Update 2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md

Update 2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md

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@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
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       <div class="name-container">
         <div class="name">Watch Out!</div>
-        <div class="desc">Official Media<br>Body of IITR</div>
+        <div class="desc">Student Media<br>Body of IITR</div>
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@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
       <a href="/about">About</a>
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       <a href="/getinvolved">Get Involved</a>
-      <a  href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
+      <a href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
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_includes/navbar.html

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
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       <div class="name-container">
         <div class="name">Watch Out!</div>
-        <div class="desc">Official Media<br>Body of IITR</div>
+        <div class="desc">Student Media<br>Body of IITR</div>
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     </div>
   </a>
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
     <a href="/about">About</a>
     <a href="/guide">Guide</a>
     <a href="/getinvolved">Get Involved</a>
-    <a  href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
+    <a href="http://fb.com/watchoutiitr"><img src="/images/fb-logo.svg"></a>
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+          <a class="hover-underline" href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">{{ cat.title }} <span
+              class="caret"></span></a>
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+            {% if site.categories[subcat.name] != nil %}
+            <li><a class="hover-underline" href="/category/{{ subcat.name }}/">{{ subcat.title }}</a></li>
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+    <!--/.nav-collapse -->
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 </nav>

_posts/2018-09-23-inaugration-of-DIC.md

@@ -8,17 +8,17 @@ excerpt: "The Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IIT Roorkee was inaugurated on M
 ---
 
 The Design Innovation Centre (DIC) at IIT Roorkee was inaugurated on Monday by Prof. Ajit Chaturvedi, Director IITR, along with Prof. M Parida, Dean SRIC IITR, Prof. PVM Rao from IIT Delhi and Prof. Praduman Vyas, Director NID Ahmedabad (connecting to the event via skype) as Chief Guests. The DIC, or Navonmesh, was recently been approved by the MHRD with a budget outlay of Rs. 10 crore.
-<br>
+
 The DIC will function under a “hub and spoke” model, wherein IIT Roorkee will act as the “hub”, and the “spokes” i.e. IIM Kashipur, NIT Uttarakhand and CoT, GBPUAT, Pantnagar will be having their own proposals mostly to address local problems. The DIC basically would be inviting proposals for innovative solutions that address issues of the Himalayan region, followed by awarding financial support to the most promising designs to help them yield marketable products or technologies. These proposals will then be considered for registration under Intellectual Property Rights and for commercialization. Some examples of projects might include optimizing agricultural tools such as crop harvester for hilly terrain, and developing assistive devices for those with mobility impairment.
-<br>
+
 According to Prof. Apurbba Kumar Sharma, Coordinator & Principal Investigator(PI), the activities of DIC will be carried out under 3 major categories:
-<br>
-i) Supporting innovative prospects and projects of faculty members and students of the institute through financial support,
-<br>
-ii) Academic activities under which there are plans to introduce 2 academic courses of Masters of industrial design (MDes.) and Masters of Innovation Management (MIM) and organisation of workshops and crash courses for modular designs and innovations. Some laboratory facilities will be developed to compliment the facilities in the institute. Apart from this internships to students from IIT roorkee as well as from outside the institute will be awarded for short terms.
-<br> 
-iii) Outreach Programs like P2P (Prayogshala to Prayogshetra), U2U (Udbhavan to Utpadan) and COMAL (COmmon MAn to Laboratory), under which innovations at the laboratory scale will be taken to the common man. Apart from these, any members of the public who have innovative ideas can get mentorships and follow ups at the DIC.
-<br>
-The Design Innovations Center’s scheme was rolled out in 2014 by the MHRD along with open design school and National Design Innovation network. It started with setting up of 4 DICs across india of which IIT Delhi and IIT BHU were a member. Prof. PVM Rao and Prof. Praduman Vyas who contributed very significantly in formulating these schemes were present in the event. 
