively suppress 9 out of 10 incidents. I picked first google result, you can read more if you want. US/EU academia is shot. Dead. Buried. Ask the rest of the tenured lot here to comment. It is so bad that if you actually do something that works, this will happen to you -- http://joylaskarstory.com/

I leave out 3-5 as there are only minor disagreements there. But this is like marrying a THIRD time and hoping this will work out (indian trained -- first marriage, indian but foreign trained -- second marriage).

Finally, regarding online courses, the less said the better. In old days, you xeroxed marksheets "right", now there is such an amount of insanity that goes into these "online" efforts that we might as well go back to open university on TV.

No, short visits to India will do nothing for the students that video conferenced classes will not. Spend money on sending students out instead of bring teachers in. At least there wont be a big corruption scandal later on if you setup a JEE/GATE type exam right. Well, there will be a smaller scandal. And the people will be covered under one country's laws.

Teenage brains are wired differently. There is sort of a devi-pooja of anyone supposedly big. Both these models are poor and should not be blindly pushed.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 27 Jan 2015 03:43

SriKumar et al -
FYI and just for perspective ..
One of the first person benefitting the indian students under GIAN is Manjul Bhargava...

(For those who do not know, Manjul Bhargava is one of the world's top mathematician.. among other things he won Fields Medal - First Indian origin person to win- this year.)

He is also an outstanding teacher. ... (One of the best, by any standards in US/world)

***

IIT was just one example of the benefit, I have seen first hand, these type of exchanges can provide. As someone who has benefitted -- IIT Kanpur in the beginning was generously supplied by MIT, Princeton, Caltech type institutes which provided help like this -- I can tell it was very useful. At present, majority of my guru dakshina (my annual gift to the school) goes in supporting student exchange between IIT and American university.. or financing these kind of programs for the faculty. If I (and many other IIT alumni) did not believe in this, we would not be supporting it by putting our money and effort.

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 27 Jan 2015 04:18

Shrimaan Shreeman ji (I actually did not intend to address you directly, but your BRF handle forces the hand, so to speak. There is no handle like Mister, sahab or doctor....)

Shreeman wrote:1. I speak from extensive personal experience when I cast my vote against GIAN. Visitors will be lallu to begin with, and then they will be out of their home environment. This is not to say this already has not been tried before. Tenure reject Indians routinely find IIT employment (disclosure -- graduate school room mate, major IIT professor). Utterly useless, I pick one among a few dozen such individuals only as an example. This was favored for several indian elections -- bring back some foreign trained indians to teach. Do I see them actually meeting any expectations? No. In addition, the local staff rebeled and wanted union style control. The returnees were of no merit whatsoever, except for a furrin degree.

I like the data points you have presented, and have no quibble with them or the conclusions that arise from them. I would ask you why you believe 'reasonably' qualified would not take part in this, or be less than interested.

2. This is a huge myth. Today, US research labs are chinese and east eueopean run sweat shops. And then fraud is so prevelant that this level of admission raises no eyebrows -- http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/ca ... t.a1400192 -- read down to kroll. This is not when they are going after each complaint. This is when they actively suppress 9 out of 10 incidents. I picked first google result, you can read more if you want. US/EU academia is shot. Dead. Buried. Ask the rest of the tenured lot here to comment. It is so bad that if you actually do something that works, this will happen to you -- http://joylaskarstory.com/

I was not quite sure what you meant to be a myth, but for the bolded part, I do seek clarification. Do you mean the statement literally, or even as mostly correct. If so, please to provide some details as to which branch you refer to: physics? biology? chemistry? sub-branches of any of these- which one? engineering? which one? all of them? 'US academia is dead' is a bit extreme, aur thoda vivaran kijiye. I would struggle to accept that it is across the board (if that is what you meant).

Agree about the devi/deva puja part, but such interactions would reduce also the mystery, would it not. And if indeed the standard of the instructor is low, they would be found out- the students would as a group figure out the perceived lack of quality. That too would reduce the devi puja factor. Plus, I dont understand why 'controls' cannot be placed on who gets to come (and I have not looked at the GIAN program details at all). A somewhat un-related point about on-line courses....if a student looks up the course material posted online from 'Ultimate Institute of Technology' (either US or India- there are many published for free) one sees that the subject matter is no different from what is in the text book. This also serves to reduce the devi/dava puja factor. I see you've advocated sending students out as an alternative to the GIAN program. I concede I have not given that any thought, it could possibly be an alternative, but I will note that logistically, it will likely be more complex, and also a lot of students already do this on their own, after a Bachelor's degree- mostly a one-way journey.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 27 Jan 2015 04:47

Shreeman ji

I also agree with AmberG ji to a large extent.

