Standardized online entrance exam and biometric attendance for teachers

Now teacher attendance is mandatory. As usual I do not understand either of the two decisions.  What is this going to accomplish?  Will it force the non-performers to teach and do research? All it will do is that once a day they will make a trip to their center and sign in.  Big deal.  It will waste little bit of petrol but if it satisfies the powers, what can one say?
The other issue is even more mind-boggling.  Apparently, our exam is going to be now conducted in multiple choice questions. How do you evaluate a language or a social science student  or a international relations who is applying for Ph.D in multiple choice format? How do you evaluate their ability to make an argument and defend it in multiple choice format?  In sciences itself, where it is easy to design questions in this format, we struggle with the kind of students we get. Most often they possess absolutely no communication skills, many of them do rote-learning, many of them do guesswork, and when they join the program it becomes an uphill task to make them read, think and ask questions.  But in social sciences or languages...I give up!
As usual there will be no debate on this issue. It has been decided by the administration so we just have to follow it.
Ugh!

Two books by Emily Eden

I knew that Emily Eden had written letters from India and they were highly regarded.  I first encountered her, though, in William Dalrymple's book "Return of the King" which was the account of the first Anglo-Afghan war.  Lord Eden was appointed the Governor General  and his two sisters- Emily and Fanny- accompanied him to India.  The war was a disaster and Lord Eden returned back to England where, fortunately, he soon died.
That Emily Eden also had written novels was something I learnt from the blog Redeeming Qualities.  Her novels are not available at Project Gutenberg though they do have her letters.  Then I discovered Hathi Trust Digital Library and wonders! They do have both her novels.  This past week I read both of them- The semi-detached house and The semi-attached couple.
In the introduction to The semi-attached couple, Emily Eden is compared to Jane Austen and indeed the book follows somewhat the story plot line of Pride and Prejudice, though Mrs. Douglas nowhere is close to Mrs. Bennett.   Mrs. Bennett was obsessed with marrying her daughters off while Mrs. Douglas is obsessed with running every one down.  Marriage of her two daughters is incidental and Mrs. Douglas is actually very clear-sighted about it.  But, Emily Eden does not do romance very well.   The book begins with marriage where the at least the female protagonist is not very sure about her feelings.  The book, of course, ends with everything arranged satisfactorily but it was not very interesting. 
The semi-detached house, on the other hand, is a hoot.  I think Emily Eden had a fun time writing the story.  It has bunch of nice people from two spectrum of society.  But as they are all nice, they get along very well.  There is not much of a plot line but it was an enjoyable read.  It is one of those books that I know I will re-read.

Of banana bread and lemonades

The Real Summer of Delhi where the temperature rises up to 45oC or more and stays like that for weeks has started unusually late this year.  It is only in the past couple of days that the night temperature has shot up to 30oC. The weather promises to be like this at least for couple more days.
The only thing to do is to stay inside the house, keep oneself hydrated and hope that the rains will come soon.
This Summer I explored all kinds of syrups- Rose syrup that I made from rose petals, Nannari syrup made from Nannari roots, Aam panna from Raw mangoes, and lemon syrup.  The Aam panna and Lemon syrup are my Mother's recipes.  Every summer she would make it for us.  We never purchased any syrups from the market and Rasna was banned in the house after one of my maternal uncles told my mother that the chemicals in Rasna are not good for health.  So every summer she would make lemon concentrate and Aam panna for us.  I continue with the tradition.  Sugar syrup is boiled and cooled.  Lemon juice along with ginger paste is added to sugar syrup and the ensuing syrup is stored in the fridge.  Whenever, I want to drink lemonade, all I have to do is to take a tablespoon or so of the concentrate, add water, and ice cubes.
The Aam panna my mother used to make is different from the ones available in the market which contains mint leaves and pepper and other sundry items.  My mother used to boil the raw mango.  My job (not my brother's) was to peel the mangoes and crush the pulp.  Then my mother would add sugar and cardamom powder to the pulp.  I would stir it till the sugar dissolved and store it in the fridge.  When ever we wanted, we would take a tablespoon of it, add water to it and drink it.  More often, instead of drinking it, we would simply eat it with roti/chappati. 
This week I also made Banana Bread.  Banana in this season tends to get spoiled fast.  So I decided to eat my fruit in the form of Banana bread using this recipe.  As usual I tweaked it.  Instead of oil, I added butter (I had it and wanted to finish it).  I used 1 cup maida and 1 cup atta.  Instead of brown sugar I used jaggery.  This was the end result:

I gave two pieces to Sumitra whose wedding anniversary it was and a piece to my friend.  The only thing was that Sumitra's husband told her that since I have given her cake, he does not need to give her anything.  Sumitra, very properly, has stopped talking to him. 

