VC Archives - Page 2 of 4

You talkin' to me?

Many years ago I managed to persuade a Romanian taxi driver in New York city to let me drive his cab for a couple of blocks (I had helped him change a flat tyre, so I figure he was feeling kindly). It was strangely exhilarating, even if it was mainly along an empty stretch of a street in Harlem- the powerful brakes, the low centre of gravity, the idea of it all… But I digress.

That incident flashed through my mind (and de Niro fans will know why) some months ago when I saw the op-ed about Central University Vice Chancellors in The Hindu, Wanted: intellectual leaders, not CEOs by Apoorv Anand and Satish Deshpande of Delhi University. Trying to see it as a commentary on the system, and to not take it personally is even more of a challenge. Especially when the references seem so direct, and even though no names were mentioned. I guess if the shoe fits…

Anand and Deshpande start with a multiple choice question: Who or what is a Vice Chancellor today?

The CEO of an academic corporation.
An academic or bureaucrat with political connections.
A person selected by accident, error or compromise.
An intellectual leader.

but they don’t give a fifth (and more correct) choice, namely
5. Possibly all of the above, at least in bits and parts..

As Mark Twain said, those that respect the law and love sausage should watch neither being made. The same holds for the processes that bring about VCs in our country. Or any other position of some complexity for that matter.

There is a lot of what Anand and Deshpande say that one agrees with, and much that one can disagree with, even on purely academic terms. Boats are intrinsically sinkable, but only when they are on water, if there are leaks, and even then not always. So too, universities. If they have to function, there is always the danger that in some ways they will do so poorly.

With the two and a half years’ experience that I have had (and that has been more educational than some of my previous years in academe) it seems to me that some of the discomfort that is expressed is tied into the multiplicity of expectations that we have of our University system. It is not just a place where you get quality education that prepares you for jobs in the real world. Our Central universities are expected to play other roles as well. So is there a simple answer to the question “What is an Indian University for?” The multiplicity of goals that we, as a nation, seek to achieve through our educational institutions makes this a germane question, particularly as the answers themselves have evolved over the years.

Here is an incomplete answer: in addition to (tertiary) education, our universities are also sites of knowledge creation and knowledge preservation. They are arenas of skills development and vocational training. Being nationally funded, they need to assure wide and deep access, across geographical and social strata so as to be agents of social transformation, enabling social change. Helping people to cross barriers, both economic and social is one aim, but in addition, we also seek to make India a society with the sense of “scientific temper”. All this is done in the foreground of a globalizing (but still very feudal) society with a deep fissures and shallow pockets, so that there is a perpetual shortfall of public (or for that matter private) investment in what is very clearly both a public and a private good.

And a VC’s job is to make all this happen smoothly while transforming the office itself in the same way as the country has been changing? In comparison, Rumpelstiltskin‘s skill seems a trivial one.

This post in not in defence of the indefensible. The slow and painstaking methods of intellectual leadership that Anand and Deshpande recognize as a requirement of being a successful VC is undeniable, but this is only one of the components… To focus on this- not that they are unaware of the other aspects- is to oversimplify the whole process. A complex system has complex demands, and to quote Mishima in closing, one is perpetually striving to make some sense out of the chaos of existence…

The Second Law

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, namely the general principle that the entropy of the universe increases, seems to apply to institutions as well as to the more restricted type of system it was first formulated for. The entropy is a measure of disorder in a system, so the second law may be reworded to say that the disorder in a system, in general, increases with time. (And conversely, this also helps to determine what is the ‘arrow of time‘ – the more disorder, almost inevitably the later in time.)

In recent weeks I have been thinking of the appropriateness of this concept outside the narrow realm of machines and engines where it was first developed. Going through some websites, I came across the following discussion, which asserts that “associated with the entropy production is the loss of ability to do work.” How valid, in general, though of course the context in which the statement was first made was quite different. And also, an “increase in overall disorder is therefore spontaneous. If the volume and energy of a system are constant, then every change to the system increases the entropy.” Change energy to UGC funding, and system to campus, and you can see that that statement still rings true!