In the past what I have seen at two UG engineering colleges is that just one or two motivated, enthusiastic, and passionate proessors can do wonders if the right material is given. This is true even at elementary level.

For example there was one Prof. Ravi Babu who came to JNTU (Previously Nagarjuna Engg. College), Hyderabad from TIFR. His area was in Communications, Anetnnas, Radars, uW, and engg. EM in general.

Several people from JNTU, Hyderabad went on to do great work in DRDL, DLRL, HAL (including Dr. A. Chander who did his masters at JNTU - but probably he was a little beore when Prof. Babu came to JNTU).

Same with Osmania University College of Engg. The ECE department was started by Prof. K Krishnan Nair and he quickly recruited several good motivated people to teach. Everyone of them was truly interested in educating kids. There were people who were educated at Harvard, Urbana, IISc, and Tokyo. They had contacts in defence labs in and around Hyderabad and. Several students could do their senior projects at these labs.

Same with REC, Warangal Mech. Engg department.

IMHO, it is worth giving a shot, especially now that there are more opportunities for higher studies in India itself. MOOCs in no way can replace a live motivating passionate teacher explaining the concepts and clearing the doubts as they arise. They can supplement though and there is a wealth of videos on the net starting from MIT OCW to Udacity and everything in between.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 27 Jan 2015 05:01

*** No disrespect intended to anyone, specially to Shreemanji, for whom I have a great respect.... Just my personal thoughts... and my views, I think are different that Shreemanji. I apologize in advance if a few sentences below seem too combative.. but all should be taken as

.

Shreeman wrote:mahodaya sri kumar,

1. I speak from extensive personal experience when I cast my vote against GIAN . Visitors will be lallu to begin with, and then they will be out of their home environment. This is not to say this already has not been tried before. Tenure reject Indians routinely find IIT employment (disclosure -- graduate school room mate, major IIT professor). Utterly useless, I pick one among a few dozen such individuals only as an example. This was favored for several indian elections -- bring back some foreign trained indians to teach. Do I see them actually meeting any expectations? No. In addition, the local staff rebeled and wanted union style control. The returnees were of no merit whatsoever, except for a furrin degree.

2. This is a huge myth. Today, US research labs are chinese and east eueopean run sweat shops. And then fraud is so prevelant that this level of admission raises no eyebrows -- http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/ca ... t.a1400192 -- read down to kroll. This is not when they are going after each complaint. This is when they actively suppress 9 out of 10 incidents. I picked first google result, you can read more if you want. US/EU academia is shot. Dead. Buried. Ask the rest of the tenured lot here to comment. It is so bad that if you actually do something that works, this will happen to you -- http://joylaskarstory.com/

I leave out 3-5 as there are only minor disagreements there. But this is like marrying a THIRD time and hoping this will work out (indian trained -- first marriage, indian but foreign trained -- second marriage).

Finally, regarding online courses, the less said the better. In old days, you xeroxed marksheets "right", now there is such an amount of insanity that goes into these "online" efforts that we might as well go back to open university on TV.

No, short visits to India will do nothing for the students that video conferenced classes will not. Spend money on sending students out instead of bring teachers in. At least there wont be a big corruption scandal later on if you setup a JEE/GATE type exam right. Well, there will be a smaller scandal. And the people will be covered under one country's laws.

Teenage brains are wired differently. There is sort of a devi-pooja of anyone supposedly big. Both these models are poor and should not be blindly pushed.