-<br>
+
+1. Supporting innovative prospects and projects of faculty members and students of the institute through financial support,
+
+2. Academic activities under which there are plans to introduce 2 academic courses of Masters of industrial design (MDes.) and Masters of Innovation Management (MIM) and organisation of workshops and crash courses for modular designs and innovations. Some laboratory facilities will be developed to compliment the facilities in the institute. Apart from this internships to students from IIT roorkee as well as from outside the institute will be awarded for short terms.
+
+3. Outreach Programs like P2P (Prayogshala to Prayogshetra), U2U (Udbhavan to Utpadan) and COMAL (COmmon MAn to Laboratory), under which innovations at the laboratory scale will be taken to the common man. Apart from these, any members of the public who have innovative ideas can get mentorships and follow ups at the DIC.
+
+The Design Innovations Center’s scheme was rolled out in 2014 by the MHRD along with open design school and National Design Innovation network. It started with setting up of 4 DICs across india of which IIT Delhi and IIT BHU were a member. Prof. PVM Rao and Prof. Praduman Vyas who contributed very significantly in formulating these schemes were present in the event.
+
 A core team of 5 faculty members of IITR was formed under the leadership of Prof. Manoranjan Parida, Dean SRIC when they received a letter regarding MHRD’s plans for setting up a DIC here in 2017. The three associated institutes joined subsequently.

_posts/2018-10-01-chess-at-iitr.md

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Chess at IITR"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: chess-club.png
+excerpt: "At the 3rd Inter-IIT Chess Meet conducted in IIT Madras during December 2017, IIT Roorkee finished as runners up, out of a total of seventeen participating teams."
+---
+
+At the 3rd Inter-IIT Chess Meet conducted in IIT Madras during December 2017, IIT Roorkee finished as runners up, out of a total of seventeen participating teams. After years of functioning under an unorganized impoverished structure, this success has motivated the institute to form a proper group, the IITR Chess Club under the Institute Sports Council (ISC). Despite having some excellent chess players and an enthusiastic culture for the game that has been hosted by the Students Club for some time now, the recognition of its potential has come about after a bout of struggle, determination and patience. We had a chat with Viraj Tamhankar, one of the pioneers in the development of the club which opened back in March of this year. Here is a summary of our interview with him.
+
+In the days before Inter-IIT ‘17, chess was limited to the Students Club with a tiny designated area right next to its entrance. Enthusiasts who frequented this space had to make do with sub-par equipment, including old chess-boards and pieces as well as outdated clocks which lacked important features used in professional competitions. These trivial difficulties aside, the students’ club was always crowded in the evenings, which made it hard for them to concentrate in a cauldron of music, noise and TV sound.
+
+The competitive side of the game could be observed during the Students’ Club Open, Intra-Bhawan or Inter-Bhawan competitions, and departmental events. However, these events tended to be improperly arranged and unfairly adjudicated, because of insufficient knowledge about the methods of the game and fairness criteria about pairing of two contestants. These deficiencies also affected proceedings during Sangram, IITR’s sports fest, where the need for additional funds was acutely felt.
+Funding was also a core issue when the IITR chess contingent wished to participate in tournaments outside the institute, such as Udghosh at IIT Kanpur, Sportech at IIT Delhi and the Inter-IIT Chess Meets. This issue was not just hindering participation, but practice too. According to Viraj, proper preparation for Inter-IIT requires dedicated practice sessions with a professional coach for a month before the event, much like the organised sports camps that are held before Inter-IIT Sports Meets. Minimal financial support was being provided by the Students Club but it wasn’t near enough to provide for everything.
+
+Above all, there was no official forum for chess enthusiasts to gather and meet. The Institute Sports Council had always been reluctant to take chess under its umbrella, citing fairly debatable reasons for its stance on the game in the institute. A similar rationale was resonated by the different Inter-IIT Sports Meet associations of other IITs, explaining the absence of chess from the Meet until 2014.