The impending NAAC visit provides one focus for such thoughts. Although the campus has undergone quite a transformation, it has taken the concerted efforts of a large number of people, our NAAC team, the Engineering and Estate sections, among others, to bring back a semblance of orderliness on the campus. A huge amount of physical energy has gone into actually reducing the disorder on our campus- the repainted buildings are looking good, the roads are cleaner, the undergrowth has been cleared away- all in all, there is a freshness that is evident. Thanks to them all!

I don’t know what rating we will get since that depends not just on how we look but more on what we are, and the next few days will give us a chance to put forward our very best. But it is true that regardless of the NAAC visit outcome, it is getting increasingly difficult for the University to cope with the reduced funding and the consequent increase in entropy- be it on the matter of upkeep of our infrastructure, or the inability to meet the increasing demands of a larger and evolving community.

We have to look beyond the NAAC visit, even though it is very important that we take full cognizance of it. Occasions like this give us an opportunity to revisit if and why we are a University of Excellence, and what we really need to do to earn our spurs each day. In projecting the best in ourselves- and there is clearly a lot that is very good- we also recognize those parts that could be better, and indeed, should be better.

But in any case, whose University is it anyway? It is ours, and it is pretty much up to us as to where we take it in the years to come. Any change that has to come has to come from within the system if it is to be lasting. That is, of course, one of the ways in which we might be able to fight the Second Law, but more importantly, that is the only way in which we can become the University that we want to be.

The year in review, and good wishes for the New Year!

The past year has had its ups and downs (more of one than the other it seems!) but it is good to end on an optimistic note, with the hope that the coming year will be better than the one slipping away… Here’s wishing all of us the very best for 2014!

WordPress made a report of this blog’s activity, and before I turn to other matters, here it is (and many thanks to them for the quick if somewhat impersonal and automated post):

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 26,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Some noteworthy events on our campus during 2013, starting with the inauguration of the School of Life Sciences building by Dr. M. Pallam Raju on January 3, the visit of Joseph Stiglitz, also in January, the starting of a Kendriya Vidyalaya on our campus in April, the visit of Amartya Sen and Venki Ramakrishnan in quick succession in December, bringing the number of nobelists that came to our campus this year to three! Many of the faculty were recognized for their excellence, in teaching Prof. Kumaresan was named Teacher of the Year by the Indian National Science Academy, Dr Vaitheeswaran was given the B M Birla prize in physics, and Dr V Vakulabharanam the Amartya Sen award of the ICSSR. Many of the departments and Schools were recognized for their excellence by the UGC through the grant of special funds for research- all of which has made us one of the better endowed universities, at least funds-wise… There is more to tell, and much of it has been posted on the UoH Herald over the past year, or on earlier posts on this blog. Many awards, many distinguished visitors, many concerts, and many conferences, all evidence of an active and vibrant campus.

There were also some events that caused us much sadness, the loss of four students as well as some of our retired faculty and staff. And the progress of various projects on campus has been slow, particularly on the matter of constructions and infrastructure. The turbulence of the world outside has sometimes been reflected in events on the campus… I really hope that such things will change.

Every new year deserves a resolution or two. We are now into our fortieth year, a special anniversary of sorts. Let us work to make the campus a better place, and our University the very best that we can be. Happy New Year!

Greetings for Diwali!

Best wishes to all on the occasion of Deepavali! This year, and every year…

Teachers Day

Greetings on the occasion of Teachers Day– to the teachers of the University, and to our many, many teachers outside the University…

The UoH has always been known for the many great teachers who have been here from the first days, Gurbaksh Singh onwards. I’m lucky that I also had the opportunity to learn from some of them when I was a student at IIT Kanpur, and knew some of them in later years as well. We have a good reason to recall Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan not just today but most working days, given the name of our Lecture Hall Complex, and the photograph of his above, an uncharacteristically informal one, also has a nice connection to the UoH.