Mahodaya Shreeman

1. I speak from extensive personal experience when I cast my vote for GIAN

. Visitors will be professional experts to begin with, and then they will be in the environment where students really love to learn. This is to say that we know that this already has been tried before with excellent results. Outstanding and world class Indians and Americans routinely find employment in top universities like IIT's (disclosure --I am an IIT alumnus, and have many classmates and alumni in top universities in US graduated from IIT, and know *many* world class professors teaching in IIT's. - One of son's MIT professor Kenneth Keniston once stated (and made quite a few headlines in Main-stream Newspapers) that "most of our distinguished faculty is Indian…the joke is that [MIT] is run by an IIT Kanpur mafia." ). Of course, there are people who hate these people.. saying that they are "utterly useless" and - "they do not meet expectation" blah blah blah . Some call even the exceptional people who like to go back and teach, "returnees with no merit whatsoever except a furrin degree" and what not.... (Of course it neither necessary or sufficient that foreign degree is everything but NO ONE says that. It is just that .. just because some one has no "furrin" degree, does not automatically make them capable. I have seen plenty of people with "no foreign" degree whom I will not give a job as a teacher. (Pak is example of that... there are thousands of professor with no foreign degree but their science department is not exactly something to envy)... Basically with all other things being equal, a degree from a good university is a nice thing to have.

2. The huge myth (if not outright silly thing) is to say that US research labs are chinese and east eueopean run sweat shops, with prevalent fraud. It is silly to believe everything one picks out from blogsphere. I have worked in a few of them, and familiar with others..I can count many Nobel Laureates who have worked in those research labs. Just check out the results.

Finally, regarding online courses, (I strongly encourage you to try some from IIT/K or MIT, they are awesome.

) are nothing to be demonize. Of course, the are not for those kind of "insanities" where marksheets are xeroxed "right".. if you want to learn for learning sake, these are good. If you like to xerox marksheets this is not for you. Of course, if you don't like them, just don't take them, no need to call them haram.

Yes, short visits by good professors to India will do great things for the students, even more than video conferenced classes. Spend money on sending students out as well as bringing teachers in. Ignore nay sayers who produces straw men by talking about " big corruption scandals" and "JEE gates"

Teenage brains or any other brains are complex. Assuming that all are set up to do a devi-pooja or any kind or rigid model is silly.

No GIAN alone will NOT be sufficient program. It may not be the ONLY program necessary, but then there is no single program which will do that. Most people go to IIT(or any university) know fully well that the IIT alone has no guarantee to make them successful (at least I and most of my classmates knew this). They also know IIT is not even necessary (there may be many other choices for good schools). But you make a choice and do what you think is right.

And yes, even after many decades, I still remember, Prof Maria Goeppert-Mayer (a nobel prize winner)'s lecture in IIT/K - who came to visit for a very short time in a scheme not unlike GIAN who inspired a few of us and the result was definitely positive.

Regards.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 27 Jan 2015 06:27

No problem with having visiting faculty from elsewhere to inspire, but the pay for these short stints seem large when the IITs are struggling to collect enough from the alumni to pay for upgrading the various lab and research facilities or open new research groups.

vina · Post by **vina** » 27 Jan 2015 09:30

Pah ! What is all this pay-shay business with furring brofs ? How did we get all those German profs in the Madrassas in the old days ? Gob mint to Gobmint contract onree. Do a Brof exchange. Send some of our folks abroad and get some of theirs in exchange. Or use the bilateral ejjukashun grants from the foreign govt to finance their salaries paid back in their home countries by their gubmints, and give them a "true experience" of Yindia, by making them live in A/B type quarters in the Madrassa campus and cycle around in a Hercules cycle and go down to the SBI branch and stand in the line and fill out forms in triplicate, put their kids in the KV IIT or at Vana Vani and have them yakk around in Tamil and swear in Madras Tamil and watch Rajinikant movies.

Zimble onree. You just need to use your imagination.

csaurabh · Post by **csaurabh** » 28 Jan 2015 11:22

Indian education system does not teach you how to memorize. Rather it expects you to memorize ( some how ) and then tests that in the exams.

Worse, a lot of the things that are supposed to be memorized are a bunch of total rubbish written by macaulayites ( esp. 'History' ).

Memory power is important, but it can be done in much better ways.

Memorize a shopping list and go out and buy them
Memorize a map of your neighbourhood and walk from A to B.
Memorize bus numbers, telephone numbers
etc,

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 03 Feb 2015 01:04

Here is another viewpoint, very similar to what I said, from Field medalist Manjul Bhargava on GIAN.

Manjul Talks very admiringly about NaMo and the leadership.