+
+A group of chess aficionados, including Viraj, had actively been lobbying the institute, seeking official representation for chess. In 2015, they managed to obtain sufficient funding from the Students Club for Udghosh ‘15 with the help of Rohit Jain (GPT Batch of 2018), who was a member of the Students’ Club Council and would later lead the IITR chess contingent to a bronze medal. After the unfortunate floods in Chennai led to the untimely cancellation of the Inter-IIT meet, meetings were held with the Sangram committee, resulting in the successful inclusion of chess as a sport in the fest for the very first time. This proved to be an important breakthrough.
+
+Following Sangram and into the new session, Chess got an independent expense column in the Students Club thanks to the then Secretary of the Students Club, Suyash Vishnoi and Additional Secretary V. Kalyan, ensuring financial support for the team to participate in Udghosh ‘16 and Inter-IIT. The lack of proper coaching and learning resources was felt by the team, as the performances at the competitions were not up to the mark. This affected the state of the discussions with the ISC, which stalled as a result.
+
+The team worked hard for Udghosh ‘17 and was duly rewarded with the gold medal, with Viraj winning the award for Best Player. By a stroke of good luck, Prof. G.D. Ransinchung, the faculty advisor for the ISC, also became the faculty advisor for the Students Club. He was very supportive of the chess culture, and provided funds for a temporary coach for Inter-IIT Chess Meet ‘17. Viraj’s former coach from Mumbai, FIDE Master Sajandas Joshi joined the team for a 15-day training camp for the Meet, which culminated in a silver medal as already mentioned. This result proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as soon afterwards in February 2018 Prof Ransinchung, along with the entire Sports Council unanimously took the decision to include Chess under the ISC.
+
+Now that an official Chess Club has been set up, it is hoped that students don’t face myriad inconveniences and can instead focus on playing chess and representing IITR in different competitions. With a new core team coming in for the upcoming session, the Club plans to take up regular practice sessions, training camps, tournaments and quizzes for chess enthusiasts and promote a healthy chess culture at IITR.
+
+With regards to future engagements as part of the club, there are plans for workshops intended for beginners as well as themed workshops covering tactics, middlegames, endgames among other strategic intricacies. There was an online event conducted in the month of September, an attempt to include more people and with the expectation of another to take place this semester. Rapid tournaments have started taking place on the weekends, with a growing focus on the upcoming fests like Udghosh and Thomso.
+
+Viraj gives a word of advice to anyone looking to learn chess: start with basic queen and rook mates, of which there are plenty of good videos on Youtube. The club regularly conducts events, which provide a great learning experience along with a platform for interaction with really good players. For updates on the same, follow IIT Roorkee Chess on Facebook: [https://www.facebook.com/iitroorkeechess/](https://www.facebook.com/iitroorkeechess/).

_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-dr-subra-suresh.md

@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "In Conversation with Dr. Subra Suresh"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: dr_subra_suresh.jpg
+excerpt: "Dr. Subra Suresh is the president of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He has served as the Director of the US government's National Science Foundation, Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT and President of Carnegie Mellon University."
+---
+
+_Dr. Subra Suresh is the president of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He has served as the Director of the US government's National Science Foundation, Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT and President of Carnegie Mellon University. He was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation '18, where Watch Out had the honour of interviewing him. Here are some excerpts from the interview._
+
+**While you majored in Mechanical Engineering as an undergraduate, you went ahead to specialize in Material Sciences and Metallurgy. Could you highlight some of the barriers in multidisciplinary higher education system in India? What could be done to remove these?**
+
+The barriers between Mechanical Engineering and Metallurgy are very small. I did not have a degree in material sciences, but my work naturally went in that direction. Eventually, I was made the head of the material science department at MIT for 6 years.
+
+However, transitioning between any two other disciplines might not be as easy. I also tried going towards bioengineering, and that was more difficult. The coursework in my time was great in all respects, except that they didn’t have any biology, which made getting into it a little harder.
+
+On the contrary, if you consider thermodynamic machines and cycles, we are looking at liquid-vapor systems, while in material sciences we usually look at solid-liquid systems. The basic underlying thermodynamic principles are the same, so it’s not that difficult to move around.