A colleague writes on FB, “To all my teachers for all that I am today and to all my students from who I learn everyday, Happy Teacher’s Day!”. How true, and said so well- its a day to celebrate both teaching and learning!

I Day, 2013

The country’s 67’th, my third, and the Kendriya Vidyalaya, University of Hyderabad’s first. Some excerpts from my speech today:

Members of the UoH Family, Let me start by first conveying my warm wishes and greetings on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of our nation’s Independence.

Today we are- as we have been for the past many years- living in interesting times. We appear to be in a state of perpetual flux, with the scenario changing frequently in dimensions that are political, economic, and with consequences of an immediate, as well as of a long-ranging nature.

Combining independence with responsibility has been a challenge not just for our campus, but metaphorically, for our nation as well. The day of independence that we celebrate or mark each year, brought the nation the responsibility of forging a modern state, one where all citizens could aspire to a life that was better, because it was free, and because we had self-determination and self-governance, swaraj. In the nearly seven decades that have passed, it is clear that we have tried hard and that we have made great strides, but it is also clear that we have far to go on so many fronts.

This is the third time I have stood here to speak on this occasion, and since last year there have been many changes that we have seen happening around us. As anticipated, the XII plan grant has not been as generous as we had wanted, but there have been rays of hope and promise on many fronts. The University has had a preeminent position in the country with respect to its commitment to excellence in research and teaching. Having seen it intimately these past years, I know that the foundation is very solid, and the base is a strong one. In the past month, in recognition of the fact that twice the UGC has declared us to be a University with the potential for excellence, we are now designated simply as University of Excellence. This is not to say that all the potential has been realized- we more than others are acutely aware of the many miles we have to traverse and the many goals we need to score- but still, we are I believe, a University with the Promise of Excellence. This appellation comes with a heavy responsibility, and that is the responsibility to continue to deliver in the future, as we have in the past, good students, good programs, and good, solid research.

Our faculty and students have been recognized nationally and internationally- this year’s Amartya Sen award, the SCOPUS young scientist award, the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Award, the B M Birla Award, several KVRSS awards, AP State Football championship… the list is a long one.

Similarly, many individual disciplines have been recognized for their excellence as well. PURSE, the programme of the DST for Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence will shortly enter its second phase, our Centre for Research and Education in Biology and Biotechnology or CREBB, similarly, is up for renewal and extension. A crucial and significant new addition to the University is the School of Education that has been granted recently by the UGC. I believe that with the addition of this important discipline, we will be able to make progress in a crucial dimension, the marriage of instruction with technology. I see that in the coming years we will be able to reach out to larger and larger numbers of our fellow citizens in the country and thereby fulfill the responsibility that we all share, namely of educating the bulk of the country to create a modern state.

Our concerns are many. As I have mentioned on earlier occasions, we are blessed to occupy this campus, this environment, this land. Our efforts to secure the land for the future of the University and for the purposes of education are still on: that road is a long and tortuous one, strewn with unexpected hurdles, but it is one that we are firmly committed to. For this purpose, we now have a detailed master plan for the campus.

Our commitment to the environment extends to the preservation of the biodiversity, of the varied habitats, of the fauna and flora, the lakes the rocks. One achievement that attracted considerable national attention is our action of using the roof of the Library for harvesting solar power and making this building almost self-sufficient and independent of the state electricity power supply. This coming year we will do more, and while we reduce our expenditure on power, we will also contribute to building a greener campus. And a more sensitive campus as well. The Ministry for Social Empowerment has responded positively to our disability audit, and our request to make all our buildings accessible to disabled students, and in the first instance they have funded us to do so for sixteen of the main academic buildings. Our lakes remain a source of concern, and our efforts to clean them, deepen them, and improve the ground water resources in this part of the city are also always afoot. Similarly, our campus has been invaded by the subabool tree species in a manner that is harming the native flora of this part of the Telangana region. These need careful culling and replacement, and we will undertake to do this shortly.