GIAN will bring top scientists to India: Manjul

BENGALURU: Manjul Bhargava, the R Brandon Fradd Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, and a winner of the Fields Medal, considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics, (Also a Padma Bhusan) is spearheading the government's GIAN initiative, also known as Teach In India. In Bengaluru on Wednesday, he talked admiringly about the homework Prime Minister Narendra Modi put in when meeting scientists at the Indian Science Congress earlier this month and his GIAN initiative.

"He had read up on everybody and asked questions related to their field," Bhargava said. Global Initiative of Academic Networks plans to get at around 1,000 top scientists from all over the world to teach in India over the next year. "It's worth taking a pay cut to come to India," he said. He also talked about the achievements of ancient India.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 03 Feb 2015 03:41

csaurabh wrote:Memory power is important, but it can be done in much better ways.

Memorize a shopping list and go out and buy them
Memorize a map of your neighbourhood and walk from A to B.
Memorize bus numbers, telephone numbers
etc,

I can think of other ways - I don't know whether they are better or not - but just different.

1. memorize vEdas
if not enough time (inet)
2. memorize mahAbhArata
inet
3. memorize bhagavad gIta
inet
4. memorize sAmkhya yOga
inet
5. memorize sthita pragnya lakshaNa (34 shlOkas) of sAmkhya yOga

or

memorize the important theorems in {set theory, mathematical logic, number theory, algebra, ...}

or

memorize bhaja gOvindam, vsihnu sahasra nAmam, annapUrNa danDakam, other ashtakAs

or

memorize various arOha and avarOha of carnatic and hidustani ragas

or

important partgs of purANas

or

asTAdhyAyi of pANini

Physical constants
Periodic table, molecular weights
Reaction energies, catalysts, etc.

or ...

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 03 Feb 2015 09:22

or.. at least memorize the rules on which you are required to deliver things for your career, family, neighborhood, city and make a great nation. there are many aspects that needs memorization. even inductive reasoning needs memorization. am i wrong?

there are slokas for fibonacci, pi, etc. too

it is time to stop blaming, and take corrective actions. if it has to be done, it has to start from you.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 07 Feb 2015 04:12

Melwyn · Post by **Melwyn** » 13 Feb 2015 07:49

DU ropes in Sanskrit scholars to reconstruct India's history

Delhi University’s Sanskrit department will soon embark on an ambitious project to provide a “chronology” to ancient Indian historical text.

The project will be carried out by DU in collaboration with the Indian Council of Historical Research.

Part of the department’s larger ‘Aryan project’, it will attempt to prove through research that Aryans were not invaders who came from Central Asia but people indigenous to India.

Sources said the Sanskrit department will take up the project because it believed that Indian ancient history had so far been primarily read from the perspective provided by historians from outside India.

“If we look at Vedic literature, it has been dated as after 1500 BC, which is questionable and objectionable. This reference has been put as per the chronology given by Max Mueller and other scholars. But if we refer to other tools like archaeological exhibitions, epigraphy, archaeoastronomical and now genetic mapping, it shows that there was a culture between 2800 BC and 1500 BC. So there has been a false chronology of Indian text,” Professor Ramesh Bhardwaj, head of DU’s Sanskrit department, told HT.

The project will aim to rope in Sanskrit scholars from different parts of the country. Each scholar will get 8-9 months and a literature text. The chronology will be based on examining textual evidence present, utilizing other tools and through elaborate discussion and debate.

The Indian Council of Historical Research will act as a funding agency and help in the compilation of the project.

Once completed, the project would be sent to the Union ministry of human resources development (MHRD) through Indian Council of Historical Research.

“It is just an attempt to make corrections and give history its actual due. It is important that the young generation be able to read history in its true form,” added Bhardwaj.

“In the last 70 years, there have been spectacular researches that have been carried out in this field. But the government is not taking this into account under the influence of the Leftist garb, as it is only the Marxist people who have been creating and writing history. Ancient history needs to be reconstructed,” added Bhardwaj.

