Grammarly is the worst thing to have happened to writing. It is too intrusive. It will tell you to change words and restructure sentences even though they are absolutely grammatically correct. That is because Grammarly is fixated on certain writing styles; it will change anything that does not fit Grammarly’s template. It will eventually rob your confidence and turn you into a clone of itself.
Good writing is about developing an individual identity, which Grammarly absolutely hates. Of course, you can use Grammarly for basic grammar checks by disabling the functions that take care of style-related changes. Then remember, you have paid for those functions. You can do basic grammar checks for free using Google Docs.
As someone who cannot write a single paragraph without making some errors like spelling and punctuation, particularly while writing LinkedIn posts, I needed a tool that can fix basic issues like spelling errors and comma splices. After a few months of trying unsuccessfully to customize Grammarly as per my needs, I decided to remove it permanently. A couple of months post Grammarly, I feel much better these days while writing.
These days I mostly use Google Docs. It lets you be what you are. Of course, Google Docs is not for someone who is still learning grammar. It will not bother to check contextual issues. In fact, Grammarly too misses contextual errors sometimes.
In doubt, mostly when I am in a hurry, I use ChatGPT for fixing grammatical issues. Remember, ChatGPT will work pretty much like Grammarly, that is, modifying sentences unnecessarily. I also do not like ChatGPT’s excessive use of em dashes (—). (If you see someone’s post having too many em dashes, safely assume that ChatGPT is heavily employed.)
If you want to use ChatGPT for fixing basic grammatical issues, use prompts like “Fix spelling and grammatical errors without doing unnecessary changes.” Find a prompt that works for you. Remember, ChatGPT will forget the prompt even within the same window due to limited memory. So, you will need to use the prompt again and again.
Of course, the best thing you can do is buy a book on advanced writing. There are many you can find in the market; choose one that is easily available and you are comfortable with.
Friday, 25 April 2025
Want to improve your writing? Stop using Grammarly
Lack of skills in Indian academia? Blame the CEOs too
Indian CEOs often complain about the low skill levels among students graduating from technical institutions. They should realize they are actually part of the problem. The problem? Heavy reliance on written aptitude tests for campus recruitment. I am not sure if companies in any other major country follow this type of hiring process.
How is written test-based hiring the main issue? Consider an average IIT MTech student. After the coursework in the first year, the student is given one full year to work on a project. One year is sufficient to gain meaningful skills for real-life challenges. But what does the student actually do? A large percentage of the available time is spent preparing for written tests, and the project work takes a back seat. After a student is selected by a company, motivation for the project work further declines, as the student does not know how it will be helpful in the future.
Written aptitude tests are quite redundant. They only evaluate a candidate’s quick puzzle-solving skills, which have already been assessed by JEE or GATE. Needless to say, the campus recruitment process gives a very misleading picture of what constitutes a well-rounded personality suited to real-world challenges.
What can companies do? Strengthen your internship programs. Not only can you help participating students develop skills, but you can also create recruitment channels. Focus more on industry-academia collaboration. Visit academic institutions and give talks -- students should know what skills industries are actually looking for. Also, more importantly, academic institutions can play a key role in helping industries develop future technologies.
Publishing is becoming increasingly difficult for Indian scientists
The two main causes:
1. The open-access trend.
While the number of journals is increasing due to the widespread use of the internet, the number of journals accessible to Indian scientists is actually decreasing at a rapid rate due to the trend of publishing in open-access journals.
A few days back I asked my student to submit our manuscript to the Journal of Flood Risk Management. "It is an open-access journal," he said. I then figured out that the journal switched to open access in 2020. EGU journals have always been out of reach for us, and now all AGU journals have also taken the open-access route this year.
In case you are wondering why open access is a challenge for Indian researchers: Indian funding agencies do not provide funds for publication fees (nor should they, in my opinion).
2. Unlimited power of editors for desk rejection.
Editors are not required to provide any justification for desk rejections, as high rejection rates are often a bragging point for journals. Indian scientists are particularly disadvantaged, as the number of Indians on editorial boards is proportionally very low. Worse, an Indian editor may not necessarily be sympathetic to an Indian author, as we lack a strong culture of cooperation.
What could be an effective solution?
Indian scientists should come together to establish their own journals, as it is difficult to find a single Indian journal in many subject areas. For example, there is no credible journal on hydrological sciences from India. Moreover, publishing in an Indian journal is often viewed negatively within India itself.
Indian funding agencies have the power to change this trend by making it mandatory to publish in Indian journals. In this age of the internet, the location of the journal’s office should not matter.
Is desk rejection peer review?
Desk rejection is largely a perversion of peer review. Why am I saying this? Because journals call it peer review. Peer review demands that a manuscript be reviewed by subject experts or peers. Desk rejection, by definition, means the manuscript has not been sent to peers for review.
Can an editor be a peer reviewer? Yes. But, most of the times, we only see vague comments in the desk-rejection letter, which are absolutely unhelpful to the authors. Needless to say, the arbitrary power to desk reject provides a fertile ground for personal, racial, and other biases. This is exactly how desk rejection negatively impacts people from developing countries. It leaves them in a state of confusion and helplessness.
Journals often claim they are receiving an overwhelming number of submissions. That is an excuse. If the number of submissions increases, increase the number of editors. It is as simple as that. I am not saying there cannot be valid grounds for desk rejection. Desk rejection can help journals improve their impact factors by selecting articles, likely to be cited more.
However, it is wrong to label it peer review.
We don't need a centrally controlled education system
Trump has pledged to shut down the Department of Education. I support any move to reduce the role of central authority in framing educational policies. Education is too important to be left in the hands of a few bureaucrats at the center.
India would also benefit from downsizing the Ministry of Education. Excessive regulation has damaged our education system. Our students go to even Ukraine and Bangladesh for education. On the other hand, a relatively less regulated healthcare market has made India’s healthcare both high-quality and affordable, attracting patients from advanced countries.
A few days back, I came to know about Swaraj University, whose aim is to provide practically relevant education. Because its curriculum is very unconventional, it is not recognized by any authority. Without regulation, many more such experiments will happen.
However, we need to exercise caution in interpreting what politicians say. Politicians often mean something that is different from what they are saying. Modi, before the 2014 election, promised to downsize the central government. The central government actually has grown bigger in the last decade. I would like to hear what Americans have to say about the matter.
(On LinkedIn, November 2024)
Kartik Purnima: a celebration of globalization
Globalization is nothing new, and sea trade has always played a significant role in connecting people. About four thousand years ago, the Indus Valley had extensive sea trade links with the Middle East. The attached picture of an Indus seal shows a boat. Sailors followed coastlines for navigation, and you can easily spot two birds on the boat, which were used in emergencies. If a boat inadvertently lost sight of the coast, the sailor would release a bird to get back to a safe distance.