Within the University administration there have been many attempts to streamline procedures, and one effort that promises to serve us well is the decision to advance the entrance exams, and to make the admissions more transparent. The intake this year exceeds that of last year, and many more students have been able to apply for the several courses that we offer, although it is also true that the process needs further fine tuning.

But above all, if there is one thing that I would wish for us, it is for an increased self-confidence. We are a good, solid university, and we offer a quality of education that is difficult to come by, facilities that are well above what can be found elsewhere, superb teachers and a cohort of students that is second to none. And yet, there is a strange diffidence that permeates our functioning, something that is difficult to fathom. We are very good by any set of standards, except perhaps by our own. And this, while it should help us to reach even higher levels, appears to pull us back and hampers our own growth, both physical and intellectual. The responsibility of independence, of autonomy, is one that cannot be taken too lightly. Of late the University has been portrayed in somewhat negative light in the press and media, and I believe undeservedly so. The onus of making ours a University of Excellence is a shared one, shared by all sections of our campus community, staff, students, faculty alike. Each has a role to play, and each has one’s own sphere of operation. I urge all of you to play your roles with utmost seriousness- losing sight of our ultimate goals causes us to drift, and ultimately lets us all down. We need to change this, and now more than ever, we need to be the change we wish to see.

But this should happen gradually, with deliberation, and with debate. And with wide participation so that each voice can be heard. To adapt something that I said recently in a related context, if we are to bring about lasting change in education and research in our University, there really is no alternative to slow and sustained effort. The race, such as it is, is not always to the swift. It is to those that persevere.

Jai Hind!

The Four Year Transform

This post has been a while in the mulling, and several news items in yesterday’s newspaper (The Hindu, 11 May 2013) that seem to be of considerable importance as far as we are concerned has prompted me to write.

One item focussed on the comment of the Visitor, the President of India, who said at the convocation of the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow, that he was unhappy with the education given by Central Universities. His drawing attention to the quality of the education, the employability of the graduates is germane, and since he comes hierarchically at the top of the pyramid of all Central Universities, it is necessary for us to take cognizance of the comment. The report adds, editorially, that higher education must be made affordable for students, especially from economically weak background. It should be brought closer to the population by innovative techniques and knowledge-sharing.

The need for innovation seems to be at the heart of a second news item, on Delhi University’s ambitious four-year undergraduate programme that is apparently now a reality with the Executive Council on Thursday approving all the courses, examination schemes and amendments to university ordinances that are required to introduce the new structure from this July onwards. July 2013, that is. This move has also prompted a number of academics and organizations to ask the Visitor’s intervention in this matter, since DU’s decision to implement a four-year undergraduate programme has far ranging consequences.

The central issue is the nature of undergraduate education in India, its form and shape in the near future. Since this has quite obviously an impact on the nature of graduate education, on employment and employability, there is a need for all of us to be engaged in the debate, and not just leave it either to politics or to the powers that be, no matter where they be or what they are.

As is quite well known, the four year format is the norm in the US, and the merits of a flexible curriculum in the US university system as a whole is well documented. Having the youth enter the workforce at the age of 22 or 23 is also desirable, so a degree that would enable the majority to get jobs at this age would be quite welcome. However, the US system has its own internal consistencies, its own system of checks and balances that have been worked out over a long period.

Even in the Indian context, the four year undergraduate programme is not new- the various academies of science have a Science Education Panel that has this structure as an explicit recommendation, and indeed the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore has started a four year programme in the sciences last year. However, the numbers involved are, at the moment, small, and what is offered is a B. Sc. (Honours) degree.

A third news item on the same day, reported that the Government “would not interfere in the Delhi University’s decision to introduce a four-year undergraduate course, but would look into the concerns expressed by some sections. Any decision on deferring the programme by a year would be taken by the University, which was an autonomous institution, it clarified.“

My concerns are less about the nature of the four year programme at Delhi University, and the voices of doom that assure “chaos and academic disaster” at Delhi University if this is implemented from July 2013, and more about what it means to the rest of the country. There have been many op-eds in the papers recently that are specific to the DU experiment, as well as many other blog comments and it is clear that the overall curriculum is not as well thought-out as it might have been. There have been as many voices on the side of change and that is really an internal debate.