+
+These problems exist in the United States too. If you are a mechanical engineering student, it is somewhat difficult to move to Material Sciences, either at the undergraduate ot the masters’ level.
+
+**While it might be tougher for the undergraduates in the US colleges to change their disciplines, don’t the students get 1-2 semesters to decide their major?**
+
+This does not happen in all universities. At MIT, the first year is common for everybody. So, you can decide between engineering or neuroscience or business after your first year. But there are still a lot of universities in the US wherein you get into engineering like mechanical engineering, like at the IITs, and there is a provision to switch your major like I did, from Electrical to Mechanical.
+
+**Recently we did an article on professor evaluation forms (the mechanic by which students assess the professors after every semester through a feedback form). We saw that a lot of professors were getting negative responses from the students, and yet, no action was taken, which was (naturally) a great cause of frustration among students. We tried to identify the issues leading to this, and we saw that there were mainly two primary issues: firstly that a lot of professors prefer research over teaching and secondly that often they are forced to teach courses that are not a part of their own field of research. How do universities in Singapore deal with this issue?**
+
+There’s been a shift, at least in the US system and also in NTU, Singapore that I have been emphasizing. In a top research university, you cannot have a divide between teaching and research. Teaching and research have to go hand in hand. So, in some of the top universities in the US, some of the most accomplished researchers also teach freshmen. I think it takes a lot of commitment and passion.
+
+Perhaps in some of the US universities 40 years back, it was that if you were a great researcher but had no interest in teaching, you could go about it without any problem. But today teaching has become one of the criteria, even though it might not be the only criterion, and the institute should emphasise that. At NTU, one thing that I have done as a president is offered the deans lecture opportunities. I am also teaching a masters’ level program voluntarily. I think one of the appealing things about being at a university is the interaction with the young minds and that’s the exciting part.
+
+**You have played an important role in increasing the representation of minorities and women in education in the US. What suggestions would you give to the institutes in India, considering the ongoing debate regarding affirmative action to increase female representation in IITs?**
+
+I don’t know about the Indian Government’s rules, but I can only speak from the US perspective. The motivation behind this is the following. In most of the countries women occupy 50% of the population and hence 50% of the talent pool. The proportion of women in the population might be less for some countries because of the government policies, but mostly they occupy roughly half the population. In the US about 70% of the top ranking students in high school are girls, and both in public and private schools, and they also do well in mathematics and science and so forth. If they are not represented in engineering, then we are losing out on the top talent. Areas like computer science, mechanical engineering are in need of representation of women. In areas like computer science, 18% of the first year students across the country are girls. Women play such an important role in the 21st century, and we cannot have such a small representation. So we did some experiments at MIT, and I think the key things are, at least from our perspective, that we try not to do it through quotas, but instead through something more sustainable in the long term. You need role models; you need professors for women who are good role models for students. Secondly, you have to do extra work to attract talent. When we admit students, they get offers from many different universities. I would offer to make personally call and talk to students whom the departments felt would be a good fit for the university, and it worked. It worked for both genders, but it worked better for women. So, I think there are things we can do, scholarships are one way, and role models and mentoring are very important too.
+
+**In the media, we often hear about how there’s a lot of aspects in which IITs have yet to catch up with foreign institutes, given that IITs are not really well placed in terms of the rankings- let’s say things like the research culture and flexibility of the curriculum. But, from your own experience at IIT Madras, do you think that there’s some ‘USP’ of IITs that differentiates it from foreign universities?**
+
+I graduated a long time ago. IITs today are very different from the IITs back then. At that time, there were only a small number of students, and we pretty much got to know most of them. Besides, our course was for 5 years, so that’s one extra year we had of living together in the hostels. All of them are the top students from the country, and you develop an amazing bond with them. There’s nothing like the bond you develop essentially throughout the 5 years of growing together. At that time, there was not a lot of research being done at the IITs compared to today. The research culture wasn’t developed. We did a lot of projects but they weren’t research projects. And there weren’t a lot of startups like we have today. There was no internet either, it was a completely different world.