Elaborating further, Bhardwaj added that “since the present political scenario was favourable, the ideal time to take up the project would be now.”“We are academics, so we are not going to bring in fundamentalism in the text books. In the present political scenario it is pertinent that we will be able to garner support from the government as well,” he said.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 24 Feb 2015 13:59

With 282 mn illiterates, India's education sector waits for big bang

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Feb 2015 22:29

a lot of developing countries in weaker position than india have reached mid 80s I believe.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 24 Feb 2015 23:20

We've probably reached close to 80% by now, since 73% is from data upto 2010, reported in 2011. Frankly, the 2011 data looks rather suspect, since the slops of growth falls quite noticeably from 2001. The fall in growth between 1961-1971 makes sense, considering that was a very difficult decade for us. But 2001-2011 was the diametric opposite, with a supposedly welfareist party at the helm for most of that time.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 25 Feb 2015 03:58

If the growth continued at even if not increasing but same rate as 1991-2000, we would be at 80%. 2004-2014, education sector suffered too. Suraj, I am missing the connection between welfare state and improved education. I would even go so far as to say that welfare spend did not let the govt. increase education spend and hence education - especially primary education - suffered.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 25 Feb 2015 05:36

Misdirected welfare state prerogatives, basically. One would expect an administration that offered so much lip service to the poor and downtrodden to at least keep the pace of growth in literacy during the most economically dynamic decade in our history. Normally one would expect acceleration in literacy in that period, and at bare minimum a continued stable rate of increase. But the rate of growth worsened remarkably, instead.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 25 Feb 2015 06:24

Longer life spans of the adamant illiterates perhaps ? The young are literate the older ones never bothered. The 30% might be the 60+ year old generation.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 25 Feb 2015 06:32

That could be proven if someone can find data for the 15-60 group across various decades. Regardless, I'd have expected that with a shrinking older group and a growing younger demographic, the graph would rise much faster.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 26 Feb 2015 03:59

Check this video comparing Chinese and American students.

suvod · Post by **suvod** » 27 Feb 2015 10:59

During the UPA rule, governance suffered, period. The illiteracy eradication program, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, was not tinkered with wrt budget allocation, etc. So, from a policy perspective, there was no change. But delivery failed. And it failed when it actually had to step up, Since post 70%, we have to target the most difficult to reach part of the illiterate population, i.e. the elderly (very high resistance) and the migrants.

As Suraj points out, being welfarist in outlook, the UPA should have been able to succeed at least on this point. In fact, I have anecdotal proof that the intent was there. I had presented a paper to a NAC member (who was my professor for a course) where I had mentioned India's population as a drag. Basically drawing mildly on the Malthusian theory to disprove the demographic dividend being talked about at that time. He trashed my hypothesis and lectured me for over an hour on how education, healthcare and security will enable India to reap the demo dividend.

This person left the NAC in 2010, which leads me to speculate that somewhere along the line the UPA was taken over by anti-national elements.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 27 Feb 2015 22:14

there is a major unrest going on in research institutes regarding no implementation of fellowship hikes already announced.

apparently DST has hiked, HRD has not. have to say this very poor form by the govt.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 28 Feb 2015 10:04

anyone expecting more IITs/per state in this budget?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Feb 2015 23:23

I was and it is granted for Kanataka, Dhanbad one already kind of existed before. Wonder where the one in Karnataka will come up. Since Goa has been sanctioned one last year, putting it up close to Karwar would not make sense. Also It has a central university coming up is what I recall. Mangalore has NIT at Surathkal. Even though Blur has IISc, maybe the natural choice is the Silicon Valley of India. More bang for the buck. I think Tirupati and Palakkad's goose is cooked.

Bad choice of locations with no vision. It should have been Vizag and Kochi respectively.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 28 Feb 2015 23:36

More AIIMS, IITS, IIMs, NIPERs and IISERs have been announced. Expect each state to have one of each kind of premier institutes eventually. However, I hear that funds, infra and profs are a huge problem.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 28 Feb 2015 23:47

what is this NIPER beast ?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 28 Feb 2015 23:50

bade, muddanehalli, NE of hoskote, bengaluru.

btw, what is wrong with palakkad location?

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 01 Mar 2015 01:16

Who will want to move to Palakkad ? It was pushed by Tharoor and Achuthanandan. Plenty of land available east of Kochi in the hills or midlands as Dileep would say. Difficulty in attracting good faculty will be the biggest impediment to growing new institutions in far flung places in the Indian context.

Palakkad should become the industrial hub not an educational hub and leverage connections across the border with TN.