When a large and influential university such as DU- and as Indian universities go Delhi University is one of the largest (about 4.5 lakh students) and very very influential- makes such a fundamental change in the structure of it’s undergraduate programme, the MHRD, and more importantly, the University Grants Commission, should be concerned. Very concerned.

There are many ways in which this affects all of us in general, and the UoH in particular. DU students will not get the B. A., B. Sc., B. Com. (or their Honours variants). Instead, the exit options that are being chosen for the Delhi University students is at the end of the second year is that of an Associate Baccalaureate, at the end of the third year, a Baccalaureate, and after four years, a Baccalaureate with Honours in his/her major discipline subject or a B.Tech. degree.

When the Minister for HRD says that “We should not be seen as dictating to them or questioning their wisdom. If they feel comfortable to go ahead, we do not want to come in the way,” one wonders why this coyness? Why not question the wisdom? And is the comfort really as widespread as it is made out? When the Government is so deeply involved in the functioning of Universities- most notably by the manner in which funds are given, or to the point, not given in time- why should the HRD ministry not comment on what is surely one of the more revolutionary moves that has been proposed in the Indian University system? Especially one that appears to be as hastily implemented as this.

It is not about university autonomy and whether the Delhi University academic and executive councils have followed procedures while endorsing the programme. As the President has remarked, for the majority, a University education is really about employability, and the various degrees that DU has put on the platter do not appear to offer any advantage over what exists now, while it does promise to increase the costs of a degree by at least 33%, if not more. And the cost of additional infrastructure (that does not exist in most colleges as of now) is another factor that should be viewed in the context of the low funding that most colleges have in the first place. It is therefore inexplicable why the UGC, which certifies all degrees, has not entered the debate so far.

The change in the school educational system from the 11 year pattern to an 10+2 pattern was an equally momentous one, and while it was generally good for education all around, one system that did not benefit from it was the network of polytechnic institutions in the country, which remain to this day a poor option for those that pass Class 10. I mentioned this in my talk at the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram, at the recent Centenary Celebrations India Today: Looking Back, Looking Forward conference when I had to speak in a session on Science and Education, and was asked specifically to focus on Science, Education and Research: Problems and Prospects. I mentioned that this has resulted in very poor inputs into the industrial and manufacturing sector. Similarly, the introduction of new and poorly conceived degrees should be viewed with some concern, and the employability of persons with two years of college seems, at this time, to be in considerable doubt.

This also impacts two issues that affect us more. The mobility of students has been viewed in recent times as highly desirable and indeed necessary from a purely academic point of view. This move by DU will make it very difficult for their students to move to another university for their subsequent degrees. At the UoH we have greatly benefited by having DU undergraduates enter our Masters programmes. Where the Bac. (Hons) or B. Tech. are going to fit in our system is a moot question. And would they come? And vice versa, when our Masters’ students go to DU, where do they fit in? And even later, will we employ them? Will they employ our graduates?

More to the point, what does this say for undergraduate education in the country as a whole? It is not generally feasible to have parallel systems that are radically different when the numbers involved are so huge. (The business schools are, on this scale, minuscule, and it hardly matters if one institution offers certificates and another offers diplomas- in the end, they both offer brand names and enable very lucrative jobs.) The move by DU will naturally affect all other universities directly or indirectly. Our own five year Integrated Master’s programs are continually being reviewed, and one question that we have been asking is whether there could (or should) be an exit after the third or the fourth year. Maybe it is time to factor in the ongoing changes in the rest of the country into our own discussion as well.

Water, water

As the summer hits us, newspaper headlines such as “Hyderabad’s twin sagars left to dry and disappear” have become all too common. The campus water situation is alarming, and it really needs everyone’s attention. I got a mail recently from a concerned student who had an earnest plea: Please make our wardens and their supporting staff realize their duties.

