HT Editorial

Respected Madam,
On 16th January, 2010 I read your article ‘Idiot is as idiot does’ in Hindustan Times newspaper which highlighted the ironic situation that how a movie can lead to a wrong path as it was merely produced to nurture big profits and was never intended to give any messages. You have rightfully said that it only talks about scientific ingenuity but never about the gradual development of these skills through rigorous hard work. It is utterly true that there will hardly be one or two born scientists in the crowd of lacks.
Sometimes I wonder why does everybody talk only about higher and prestigious Colleges which are doing great even without any media attention. This colleges are the eye candies of Ministry of HRD and their alumni base is very strong also the faculty is very autonomous so that no harm can be done to the glory of these institutions. Madam, you may be well aware that these institutions neither need any further validation nor do they require anymore support from public (thanks to our politicians). Everyone is dying to get their siblings in any of these professional colleges; but there are many other universities which need proper attention that they are not getting it and students study there just to gain a valid degree not for any quality education. The main reason is not the crunch of resources but it is the affection of the students and the government which they don’t get because of not being the ‘Institutions of National Importance’.
I am very much sure that our first P.M. Jawaharlal Nehru never envisaged these institutions just for overshadowing others but to create a healthy competition. Now it has become a culture that if a person is not studying in these colleges his/her study has all gone in vain. It further makes students disenchanted from their studies and their alma mater.
It is a bare truth that our IITs and even IIMs don’t stand anywhere among the best universities of the world because they have never looked upon their respective humanities departments as the other top colleges of the world do. For example – Sulmaan Rushdie is a professor of Humanities at M.I.T. and faculty of Stanford University includes four Pulitzer Prize winners (sixteen Nobel laureates are also there); definitely if it is not possible for the development of these departments upto this level then we should turn towards the colleges which have remained neglected throughout their lifetime but are capable of leapfrogging in these areas.
My personal belief is that there is no meaning of being a scientist or an engineer or a doctor if you are not socially well aware. The greatest scientist of all time Albert Einstein was a great philosopher and also was a good friend of Rabindranath Tagore similarly Nicola Tesla was so keen about poetry and literature that he became almost mad after the death of his friend Mark Twain and during his old age had illusions about his friend as if he was living with him. This shows that it is not right to neglect other art and humanities colleges in the flash of these high profile colleges.