While the Indus Valley and its trade declined, possibly due to climate change, sea trade began booming along the coastlines of Kalinga (now Odisha). Merchants from Kalinga (called Sadhavas) dared to venture into deep seas because of advancements in astronomy. Their ships were large enough to carry together more than 700 merchants, along with the crew and even elephants, to distant locations in Indonesia and China (see the attached map). Of course, cultural exchange is always an unintended consequence of trade.
It is unfortunate that we now know so little about the methods they used for navigation and shipbuilding. Perhaps there is still time to recover some of this knowledge. I remember a fisherman who gave us a boat ride in Chilika Lake a decade ago, mentioning that they tracked stars and the sun for navigational purposes.
Contrary to the popular notion that the Dutch East India Company was the first to introduce large-scale financial institutions that accelerated global trade, temples in India actually served as financial hubs. They drafted contracts and provided other financial services to merchants. That is why they became prime targets of Turkic armies starting in the 13th century. Indians then gradually withdrew from the seas, and eventually, crossing seas became a taboo in India.
Nevertheless, the old memories have not faded completely. People in Odisha celebrate the sea-faring tradition of Kartik Purnima each year by floating boats on the water. Bali Jatra (voyage to Bali, Indonesia) is celebrated in a grand way in Cuttack. So, early this morning, we went to Powai Lake to float boats made of banana stems.
(On LinkedIn, Kartik Purnima, 2024)
Should we work for 70 hours a week?
Narayan Murty reiterates his view that Indians should work 70 hours a week. First of all, I have immense respect for Murty et al. for bringing the IT revolution to India. It has undoubtedly changed crores of Indian lives for the better. Nevertheless, I understand the backlash against his view.
Smruti Sarangi on LinkedIn makes a very important point. "In Delhi, a good UrbanClap employee (plumber/carpenter/electrician) does indeed work for more than 60-65 hours... Many IIT Professors start their day at 8 AM and are active till 11 PM (easily 12 hours of work time). If you consider a senior person like an IIT Director or a bureaucrat, you will find his/her calendar to be officially booked for about 50-60 hours per week.
Yes: The moral of the story is that many Indians, on their own volition, do indeed put in really long hours."
Let's take a deeper dive. Works can be classified into two broad types.
T1: The number of work hours is proportional to the value it adds. A security guard works at the gate for 6 hours. If the working hours increase to 12, it can be assumed that the value added has doubled
T2: The correlation between the number of work hours and the value it adds is very weak. A scientist spends 6 hours a day in the lab. It would be difficult to predict productivity if 12 hours per day were spent instead.
It makes sense if Narayan Murthy is talking about T1 work. However, the problem with Murthy's view is that it is silent on the compensation aspect. Yesterday, at 9 pm, I met a security guard in our housing society whose duty was supposed to end at 8 pm (8 am to 8 pm). He stayed on because the person in charge was absent. However, the main reason he took up the additional responsibility was that he would be paid for the extra 12 hours.
Extra work hours will not be seen as an issue in the context of the discussion here if, for example, Infosys decides to compensate financially.
There is no point in increasing the work hours if we are talking about T2 work. I never specify the number of work hours for my PhD students. It simply does not make any sense. All I can do is motivate them to work.
People give extra work hours when they see a purpose. For T1, the purpose is mainly financial compensation. For T2 work, the purpose is generally non-financial. Many politicians work extra hours because they genuinely believe the work they are doing cannot be done by anyone else. A few climate activists even risk going to jail because they think the planet will not be worth living without their work.
If Narayan Murthy is talking about our nation's development, his view is not only vague but also misleading. No nation attends greatness by treating its people as manpower suitable only for T1 work. Our IT companies have earned thousands of crores. How many products have they developed? How much have they invested in R&D?
(On LinkedIn, November 2024)
Shopping malls can explain the low scientific productivity of India
Why cannot India produce great science? Let me start with a simple observation. Last Sunday we were in the crowded eating zone of a large shopping mall. After we picked food, I told my friend that I had to wash my hands. Well, there is no wash basin in the entire eating zone. You have to go all the way to the toilet room to find a wash basin. This is interesting because, in Indian tradition, not washing hands before eating is considered unhygienic and uncivil. Yet, most of the expensive restaurants in India do not provide a basin for washing hands. Why? Because designers simply copy-paste ideas from the USA or Europe. They do not muster the courage to even add a wash basin. Or perhaps a designer once tried to include one but was rebuffed due to fear of losing peer approval.
This is the exact same reason why we cannot produce great science. If you have a great Idea, it is very difficult to get approval from your Indian peers because the idea has not been approved by peers in the West.
Before you decide to argue that science does not work in the same way, let me tell science is not as objective as most people think. As Max Plank once said: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Objectivity is a scarce resource in scientific discourses. You cannot even prove that 1 + 1 = 2 objectively if your peers are determined to prove you wrong.
Reynolds transport theorem and the Sputnik crisis
I have been teaching Reynolds transport theorem (RTT) for more than a decade as part of the courses related to fluid mechanics and hydrology. I always find students struggling to understand the concept. A couple of years back, I started wondering if there was any real value in teaching the theorem since I didn’t see anyone using RTT to tell what was not already known.
To those who are unaware, RTT can be used to derive the mass, momentum, and energy conservation laws. However, the three laws were derived much before RTT was formulated. What purpose does then the RTT serve? We need to understand the historical context of RTT.
In 1957, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, creating fear of a communist takeover of the USA. American educators and policymakers thought the Russians had an edge due to their superior mathematical skills. The RTT was thus introduced by Shames in 1962.
What is the difficulty with RTT? RTT is an attempt to do what is commonly termed formal mathematics. Formal mathematics attempts to minimize the emphasis on observations. You will be referred to some axiom that is hard to relate to your real-world experience. That is exactly why students find RTT difficult. If this is not clear, let me cite the popular example 1+1=2. You can put two apples side by side and prove the statement. But formal mathematics would not accept it. This is why Russel took about 370 pages to provide proof, which anyway is not valid for all cases.
So, if you are finding a concept difficult to understand. Don’t put all the blame on yourself. Read the papers that provide a clear picture of something without introducing mathematics unnecessarily. In the context of fluid mechanics, you can just imagine a bucket draining water to understand the mass balance principle.
For more details on RTT, see: Gray, D. (2008, June). Why the Balance Principle Should Replace the Reynolds Transport Theorem. In 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition.
Peer review does not like novelty very much
Our most important work on streamflow modeling in recent years has been rejected by two leading journals. (The manuscript challenges the widely accepted notion that every landscape is unique.) . The first journal rejected the manuscript mainly because one reviewer had issues with the terminology we used and was not impressed because we argued back. The second journal's editor rejected it for reasons totally unknown to us; there was not a single comment that challenged our conclusions. In fact, among all the comments we have received from the two journals, there was only one comment that required additional analysis, which we did and showed that our conclusions remained unchanged.
Novel works are particularly vulnerable because the peer review system does not appreciate negative comments. How can you ensure there are no negative comments when your work challenges a dominant narrative? The difficulty is increased manyfold. Of course, I don't need to mention the racial and national biases that come into play.
