Young TDC

Older TDC

Was supposed to be an older TDC, but thanks to my poor drawing skills, here's the world's first glimpse at a tribal TDC

P.S: As is painfully obvious, I am bored to my bones. Someone help me!!

I have a decade before I turn 30. This is my wishlist before then:

1. Travel Asia and Europe extensively
2. Perform to a crowd of over 10000
3. Start my own business
4. Make a meaningful social impact
5. Hold my own Photo exhibition
6. Raft on the Brahmaputra
7. Make sure atleast one relationship lasts for more than a month
8. Attend Burning Man
9. Have a cover photo on the National Geographic
10. Attend Ivy League

The Indian Express made my day today with this wonderful headline:

  No Indian Universities in global toplist so UGC has a solution: let's prepare our own list

The article goes on to elaborate how NAAC(National Assessment and Accreditation Council) and UGC(University Grants Commission) are whining about this situation. NAAC says that the criteria used by rankings such as The Times rankings or the Shanghai Academic rankings, is biased and does not take into account social conditions.

I am surprised at the way these bodies are getting worked up about rankings. Granted students do consult rankings while deciding where to study, and so when you are looking to appear as an International educational hub, it does help to have colleges in these lists. But last I checked, India's is going bonkers trying to set up enough IIT's so that a larger section of Indian's can attend these august institutions. So why bother? And social conditions...? If I am a parent looking to send my kids to a college abroad, would I send him to a good college in Afghanistan because it is doing well in the backdrop of violence, social stigma and poverty? Probably not(though I must say I would personally love to attend school in such a context). So, just because India is a developing country, with a huge population, low literacy and poverty, doesn't mean it makes sense to consider these as factors to rank colleges worldwide.

And if the reason for this concern is that you want to be the best, then UGC and NAAC should stop complaining about the rankings being biased on such grounds and figure out what makes the universities that do figure in these lists click.

So the other day, I was walking the roads of BITS Pilani, late at night, with Neeraj, and our conversation came to revolve around how college life in India(atleast at BITS) is only a slight improvement over high school. My personal opinion is that once a person enters college, the society has got to start treating him/her as an adult who is mature and capable enough to take responsibilities for his/her own actions. I simply fail to see the point of treating us like school kids where we have hostel regulations, curfews, moral administering and being reported to our parents for every issue.

Agreed, BITS is more evolved in these issues than most other colleges in India. However, there is so much more that can be improved. For instance, why can't our hostel rooms be treated more like rooms on rent free of patrolling by wardens. Why can't a student enter a class late without the fear of being shouted at? Why can't we walk out of a class to attend a phone call and then come back in and continue the class? Sure, you might say that all this is necessary to churn out better civilians and all other such mojo. But, if you are giving a person the right to drive and vote by 18, shouldn't you also place a little trust on him and let him lead his own life the way he wants to?

To trump it off, our society is headed towards Talibanisation. With the Mangalore attacks and Ashok Gehlot's rants, we are certainly seeing an uprising of sick moral policing. Our society has to start accepting that young men and women cannot be herded around like elementary school kids who need to be molded into decent civilians. Treat us like citizens not kids of citizens.

What do you think?