Pinned post for prospective faculty to IITs/IISc
This is a pinned post for prospective faculty to IITs/IISc. Please, please read this site and the old posts, here, here, here, here, here and here, here also. There are over 5000 comments and replies to these comments in these posts.
3,339 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 3339 Newer› Newest»Why do they advertise on the website then...? its damn ridiculous
IIT Jodhpur is the worst IIT, that's what I heard. The person sitting there believe in argument , not is work. One needs to follow standard procedure rather than methods speculated by him in selection process. Nobody would like to say anything because who likes to take a chance with dtr.The institute will cripple in no time.
I saw in some advertisement saying that at least 3 years post doctoral experience is required? Does it mean that if they hire you, will not hire as regular assistant professor?
Do one need to appear faculty selection committee after completion of 3 years again? How much chances are they fire you ?
If you do not have 3 yrs of post-doc exp the you will be hired on contract (either 2 yrs or 3yrs). They do not fire, you will be regularized once you finish the contract period. I am pretty sure that you do not have to appear before faculty selection committee.
Please wait for others suggestions ...
I would recommend that those who have queries, please go through previous discussions and also Prof Giri's website. Questions like is 3 yr experience required, what pay band will you be hired in etc have been discussed ad nauseum and adequately answered.
I have 2 questions for the foreign candidates (applied from abroad) who have been selected @ IIT-Guwahati / Candidates who appeared for interview:
1) Does IIT-Guwahati conduct interview/seminar through skype for applicants applying from outside India?
2) From the scheduled date of interview how much time approx. did they take to inform the finally selected candidates ?
Thanks in advance.
@Anon 9:47
1. Yes
2. 2 weeks to 2 months
@ Anon July 4, 2012 4:11 PM
I have received an interview call from UGC-FRP in Chemistry. The interview is at JNU campus in Delhi on Jul. 25, 2012. However, I am unlikely to attend the interview.
@ Anon July 4, 2012 8:45 AM
I have already shared INSPIRE interview experience in an earlier post. Please check it there.
@ Vishu,
I am also equally puzzled about DST Fast Track, just like you. After thinking a lot, I have decided to go for a regular DST project for a higher funding. Let me see how it goes.
@ Amit,
Thanks for sharing your experience with TIFR. I also got similar encouraging replies, when I politely declined their invitations for visit/interview, after having accepted the position at IIT.
Regards,
Chris
@ Cris
May I know when you applied for UGC-FRP (chemistry discipline)
@Saswata,
Thanks for the info !
Can you please share your seminar and interview experience @ IIT-Guwahati?
Does anyone have the information whether IIT-Guwahati needs hard copy of referee reports through postal mail (for those applying from abroad)?
Or only direct email to IIT-Guwahati from referees are ok?
Please advise.
@ Anon July 7, 2012 5:54 PM
I applied to UGC-FRP on Jun. 05, 2011.
Chris
@Anon 6:18 and 7:07
I gave both through skype at the same time (seminar followed by interview). The committee asked relevant questions, e.g., subjects that I would like to teach and some nice questions on my research topic.
My referees had sent their reports by email.
[Again, a pinch of salt: faculty recruitment is among a very few rare things that are professionally conducted at IIT Guwahati! At least that's what my experience says.]
@ saswata: Thanks a lot !!
I had an impression that IIT-Guwahati also needs referee report in hard copy. But its not easy to send hard copy of reports from abroad.
Do you think it should be okay if I only ask my referees to send reports through emails?
^ Request the Dean of Faculty Affairs IIT Guwahati that you would like your referee reports to be sent by email. Then, ask your referees to do the same.
@ Saswata:
Thanks a lot ! I think you are right. But I am thinking that the Dean of Faculty Affairs IIT Guwahati is from Physics dept and I am not applying in Physics dept. Do you he will transmit this information to the respective dept that I am applying for ? (I mean should I cc the request to the HOD of the dept I am applying).
^ My referee reports were sent to the Dean of Faculty Affairs, not to the department. Of course, he is supposed to forward it to the department you are applying to!
Thanks saswata !!
Can anyone comment on IIT Mandi work environment and recruitment process? I was surprised to see that some faculty (atleast 2-3) that were hired have already left!
sir, i have got kvpy sx rank 475, what are my chances of getting an offer for ug course
I know some people who left faculty positions at IIT Mandi and joined postdoc abroad ( one such joined ni my institute).
http://www.indiabioscience.org/node/389
this blog maybe of interest to some here
@Cris
Congrats and also thanks for your information. Do you know upto which cut-off date applications they have considered for shortlisting the candidates for UGC-FRP interview.
I too applied, but I haven't received any interview call letter.
I think they called atleast first two batches (last dat sep 30). My wife uploaded the application on29th sep and got interview letter (chem).
@Chris
You are thinking in right direction. Go for a normal DST project and ditch the idea of FAST (it is not fast anyway) especially if you are applying for engineering track. At my time I did not know that but now that is my advice to others.
@Giridhar and @Chris
THanks for the info on DST-not-so-FAST-TRACK! I think I should go for regular grant.
Like IIT Mandi (as mentioned above), there were atleast 2 faculty members at IIT Gandhinagar during 2009, who had been terminated later, or they had decided to move away, which one is correct is not known to me, but the fact is they are no longer faculty of IIT Gandhinagar. So looks like that new IIT's are having not only getting new faculty but also the retention problems already. :-)
Retention is big challenging issue. The selection committee don't understand this point well (at least in my opinion). Because the time these professor hired (in 80 and 90s), opportunities are not much either.So they need to settle down for their life wherever they got the opportunity.I think these IIXs should have foresight regarding tacking this future burning issue.
anons above
IIT Gandhinagar, something not right internally. The physics dept has just ONE regular faculty and one joining (on website). This after 4 years of operation. Some time back, I noted 4-5 faculties there, all of them quit.
Does anyone know why so many people left.
Simple. In IIT- Godsenagar, to survive, you need a Ph.D from IIT Bombay..otherwise, you are considered no good. The dean left recently to become faculty in IIT-Bombay !
From what I heard (first hand), IIT Gandhinagar is currently offering positions on contract (for 2 years) to all candidates. The positions are supposed to be regularized (made permanent) after this period. But instead of regularizing, they are just extending the contract by another two years. Not many people would want to live in this kind of uncertainty. On the other hand, some of the candidates called for the interview there said that they found the selection process of IIT Gandhinagar to be one of the most rigorous. Incidentally, none of these cadidates were PhDs from IIT Bombay. Not sure whether they took up the offers :)
anons above
I understand dean was already professor in IIT Gandhinagar. Perhaps he is on deputation. please check again.
Several professors/deans in IIT Gandhinagar are on deputation from IIT Bombay for a fixed period. They return to their parent institute once their tenure in IIT Gandhinagar is over.
There is a good chance that they (at IIT Gandhinagar) are currently getting scientists from PRL take physics lectures.
To be fair to them, they have recruited several outstanding candidates, some of them let tenure track at good research universities to join.
Of course in a new place with a temporary campus, there will be problems, but lets not be so negative guys!!
anon above,
Agree with you. But would a candidate having two options, one with (2-year contract) at IIT-Gr and with another IIX on standard regularization terms, consider the IIT-Gr offer seriously ?
At the early stage, teaching load on the smaller number of faculties may be an issue.
This is what happens when Indians blindly copy something from the west. Giving just 2 years to faculty members (without any support of Ph. D. students or quality labs) to prove themselves is ridiculous. In the USA, they give 6 years to non-tenured faculty members with excellent research support. In India, the sanction of a DST grant itself may take 2 years. Under these circumstances, the Directors are exploring and wasting young talents in the country. Have anyone tried to find out the H-index of IIT Directors themselves? Please do a little search, and you would be shocked! (It varies from 3 to 29 with a mean around 8!).
Details:
Gautam Barua-3,
S.G. Dhande-7,
D. acharya-5,
desai-10,
Pradeep mathur-15,
Surrappa-13,
S.K. Jain-10,
Madhusudan-17,
Bhowmick-29, etc. etc..
And these people decide the future of our country. Isn't it a shame?
Anon above:
Can you post the h-index of directors of old IITs??
I hear that the h-index of directors of IISc and IISERs is very high. I think anything above 25 is very good, irrespective of the field.
Barua, dhande, achariya are directors of old iits. They form an evil triangle supported by their grandfather Kapil Sibal. Each one is corrupt to the core, and doesn't understand research. Their h-indices show their caliber. The other directors are not much better either. Jain has a H-index of 10, and he asks new faculty to leave after 2 years! Barua decided the JEE format! Achariya decides AICTE affiliation! Dhande steals the medical benefits of the poor laborers at IITK! Shameless directors ruining the country!