In the meantime, I have put the manuscript in a preprint domain for everyone to review. I have also presented our results in various forums and received largely positive comments. We are pursuing several other projects based on this work. The peer review system allows insecure and incompetent people to hide behind the veil and create obstacles.
All journals should adopt the open review process pioneered by HESS. It is not a great solution, but at least it allows everyone to see the entire discussion.
(LinkedIn, December 2024)
How dark was the medieval dark age?
The medieval dark age (5th–15th century) in Europe was not that dark. The hypothesis that the Catholic Church was against science (search "conflict thesis") is a very simplistic view of the complex realities of the time period.
The Catholic Church, in fact, actively pursued science. It established many learning institutions, including those in Bologna and Oxford. I would go as far as saying that the foundation of modern (European) science was laid by clergymen when they declared that God designed the world according to mathematical principles (see the attached image), though it was not a very original idea. That very idea was, in fact, the main motivation behind most European scientists, including Galileo and Newton (yes, both were devout Christians).
Nevertheless, the conflict thesis holds grains of truth. Science did not progress much during the medieval period. Why? The Church actively discouraged induction or observation-based science because human sensory experience was considered fallible. The only method accepted as valid was deduction or pure logical reasoning based on fundamental laws, of course, approved by the Church.
The Renaissance (14th–17th century) was nothing but a gradual acceptance of inductive reasoning. Early Renaissance scientists did their work cautiously, as evidenced by Leonardo da Vinci’s statement: “It is true that nature begins by reasoning and ends by experience; but, nevertheless, we must take the opposite route: as I have said, we must begin with experience and try through it to reason.” Note that Leonardo never published his works; he was probably very much aware of the consequences. Bruno was burned alive for his views. Galileo’s life was spared only after he agreed to recant his views upon seeing the instruments of torture.
With time, science and Catholicism drifted apart. Today, most people believe that science and religion are mutually exclusive. Most scientists identify as atheists. It is interesting how perspectives change with time.
For more details: Biswal, Troubles in the Newtonian Paradise: Hydrology Responds to no God Equation and the Rise of Machines
The importance of exams
As an instructor, the most difficult task I find is explaining the importance of exams to students. To begin with, I don't believe it is possible to assess someone's potential to perform any challenging task in real life through a 2 to 3-hour-long exam. Then, what is the purpose of exams? I think the only thing that can be evaluated in an exam is someone's ability and willingness to follow instructions.
Nevertheless, I want my students to be leaders and innovators, which requires a lot more skills that cannot be assessed in exams. It is particularly difficult to evaluate critical thinking in an exam, especially when the class size is large. Moreover, students often feel anguished when the assessment is subjective.
All I can say to students is: "The grade does not necessarily reflect your true potential." The correlation between CPI and success in life is quite weak. The attached image shows plots of GPA versus salary. Interestingly, the correlation weakens over time (Zou et al., PLOS One, 2022).
I believe it is possible to acquire skills with strong motivation. The time required may vary depending on someone's background. Should we assess the motivation level of students? Besides the impossibility of such a task, it is also not entirely fair, as motivation is "partly" the responsibility of the instructor and the system.
So, as a student, focus on learning. Grades should be of secondary importance to you.
What purpose will ONOS serve?
Indian institutions together are paying Rs. 1,500 crore rupees annually on journal subscriptions. ONOS will cost Rs. 2,000 crore rupees annually (link). The extra Rs. 500 crore rupees for providing access to institutions that lack resources for subscriptions appears to be a good deal. However, the actual benefit (in terms of usage and scientific output) will only be known after the scheme is rolled out. I am a bit skeptical for the following reasons:
1. The number of people given access may not be a very good measure. The actual number of users is hard to estimate. Most undergraduate students do not bother with reading scholarly articles. Institutions with PhD programs may already have access to relevant journals.
2. Under pressure from researchers in developed countries, most publishers are now embracing open-access publishing. About 50% of journals are now open-access, and this percentage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, it is unclear whether the Indian government or the publishers are benefiting more from the deal.
3. The ONOS cost estimation does not account for the money spent on articles by Indian authors in open-access journals. I guess the cost of publication by Indian authors is significant. Sadly, ONOS does not cover publication in open-access journals.
Personally, I do not support either subscription journals or open-access journals. In this digital age, we do not need intermediaries like Elsevier at all. Individual authors and scientific societies should take responsibility for sharing knowledge. The money can be used for something else.
(December 2024, LinkedIn)
Your personality can make up for lack of skills.
A couple of hours ago, I arrived at Chennai airport. The guy from the hotel who came to pick me up took more than 15 minutes to tell me where he was, even though I was standing right in front of the airport exit gate the entire time! I was surprised by the lack of skills from someone who has been doing this job for four years.
Once we got into the car, I started a conversation with him. Despite being almost illiterate, he has worked hard to learn English and Hindi. He was confident enough to say that he didn’t like Rajinikanth and eloquently explained why he liked as well as disliked Hitler. He said that someone was helping him secure a job in the Middle East because he impressed him with his "good character." A short conversation is not enough to fully assess someone’s character, but I can confirm that he is an interesting person. Before saying bye, I told him to be cautious, as many people get cheated with the promise of foreign jobs.
By the end, I had completely forgotten about the initial 15 minutes of inconvenience I had with him.
(Posted on LinkedIn, December 2024)
Atul Subhash laid the legal system bare
What is the root cause of poor law-making in India? Indians lack the self-confidence to think independently. NGOs controlled by the former colonial powers wield enormous influence on the law-makers in India. The judiciary has not even changed the colonial-era dress code.
It is essential for the general public to be aware of the realities. While Atul's case caught widespread media attention, hundreds of suicides by men for similar reasons are ignored by the media because they do not fit the narratives propagated by NGOs. As a result, most people remain unaware of these issues. A man can be jailed without any evidence simply for ending a relationship with a woman.
Also, this is not a man vs. woman issue. A woman has brothers and a father. A man has a mother and sisters.
(Posted four months back on LinkedIn)
Borrowed ideologies are not not good for solving social issues
The week-long celebration of Laxmi Puja in our village will end today. Every Indian should be aware of this tradition. Why? Laxmi Purana, written by the 16th-century Bhakti poet Balaram Dasa (link), is actually a revolution against untouchability. Here is a quick summary of the Purana:
Goddess Laxmi takes the form of a Brahmin woman and leaves her temple to see how people are celebrating her week. She is saddened to find the opulent residents of Puri disregarding her and decides to wander outside the city. She finds a Chandala (outcast) woman named Sreeya worshiping her with utmost sincerity. Laxmi eats food offered by her and blesses her. When Lord Jagannath and his brother Balaram hear about this, they banish Laxmi from the temple after she refuses to undergo a purification ritual. Angry and hurt, Laxmi leaves the temple (she personifies wealth and prosperity) leaving them in hunger. The brothers soon find themselves starving, unable to get food even as beggars. Eventually, they visit an outcast's house where Laxmi is staying to seek her forgiveness.