+
+One of the reasons why IITs are not amongst the top ranked universities globally is that most of them are mostly based on research metrics. IITs are best known for attracting top students to get a degree who then they go on to do whatever they want. But, I feel it’s going to take time. It requires research support from the government. It requires young faculty members. It’s going to take some time to catch up with the world rankings (and there is a lot to catch up on). It is based on research, how many papers you publish, who reads them, how many patents you make, etc. It depends on the faculty, so if the faculty doesn’t travel abroad nobody is going to know about them. Another matrix is internationalisation of the campus, how many foreign students are there at the campus, how many foreign faculty is there on the campus. In NTU, for example, we have 1500 faculty, of which 70% are non Singaporeans. We have 10,000 postgraduate students, two- thirds of them are non singaporeans. So it’s mostly foreign talent. So we have 55 Germans doing full time PhD at  NTU. Germany has a lot of good universities so I think that’s another factor. The IITs are making an effort but it’s going to take some time and that has nothing to do with the quality of the institution.
+
+**Most of the young professors have done their doctorates and post- doctorates abroad and have been largely successful. In your opinion, should students look to complete their higher education in India itself, or should they look towards foreign universities?**
+
+I think it is very healthy if students do their PhDs elsewhere. Even if they are of Indian-origin and want to come back here for patriotic reasons or family reasons, India has to make it attractive for them by giving them competitive offers, because if they are really good, they will get better offers elsewhere.
+
+**Is there any way in which we can promote collaborations between the industry and the researchers, at least in India?**
+
+In NTU, on campus there is this concept of corporate labs. We have companies like Rolls-Royce, BMW, Alibaba which come on campus to do research with us. Students get to work with them. Something like that can be implemented in India as well. If not in a town like Roorkee, it can be done in the bigger cities. In NTU, we have 23000 students across the 4 years, and we send 80% of them abroad for a semester, to get foreign exposure. We also want foreign students to come. As we speak, there are 250 students from Sweden on our campus and almost an equal number of students from NTU are in Sweden.
+
+**The National Science Foundation which you were heading in the US, has no comparable analogue in India. However, there are a plethora of research funds funded by different ministries/institutes. Which model do you think is better?**
+
+The US model is pretty remarkable. It all started after the second world war. There isn’t a single agency. There are many agencies. So there’s the National Institutes of Health, whose mission is to address diseases. So half of the research is done internally and its organised by disease classes, like National Institute of Cancer, National Institute of Mental Health etc. Then you have NASA for air and space, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), the US Geological Survey and so on.
+
+But what was missing in all of this is the inherent curiosity in research. These were all applications of science. It was argued in the 1950’s that the economy depends on fundamental research and that basic research is best done at universities, where you have the luxury of thinking long-term. Not only are you training young minds for the future, you’re tapping into their enthusiasm to create new ideas. These universities would work closely with the industry and the government, and that it was the government’s responsibility to fund them. This is what created the National Science Foundation. The NSF’s mission is to fund the best people on the best ideas. Leave them alone, so they can develop their ideas. Since 1950, 240 American Nobel Prize winners have had some portion of their Nobel Prize winning work funded by the NSF. That’s the return. We don’t ask them whats the commercial value of their research.
+
+**On a closing note, you’ve mentored a lot of students over the years. Is there any advice you would like to give to the students of IITR, more specifically to the students who’re getting convocated?**
+
+When there is so much societal pressure, people look at getting a degree from an IIT, or any university as a piece of paper which helps you get a job, hopefully a very high paying job. If that’s the reason all of us are striving for a university education, I think we’re missing the point. It is something much grander than this. It's not just about going to classes and getting a diploma, it’s much more than this. And now you guys have many more opportunities than I did through technology. You have access to so much more information, from anywhere in the world. Besides, the IIT brand carries a lot of weight, and not just in India. I would advise you to make the most of that.

_posts/2018-10-09-conversation-with-mr-rc-bhargava.md

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "In Conversation with Mr. R C Bhargava"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: suzuki_amped.jpg
+excerpt: "Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the J&K cadre."