It is true that initially and even now a few faculty at IIT Gandhinagar were/are on deputation from IIT Bombay, as mentor institute for this new IIT. But the above reference of quiting or terminating faculty at IIT Gandhinagar was referred to their own recruited faculties, not those who were on deputation, for e.g. one of the dean from physics who was originally from IIT Bombay and now back there and a dean there now. As can be seen from website, it looks that IIT Gandhinagar prefers to get work from 'Visiting Faculty' more than the regular faculty. Look at the website, most of those visiting faculties are mostly from IITB or IITK (director's parent institute). Also it was surprising to note that in previous semester they had a B.Tech. graduate from IITK with designtation mentioned as 'Teaching Faculty' which no other IIT dares to have. This semester he is not there though. So it follows some of Indian universities culture where we can find fresh B.Tech. graduates to teach courses. So it's really alarming, and only probably GOD knows how they will match IIT's criteria in future, if at all, unless some motivated good PhD candidates are recruited with respectable positions (i.e. without throwing them out after 1/2 years etc.).
I came to know about IIT GN- many faculty are not happy. They are planning to exit as soon as get an opportunity. Actually director is dreaming to make institute at par with Stanford in 2-3 decades ( I heard from IITGN faculty). One should understand that this time period is too short to do such things. He himself has not become top notch faculty in 2 decades whilst working in a such fine institution IIT K, I now understand how people engage themselves in daydreaming.However, I agree one should see big dream and big pictures. Unless foundation is strong enough, structure will go away sooner or later.
@July 9, 2012 4:44 AM,
You are right that 2-3 yrs is too short to convert into Stanford !!
But what I dont understand, is what is forcing the IIT GN faculties to quit ?? Is it due to some pressure or unfair demands of the Director ...??????
It is the stupidiest way to talk about Directors. How does h-index matter? If h-index is a criteria, the blog host should the director!
If a director himself does not have a high h-index, how can such a director expect good research output from the new faculty members? Most IIT directors are obedient to Kapil Sibal, that's the only necessary qualification!
Why can't Prof. Giri become the director of some institute? Just because he doesn't have political connections? His H-index is more than the sum of the h-indices of IIT Kgp, Kanpur, Guwahati, Gandhinagar and Roper! And we know that he is efficient, and supports young faculty members. What more does one need to do to become a director in a fair system?
Barua, Dhande, Achariya will not even be considered for a good postdoctoral position in the united states. They become the directors here in India. LOL
HI;
I should say my overall experience with IITM went on well. I contacted a Professor who was working in my area and interacted with him for few months. He invited me for a presentation at IITM. They advised me to apply online when the faculty announcement is placed on web. I applied and was invited to Interview. I did this Via Skype since I have already visited the place. The Seminar and talk went on smoothly. No absurd questions about teaching Etc., The questions were constrained to my research. Therefore personally I feel it is good to interact with the faculty before applying.
Regards
I think one should not talk here about directors. Everybody know what they are and how to become director via MHRD.
^ Government should find a way to stop young faculty members being exploited by sadist directors (not all are bad, though). This OCAP position is turning out to be a disaster in Indian system.
@ All successful Inspire aspirants..
Could any body suggest that how many peoples will be there in interview panel?
Another query is.
Inspire interview is more of technical or general question about candidate's research are asked by interview panel?
Please do reply!!
Does anybody has any news on the Ramanujan fellowship results for 2012 ?
Thanks in advance
I think, it is right not to raise the topic of Directors here in this forum. This is only mean to discuss topics for prospective faculties recruitment process/research grants etc.
By the way, I have noticed that someone posted "But what I dont understand, is what is forcing the IIT GN faculties to quit ??"
Can someone reply to this please. Its a good question.
Though I may think it is right not to raise the topic of Directors here in this forum, it is not up to me to control what people say. However, my request is to keep my name out of it.
Thanks
Giridhar
@Anon 6:23
"This is only mean to discuss topics for prospective faculties recruitment process/research grants etc."
Come on, do you think that Directors are not relevant to faculty recruitment and retention? Your career will be ruined if you get a poor quality director on top of you. A number of faculty members have left Kgp, Ghandinagar and Ghy for this particular reason. Kanpur senate is strong, and director doesn't have much influence on the faculty members there. He shows his power on poor construction laborers only.
@ Anon July 8, 2012 11:47 PM
Informative note on the h-index of the IIT directors. Wish you had included the complete list of all directors.
@ Anon July 9, 2012 1:42 PM
Thanks for sharing your IITM experience. Wish you the best in selection!
@ Prof. Giridhar,
I appreciate your comment and the freedom of expression you provide to the visitors of your forum.
Regards,
Chris
Directors need not be great researchers themselves. There is no correlation that a good researcher will make a good director. In how many US universities do you find Provosts or Presidents to be really great researchers themselves. Normally they are reasonably good tenured faculty members with a panache towards administration and some vision.
My experience may be limited, but I always thought Directors/Presidents of a university need to display more administrative acumen than research acumen. For example, a lot of US universities have presidents from humanities/arts background with very less h-index, but that has nothing to do with the research output of that school. For example, my university OSU's president is a guy from humanities background who has absolutely nothing to do with science/engineering research. But a lot of professors in physics, materials science and biology departments from OSU publish in Nature and Science all the time !
Besides, if an excellent researcher is put into core administrative position, then he/she will be overburdened and unable to do top quality research and so h-index might stagnate. Nothing unusual about it !!
Nath, you are not right. Look at the directors of IISERs and IISc. Their directors of decent h-index and also manage their institutes.
In US, it is different. Here, directors control recruitment to various departments and should have the ability to judge research. If they have not done research in their prime, how can they judge others?
Good researchers should be a pre-requisite for administration in academics. They need not have the highest h-index in the institution but something decent.
@Digbijoy
In the USA, how much do the provosts/presidents interfere with faculty recruitment and retention? Please don't compare the USA with the Indian system. If you do, then first give equal facilities to young faculty members.
Can anyone in the forum update about the IIT BBS faculty shortlisting/interview call in basic sciences.
Thanks
@Saswata,
I'm offered a OCAP position in IIT Guwahati and planning to join in few months time leaving my job in UK. Your comments about IIT Ghy being unprofessional made me very apprehensive. Can you please elaborate?. Thanks
@Pi Raj
Email me at saswata DOt sh AT iitg DOT ernet DOT in
I am sorry But I should ..Can somebody explain what is this 'OCAP position'?
OCAP is almost an anagram of CRAP. Actually, it stands for "On contract Assistant Professor"!
Dear IIT Sriram,
Can we contact IITM HOD for results, before July 19??
@ Saswata
lolzzz..liked your comment very much
"OCAP is anagram of CRAP" ..Blogs must have "like option" also as well like Facebook :-)
An old IIT Director (ex-1970s) commented that if good researchers do not take up positions as directors in IITs, they will come to be governed by useless people, who in turn will recruit more useless people.
That is what is happening now.
"IIT Ghy being unprofessional made me very apprehensive"....why is IIT-Ghy unprofessional..please share your experience
I though saswata said IIT-Guwahati is Professional !!
^
I told that IIT Guwahati is professional ONLY during the recruitment!
@ Saswata:
ONLY during recruitment !! Amazing ...
Tell us about your experiences wrt the unprofessional behavior faced @ IITG??
Hi all,
Is the "Ramalingaswami" fellowship ad for this year is out yet ?
Thanks
Rp
@Anon 7:39
Email me at saswata DOT sh AT iitg DOT ernet DOT in
I am going to offer some unsolicited advice (AGAIN) to those who post on this forum using their real names. Think carefully about how your post may be interpreted and write responsibly. Remember that all your wisdom and brain farts will be archived and indexed by Google search-bots for all eternity. If you write using your real name, don't put anything down in writing that you wouldn't tell your colleagues in a "formal" group meeting.
If you are upset about something happening at your home institution please post about it - you are likely to find good support/advice from other members of this forum. If you are a young faculty member it's always advisable to blow the whistle anonymously unless you are really bored and itching to spice up your life in academia.
Anon Uncle
(Uncleji really cares about those who will carry the torch into the future)
@ Anon Uncleji,
There is no harm to share the experiences if its genuine. People will appreciate such things sooner or later. Though, It might be possible there are some crooks may take advice in wrong way.
Anyway your unsolicited advice may help some of the people who participate in this forum.
Is Anonymous also traceable?
@I agree with Anon Uncle! Its best to vent out your frustration with your close colleagues, and do something about it at your place to change things (even if it is small) than to announce in a public blog.
@anon_friend,
It helps aspiring faculty candidates to know about the ground reality in different institutions. What is wrong in letting them know about the problems through a blog? When you visit an institute everyone will tell you only about the good things. So this blog in the only place to find out about the other point of view.
I appreciate anon-uncle's advice though. The backlash can be high in the Indian academic scenario.
Is there any indication from DST when they will announce the latest Ramanujan Fellowship results? Apparently the selection committee had been held way back, before the Pune meeting..
QS Ranking of IITs.....
http://www.indiaeducationreview.com/news/india-slips-qs-rankings-iit-b-iit-delhi-only-saving-grace
a Ramanujan fellowship 2012 applicant awaiting results (any other info.)