Laxmi Puja is performed in every household in Odisha. Apart from reciting verses from Laxmi Purana and performing rituals, it is important to maintain cleanliness and obsere fast.
Changes from within is important for fighting social evils. It is not surprising that society in Odisha is not deeply divided by caste-based issues, and caste is hardly a talking point during elections. Compare this to anti-caste movements in many parts of India fueled by ideologies borrowed from Christian missionaries. Instead of bringing positive change, such movements have often further divided societies.
It should also be noted that Balaram Dasa lived in a period when Odisha was an imperial power, governing one-third of the territories of present-day India. Self-confidence, therefore, comes with political and economic success.
Why is life quality so poor in India?
While per capita income is quite low in India, that is not the sole reason why life quality is poor. Countries with similar or even lower per capita income offer better life quality. The tourism potential of India remains almost untapped due to poor-quality infrastructure. Here is my perspective.
My school-time friend is a village-level politician. His father is the largest landowner in our village. Every time I talk to him when I am on vacation, he tells me about new government schemes for farmers. You dig a pond for fish farming, you get a 50% subsidy. You buy a tractor, you get a similar deal. A few years back, he took me to a technologically advanced cattle farm worth ₹3 crore. The owner of the farm, who has a business in Dubai, received a 50% subsidy. For almost every type of farming, there is a government scheme with very attractive benefits. It should be noted, however, that most of these investments do not help in increasing production or generating employment. A person in our locality took a huge subsidy to set up a cold storage facility, which was never functional.
Do these schemes really benifit farmers? There is a catch, though. For every scheme, there is a set of conditions that need to be satisfied, and it is very hard for a marginal farmer to tick all the boxes to receive benefits, apart from lacking information to approach the right official. The benefits are effectively consumed by large landowners who are already rich. This is not a random outcome of thoughtless policymaking but rather a conscious design by our leaders, who received power from the British. Our current leaders are more than happy to perpetuate this system. After the British left India, feudal landlords who had earlier served the British retained their power and influence. Most of our elected leaders either directly come from this class or rely heavily on them to get votes.
In the last three decades, however, the media has helped elected leaders directly connect with the marginalized sections of the population. Hence, we saw schemes such as the mid-day meal for school children, which have made a positive impact. The health insurance policy of the Odisha government has undoubtedly helped thousands avoid falling prey to loan sharks. Seeing the potential, our leaders are now engaged in competitive welfare. If one party promises NYAY, the other party responds with Ladli Behna.
Essentially, there is a scheme for almost everyone now in rural India now. The budget for such schemes is steadily increasing, which makes sense as our GDP is growing at a decent rate. However, resources have been largely utilized for unproductive activities, leaving important basic aspects of life, like clean air and pothole-free roads, largely ignored. Our leaders are not bothered about the decreasing R&D budget (as a percentage of GDP, see the pic) because they don't see it as a factor in the electoral math.
Kumbh Mela: a relic of the glorious past
The essence of melas or conferences has been lost. The debating tradition is a distant memory, and conferences are seen primarily as travel opportunities. It is not difficult to find a PhD student who has attended more than one international conference but not a single national conference. What you see in the Kumbh Mela is merely a relic of a glorious past.
(Posted on LinkedIn during the Kumbh Mela, 2025)
Nehru's "scientific temper" has little to do with science
If you see someone in India using the term "scientific temper," assume that you have spotted a person completely ignorant of how science works. Safely assume that the person has contributed nothing or almost nothing to science.
“Ever since independence, developing scientific temper was a priority for our country, but that has been changing in recent years and it reflects on such comments being made by an office-bearer of a top engineering institute,” added Anupam, who is also an engineer. (link)
What these people actually say is that nothing is science without approval from the West. They are the toxic by-product of colonialism that still keeps this nation sick. If they have the guts to try to arm-twist an IIT director, imagine what they can do to an individual who is not recognized.
The term "scientific temper" was popularized by Nehru, who tried to be more British than the British and had close to zero knowledge in science. It is the Indian version of the "positivism" movement in Europe started by Auguste Comte. Positivism is nothing but a product of a Eurocentric viewpoint that no other civilization other than Europe contributed to science.
There is no such thing as scientific temper. There is no such thing as "the" scientific method. Positivism is almost a dead ideology. Of course, you will find a lot of people in India who are more than ready to buy even the waste products from the West.
If you are interested in the subject, I suggest to start with "Kuhn vs Popper :The Struggle for the Soul of Science - Revolutions in Science" by Steve Fuller.
A tale of two scientists
Sir Isaac Newton headed the Royal Society, the premier scientific society of his time. He was a man of faith who probably spent more time with the Bible than with physics experiments. He believed in the myth of the "philosopher's stone," capable of turning any metal into gold, and spent a substantial part of his life trying to invent one. He likely developed psychosis due to the substances he used for his alchemy experiments and may have even died because of them.
Prof. Kamakoti heads IIT Madras, one of the premier institutes in India. He spoke about the therapeutic properties of cow urine, citing evidence published in peer-reviewed journals.
Indians carrying the burden of colonialism consider Newton the god of science but want Prof. Kamakoti to resign (link).
How effective is PMRF?
The main point of discussion is the huge disparity in fellowship amounts between PMRF (Prime Minister Research Fellowship) and regular PhD fellowships. Let's break down the problem into parts and address them separately.
1. Why does someone choose PhD in the first place? People who are curious about things are likely to choose the PhD route. However, financial responsibility owing to family situations becomes a deciding factor in the decision to pursue PhD or not for many. PMRF may help this category of students. In my guess, the percentage of PhD students falling into this category is not high. Another solution, in my opinion, is to encourage direct PhDs (PhD directly after BTech) and shorten the duration of PhD.
2. How does someone decide whether to stay in India or go abroad? One of the main motivations behind the PMRF scheme was to reduce brain drain. How successful has it been so far? Money is not the only reason why students go abroad for PhD. Other reasons include experiencing a different culture, better work opportunities, and better labs, for which PMRF is ineffective. In my guess, the majority of students who go abroad for PhD fall into the "other reasons" category.
3. High performance should be incentivized. However, the challenge is evaluating performance. CPI is not at all a good measure of the skills required for research. My colleague Subimal (on X) has suggested awarding PMRF after the second year of PhD, which is an excellent idea. It will be easier to filter out high-performing students after they have performed some work.
Overall, in my opinion, there needs to be in-depth studies evaluating the usefulness of PMRF. I am not sure if there has been any empirical study to assess the actual impact of PMRF.
DeepSeek and the boundaries of intellectual property rights
We are going through a very interesting phase where the boundaries of intellectual property rights seem quite blurred.
OpenAI claims that DeepSeek used ChatGPT to train its AI model, DeepSeek R1, which amounts to IP theft. Interestingly, OpenAI itself used copyrighted materials from all over the world to train ChatGPT, disregarding concerns raised by many regarding intellectual property rights violations. In fact, there is a high possibility that Suchir Balaji was murdered because he went public with his IP rights violation allegations against OpenAI.