Sexual harassment complaint against Inder Verma

The complaints pertain to a long period- from 1976 to 2016.  The magazine Science did an investigation and the report is accessible.
He has stepped down from his various posts and the Salk Institute is doing an investigation. 
He recently got the Infosys award and has also been elected member of the National Academies of Sciences.
As far as I know there is complete silence from the Indian academics though some people have told me that a letter has been issued from the academics to treat him with dignity as he has contributed greatly to science. If it is so, then it is in keeping with the traditions of Indian academies.

An update on attendance

When the JNU administration decided to implement compulsory attendance at all levels, there was lot of uproar.  I told my students that I do not support the directive but as it is mandatory and one never knows what the penalties might be, it would be judicious of them to sign the register.  The students started signing.  Outwards there was no protest. Truthfully, I was tad disappointed. I had hoped that they would protest.  Little did I know.
For the past one week, the parents/guardians of our students have started receiving letters stating that their ward does not have the mandatory 75% for the months of Jan and Feb. My students too received it.  I was startled. Many of them have taken just one day off.  So where did the administration get this number from?
It turns out that there was a referendum some time back.  7000 students said NO to attendance.  My students too.  Now, they are receiving the letter.
There are number of ways I look at it.
I can laugh at it.  Really! Research scholars. Many of whom are married and have children.  You are sending letters to their parents?
I feel derision.  Honestly?  This is a kindergarten?
I feel sad that the university is being constantly reduced down.  Issues other academics are being stoked up.
I am also elated. My students stood up.
But most of all, I am angry.  It is false data at least as far as the students of our school are concerned. The attendance was put up in public notice board, it is their with our office and almost all our students have more than 75% attendance.  They never protested about signing the attendance register.  When students from other schools were on strike, they went on with their work.  Yes. They exercised their right in ballot.  That is what it is.  Voting is their RIGHT.  They have the right to express what they feel.  Exactly what is the administration up to?  Did they think that the students will cower down?  Did they not stop for one minute and ask what if the students waved the attendance sheet at their face and showed that they had the mandatory attendance.  And will the administration apologize for this travesty?  Many of the girls are upset because their parents got worked up. Will they apologize to the parents for issuing a false letter?

Finally, what will the letter achieve?  What is the punishment? 
There are so many other issues we need to talk about.  Attendance is such a silly thing to make a fuss about.

How NOT to do admissions into the Ph.D. program

The past month has been a difficult one with Ph.D. interviews and the school lock-down.  8 FIRs were filed by girls from one lab against their supervisor.  The complaint was about sexual harassment. As the matter is now in the hands of the police (who true to form are not doing anything), I will not comment on the matter.  Suffice to say, the school lock down has been lifted, the complainants demanding new supervisor have been allotted one of their choice, and we are limping back to normal.  The administration did not budged an inch on any of the issues but the students and the faculty have to complete the course work, end-term exams, thesis submissions...so we are back to work.
What I am going to talk about is the admission to our Ph.D. program.
The UGC has made an entrance exam mandatory for entrance to Ph.D. program.  A student has to score 50% in the written exam to be eligible for interview.  During the interview, the research scholar has to present the research topic he/she wants to work on.  If selected, the research supervisor has to be assigned immediately.