For all these fellowships/grant applications, at the time of advertisement itself, there should be a timeline set, at the time of advertisement itself. All info for the candidates, with respect to the timeline, like the last date for receipt of applications to be considered for August batch etc. should be pasted on a “unique” fellowship webpage. This introduces transparency, for the implementing agency/“organizers” and for the candidates themselves. This is just for the application part and should be very easy to implement.
Consider the situation now:
1) We know via this blog forum (a “third party”) that the results has been decided. This was apparently told by the
DST personal “in-charge” of the fellowship at a meeting of the present fellowship holders in May.
2) Somebody in this blog pointed out earlier that the results are expected in July beginning, raising the hopes of all candidates
to get an answer (affirmative or otherwise) and plan accordingly.
3) Now we sort of “rely” on this forum to get any “insider info” on the fellowship details which should be in the public domain anyway!
As a would be a “permanent” faculty, I urge all academic admisistrators to make all “systems” transparent. Not only is this easy to do,
It increases the efficiency (and “user experience”) of the whole system manifolds. In addition transparency works as a safeguard against laziness/“burial of files” and possibly against some wrong doing/corruption (not the right word) as well.
Now, does anybody has any info on the Ramanujan fellowship 2012 results ? Has anybody managed to call the person “in-charge” ?
I am really pained to hear all these insults at IIT Directors. I request prospective faculty not to be swayed by the foul comments of a few disgruntled faculty in IITs (all are posting anonymously, you will notice).
I am also pained at Saswata's comments on IITG. He has been at IITG for only 7 months, and he writes as if he knows everything. Right now he is fighting with the Dean Academic as he wants to pay a PhD student 37K p.m. out of which IITG is to pay 17K and the balance from his Ramanujan Schol. When it was mentioned that this is not allowed, he is insisting that his reading of the ordinances are more accurate than the Dean's. You will be surprised to find the number of faculty he has insulted and alienated in IITG, and even in his own Dept (CSE). And yet we have not taken any action against him (he is a CRAP, as he calls it). If he sends you negative info about IITG, give me a chance to respond by sending me an email.
As for my H index, "anon" thank you for the information. I did not know it, and I thought I did not even have one. My academic achievements are nothing much to write home about, and you can find more details of my non-performance in my web page. However, please compare my performance with my peers in CSE in the country and not with researchers in other fields. Further, let me inform you that I regularly teach, and in the student feedback of the course I taught last semester (Advanced OS: 80 students), my mean overall rating was 4.83 and the mode was 5 (out of 5). The dept mean was 3.97. I have the confidence to assert that I am one of the top experts in Operating Systems in country (my poor H index and publication record notwithstanding!).
I am proud that I am not corrupt and I try my best to be objective in all my dealings.
We are hiring continuously at IITG, and we allow automatic transition from OCAP to regular after three years of post-phd-submission experience. We have Physics selections on 28 July, and CSE on 4th August. It is not too late to apply to either.
Gautam Barua
Director IIT Guwahati
The person Incharge of ramanujan fellowships is DR SS Kohli. I do not know if he responded to anyone in the blog. But, he never ever responded to my emails or phone calls. I'n really surprised why he took incharge or DST gave him responsibility to an inefficient person. I can understand not responding to emails for the same reason , but they can easily update in the website about
the recent developments so that nobody will be bothered to ask him.
@Prof. Barua
The following is the email that I send to prospective faculty members who email me. Counter it here if you can.
----------------------------------------
Dear X,
You will face a few problems along with a few blessings here at IIT Guwahati. As you have already experienced, faculty recruitment was quite professional. The campus is the most beautiful in India. Teaching load would not be much.
Coming back to the cons: finding good quality Ph. D. students would be a serious problem. The institute doesn't allow to pay top-up salary even if you arrange your own fund. Purchasing anything and making indents would be a nightmare due to bureaucracy. The administration is extremely slow and go through pre-historic notions (things that can be done over an email in 2 minutes would take a week at least due to the requirement of writing hard-copy letters forwarded through XYZ).
Other cons of IIT Guwahati for which the institute administration can't be blamed: finding a job for your spouse (if you are married) would be a problem, And, connectivity of Guwahati is a serious bottleneck. Add to this the government regulation of allowing faculty members to fly through Air India only (except exceptional cases).
# I end the email with other relevant comments depending on the type of query I get.
----------------------------------------
Please wake up to the expectation of young faculty members, rather than holding on to your ego that everything is perfect in the Indian academic system and at IITG.
Regarding the Ph. D. top-up salary, let me clarify that I am not fighting for a total salary of 37K, but for a total salary of 27K out of which 18K would be given by the institute. This is perfectly supported by the institute ordinance (clause 3.7 of http://www.iitg.ernet.in/saswata.sh/ScholarshipOrdinance.pdf). However, it's not my fault that the Dean can't understand something written clearly.
Readers of this blog can understand themselves by reading the ordinance.
"The number of faculty he has insulted and alienated in IITG, and even in his own Dept (CSE)"...what can I say except taking it as a joke? Also, there is no point replying to subjective comments.
Since you take pride in student-feedback rating, let me mention that my student feedback rating was not bad either (mean 4.73, mode 5). On what basis, would you then call me a CRAP (not that I mind, still asking the basis)?
Finally, I never requested you to not take any action against me. Neither, I am afraid of your actions. Irrespective of what you do and threaten to do, my understanding of Indian academic system and IITG will remain the same. As a Director, you are holding a great position to bring more transparency and efficiency in the system. Use that position for the betterment of the system, rather than to show power over your faculty members. Promoting IITG through blogs is not enough, you must take concrete steps to bring up the institute in world ranking (IIT Guhawati is down from 82 to 89 as per the latest QS ranking), even though you might consider research to be a less serious activity (as identified by your comment that you didn't know that you have an H-index!) to be done in your institute. New faculty members like me do consider research as an important thing, in addition to teaching. If you make your institute policies accordingly, it would be helpful to everyone.
Thanks,
Saswata
P.S. (@Anon uncle) Although I like your suggestion, I am still not going to hide in an anonymous mode, as it gives a false feeling to every Director that the disgruntled anon faculty member doesn't belong to his institute. They will not bother to improve the system and remain in the mode of denial.
I wrote to Dr. Kohli last year enquiring about my eligibility for a Ramanujan fellowship. I got a reply within a few hours.
Dear Prof. Barua,
We were encouraged by your words at various blogs that IIT Guwahati processes applications proactively. However when we made a query, no reply came back.
Could you indicate the person responsible in IIT-G, who can reply to queries regarding recruitment.
Best,
Dear Prof. Barua,
Thank you for clearing up the issue. I appreciate your sincere efforts. I know that IITG is a very good institute.
Could you please let me know, how many days before the interview, is the candidate informed about his selection for interview/seminar? Is it fine, if the complete softcopy of the application package is emailed to the Dean of Faculty affairs (before sending in the hardcopy through airmail) ?
Thanks in advance.
Today I talked to Mr. Kohli regarding the Ramanujan fellowship results for 2012.
He indicated that the results would be communicated to the host institutes of the respective candidates within 10 days or so.
Unlike some other negative remarks regarding Mr. Kohli, he sounded very accessible to me.
I replied to Prof. Barua's comments, but it has been deleted!
Look at the unprofessionals in INDIA. Both the Director and Faculty fighting in a common forum unable to settle this at home institute. Really surprising !
Saswata, Who deleted your comments? Is is the blog host?
@Prof. Barua
Why are you so pained when it came to your fellow peers - the director's club? I believe, only facts were being stated. Every young faculty is put through the same procedure by so called expert professors and directors. We are also asked for our h-index and citations.
I am stating this, because I am going through this process and have got offers from IITs. I would also like to mention that I am reluctant in joining IITs because of the arrogance of the directors which is quite evident in the whole recruitment process.
@ Annon July 11, 2012 8:49 PM
Please note that the faculty members are not fighting but they are discussing their problems with their peers. It is the "pained" director who has started the argument without failing to mention that young faculty member is too naive (7 months experience) and CRAP.
Prof Barua, your subjective judgement of Saswata apart, there is a concrete point here that he is making which I would request you to address. The ordinance clearly says that a top-up up to 1.5 times the institute assistantship is allowed. Which means paying a student 1.5*18k=27k, is perfectly ok. What exactly is it that he is doing wrong?
Overall, what Saswata is saying is disturbing. It creates an impression that IITG administration is whimsical and the place is a banana republic of sorts, where even a written ordinance is not respected. I am afraid this would scare away future faculty/student applicants and IITG will get nowhere.
When I saw saswata suggesting people to email him, I wanted to respond that they could email me too (iitmsriram at gmail) for a counterpoint. In my estimate Saswata is a disgruntled faculty member and his director has been incredibly restrained in response. Saswata has been with an IIT for a few months and I seriously doubt he can offer advise that might be of use to prospective faculty members of IITs. Not to say that everything is hunky dory at every IIX, but there are many things that work and there are many ways to get things to work. India is not US or Europe and things work differently. If you want everything to work just like in the US, well, be in the US. If you are interested in being a faculty member at an IIX then this blog may come in handy (for prospective faculty to IITs / IISc, duh). I am not sure how h index of directors and such other director bashing has anything to do with the purpose of this blog other than to contribute to the noise to signal ratio.
iitmsriram = dean (administration) at IITM
Dear IIT Sriram ,
How would you judge Saswata as disgruntled faculty.