K Hostel, for instance. Water fills the tank, and then overflows throughout the night, and here are pictures taken at various times to document the fact… As the student says, “You are intelligent enough to calculate the amount of water wasted. Please increase your efforts to bring the university members from their research laboratories or offices to see our daily issues more closely.”

Wardens. Staff. Students… This is our problem, our campus, and it should be our common concern.

Please act! Don’t just watch a tap drip! Like the logo from a conservation advocacy site says, Every drop counts…

Going back

I studied at Loyola College, Madras from 1969 to1972 when I graduated with a B. Sc. in Chemistry. Until last week, when two events took me back there, I had not returned, though I have kept in occasional touch with several of my classmates and many other batch-mates. My years at Loyola were formative, although I should admit that in the callowness of youth, I did not always appreciate just how crucial the discipline of the institution- as well as the freedom it gave me- were. As was the early exposure to a research environment that had nurtured (and been nurtured by) great scholars like Fr. L M Yedannapalli, the physical chemist, and the mathematician, Fr. C Racine – apart from the presence of superb teachers like Klaus Bechtloff, Emmanuel Raja, A V Ramaswamy and N S Gnanapragasam, among others. We keep discussing now whether we should have teachers from outside India in our Universities, but at such institutions then this was not considered much of an issue- Racine was French, Bechtloff was German, and I can also remember an excellent course of lectures on quantum mechanics given by a visiting Belgian, M Mareschal (on the invitation of Dr Gnanapragasam) that was open to all chemistry majors. As I realize more now, those were the good times.

What took me back after all these years was the special ceremony that we organized in order to deliver the Doctor of Science (honoris causa) degree that we had awarded the eminent mathematician C. S. Seshadri in 2012. A collateral advantage was that the same ceremony, we were able to give David Mumford the D. Sc. (h. c.) that we had awarded in 2011. Neither of them is able to travel to Hyderabad to receive the doctorate, so we did the next best thing and went to Loyola College, Chennai. As it happens, Seshadri is an alumnus (as is M S Narasimhan, the other eminent mathematician whom we honoured in 2012 and who spent a few days at UoH in October last year) so it made a lot of sense for us to have the function in the recently built LS Hall at Loyola. A number of eminent mathematicians and other colleagues from a number of institutions- Madras University, Institute of Mathematical Sciences, IIT Madras, Chennai Mathematical Institute, Central University of Tamil Nadu- were there. The ceremony was just about two hours long, and included, in addition to the citation and the degree award, a short seminar on Seshadri’s work and an appreciation of the mentorship of the Rev. Fr. C Racine.

Racine was the moving force that inspired generations of bright students to go into mathematics research. Ordained as a Jesuit priest in1929, he obtained a Ph D in mathematics in Paris in 1934, studying with the finest: his mentors were Élie Cartan and Hadamard and his friends included André Weil and Henri Cartan. From 1939 till his death in 1976, Racine was in Loyola, and I recall seeing him walking in the grounds when I was a student (though he had stopped teaching after his retirement in 1967). Prof. Narasimhan gave a memoir and appreciation of Racine at the function, and here is what I gathered from that talk.

Father Racine had worked with the French mathematicians Hadamard and Élie Cartan and counted among his friends Andre Weil and Henri Cartan among others. More importantly, Racine was well acquainted with the then current trends in mathematics and brought three things to Loyola College, and to Madras University. The first was a new mode of teaching- no rote, no static lectures, a new style of presentation and discussion that engaged the student. The second was the introduction of new courses at the higher levels- something that Madras University had not heard of, a flexible curriculum! And finally, the most important- Racine encouraged his students to go beyond, to find the best places that they could do mathematics in. And so a number of them went to TIFR: K. G. Ramanathan, C. S. Seshadri, M. S. Narasimhan, Raghavan Narasimhan, C. P. Ramanujam…. As well as those who went elsewhere, and that list is even longer…