There are many things wrong with this guideline and I will explain it with our experience this time.
1. We were not sure how the 50% cut-off would work if we introduced negative marking.  Given our past experience we were, in fact, sure that we would not get many students. In fact, the schools that had kept negative marking did end up seeing far less or none qualifying the entrance exam. So we removed negative marking.  The end result- 837 candidates qualified.
2. We are offering 40 seats. So we requested the administration to call 3-5 times the number of seats i.e anywhere between 120-200 candidates.  This is where we ran into the biggest block. We have to ensure the reservation policy is followed.  The administration found out that the UGC gazette notification does not spell out how to ensure the reservation policy (which of course was something that the faculty have been pointing out for past one but the administration in its "we-know-it-all" approach have never acknowledged our concerns).  So they told us that all 837 candidates will have to be interviewed.
3. They sent the interview call letter to all the 837 candidates. We then pointed out that if a candidate is called at 10 am in the morning and the interview happens late in the afternoon, the poor student would be sitting/waiting for the interview many times without eating because they are so stressed out.  It has always been the policy to divide the students into two groups.  One group would come in the morning and the other in the evening.  Further, as the interviews were happening in March, we have classes in the morning. We have to work things out.  The next thing we knew was that the students had been called from 2.00 pm onwards and we had to conduct the interviews in the afternoon!
4. The administration also told us that 56 candidates will appear everyday. They also told us that it would be spread over 15 days. So we met, discussed, and decided to have three interview panels. Each panel would interview 19 candidates. 
5. The administration also instructed us to interview each candidate in domain knowledge, analytical ability, and research proposal.  This makes sense if we have at least 30-40 minutes with each candidate.  When we have only 10-15 minutes, this makes no sense.  But we did.  We figure out a way.  Three faculty would ask the student on domain and analytical knowledge.  One would examine the research proposal the student had brought with them.
6. In social sciences, the students decide their research topic but in sciences, where extensive laboratory work is involved, the students are assigned their research topic.  Further, at least in Sciences, the students do not know who to formulate a research topic.  Our education is not geared towards it.  The research proposal that most students brought with them was usually an extension of the work they had done as part of their M.Sc project.  Further, since we do not encourage our B.Sc/M.Sc students to read research papers (when I do this as part of my course, I am always told by senior faculty that students cannot read research papers and that my approach is wrong), they do not have any idea of the research work or how to design experiments or what to propose.
7.The administration then insisted that the research supervisor has to be assigned immediately.  We protested. If we are interviewing 837 candidates over a period of 15 days, where the student has no idea what is research, how can we assign a faculty to a student?  I would not remember the student who came on the first day.  I would not know from a 15 minute interaction whether the student would be a good fit for my lab.  The student would have no idea whether I would be a good research supervisor for him/her. These things are always done after a discussion.  The administration refuses to see the logic.  According to them, we have to follow the UGC gazette notification.  This is an issue that we still have not resolved.
8. Finally, we also tried to tell them that since we held the interviews early but admission will be done only in July, we are not even sure who will join us.  IISc, IISERs, CCMB, TIFR, NCBS, and all the other institutes will be holding their interviews. Most of our selected candidates will go over to these institutes.  Many will go abroad.  We do not know how many selected candidates will eventually end up with us.  Of course, our conversations with the administration are always one-sided.  There is never a dialogue as they do not believe in it. 
At the end of 15 days, the entire process is a blur.  I have stopped caring. 

The KVPY interviews

For the past three days, I have been doing KVPY interviews. This is a flagship program of DST that is coordinated by IISc.  Students have to give an aptitude test and if they qualify, they are called in for interviews.  The selected candidates are provided scholarships for pursuing research. The program was mooted to encourage children to study basic science as opposed to engineering/medicine.  I do not know the statistics as to how many children do end up in research but we have had couple of KVPY scholars in our M.Sc program.  Brilliant girls who ended up doing Ph.D.
However, this post is not about how successful the KVPY program is. Rather I am going to talk about my observations over the past three days.  There were groups and each group interviewed approximately 90 students over the three days.

1. Most were boys.  Of 90 students, we had only 6 girls in my group.  Assuming that the exam is not gender biased, and given the fact that the number of girls in most schools is equal to the number of boys (I talking about co-ed schools) one wonders about the lack of girls in this program.  I have to add here that I have been doing these interviews off and on for many years and over the years I have observed that the number of girls attending the interviews remains less than 10%.  I do not know if IISc has done any statistics to find out if the number of applications itself is low or is it the girls do not qualify.  If it is the later, then we have to worry about the exam pattern because then it would mean that the exam is gender biased. If the number of application itself is low, then we do need to do something to encourage the girls to compete in these exams.
2. If the number of girls was less than 10%, then the religious minorities fared even worse. Again I do not know the reason but I found it worrisome.
3. Biology and math are mutually exclusive.  Which is a pity because math is needed in biology and we get students at Ph.D. level who struggle with simple math.
4. Physical education is a popular choice of subject. So students take Physics, Math, Chemistry, and Physical Education. English is of course compulsory.  I was curious about Physical education because none of the kids looked fit but couple of them assured them that they do play games.
5. Finally, there is a big divide between the big public schools and the rest.  Many of the kids were from these big public schools, confident, and fluent in English. Most of them are taking tuition for JEE. Government schools were woefully underrepresented. We got couple of kids from Kendriya Vidyalaya.  The children from other public schools providing English medium education were hesitant, lacked confidence and preferred Hindi as the medium of communication.  Except one girl who said that she would prefer to talk in English and not in Hindi even though it was a struggle for her.