Have you met him or worked with him. You just read what he posted. Just this is unacceptable.Calling a faculty "CRAP" by a responsible Director is really getting me on nerves. We know that INDIA is not US by the way :). Who are you to suggest people not to comeback to INDIA.
That too as young Academic. afterall you and me are working on tax payers money. You just want to continue the old system with out facing Strong young faculty to oppose your decisions. If directors do not care H index why each faculty is asked to say how many Publications he has with what Impact factor journal. I thought Directors should set as an example to fellow faculty. How many email exchanges did Saswata and Barua had before the director said he is CRAP. please director change your attitude, who oppose your decisions are not CRAP or who support you are intelligent. You already lost support for a common JEE , I guess you will not lose the young faculty support.
@iitsriram
If you do not want young faculty to come back from USA or Europe then why do your directors keep going to western countries for faculty recruitment, e.g recent visit of IIT directors to Stanford.
And if you can not provide same facilities then why young faculties are judged on US scale (putting them on contract).
The whole OCAP thing happened because the majority of senior faculty in IITs (many of them are now serving as dean/directors) did not work and they had no answer when Kapil Sibal asked for their output. Even today any accountability or performance evaluations at Professor level are straight forwardly rejected. All such things happen at AP level only. Senior faculties of today's have been having fun for last many decades and now when hard statistics is put to them (h-index, citations etc.) they feel pain and the young faculty dare to do so becomes the disgruntled one.
If teaching scores (which by no means reflect scholarship, depth or creativity) can be discussed and flaunted, why not h-indices?
Many young faculty do look for role models and judge colleagues and administrators based on their achievements as researchers. Although h-index does not measure administrative abilities, it does reflect on whether the administrator has "been there, done that" as a researcher. Such an administrator is quite likely to be sympathetic to research oriented faculty. In short, I don't think these discussions h-index are at all irrelevant.
I didn't save my earlier comment which has been deleted, and therefore I am again reposting some of the comments I had written earlier.
1. I pointed out that it's perfectly within the institute rule to ask for a top-up of Rs. 9,000 from my own fund along with an institute support of Rs. 18,000 per month for Ph.D. students. (I am asking for a total Ph.D. salary of Rs. 27,000 per month, not Rs. 37,000 as Prof. Barua is suggesting.) My only purpose of requesting this was to attract better Ph.D. student to the institute. (I am not asking it keeping any particular student in mind.) However, the Dean interpreted this clause as "No top-up is allowed with institute assistantship as the primary assistantship"! What's my fault if the Dean doesn't abide by something written in the ordinance?
Interested readers can read clause 3.7 of http://www.iitg.ernet.in/saswata.sh/ScholarshipOrdinance.pdf
2. I pointed out that I got an excellent teaching evaluation as well in my first course itself (mean 4.73, mode 5). Therefore, I wanted why the Director would think me as a CRAP, given that he values students' feedback a lot and gets marginally better than me after 20+ years of teaching. (However, let me mention here that the students here unanimously say that he is an excellent teacher.)
3. I also posted the reply that I give to prospective faculty members before they join IIT Guwahati. The purpose of it was to let Prof. Barua respond to my emails to prospective faculty members (he himself wanted to get a chance to respond).
@iitsriram
"In my estimate Saswata is a disgruntled faculty member"
According to the students, I am one of the most cheerful faculty members on campus. I am doing reasonably well with research and teaching as well. However, I am indeed disgruntled with the unprofessionalism present in the Indian academic system, and especially at IIT-G. Whenever I point out something wrong to the administrators here in my institute, I either get no reply or am asked to visit a psychiatrist (the last one is from Prof. Barua, who else?). This forces me to write my complaints here in this blog, although I don't really enjoy doing that a lot!
Since my post also got "lost" and I hadn't saved it, I sent in another one (which has not got posted). I think this one is better penned and may answer some of the queries. But I do not want to get into a debate on this. I was only reacting to personal attacks on IIT Directors (and so me too) and what I perceive is Saswata's attempts to deride IITG while still remaining a faculty member. He may think he is being objective, but I feel his "objectivity" can send the wrong message, and so I felt I needed to respond. I have many issues with the email reply he has sent to others, but I will let it pass as I have made my point. I have no wish to engage in further discussions on this topic. Please do go ahead with your discussions.
Anyone has any queries, email to director@iitg.ernet.in.
I am really pained at the insults to IIT Directors. I request prospective faculty to not be influenced by the comments of a few disgruntled faculty (all of whom have commented anonymously: or maybe only one).
I am pained by the comments of Saswata of IITG in this blog. He has been at IITG for just 7 months and he writes as if he knows everything about the system. Right now he is threatening the Dean of Academic of sending him an RTI request wanting to know the interpretation of the word “plus” in an ordinance of IITG. This, after the Dean has already informed him that as per the ordinance, his request (some request) cannot be granted. He is arguing that “plus” is commutative even when used in an English sentence! He has insulted and alienated a number of faculty in the Institute. He keeps referring to the “arrogant Director” of his. In spite of all this, and in spite of the fact that he is a CRAP faculty (to use his terminology), we haven’t taken action against him so far. I feel he needs counselling (as some of you seem to be doing here).
As regards my H index, “anon”, thanks for providing it. I did not even know that I had one. My research output is not great, but please compare me with my peers in CS in my age group. More details of my poor record can be found in my web page. I have nothing to hide. I teach regularly, and in the last course I took last semester (Advanced OS: 80 students), in the student feedback, I got a rating of 4.83 (mean) and 5.0 (mode) with a Dept. mean of 3.97 (out of 5). I have the confidence to assert that I am one of the top experts in Operating Systems in the country, even now, after so many years in administration.
I am proud to state that I am not corrupt and I do my best to be objective and fair in all my dealings.
IIT Guwahati is hiring continuously and the next selections are on July 28 (Physics), and Aug 4 (CSE). It is not too late to apply for these. We automatically upgrade a faculty from OCAP to regular after three years of post Phd-submission experience (at IITG or elsewhere).
I didn't save my earlier comment which has been deleted, and therefore I am again reposting some of the comments I had written earlier.
1. I pointed out that it's perfectly within the institute rule to ask for a top-up of Rs. 9,000 from my own fund along with an institute support of Rs. 18,000 per month for Ph.D. students. (I am asking for a total Ph.D. salary of Rs. 27,000 per month, not Rs. 37,000 as Prof. Barua is suggesting.) My only purpose of requesting this was to attract better Ph.D. student to the institute. (I am not asking it keeping any particular student in mind.) However, the Dean interpreted this clause as "No top-up is allowed with institute assistantship as the primary assistantship"! What's my fault if the Dean doesn't abide by something written in the ordinance?
Interested readers can read clause 3.7 of http://www.iitg.ernet.in/saswata.sh/ScholarshipOrdinance.pdf
2. I pointed out that I got an excellent teaching evaluation as well in my first course itself (mean 4.73, mode 5). Therefore, I wanted why the Director would think me as a CRAP, given that he values students' feedback a lot and gets marginally better than me after 20+ years of teaching. (However, let me mention that the students here unanimously say that he is an excellent teacher.)
3. I also posted the reply that I give to prospective faculty members before they join IIT Guwahati. The purpose of it was to let Prof. Barua respond to my emails to prospective faculty members (he himself wanted to get a chance to respond).
@iitsriram
"In my estimate Saswata is a disgruntled faculty member"
According to the students, I am one of the most cheerful faculty members on campus. I am doing reasonably well with my teaching ans research as well. However, I am indeed disgruntled with the unprofessionalism present in the Indian academic system, and especially at IIT-G. Whenever I point out something wrong to the administrators here in my institute, I either get no reply or am asked to visit a psychiatrist (the last one is from Prof. Barua, who else?). This forces me to write my complaints here in this blog, although I don't really enjoy doing that a lot!
I mostly agree with Ankur's comment above @10:43 PM. In India, for IIT system, directors and even deans positions are MOSTLY political rather than on academic excellence. But there are few exceptions, for e.g. look at CV of IITB and IISc Directors, who are really scholars in their field and they have proven excellent research records whom a young faculty will love to follow. But majority are not in the same line. So, in India this change is a must. Also a true yearly evaluation of full professors is necessary like APs, because many of full profs stop 'research' after becoming professor and concentrate on consultancy, politics to hold administrative positions etc. Good teachers can be found in several universities and colleges also in India, but it's rather difficult to find good researchers there, which makes IITs different from them. But many professors of IITs forget that and try to encash only on student's evaluation and teaching capability and forget research output, h-index etc.
Last anon:
In IISc and IISERs, the unwritten rule is that the director should be a Bhatnagar awardee.
300th comment !!
Guys, lets us all stand back for a few minutes and cool off. This type of discussions with personal attacks and finding fault with everyone is leading us nowhere.