In short, DeepSeek allegedly stole something (from OpenAI) that did not belong to OpenAI in the first place. Coming back to what matters to us as academics, we are handing over intellectual property rights to Elsevier et al on a platter. Can AI come to the rescue?
Pythagorean theorem: the biggest science-fiction of our time
What is the biggest science fiction of our time? The Pythagorean theorem, if you ask me.
That Pythagoras gave us the triangle rule is as much a fiction as Columbus discovering the Americas. The fact is, right-angled triangle triplets have been found in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley more than 1,000 years before Pythagoras was born. The earliest mention of the triangle rule is in the Shluba Sutras (rules of cords), written in 800 BC.
Pythagoras (600 BC) traveled extensively in the East, including Egypt and India, to get lessons on geometry and vegetarianism. Yes, vegetarianism. Pythagoras started a cult in Greece that promoted vegetarianism.
A 2014 paper titled "Vegetarian Nutrition: Past, Present, Future" by Claus Leitzmann in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition calls Pythagoras the father of ethical vegetarianism. The fun fact: you won’t find a single sect in Europe practicing vegetarianism, whereas in India, you can find dozens.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Indian historians, still carrying the burden of colonialism, start claiming that Indians learned vegetarianism from Pythagoras. This is how colonialism works.
Corruption is not the disease but the symptom
I am happy because my prediction proved right. Corruption is not the root cause of India's problems; it is merely a symptom. Unless our leaders address the core issues, any anti-corruption movement is bound to fail. India is plagued by over-bureaucracy. Kejriwal offered more bureaucracy instead of reducing it. Ironically, he himself got tangled in bureaucracy and ended up in jail on corruption charges.
I am unhappy because Kejriwal's defeat makes the opposition (to the ruling BJP) look less credible, especially given that no one knows what role the INC is playing. He is one of the most brilliant politicians of our time, rising from nowhere to challenge mainstream political parties and eventually governing Delhi and Punjab.
The good thing is Kejriwal will now have more time for politics. I hope he engages in constructive politics. He has the unique advantage of working mostly in the city of Delhi. Most political parties focus on rural India and ignore the concerns of urban voters. He needs to address real issues. For example, our cities are among the most polluted in the world. It is not that our governments lack the money to improve air and water quality; they merely lack political will.
(Posted on LinkedIn on the day of Delhi election results, 2025)
Getting the right answer for wrong reasons
Horton’s and Green-Ampt’s equations are based on the notion that runoff generation occurs when rainfall intensity exceeds the potential infiltration rate, a process often referred to as the infiltration-excess runoff generation mechanism.
In reality, infiltration-excess runoff is quite rare. Runoff is generally generated due to saturation excess or subsurface storm-flow mechanisms. Yet, Horton’s and Green-Ampt’s equations often provide very good runoff estimates. How?
Regardless of which runoff-generation mechanism dominates a landscape, the overall runoff process appears to be captured by either of these equations. Yes, you have got the right answer, but for the wrong reasons. Although I have used runoff generation as an example, you are likely to encounter such situations quite often.
Whose responsibility is a child's education?
A couple of months back, I was talking to a friend of my father about the recent problems faced by our village school, where I had my education. Among the many issues he shared, one caught my full attention. An ST student has stopped coming to school, and the headmaster has been visiting the student's house for several days to convince the parents to send the student back.
It is possible that the parents are making the student work or that they have decided to send their child to another school. The headmaster is in the dark, as the parents are either not at home or avoiding him whenever he visits their home.
Why is the headmaster so worried? Because his higher-ups are threatening to take strict action against him if students drop out, particularly those from marginalized communities. Of course, the higher-ups of his higher-ups are pressuring them to stop dropouts, and so on. The attached screenshot helps connect the dots.
That brings us to the question: should the parents or the government be responsible for a child's welfare? In my view, holding a headmaster accountable for a dropout case is absurd. If we accept that the government has the authority to decide the future of every child, bureaucrats will gain the power to harass either the parents or the headmaster.
The vast majority of parents care about a child's future much more than any government. Of course, there are rare instances where parents neglect their children. However, concerned local citizens should come forward to take responsibility and help the parents. I am not saying the government should have no role in education, but it should be the last one to take responsibility in such matters.
The real purpose of an internship
What is the purpose of an internship? The simple answer would be to gain practical work experience and develop skills. But for what? I believe the real purpose of an internship is to explore career opportunities.
I receive tens of emails every month inquiring about internship opportunities. However, I rarely see applicants expressing a long-term interest in working with us, for example, joining our group as research scholars. Most applicants do not even explain how working with us will help them in their future careers.
On the other hand, almost all who inquire about research positions never approached me for an internship in the past, possibly assuming they would not receive a positive response.
To be clear, I am not blaming students. The primary problem lies in our education-employment interface. Most companies in India either see internships as an unnecessary expense or do not expect candidates to show serious interest in their organizations. As a result, the entire education-employment interface is completely messed up. In my earlier posts, I had suggested that educational institutions should close their placement offices and instead open new offices dedicated to facilitate internships.
As far as internship opportunities in my lab are concerned, you have a very high chance of receiving a positive response if you specify why you are interested in building a long-term relationship with us.
IITJEE is inadequate for testing real-life problem solving skills
Indeed, IITJEE is one of the toughest exams around. However, its importance is stretched beyond the point of absurdity. IITJEE tests only what I call rapid puzzle-solving skills. Real-life problem-solving requires a lot of additional skills that cannot be tested in an entrance exam like IITJEE.
Unfortunately, HR managers of companies coming for campus placements further uphold the mythical superiority of rapid puzzle-solving skills by conducting written aptitude tests instead of evaluating real-world problem-solving abilities. This is mainly because most companies in India that come for campus placements offer low-level jobs that do not require advanced skills.
As a consequence, real-world problem-solving skills are severely underappreciated. In fact, super-achievers like Dhirubhai Ambani and Gautam Adani are looked upon with suspicion. The net result: low-level innovation from India. The good thing is that the situation is gradually improving. Many companies in India now offer jobs exclusively to PhD students as they require hard skills.
If you have cleared IITJEE, you have many reasons to be proud of yourself. Nevertheless, do not assume that IITJEE is an end in itself; you still have a lot to learn. If you have not cleared IITJEE, do not be disheartened at all. You will get plenty of opportunities in life to prove yourself.
Gender discussions are generally pointless
Who is a woman who has inspired your career? LinkedIn kept insisting on an answer to this question as if people will have vastly different answers. So, let me share something more interesting. I find most women vs. men debates quite nonsensical.
A couple of years back, my cousin brother and his wife called me for suggestions regarding their daughter's admission into a professional program at a private college. Given their income, I advised them to consider a government college and explore other career options, as I didn’t find their choice very promising. My cousin brother misunderstood my suggestion as doubting his capability and went ahead with the plan anyway. While I was disappointed by his decision, I was happy to see that he was willing to risk everything for his daughter’s future.
Women here, the biggest feminist you can find in the world is likely your father. Men here, the biggest masculinist you can find in the world is likely your mother.