+---
+
+_Mr. R C Bhargava is currently chairman of Maruti Suzuki. A graduate of Allahabad University, he topped the 1956 batch of the IAS, and served in the Uttar Pradesh cadre. He later joined Maruti in its nascency as its third employee, and subsequently led the company to its position as the number one automobile company in India. He has been conferred with prestigious civilian awards by both the Indian and Japanese governments. He was invited as Chief Guest at the Convocation '18, where Watch Out had the honour of interviewing him. Here are some excerpts from the interview._
+
+**You were an IAS officer who later switched to Maruti in its formative years. This is an unconventional career path, people generally don’t do this.**
+
+Yes, at the time there weren’t many examples of people leaving the IAS and joining the Public Sector because rules had changed. You could only go for deputation for 2 years. After that, you had to either come back to the cadre or take absorption in the public sector. I was one of the first few who did this.
+
+**Any reasons why you chose to switch to the private sector?**
+
+It wasn’t private sector then.  Initially, the Suzuki stake was only 26% so the company remained a public sector company. That was in 1982. In 1992, it became 50% Suzuki and 50% government. So legally it changed its character and did not remain a public sector company. But with 50% stake of the government, it almost worked like a PSU. The company got listed in 2003 which is when it became a private company.
+
+**Why do you think this career path is so uncommon (going from the civil services to a corporation). Is it because the skill set required is different?**
+
+I’m not sure but I think that one of the factors is that going from the Civil Services to an industry carries a certain element of risk. You are secure with Civil Services, your career path is known to you and your future is virtually mapped out, not much can change. At that time, Maruti was not considered as a normal public sector industry, it was looked upon as a highly political project. Also, not many people expected it to last too many years. So, it was somehow a little more risky than the others. But, I wasn’t particularly enamored by spending my 10 years with the government. I didn’t see any future after those 10 years either because those days are not like today. In 1982, there were very few job opportunities in the private sector as there was virtually no private sector. So there were no job opportunities after retirement. Looking at all of this, I thought to take a risk as it can’t get too much worse than it would be otherwise.
+
+**Were the UPSC examinations as competitive back then as they are now? Nowadays we hear of cases where people spending years and years of their lives trying to crack the Civil Services?**
+
+There weren’t as many tutorials and coaching centres at that time as there are now. The exam was in some way harder because for the IAS, one had to give the three lower papers (three subjects) and then if one wanted to be an IAS or the foreign services, he had to appear for two more papers of higher standards. Whereas, for the other Civil Services, it was just the three lower papers. That has certainly changed now. The exam has become easier but the number of people appearing for it is much larger now. The attraction of the services is still there but actually now the competition to the IAS is much larger from the private sector. Creating things and doing things yourself are much larger outside the government. The government still needs good administration but not beyond the actual areas of admin.
+
+**Maruti has become a household name just like IKEA in Sweden or Samsung in Korea. So your main flagship project throughout all these years must have been the Maruti 800? Do you think that the Maruti 800 started an era of car ownership in urban middle class homes?**
+
+800 is what we started with and it became an enormously popular car at that time. It was almost a status symbol in the first few years, because there was a scarcity and it wasn’t easily available. Later on with the advent of new models, everything became different.
+
+And absolutely! It was the first time that people got a low cost modern car in terms of technology, which drove very well, which had all features that people had not looked at earlier, high degrees of reliability. All of that came for the first time in India. That is why it became so popular, because people were used to Ambassador, Fiat etc. and compared to that it was several levels above in technology. Cars in India had not changed technology since the 50’s. Till the 80’s, it was the same basic technology of cars. And the quality and reliability of cars had only gone down, it hadn’t improved. Then suddenly people got a car which could perform so much better, it had to become popular.