New faculty, please realize that things are evolving here. When you insult someone, they get defensive and the point you are trying to highlight takes a backseat.
In the olden days, research was not encouraged at IITs, therefore not all old professors have decent h-indices etc. However, now since more people are willing to come back to India, competition has increased for faculty positions, so it is obvious that the credentials needed from applicants will be higher!
We all want the infrastructure and support system for research to improve, (and it has improved over the years) but rather than attacking directors and creating a bad atmosphere, let us focus on how to advance our research.
This is what happens if 'mirror' is shown to few administrative position holders who used to think great about themselves without proper juding based on same platform with young colleagues i.e. when they were at that position atleast. Very often many of our 'rulers' forget to stand in front of mirror to judge them and think they are all decision makers and rulers just because of their mostly political positions and can do whatever they like to the younger colleagues. But time is changing in India also. It's a good sign.
@Anon 1:19
"...rather than attacking directors and creating a bad atmosphere, let us focus on how to advance our research."
I was doing that by trying to attract quality Ph.D. students through top-up salary as per written institute rules, but the director and dean has stonewalled the plan! Now that I have threatened to file an RTI, they are re-reading the rules made by themselves!
This is one example where attacking the director is an option to effectively do your research!
Dear Prof Barua,
"I am proud to state that I am not corrupt and I do my best to be objective and fair in all my dealings"
Its Ok. You don't have to be proud that your not corrupt. Your doing your duty.You can be proud of your research and administrative capabilities/acheivements
Best
@ Saswata and others,
Can someone please let me know, how many days before the interview, is the candidate informed about his selection for interview/seminar? Is it fine, if the complete softcopy of the application package is emailed to the Dean of Faculty affairs (before sending in the hardcopy through airmail) because the email id provided does not let the files to go through due to size limitation?
I would just like to write my view that mediocres of present generation are smarter than mediocres of past generation. There is nothing to feel proud for someone for their past or present.
Nothing personal here for anyone. Just my view which may also hold in many other fields.
@Anonymous July 12, 2012 2:38 AM
"Its Ok. You don't have to be proud that your not corrupt. Your doing your duty. You can be proud of your research and administrative capabilities/acheivements."
I guess it would be other way round. You don't need to feel proud for your research and administrative capabilities/achievements as you are getting paid for doing that from tax payers money. Being non-corrupt in current era could be a matter to feel proud but then one don't advertise that.
Since we are talking of administration, I was wondering... These it is quite common for IITs to invite faculty from universities world-wide to give talks or colloquia about their research. Has any IIT considered inviting university administrators to possibly learn the best practices in university administration?
It seems like there is a belief that administratively things are merely "different" in India, not worse. This view needs a reality check.
@iitsriram
You talk a lot about US and India. Regarding recent interview, why do not you put the name of candidates called for interview on IITM website. Let everybody know how things happen? It is interesting to see whether you put the name of selected candidate on the website in near future or not? I suggest one should try to make ones home better before commenting on others home?
@Prof Barua
I am total unable to digest that IIT Director does not know about h-index. In fact, this shows the status of research in India. IIT Selection committee should stop asking the questions regarding publications and h-index. I was asked in all my interviews regarding my publications. Surprising, I had teaching experience before my PhD and nobody asked questions regarding that.
Anyone have idea about Inspire factuly schemes 3rd advertisement?
when it will be posted?
@ankur kulkarni wonders "It seems like there is a belief that administratively things are merely "different" in India". One big difference is that in India we do not seem to believe in the cadre of academic administrators as distinct from academics. This may work when the institutions are small, but if you have a few hundred faculty members and several hundred non-academic staff, running the institution becomes a full time job for a number of academics who get drawn into the administrative stream and something has to give - teaching or research or projects, something. Institutions which do not have large teaching programs (IISc, IISER) can escape this at least partly as the teaching load is not a large work fraction, to start with - but you will almost always see some drop in the research productivity. Administrators in the UG teaching loaded institutions end up choosing what to give up - many give up research, some stop teaching. Giving up teaching is sometimes a difficult decision as UG teaching is one of the key things that draws many to these institutions in the first place (may not be true in present times). Yes, many things administrative need improvement, but I don't think it will happen overnight by firing all current administrators.
And, to the anon who wants to see the list of candidates called for faculty interviews, there is a privacy issue especially in relation to the current employers of these candidates, so IITM has decided not to put this up for public. But every applicant who logs on the applications portal gets a message indicating whether he/she has been shortlisted. We are currently debating whether to put up the list of selected candidates.
Thanks iitmsriram. In short there is a need for specialists in university administration and academics improvising as administrators is not sufficing. Where do well-run universities find these administrators? Do they look within academia or without? And do they necessarily look within academic staff of the institution concerned? Presumably, the skills required are not bestowed by any standard degree. As IITs get more complex, I think they will have to look for specialists.
I am a very new faculty in one old IIT and have greatly benefited from this blog and its discussion.
With all these bad blood flowing around, I made a quick check for the H-index of GBarua and while I am not sure what is his H-index, but it certainly is more than 3, as can be seen from a quick glance. The comparison of H-index of IIT directors (mostly from Tech depts) with those of IISER/IISc (from science depts) is unfair. All around, science depts publish more papers than tech depts. There may be exceptions but they are what they are.
In my view, thank God they dont give director position to the people with higher value of certain one-dimensional parameter we call H-index. Administration is a different ball game and has to be dealt with a different spirit as comparing to carrying out research and publishing papers and tracking citations.
At the same time, I am yet to make up my mind if the present procedure of selecting director is the best possible option.
We young guys should also be careful in comparing our H-index (mine is 7 and I am 30 yrs old) with people who worked in India two/three decades ago. It is same as comparing IPL and test run rates. Two/three decades ago, we were a nation with overdrafts and near bankruptcy. We, the post reform generation get CPDA, Ramanujan, INSPIRE and many more...
In my one moth experience in the old IIT, I am not very happy. There are many bureaucratic processes which should not have been there but are religiously adhered to. Often my usual polite conversation with clerks and registrars are useless. I am forced to, against my wish, raise my voice and show my irritation on my face. Surprisingly, work gets done after that. And I readily apologise and in one case asked the person for a tea break with me (he obliged!).
At times I wonder, it is good that we express our desire to get some things done in a professional way, but people have habits of decades and it is very difficult to let it go. I have very similar issues with my parents and other older relatives who find many things I do or believe are disturbing. If I force them to my (liberal secular democratic) way, I .....
Any news regarding DST-INSPIRE faculty fellowship, 2012 ?
>>>> Anonymous said...
Today I talked to Mr. Kohli regarding the Ramanujan fellowship results for 2012.
He indicated that the results would be communicated to the host institutes of the respective candidates within 10 days or so.
Unlike some other negative remarks regarding Mr. Kohli, he sounded very accessible to me.
July 11, 2012 8:29 PM >>>
Thanks a lot for the info. I wonder why they are not publishing it online, like last year !
Also, the way they publish the results is wrong. They should only publish the names of the recommended candidates.
@ Anonymous 12 July, 2012 9:49 AM
Are you done with your inspire interview? If yes, Could you please share your interview experience? It will be a great help.
Thanks! Look forward for your comments
<<>>
When did you finish your interview? Which subject? Can you share your exp?
@anon 9:12
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110524/jsp/frontpage/story_14022467.jsp
"Barua admitted that the atmosphere was conducive to research in American institutions."
In his own institute, he didn't try to improve the research atmosphere (quality Ph.D. students, transparent bureaucracy, and speedy purchase process) in 9 years! (He had been the Director for 9 years by the time this news was published.) Five years later, he will admit the same thing! By that time, the QS ranking of IIT Guwahati will drop to, maybe, 150 or so. Still, he will not change the research atmosphere.
It is really sad state of affairs to see a young faculty and a director to charge and counter charge on allegations.
While reading the blog entries I was wondering shouldn't the director encourage faculties to provide top up to students. The top up keeps the motivation level of the students high while also make the faculty work hard to keep his promise of the top-up to the students (if the faculty don't get extra money he will be cheating the student). So isn't a win-win situation for all the concerned people the student (happy because he gets extra money), the faculty (happy because he has a motivated student) and the administrators (because he have two happy people working in the unit, the student and the faculty). So isn't it helpful if the administrator take a step forward and solve the problem of the faculty? I might not be that intelligent but I fail to understand what could be the pitfall that's stopping the administrators?
I also see the eagerness of the young faculty to change the system. Young blood many would call. But wouldn't the young faculty realize that change is a slow process and you play your part in it. Shouting or taking out your frustration will not solve the problem. Even if one problem is solved there would be many more which might not be resolved. So whats the way forward? In my opinion its the balance. If the administrators are not willing to help fight in a decent way while still trying to keep the student happy by other means (send him/her for an international conference and pay the bills from the project, provide them with laptops and accessories from the project, etc..) and keep visiting the Dean's office till he finds a solution to the problem.