Keeping academia free of politics: Part 2
The KIIT episode shows that no academic campus is immune to political interference (link).
A few kilometers from KIIT, Bhubaneswar, lies Utkal University, the oldest university in Odisha and the 17th oldest in India. The university used to be counted among the best in India. Most young people outside Odisha might not have heard its name, and that is for a reason.
Starting in the late ’80s, when the economy was in ruins due to decades of Soviet-style experiments, jobs became non-existent, and one good option left for bright students was to join politics. Most political parties found an unlimited supply of potential foot soldiers on campuses and used them as training grounds for their new recruits. Unsurprisingly, violence became the new language for students, and each student leader wanted to outperform others (link).
Middle-class parents thus preferred to send their kids to technical colleges. Technical campuses like IITs had a much higher degree of administrative autonomy, which helped them keep politics away.
With the opening of the economy in the early 90s, the demand for skilled workers increased exponentially, particularly due to the IT revolution. Private colleges like KIIT entered the market at the right time and quickly rose to prominence, mainly due to their ability to keep politics away.
Nevertheless, the recent episode at KIIT highlights that even private technical campuses are not immune to politics. KIIT handled the situation badly, but if you think the entire episode was only about a student protest, you are too naive. All major political parties entered the scene soon after videos of Nepali students being removed from the campus went viral.
In my observation, academic institutions are either underestimating the power of social media in shaping narratives or avoiding it altogether. Neither is a good long-term strategy.
I am not saying students should remain politically illiterate. However, one does not need to join a political party to gain political literacy. I always encourage the formation of forums for discussions of ideas, including those related to politics.
Open debates and discussions should be the norm, not protest rallies and violence.
Keeping academia free of politics
Indian student Ranjani Srinivasan self-deports (link). I have been talking about group activism on academic campuses for a long time. It eventually leads to political groups using students as cannon fodder and eventually ruins the institutions. This is how traditional universities in India have been ruined. American universities should learn from their mistakes and course-correct before it is too late.
I have seen many posts on LinkedIn recently complaining about funding cuts in the US by the new government. This is sad, as climate change is one of the important issues of our time. However, activism is one of the reasons for this outcome.
Let me clarify what I mean by group activism. It means a call for action by a group of people, such as making specific policy changes. It may or may not always be political. However, there is a high chance that group activism will become political, as political parties in a democracy are always interested in vote counts.
I am not against advocacy at all. In my opinion, the main job of academia is to facilitate the exchange of ideas. Everyone on an academic campus should have the right to put forward his or her viewpoint if it does not violate the rules of the country. Events should be organized to facilitate debates and discussions.
However, an academic institution should not allow:
1. Protest marches and violence.
2. Obstructing someone from studying or teaching.
Any group involved in such activities should be delegitimized.
Idea stealing is quite common
Are you worried about your ideas getting stolen? Idea theft is far more common than you might think.
Sujit from Pakistan submitted an article to a reputed journal and received a rejection letter. Later, he found another article published in a different reputed journal by Sujit from India, one of the reviewers of his paper. The theft was so poorly executed that even the manuscript document had a similar name. Caught red-handed, he came up with the lame excuse of mistakenly submitting the wrong document (link).
Sujit is like a petty thief who got caught in his first attempt and was soundly beaten by the crowd. But in most cases, the theft is so subtle that it becomes nearly impossible for the victim to defend their case. A friend of mine, who worked in a microbiology lab in the Netherlands, had one of his co-authored manuscripts rejected by Science, only to later see its main idea published in Nature. They did not even fight the case.
Don't assume that publishing your work protects your ideas. Almost everyone credits Einstein for the theory of relativity, even though Lorentz and Poincaré formulated key aspects of the theory before him, which is an undisputed fact. Einstein maintained that he had not read their papers, which is hard to believe given that he worked in a patent office before joining academia. Julius von Mayer nearly committed suicide and was admitted to a mental hospital because he was denied credit for his work on thermodynamics.
What can one do? I always recommend putting your manuscript on a preprint server if you want to protect your work from petty thieves. However, if the theft is subtle, especially when committed by a more famous scientist, there is little you can do. I am not saying you shouldn’t fight, but it is important to learn to make peace with yourself. Scientific discourse largely runs on trust, and there is no strong mechanism to prevent stealing of ideas.
Can Brick-and-Mortar Universities Be Replaced by AI?
Why? I use the term “clubhouse effect” to explain this paradox. To understand this, let's consider why a house in Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, fetches more than a 20% premium compared to a house of similar size in a neighboring housing society. One of the main reasons is the clubhouse they provide.
People go to a clubhouse for networking. You can get a business deal in a clubhouse. An educational institution effectively works as a clubhouse. Surely, Harvard University provides a superior education compared to an average university, but that is not why Harvard charges $100,000 per year. In any case, most of its courses are freely available online.
The same goes for IITs. Most courses are freely available online. The perceived reputation and the alumni network are the real values one gets. The next question, of course, is whether building a university is the only way to bring people together. Of course not. Sanjeev Sanyal proposes building a bhajan mandali, and I agree.
Let's conduct a thought experiment. Suppose we build a bhajan mandali for 1,000 students. They are taught by AI teachers without a human teacher present. In the evening, they do bhajan together. We need to employ some humans to provide security, to provide food, and perhaps to provide spiritual guidance. They will eventually form a community and support each other.
Of course, this will not happen due to government interference.
Don't apply for jobs half-heartedly
A small piece of advice to job seekers, particularly those targeting academic jobs: Do not apply half-heartedly. Why?
Institutes typically invite external subject experts for faculty hiring. There is a good chance you will meet the same expert again if you failed to secure the earlier job, and he or she will start the next interview with a negative impression. Even if the same expert does not interview you again, there is a good chance the outcome of your earlier job interview has reached the next institution. You will need to work extra hard against the negative perception.
Of course, this should not be considered a thumb rule, as people know candidates are rejected for many reasons, including their profile not matching the job requirements. Nevertheless, it is good to try to avoid creating any negative impression.
Do not apply for a job unless you are reasonably confident of your chances. How to know? Read the job advertisement carefully. Connect with people to gather more information. Attend conferences. If possible, visit the institution to give a seminar and talk to potential colleagues, which will also help them get to know you better. You should do this anyway, as joining an academic institution is potentially a lifetime decision.
When you decide to apply for a job, give it your best.
Read the job market right
The "one job, 100 applications" stories are factually correct but quite misleading. Why? Consider a hypothetical scenario: every eligible candidate applies for every job in the market. If there are 100 jobs, each job receives 100 applications, yet every candidate is ultimately assured of a job.
Most degree holders from top institutes find jobs easily -- some immediately after receiving their degree, while others take time. Of course, real scenarios are more complicated. In some cases, the number of eligible candidates exceeds the number of jobs, forcing some to look for alternative opportunities outside their domain of expertise.