Going back to Loyola was one way of acknowledging debts, and it reminded me of the Princeton alumni song, “Going Back to Nassau Hall”, the notes of which ring loud every June on the Princeton campus when the alumni gather. 6 April was also the 88th College Day, so I was able to return to Bertram Hall (which I had last seen in 1972 when I wrote the B Sc final paper for Inorganic Chemistry, with sweat flowing freely down my forearm…). The tradition of a strong alumni group, that meets and remembers the value that the institution adds to education is very important, and a good way of recalling ones debts to one’s alma mater. And American universities have learned well to capitalize on the goodwill of this group, the Alumni.

At the UoH we are only slowly beginning to realise the value of forming Alumni Associations and fostering an external support group for the University- after all, the Alumni are the one group that has the highest interest in the standards of the UoH! We recently had Dr Ch Mohan Rao, Director of the CCMB come and share his experiences with us, and earlier, Sri R V Balaram of the IRS did so too. We need to have more of our old students come back and tell us what makes the UoH such an enabling environment, and how we can make it better. I’m sure we already have enough illustrious alumni who can show us just how much can be achieved… We have an Alumni Cell at the University- do write in with your suggestions, here.

Gang aft agley

Recent events, more of a personal nature than public, brought Robert Burns’ To a Mouse to mind. The University lives, as it were, from plan to plan, and like those best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men in the poem, they don’t always work out quite as one wanted. The plan above should really be Plan with the capital P, referring to the Five Year Plans that are overseen by the Planning Commission. We are now into the twelfth (XII) of the Plans that started on April 1, 2012, the date being quite a cruel joke on all of us.

The UoH did well in the XI Plan. Well, in this context, is really in the money that was granted to the University via the UGC and other funding agencies, the total being about Rs. 210 Cr, and one should also count the additional grant that came as a result of the OBC expansion, Rs. 154 Cr. This really enabled the University to dream big, building new hostels, new buildings, new major equipment, new infrastructure, and so on, and the results are there for all to see.

For the XIIth Plan, the UGC and the MHRD initially asked us to dream even bigger, and keeping the then rate of growth of the Indian economy in mind, the Central Universities were asked to project plans that were three or five times the grant we got in the XIth Plan. That’s serious! But that was also at a time when the body politic seemed robust and secure, and also not in a state of limbo as it has seemed to be in the recent past…

Anyhow, we rose to the call and made a XII Plan Proposal that was commensurate with these ambitions. Big plans. But now, when it has come to the implementation stage, there have been subtle (and not so subtle) indications that the budget allocations will be nowhere near as generous as they (or anyone) had hoped… The economy has not been so good, there are massive cuts, everyone is suffering, one “reason” after the other. But more to the point, ten months after the so-called start of the new Plan, we still have no clear idea of what the UoH has been allotted, not in terms of money, not in terms of positions, and not in terms of programmes.

The fact of the matter is, a five year plan period does not really make much sense anymore, least of all for the higher education sector. The world changes too fast in five years, and so do priorities. And five years is not a natural timescale on which anything particular happens in the world of academe, so why quantize it that way? There is no logic to it, and the fact is that by the end of every sacred Plan Period there is always unspent money. (And that accounts for something like Rs 65 Cr out of the 210 that we got in the entire Plan, which comes to nearly one third of the total amount!) I think it would serve us far better if we made proposals for shorter periods – it would help us project our needs better, it would help us to adapt to changing scenarios, and it would help the University to stay competitive instead of locking us into a firm commitment that may eventually evolve into something unrealistic over five years…

One plans and plans, and plans so… and then! Being at a University should prepare one for such uncertainty though. As it happens, I find myself admiring Burns more with the passing years, and seeing through his eyes and words, more of the universality of the human condition. The next stanza of the poem captures perfectly the angst of the moment,

Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e. On
prospects drear! An’ forward, tho’
I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

So what’s Gang aft agley? Och, the sorry fate of the best-laid plans of mice and men…