I remember a quote from the movie spiderman, "with great power comes great responsibility". I only hope the young faculty and the administrator use their power in a responsible way. The arrogance, the impatience, the egos, the frustration will not help, a slow and a steady step to make a change is the need of the day.
I am also a new faculty and after spending nearly a decade abroad I came back. I am frustrated sometimes but I am also very happy to see that people (both the faculty and the administrators) are indeed trying to make a change. Out of 5 people in the institute, I find 3 adamant with the adherence to the age old rules with no sense, but I also find 2 who come out of their way to help me with my work. I only hope that the 3 people retire to death soon and the 2 people increase their population.
DMS
"In my view, thank God they dont give director position to the people with higher value of certain one-dimensional parameter we call H-index."
Kapil Sibal gives director position to the people with the score in an one-dimensional test, called the OBEDIENCE test. H-index might be a better criteria than this OBEDIENCE test.
There are many people with the name Gautam Barua, so be careful if you think that his h-index is more than 3. Look at the citations of his papers. Most citations are by himself or by his students, and even then the h-index doesn't exceed 3.
There are engineering faculty members in India who started working in pre-liberarisation era, and achieved 25+ h-index. One such person is Barua's own batchmate (the President Gold Medal winner of his BTech batch at IITB) who never became a director because he didn't appear for this OBEDIENCE test!
@iitsriram
"there is a privacy issue especially in relation to the current employers of these candidates". Simply trying to excuse from being transparent. Leave apart the IITs , even some of the NITs ( I think see NIT Jaipur recently) even put the list of called candidates and selected candidate as well.
I think now IITs should learn from NITs as well in one way or another.
I just read following link and that tell other side of stories as well.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-06-12/news/32195054_1_iit-kanpur-iit-kharagpur-director-damodar-acharya-iit-kanpur-senate
Anon@11.10 am
Your post indirectly implies that becoming a "director/administrator" who has more "power" is an achievement for everybody. Though it may be a cherished "goal to achieve" by some, not everybody may be happy to make the "compromises" (as per iitsriram) to one's research/teaching (and maybe other) goals to become an administrator (higher "powers" and perks aside).
Somebody (say me!) may just want to become one hell of an "educator/researcher/teacher", i.e. PROFESSOR. For me being just that is an ideal. Though the help of "good" ( "proud to be not corrupt " !!!! - seriously?) administrators can be a great facilitator in the process.
@iitmsriram , 7:46 AM,
'This may work when the institutions are small, but if you have a few hundred faculty members and several hundred non-academic staff, running the institution becomes a full time job for a number of academics who get drawn into the administrative stream and something has to give - teaching or research or projects, something. Institutions which do not have large teaching programs (IISc, IISER) can escape this at least partly as the teaching load is not a large work fraction, to start with - but you will almost always see some drop in the research productivity'.
Agree that running an institute is a FULL time job. But you probably didn't get the point here. Young faculty never asking for administrators to show research calibre during their admin positions, we are asking that administrators must had shown that calibre at some point of time as faculty in their early career. It never reduces someone's publication or h-index for e.g. Also there are several examples of Tech. faculties who are good administrators also in IIT system (i.e. with large UG teaching load). For e.g. see one of the above posting highlighting about IIT-B Director, also see another above posting, also see IIT-KGP one of the Dean who had shown their excellent research career and now administrators. Young faculty want to admire these kind of administrators who had proven research record, rather than administrators who can only show powers.
"Young faculty want to admire these kind of administrators who had proven research record, rather than administrators who can only show powers."
Correct. If the administrator doesn't have a proven research record, the young faculty at least expects that he will facilitate research for young faculty members and students.
Most IIT directors were neither capable of doing good research in their prime days, nor capable of promoting research in their administrative days.
Gautam Barua is not corrupt! See these links:
http://www.orkut.com/Main#CommMsgs?cmm=46928426&tid=2576188602676163482
http://iitproblems.blogspot.in/2010/05/dual-face-of-director-gautam-barua_22.html
@ Ankur and Inspire aspirants - 2012
Are you done with Inspire interview? If yes, please share your interview experiences as it will be helpful for other peoples.
@Anon July 12, 2012 3:10 AM
IITs give 2-3 weeks notice before an interview. In my case in IITB I had mailed the application package to the HOD of the department and not to Dean of Faculty Affairs.
Prof. Giri: Expect the number of hits to your blog to sky-rocket after the above kerfuffle...
This must surely rank as the numero uno Academic blog in India :-)
Anonymous said...
No one recruited to Physics at IIsc this time and in the past two years why this??? Do they think physics is saturated with Prof or the faculty applying to physics are not meritorious or viceversa
June 28, 2012 5:51 PM
IS THIS CORRECT?? No response from Prof. Giri??
This blog has seen more controversies during the sixth pay commission issues including abuses hurled at the blog host. At least he has not deleted them..for that he deserves the numero uno academic blog..the comments on the rest of the academic blogs held by IIT/IISER/IISc professors are all moderated.
I admire Prof. Giri for letting this blog be "unmoderated" which allows commenting as anonymous.
Though I admit that I personally feel that sometimes "anon." comments are in bad taste and unwarranted.
However the info. on this forum is generally reliable. And in addition sometimes one finds very insightful and helpful comments as well.
Let us give a round of applause to Prof. Giri for maintaining this blog/forum impartially ("without being corrupt!"). And let us "post" more judiciously to uplift the quality of the "discussions". !
cheers,
Anon!
anon @3:45pm Jul 12 says "Young faculty never asking for administrators to show research calibre during their admin positions, we are asking that administrators must had shown that calibre at some point of time as faculty in their early career".
Some good players become good coaches. Some good players end up lousy coaches. Some lousy players turn out to be good coaches, some lousy players turn out to be lousy as coaches too. If you are looking for a good coach, is it meaningful to insist that he/she should have been a good player?
"If you are looking for a good coach, is it meaningful to insist that he/she should have been a good player?"
At least, it is meaningful to insist that he/she knows how to play the game. Most IIT directors lack that basic skill.
Don't blindly support all administrators because you are one of them! We know that these posts are POLITICAL!
@iitmsriram, 11:30 PM
Running IIT as administrator is not a game. :-) So no such comparison is valid as you had highlighted, good player, good coach etc. etc. As the above replier mentioned, I agree that a basic minimum research calibre shown by the IIT administrators during their prime time is a must. Otherwise they don't understand what are the research needs and how those are conducted.
@iitsriram
a lousy player/non-player coach, is more likely to be criticized
1) by new players, who have yet to "learn" the value and importance of the coach.
2) by the non-playing public - " he was no-good in his prime days, so he became a coach! "
In addition any coach (even a star player/ star coach) will be criticized for wrong decisions, or for "not supporting the players" or for a lost match/series.
Every coach has to take criticism in his/her stride, absorb it (absorb the pressure), and work to get his(her) strategy/tactic/vision right. In any case respect of the community (players) has to be earned the hard way.
Now if a coach (say wise and a fantastic one at that! ) is publicly denouncing a "young - raw talent - who is say yet to fully mature (for lack of a better expression)", and alienating the community of players (of whom he is the coach!), then it is a shame!
@iitmsriram
Its not an apple to apple comparison. I was not expecting to do such type of comparison from a IIT Prof.
Player must know the basic fundamentals of the game. Some of the administrator of IIT lack of this. They are either busy in consulting to fill their own pockets or in institute politics.
@iitmsriram
"some lousy players turn out to be lousy as coaches too"
You description perfectly fits most IIT administrators.
Lack of time can not be an excuse. Look at the directors of IISC and IISERS. They are all active in research. The deans of IISERs and divisional chairman of IISc are also very active in research. In IISc, I believe every divisional chairman is a bhatnagar awardee.
Look at the director of NCBS, he is active in research, extremely good in administration and even posts in blogs !!
Many administrators in IITs left research in favor of administration or teaching because they were incapable of research in the first place.
new_iisc_prof
Anon@July 12, 2012 9:48 PM:
Sorry if I had missed your comment earlier. There are so many many comments that I find it difficult to read through each of them.
Anyway, to answer your question, Physics in IISc did recruit two assistant professors in this council. Both work on theory.
Look at the first comment by me for this post..I do not know their names or where they come from etc.
Thanks
Giridhar
@ saswata and Others recruited by IIT-Guwahati:
How many days prior to the interview date are the candidates (applying from abroad) informed about their selection for interview process?
Does the candidate needs to make a request for conducting the seminar/interview through skype ??
Thanks in advance.
@ saswata and Others recruited by IIT-Guwahati:
Forgot to add up, that I am considering that the interview dates are already mentioned in IIT-Guwahati website.
Dear Prof. Madras,
I have yet another salary question (for starting Assistant Prof. at IISc). I have 3+n years of post-PhD experience but have been offered the starting Assistant Prof. salary as listed on "For Prospective/new faculty" webpage.
Does IISc offer salary increments based on post-PhD experience or do all starting assistant professors get the same salary irrespective of experience?
@Anon 10:05
For me, it was 7 days. But I myself applied only 3 days prior to that.
Yes, you have a make a request for skype interview.