Conversely, there are cases where the number of jobs exceeds the number of eligible candidates. This is not a hypothetical scenario. Many labs in IITs are either dysfunctional or have been shut down because suitable faculty candidates cannot be found. PhD candidates often choose trendy research topics that yield easy publications rather than those that could lead to better job opportunities.
If you are planning to pursue a PhD, or any career path for that matter, make sure to check the job market. Of course, getting reliable information is not always easy. Networking definitely helps.
Student feedback on teaching does not serve any real purpose
What is the value of student evaluations of teaching?
I have always felt that student feedback for my courses did not correlate with the effort I put in. In fact, whenever I put extra effort into improving my teaching, my course feedback has dropped.
I used to dismiss this as cognitive bias until I came across the “Rate My Professors” website, where students evaluate professors in US universities. I was astonished to find that a few professors, whose research articles and lecture notes have significantly influenced my thinking, were rated very poorly. It is not just about research. One particular professor, whose lecture notes I used as a model for my own, has also received mostly negative feedback. (For clarification, I never studied in the US)
There are countless research papers on the value of student feedback, and most scholars agree it is a debatable subject. While student feedback on certain aspects of teaching can be useful, its overall usefulness beyond a certain point is highly questionable. As Johnson (2000) argues, student feedback has less to do with education and more with bureaucracy.
In my understanding, there are two primary aspects of teaching that matter to students: providing learning opportunities and making students comfortable. Students generally give more emphasize to the latter. Even if a course offers great learning opportunities, the students are likely to rate it poorly if they have not felt comfortable.
The assumption that students attend a course “to learn” is not always valid. Most students in core branches (Civil, Mechanical, etc.) in Indian technological institutions opt for non-core jobs after graduation. Their lack of motivation to learn core subjects should not come as a surprise. How this affects student evaluations of core courses needs serious examination. In fact, I could not find a single research article on this subject matter.
I am in no way advocating for doing away with student evaluations. However, it is essential to evaluate their scope for improving the effectiveness of teaching. In my assessment, student feedback serves the purpose of a scarecrow -- it lacks life but creates an illusion of it -- making teachers more likely to take teaching seriously.
Power is an illusion
The other day a friend of mine asked me about a particular minister. Surprised by my lack of interest in the conversation, he tried to tell me why I should know the minister.
“If he makes one phone call, you and I will lose our jobs,” he explained.
“Well, if he has a track record of firing people for not knowing him, I must know him. But if he had such a track record, I would have already known him.”
Why do people fear someone with power? Fear is a natural survival instinct. We avoid unnecessary confrontations and walk away when the incentives to stand our ground are low or nonexistent. This may sometimes embolden people with power.
A more interesting question, however, is why a minister with the power to fire people does not exercise it regularly. Is he not competent enough? No. Most competent people know power is like “share capital,” given to someone. Investors lend power to someone expecting returns. If the investors lose trust and decide to pull out, the power will vanish into thin air. That is how governments fall.
People often exhibit irrational fear of power because they do not understand how it actually works. It is a misconception that we adopted democracy to get power into our hands. Power was never in the hands of kings, nor does democracy give back power to people.
The real sources of power are ideas. That is why even kings in old times feared rishis. It is again a misconception that rishis had some magical power to curse people. No. They had ideas powerful enough to bring down kings. That is exactly what Chanakya did to the arrogant emperor of Magadha.
When a leader is elected to a position of power, it simply means people have invested in his or her ideas. Nothing more. One does not even need to hold a position to exercise power. Soros and Musk hold power to change governments because of their ideas. No, it is not because of their money (ideas generate money anyway).
If you ask me to name 10 most powerful people of India post 1990, I would include P. Sainath without hesitation. His ideas on farmer suicides served as the foundation for many farmer-centric political movements. Even the mighty BJP with an absolute majority in the parliament surrendered to farmer groups.
The Waqf bill became a law a few days back. The lion’s share of credit should be given to Anand Ranganathan for writing a book and incessantly highlighting the issue of misutilization power given to the Waqf board in TV debates.
Pursue knowledge. Power without knowledge is a mirage. You think you have it, but actually you don't.
Piyush Goyal’s frustration on deep-tech is misplaced
The reply by Vijay Vithal to Piyush Goyal’s comment on the lack of interest in deep-tech startups is worth reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/StartUpIndia/comments/1js2y1s/piyush_goel_i_am_a_semiconductor_startup_founder/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button&rdt=44524
The government should act as a facilitator of innovation rather than an obstructor before claiming the moral high ground. Over-bureaucratization is the main reason why we do not have a strong deep-tech ecosystem. It is not that we lack brilliant people in the government.
Speaking of water resources management in India. During the British period, engineers not only built great dams and irrigation canals but also made significant theoretical contributions. Ernest Lacey held a low-ranked engineering position in the Indian Irrigation Service in the Punjab region when he published his regime theory for designing irrigation canals. Most engineers now spend all their time and energy dealing with the bureaucracy. I once met an enthusiastic engineer who, after a long conversation, told me that the system rewards those who are good at paperwork, not actual work.
Mastering Intuitive Thinking
I asked a question in my last class and insisted on having the right answer, which was a number. After a couple of wrong answers, one student gave the right number. When I asked her to explain, she appeared clueless. A few in the class laughed. I told them not to do so.
Why? I knew she did not think logically when she gave the answer – her voice showed under-confidence. Her correct answer was a result of intuitive thinking. Intuitive thinking is not necessarily logical. The reasoning happens in a subconscious state. I was merely trying to see if she could do a post-hoc analysis.
Most of my research contributions are results of intuitive thinking. Logical thinking is essential but not generally enough for innovation. If a problem can be solved through logical thinking, it will be done by most people around you. AI can also do it. If you are trying to do great research, you must master intuitive thinking.
Not Knowing is not as Easy as You Think
Not knowing too much is sometimes a mark of wisdom, particularly for researchers.
Let me start with a story. There was a king who liked to show off every new cloth he bought. Hearing about his obsession for new clothes, two men arrived in his palace claiming to have the skills to weave clothes that can be visible to people who are worthy of the jobs they are doing. The two men asked for a hefty sum of money to buy gold and other materials that will be used for making the special dress. The king readily obliged.
After a few days, the king grew restless and sent his minister to check the work progress. The minister saw the two men working hard but could not see anything in their hands. The needle was just moving in the air. The two men asked the minister about his impression of the dress. Fearing that he will be exposed for being unworthy for the job he was doing, he started praising the two men and quickly returned to the king with the good news.
Finally, the day came for the king to wear the dress. Arrangements have already been made for common citizens to have a glimpse at the magical dress.
The two men brought the dress with smiling faces. The king saw nothing. Fearing he will be caught for being unworthy of being the king, he started praising the two men, and they put the dress on him. Everyone in the court started talking about the wonderful dress and complimented the king. The King then went out of the palace for the planned procession. The citizens showered praises on him.
Spoiling the whole celebration, a kid in the crowd shouted “The king has no clothes!” The confused citizens started whispering to each other, which soon turned into a laughing competition. Realizing that he had been fooled, the king ran back to his palace. The two con-men were nowhere to be found.