Anon@July 13, 2012 10:11 AM:
Currently, people with 2/3/4 start at 30,000 basic + AGP of 8,000 in IISc.
Suppose you have 3+n years of experience (all post Ph.D and research)..you are eligible for 30,000 + n increments + AGP of 8,000 but the selection committee has to recommend the same. In the absence of the selection committee recommending the same, I do not know how it will be implemented.
Thanks
Giridhar
Prof Sriram,
I am afraid the glib analogy that you are proposing between an administrator and coach does not hold; a coach is closer in spirit to an advisor or mentor. BCCI is analogous to an administrator. Cricketers have long had a problem with noncricketers dominating cricket administration.
But that is merely a minor point. Since research can suffer due to admin work, there is a way of ensuring continuity of research output when adminisrative load becomes unmanageable or other difficulties arise (like maternity, family emergency). A faculty can hire a postdoc to manage his group. I was hired as a postdoc for a reason like this, and I know others who have been hired this way too.
@ Saswata, July 13, 2012 10:40 AM:
Sorry but I got a bit confused. So you mean, you were informed as shortlisted one 7 days prior to the scheduled interview date (given on the website) ??
When did you make the request for seminar/interview through skype mode??
Thanks in advance.
@Ankur
"Cricketers have long had a problem with noncricketers dominating cricket administration."
I was so far avoiding discussions on Prof. Barua's low h-index, but I have a problem with a virtually non-researcher dictating the research environment of my institute. How will he understand the need of aspiring researchers? (I wouldn't have any problem had he understood the need of researchers while being a non-researcher himself, but that is not the case here.)
@Anon 10:40
The first answer is yes. The second answer is that I don't remember. Please use your own judgment and send the request for a skype interview rather than asking me when, how, why I had sent the request. Why would I remember all those small details?
Can someone tell me when will be the interviews for the AP in Physics Dept. at IITR ? How is the research atmosphere there ?
Has anyone been communicated IITM selection results from the HOD of department??
Can anybody who attended Inspire interview - 2012 please share your interview experiences here ?
Anon above
Look at prev posts , Inspire interview process is elaborately discussed
@ Saswata:
Thanks anyways! But take it easy !! You don't need to feel disgusted because you answered me a small question !!!!
It appears folks are so wound up they have not caught a key part of my metaphor. Even the lousiest of coaches knows (well, even if they don't know, it is the truth, so it does not matter) - in the end, it is ONLY the players who play the game and who can score and who win or lose.
I was offered a faculty position at an old IIX close to home during my younger days (more than a decade ago). I was fully persuaded to sign up and I even did a trial run. During that time I joined one of these tea sessions where a bunch of senior profs were discussing what they consider important in an academic career at IIXs. I was a hot blooded outspoken youngster with completely different ideas and this discussion soon turned into a heated debate and some of them couldn't resist showing me my place in their scheme of things. Some of the recent posts on this blog suggest that this institutional attitude towards young researchers in India hasn't really changed much. This event was a real eye-opener and it dawned on me that I can't spend the rest of my academic life in a hierarchical undergraduate production factory with people who are on a completely different wavelength. I knew this wasn't for me. Looking back, if I had returned home at that point in time I would have messed things up sooner or later given my predisposition to take a stand against reckless idiocy no matter what the personal cost.
I am now a happily tenured prof in a great University far from home. This blog is my main window to academic life in my homeland. I am very pleased to see that some of the current crop of youngsters are not suffering fools gladly! But I would rather that you guys patiently bide your time till you are well within the system before you try to change things inside out. Please pick your fights wisely and pace yourself. This is going to be one long uphill journey. The dying old guard will leave no stone unturned to brand you a trouble maker and silence you - choose your steps carefully.
Anon Uncle
Anon uncle,
How easy or difficult was it for you to get a position at univ far away, (I assume it is in "the land of the free and the home of the brave") after your trial stint at the IIX. And how long was your trial stint?
I ask this since I am in the trial phase. Unlike others (who I actually admire for their taking up the battle) I do not prefer getting into squabbles, at least seemingly petty ones. My position is scientific research does (Should) not have any kind of nationalism and must be pursued for humankind. The environment best where one can do it, one needs to be there.
I remember a quote from a lecturer in my undergrad days, "It does not matter if you fight the pig, or the pig fights with you, its you who are going to get dirty" :)
regards
Anon Rookie
Dear Prof. Giri (IISc) and prof. Madras (IIT-M),
I am very confused regarding whether OCI card holders are allowed to work in IIT on regular permanent faculty positions. On one hand, I read that in June 2011 even after MHRD's approval, the Ministry of External Affairs had blocked the hiring of OCI card holders for regular permanent faculty positions at IIT's.
On the other hand, I saw in IIT-Madras recruitment-2012 adv saying that OCI card holders are eligible for regular permanent faculty positions.
I am an OCI card holder, am I eligible for regular permanent faculty position in any IIT for lifetime?
Please enlighten me about this matter. It is very urgent for taking a decision. Thanks in advance.
@Prof. Sriram
1. "It is ONLY the players who play the game and who can score and who win or lose."
True, but the administrators should first develop a well-maintained ground (not a paddy field) for the players to play on.
2. "If you want everything to work just like in the US, well, be in the US."
Was this a metaphor as well? Is there anything about your arrogance (because you have become an administrator) that we are missing here?
Dear Confused anon @ July 14, 5:08 AM, please provide me a link to your information of June 2011. IITM has 5 foreign citizens as regular (not visiting) faculty, 3 OCI card holders who have permanent appointments and the remaining 2 non OCI card holders who are on five year contracts. From my memory, last year's attempt was to enable permanent non-contract appointments to non-OCI foreign citizens as well, which did not go through. If some IIT is telling you they cannot give permanent appointment to OCI card holders, contact me off list (iitmsriram at gmail) and I will provide you a copy of the MHRD circular that enables this.
ps: Prof. Giri = Prof. Madras = Prof. Giridhar Madras (IISc), a prolific researcher and host of this blog. iitmsriram is a regular visitor and commentator = Prof. Sriram (IITM).
As IISc appoints all new faculty on five year contracts, all are eligible.
At the end of five years,
OCI card holders are eligible for eligible to be regular faculty while non-OCI card holders can continue to be on contract.
Thanks
Giridhar
@ Anon July 12, 2012 9:12 AM
You have nicely penned your comment. My 3 months experience at an IIT is also similar to yours.
@ Anon Uncle July 14, 2012 12:19 AM
Thanks for sharing your experiences with Indian academia and your valuable piece of advice.
In my opinion one has to continuously strive to bring-out the change in academic system. If one gets well integrated/adapted to the current system, the chances are less that he/she may continue in the direction of bring the change!
Things have improved far better in India compared to 10 years ago, when I first left India. Online job applications (in many IIX), accepting reco letters by emails, publishing list of shortlisted/selected candidates in public domain (e.g. INSPIRE), etc. Still absolute transparency in recruitment process and efficient administration after hiring are required. I hope things will change in few years by continuous efforts from young faculties.
I think the main cause of frustration in young faculty is due to the fact that he/she is not able to accept the shortcomings/differences (bureaucracy, administration, research, teaching, etc.) in the Indian system as compared to those recently experienced in the west.
Regards,
Chris
Dear Dr. Giri and Dr. Sriram,
Foreign citizen are hired on 5 year contracts, so are they given similar start up grants and other form of institutional commitment as the regular Indian faculty?
Thanks!
H
Dear Prof. Sriram
Thank you so much for this useful information. My apologies for mentioning the wrong name.
If OCI card holders are working @ IIT-M in permanent faculty positions, then that's the biggest evidence that OCI card holders are eligible for permanent faculty post appointment. I will surely contact you when I need the MHRD circular.
By the way, the link I was talking about is:http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Home-ministry-blocks-IIT-foreign-faculty-move/Article1-715428.aspx
@ prof. Giri,
Thank you for informing me that OCI card holders are eligible for permanent faculty post appointment @ IITX/IISc.
I applied to metallurgical department at IITH in June 2011 and so far no reply. Applied to many other IITs also, got accepted at three ( all old IITs) of them within 4 months of my application, joined one of them in January…Still waiting for any reply from IITH^^…IITH metallurgy department you are great
Dear All, I am a new faculty at an old IIT and want to make a decent website. I saw many comments both against and in favour of listing achievements (like number of publications, awards etc). Just want to initiate a discussion on what would be an ideal website for an Indian researcher? Any good example other than the website of Prof Giri’s? If possible ,please share the link..Thanks in advance..
Something like this
Last Dean of IISc:
http://www.aero.iisc.ernet.in/pravas/index.php
Current Dean of IISc:
http://www.aero.iisc.ernet.in/raghubn/index.php
young faculty:
http://www.aero.iisc.ernet.in/onr/index.php
old faculty:
http://chemeng.iisc.ernet.in/kesava/
Many IISc faculty have websites like the above. Excellent..
Prof. Arnab at IIT Kanpur, computer science,
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/arnabb/index.php
cute website..
https://sites.google.com/site/plasticoptoelectronicslab/home
A young lady faculty, Prof. Dipti gupta at IIT Bombay. site looks really nice..
@Anon, 11:45 PM.
All mentioned links to IISc aero faculties are really showing any data!!!!
Compared to that the mentioned link to IISc Old Chem faculty looks better. :-)
Folks! Here is my webpage, would love to get suggestions/feedback as this is still in developing phase.
https://sites.google.com/site/vmishraiit/home
Dr. Vimal - I think you said perspective students instead of prospective students on your site :)
Otherwise, your site looks very good. All the best for your new position!
Dear Anon,
Thanks for the suggestion. I have corrected the typo.
Dear Prof. Sriram
Please let me know your feedback after reading the link that I sent.
But anyways, knowing from you and Prof. Giri that OCI card holders are eligible for permanent regular faculty positions @ IITX/IISc is a delight ! (Even more knowing that few of OCI holders are appointed on permanent regular positions)
Thanks in advance,
anon@june 28,2012,5:51pm
they may be waiting for candidates from a partcular region in India.
look at their appointments in the last few years.
Hello Inspire candidates (2012),
I finished my interview for the faculty fellowship (Bio-med) on 7th July. Today, I called Mrs. Shabnam Shukla (INSA) and found that the results will be released August end.
Any updates from others?
@ Anonymous 6: 57 PM
Can you please elaborate your interview experience? It will be helpful for other peoples.
Hi,
Is it OK to write the same/similar research proposal for both Ramanujan and Ramalingaswami fellowship or Wellcome-DBT grant.
Thank you
RP
My INSPIRE interview has been scheduled and I have been asked to email them a recommendation letter along with my CV. Does anyone know what this recommendation letter is? Is it from my references or from my host institution? In either case, how can *I* send this letter?
Reason for the outspoken advocates of open access publishing to feel happy and look forward. Hope this model turns out to be a success!
"Free access to British scientific research within two years"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/15/free-access-british-scientific-research?newsfeed=true
@Ankur
I was asked for a recommendation letter from my PhD guide. Ofcourse, I am a fresh PhD so that makes sense. This recommendation letter can be directly e-mailed by the referee to insa ID through which you received details about your interview. For other queries you can call Mrs. Shabnam Shukla(INSA). She explained me all this when I was in dilemma.
@anon July 16, 8.36 PM
Well, as Chris mentioned earlier, novelty and feasibility were thoroughly assessed. It was at least a 10 member committee. The committee as such carried positive attitude and did not pose any trick questions in my case. Questions were raised when they really did not know or understand something. Do set aside the whole day for this interview. You talk might be in the evening like mine.
One word of caution in that case, the panel might be tired towards the evening and might want to wind up early. This happened to the last 4-5 candidates, me included. I was asked to present my PhD research highlights and proposal in 10 minutes. I was taken aback initially, but collected my thoughts and presented what I could. The panel was mostly interested in the proposal than previous research given the time. It was more a conversation than talk. Slides were not important at that time. Articulating thoughts was more important, in my opinion. So be prepared to cut short your talk if and when asked. I think I will crib about the time if my application is rejected ;).
@ Ankur,
Ask your Ph.D. advisor to email a recommendation letter to them.
@ RP,
It is always better to write non-overlapping research proposals for any fellowships or even funding agencies. Although you may be able to take-up only one of the fellowships even if you succeed in all, it is a good idea to apply to multiple fellowships.
Chris
Can someone tell me how is the research atmosphere at IIT Roorkee ? Has someone got any interview call this year from IITR ?
@ ANonymous 11:03 AM
Was it more of technical details about your Inspire proposal or topics such as significance/How would you address the problem/other studies etc were also asked?
Please do reply.
Thanks in advance.
Chris,
Thanks a lot for the clarification as well as your suggestion.
RP
I am planning to get some sophisticated research equipments from my former advisor (now retired) abroad. We both are ok with the transfer. If someone has undergone a similar process, can you please share your experiences, especially with regard to the official procedures, nuances of packing, transfer and re-installation, customs clearance, entering into a service agreement with the Indian branch of the manufacturer, etc.?
Thanks,
Chris
Ankur and Others
What are the benefits (academia wise) of getting an Inspire fellowship over a regular AP postion at an IIX? Also if one has been offered an AP postion, can S/he apply for the fellowship after starting as an AP.
Thanks
RN
@anon of 11:11 PM
A regular AP position at IIX, should be always more preferable to inspire fellowship's.
Inspire is "inspiring" because of the funding (& lakhs per year for 5 years) it provides. This funding can be crucial to "jump" start one's own research programme. Also one can try to use it (after getting it) as a means of obtaining a seemingly "tenure track" position at an institute where it might be difficult to get a regular position.
Earlier Chris (an esteemed colleague on this blog) had detailed his experiences on this blog, and pointed out that he chose to take the regular AP's salary and use only the research grant from Inspire.
(Personally I believe that one should not care a bit about small salary differences!)
I do not know (for sure) if one is allowed to apply for it after one has joined a regular position (and is still < 32 years of age). But one can surely apply for it as an "independent candidate" while one is looking for a regular AP!
@Anon Rookie
My trial stint lasted just over two months. I had taken a leave of absence from my University where I was holding an open-ended fellowship. This made it easy to return back.
Landing a faculty position in a top school was somewhat difficult for me since I didn't receive my PhD from a top ranked University. But I put my head down at the first place to offer me a faculty position (on a short-term contract!), found the right blend of like-minded collaborators, and built up a track-record that eventually landed me a tenured position in a top-10 school. It all worked out but there were several points in my early career where I questioned my reckless optimism and wished I had taken the easy road.
As you may already know, landing a tenure-track position in a good University is all about various random elements coming together such as the timing of the application, how fashionable your current research topics are, how they perceive your academic pedigree, top-dogs willing to champion your case, etc. In my experience, it is NOT entirely about how good you are since search committees will receive around 100+ applicants (in the search committees that I sat on last year we had over 150 applicants!) out of which at least 10 candidates will be very good. Like all other job sectors, luck and intangible human factors play a very important role in academic career progression. A good start would be to build up a publication track-record that search committees would be foolish to ignore.
Anon Uncle
@RN
I have applied for INSPIRE mainly for two reasons: one is the grant of 7lpa, which is quite nice. The other is that would personally feel nice if I get an award or fellowship.
I have noticed that typically old IIX insist on 3 years post-PhD experience, but are also quick to add that this requirement is relaxable in 'exceptional' cases.
I'd like to know if there is anyone on this forum who were offered by any of the old IIX inspite of having no post-PhD experience. Can you also comment on your profile - academic pedigree, publication record, anyother factor that you think might have made your case 'exceptional'.
This will help me in deciding if I have to do a Post-doc or if I can apply soon after my PhD.
Thanks in advance.
- Wilkerson
There are several 'exceptional cases' recruited in many old IITs is recent and not so old past. Cases which makes them 'exceptional' are as follows, (1) Always 1st class 1st and GOLD Medalist in all academis degrees like B.Tech., M.Tech. (2) Best PhD thesis award winner (3) Excellent publication record during PhD, say 10 or above international reputed journals which are SCIE listed and having good impact factors in their areas (4) Very new and demanding area of research (5) Already bagged few national level professional awards like from INSA, ISCA Young Scientist Awards etc. So one 'exceptional candidate' should have more than one such in his/her CV for getting recruited in OLD IITs without any postdoc. I entered in one such old IIT about 10 years back, got offer letter even before PhD defence. These are some recent examples also (i.e. after 6PC implementation).
Hi all,
Just noticed that Tamilnadu Central University has extended the last date for submission of online applications for faculty positions to the 31st of July.
Good luck.
RP
Hi,
1) Can somebody let me know what is the provision in IIT's for newly recruited Asst.Professors to go for a visiting position in US/Canada during Summers (for 2-3 months)??
2) Will it be counted as a vacation with no pay @ IIT or will he be paid both for his visiting (assuming this is written) and salary @ IIT ??
Thanks in advance
@Anon July 18, 2012 1:55 AM:
Thanks for the note. This helps.
-Wilkerson
Do they call for AORC under INSPIRE fellowship applications once a year or twice ?
Thanks in advance.
Wilkerson = TOC = ABCD = "Thanks in advance"
@Anon, 2:44 AM,
For IIT system leave rule says, during vacation time i.e. usually may-june and december, if you take leave you get total 60 days vacation leave which is equivalent to 30 days of earn leave. Hence during this vacation whereever you want, like US, Europe or anywhere for another official work, you can go. You can draw salary there and at IIT also. But beyond that 60 days during vacation, if you want leave, you need to apply for some other fomr, like non-paid, medical half-pay etc. etc. as the case is suitable. Becasue for newly appointed assistant professor, sabbatical leave is not generally granted. It's usually given once after about 6 years of service.
Dear Ramanujan Fellowship applicants and awardees, may I know whether or not it is possible to apply for Ramanujan Fellowship directly ? or does it consider applications only on nomination ?
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