Now coming back to research, remember you will quite often have the feeling of being unworthy for not knowing something. You will pretend to know what others around you pretend to know. You are likely to spend months mastering a tool or method, not because you see its usefulness, but because others pretend to have benefited from it.
You are afraid to say what you don’t see because being a child is not easy at all. It means facing judgment. You have a reputation of knowing too much. It is not easy to have the courage to bet on it.
PS: "The king has no clothes" story was likely told first by the 11th century Jain scholar Jineśvara.
Enter the Entitlement Olympics
The real problem with India is not the lack of resources – wealth has little to do with happiness. The real problem is the overwhelming sense of entitlement that permeates every social discourse related to national resources, and it is not merely by chance, but rather by design.
Feudalism was never allowed to disappear after its death; its skeleton was used as a framework for governance. Why a vast percentage of Indians aspire to be part of the government is a question better not answered to avoid sounding trivial.
The point of discussion should instead be the justifications for the entitlements. It is generally implicit that better pay leads to better productivity. A horribly wrong argument, actually. Consider the salary of a government primary school teacher in my native village as an example. Teachers in private schools in the same locality earn ten times less. Outcome? Even daily wage laborers these days are sending their kids to private schools, even though it means economic hardship for them.
Since it is apparent that work and entitlement have little correlation, the motivation to form groups to demand more is quite high. Our elections are actually entitlement Olympics. Even failing in elections does not leave out a group – road blocking, rioting, going on a strike, and media outraging options are always available.
Explaining the mental health crisis among students
In my view schools and institutions these days give far more emphasis on mental health than they did 20 years back. Beating is banned in schools. Every IIT now has a psychological counselling cell to help students in distress. Yet, the outcome is exactly opposite. There are far more students who need help now than 20 years ago.
Months back many became very upset when I expressed my opinion on social media that institute-level initiatives are never going to fully solve the problem. Why? The primary source behind psychological distress is relationship issues particularly within family.
One is far more vulnerable to mental distress if family support is inadequate. In the rat race of reaching the top, parents often ignore the psychological well-being of their children. About 30% of students I surveyed told me they are in IITB just because of their parents.
Many parents with all good intentions over manage their children’s life. Of course those children are not very well prepared for real-world challenges because they were hardly allowed to be independent. In rare cases, parents inflict great violence if things do not go according to their plan as in the attached image.
Parents should understand that it is not even in their interest to force children to do something just to brag “My son is working in Amerika” in future. Often such a mask of arrogance is put on to hide “no one cares for me these days.”
What should parents focus on is raising emotionally healthy kids who can take care of not just themselves but also others around them. They will be much better off in the future as they themselves will require emotional support when they get old.
The Indian social divide no one talks about
While debates on social divides typically focus on caste and gender, the rural-urban divide is the elephant in the room that everyone ignores conveniently.
How many students in IIT BTech programs come from rural India?
"There are no recent statistics that provide a direct figure for the percentage of students in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) who spent a substantial portion of their childhood in rural areas. Available data, such as a 2014 Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) report, indicates that only 9.77% of qualified candidates came from villages, with 76% from urban areas. However, this refers to the place of origin at the time of the exam, not necessarily where candidates spent their childhood." -- Grok.
Note that about 65% people live in Rural India.
As someone who grew up in a village, economic hardship was not the only challenge. The real hardship was finding a role model. Most of my friends dreamed of government clerical jobs in government offices. In the tiny town where I went for my intermediate education, most of my friends dreamed of bank PO jobs. A close friend and I seriously planned to join the Indian Navy as sailors. The plan did not work out, fortunately. We got sufficient information to plan for engineering education only after the 12th exam. My friend now designs microprocessors.
Thursday, 24 April 2025
Judiciary: An Almost Perfect Role for AI
Let’s say consider a bag having 50 kg of rice. If kg of rice is taken out, according to the law of mass balance, 30 kg will be left out in the bucket. It does not matter if the question is asked in Mumbai, in Paris, or in New York. It does not matter if the question is asked in the morning, in the afternoon, or in the middle of night. It does not matter if the question is asked by Ramesh, Aadi, or John.
The law governing humans is expected to work in the exact same way. That is why the lady in the picture personifying justice is blind. The verdict of a judge is expected to remain the same no matter who commits the crime, where, and when.
Does that really happen? Absolutely not! Judges do not keep their eyes blind folded. Not that they are expected to do so, but there is no rational reason why we should assume that a judge always rises above personal and ideological biases to deliver justice. If judges were super humans, we would not have one court having the responsibility of reviewing decisions by another court.
Once we accept that judges can have human biases, the question is how to correct a judge. Is there a mechanism? Maybe there is one, but it is not effective at all. Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey is correct when he says judges are making decisions on the basis of religion. Vice President Jagdish Dhankar is correct when he says judges are failing to recognize the line between implementing laws and making laws.
Is there an answer to address the judicial crisis? Yes. If we can write a computer program to implement the law of mass balance, we can definitely write a computer program to implement the law concerning property rights.
Of course, we need to keep in mind that the law of mass balance and the law of property rights are not exactly the same in nature. The former considers numbers as inputs, while the latter has to interpret textual information. Nevertheless, with the advent of large language models, it would be quite an easy job to develop an AI tool which would do a better job at interpreting texts and speeches to implement the property law than a human judge just like a one line computer program can do a better job at implementing the mass balance law.
It is needless to mention an AI judge would be truly a judge with eyes blindfolded, 100% free of personal and ideological biases.
Will an AI judge always make perfect decisions? First of all, an AI tool is only as good as the data it is trained on. Given the subjectivity of texts and speeches, there is always a possibility of misinterpretation. In cases of doubt, a decision made by an AI judge can be reviewed by a human judge.
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Saturday, 19 April 2025
Whose responsibilty is a child's education?
Yesterday, I was talking
to a friend of my father about the recent problems faced by our village
school, where I had my education. Among the many issues he shared, one
caught my full attention. An ST student has stopped coming to school,
and the headmaster has been visiting the student's house for several
days to convince the parents to send the student back.
It
is possible that the parents are making the student work or that they
have decided to send their child to another school. The headmaster is in
the dark, as the parents are either not at home or avoiding him
whenever he visits their home.
Why is
the headmaster so worried? Because his higher-ups are threatening to
take strict action against him if students drop out, particularly those
from marginalized communities. Of course, the higher-ups of his
higher-ups are pressuring them to stop dropouts, and so on.
That brings us to the question: should the parents or the government be responsible for a child's welfare? In
my view, holding a headmaster accountable for a dropout case is absurd.
If we accept that the government has the authority to decide the future
of every child, bureaucrats will gain the power to harass either the
parents or the headmaster.
The
vast majority of parents care about a child's future much more than any
government. Of course, there are rare instances where parents neglect
their children. However, concerned local citizens should come forward to
take responsibility and help the parents. I am not saying the
government should have no role in education, but it should be the last
one to take responsibility in such matters.