+
+**In the automobile industry nowadays, especially in the US, there is a lot of talk about the self-driving cars and followed by Tesla, even Ford and other big companies are making their own tests. So do you think this has any medium to long term scope in India?**
+
+Well, you have to consider two or three factors in India. First,  there is a huge need for creating employment in India and every year several hundred thousand jobs for drivers are created. For every four or five cars sold, there is one driver. Think of the number of people who rely on driving as their source of employment. When will we be able to afford not having these jobs so that people find alternative employment is a big question mark. The second thing is that if you want to have driverless cars, then the software is based on a certain degree of predictability so as to what people might do in different situations. The behaviour of drivers in India is the most unpredictable. So, I am not quite sure how will we build a software system which could cater to the erratic and unpredictable behaviour of drivers in India. Cutting lanes, people randomly stopping their vehicles on the highways would only create chaos in the system.
+
+**You were involved a lot with Suzuki and Maruti, especially a lot in the formative years at the time when they acquired their stakes and all. So you have seen the automobile industry up close both here and in Japan. Any major differences you see now or you saw back then?**
+
+Not only in the automobile industry, Japan also became a highly competitive nation. It is the most competitive country in the world in terms of its manufacturing industry. Japan has no natural resources (energy, raw materials) and still their products are competitive in the global market. They can ship their products to the US or Europe and they can still beat the local ones. They are able to overcome the cost barrier of import, export, transport etc. Japanese industries manage to do this through human resources working as a single team.The Japanese industry is based totally on team work. Not only with the employees in the company, or labour or management,be it anybody; other associates such as vendors, dealers; industry and the government; industry and the political parties, they all work as one team to promote Japanese industry. None of them believe that the industry is a thief which wants to take out their money, as it happens in India. This is because the industrialists in Japan live a much low-key lifestyle. Their salaries are less, they don’t accumulate wealth as people do in India. They have realised that you can’t take your money with you when you go; it stays behind. And if at all it stays behind, we should think what good can that money do to our children. They have worked these things out very well. The Japanese industry stands very different from the world because of the constant need to be meticulous.
+
+**Do you think it is down to their ethos as a culture or as people to some extent?**
+
+It has become a culture because the people felt the need to become competitive since Japan was totally ruined after the war. Japanese people have a great amount of self-respect. They are very patriotic. They commit ‘harakiri’ which is a ritual in which they kill themselves if they seem to lose faith. After the war, the Japanese actually lost faith and had no other way to regain it. The only way to become competitive again was through economic activities. They decided that if they become the most powerful economy, then they could regain faith which is actually what happened. Japan is a highly respected country not because of their military might, but their economic might. If India wants to grow faster, we’ve got to stop distrusting each other and start to work as a team.
+
+
+**So we wanted to ask you about research in general in so at least in the institute's we've seen including the IITs research is improving a lot in the last decade or so, but yet research remains to be this kind of thing that academicians pursuing in their academia, so it's kind of unpacked and the idea of Industry oriented research, the way it happened in the US or in Europe in countries. That is kind of lacking though.**
+
+You want to do research because you want to develop new and better products and technologies, which give customers a better experience. If you do that, then you expect that your company will grow and become more profitable.
+
+In India till 2014 conditions for Industries to grow and be competitive were really quite inadequate. You know if you study our system, industries are the lowest priority of the politicians. Input costs electricity for industry is priced higher than for any other activities. Industry pays the highest, yet gets the last priority.
+
+Things are changing now in certain sectors, it has become competitive with Mr. Modi. The taboo of industry is growing and prospering as gone. He wants industry to grow.
+This is the first time somebody has said that they want the manufacturing sector to grow. The first time that there isn’t any rhetoric against the private sector
+
+**Do you think there is anyway, in which companies like lets say maruti could somehow collaborate with these institutes for research?**
+
+Certainly. Absolutely that’s it there has to be more interaction between the institute's and companies and research has to be taken up.
+
+Apart from the existing theoretical research there should also be more research which is industry oriented.
+
+Here last night, we were discussing that you create patents in the IIT, professors do their research a lot and fight for patent, how many of those patents have become commercial?
+All the research you have done and caught something that you patent, but if it doesn't get used by anybody, then what have you done useful resulted in wastage of your time.
+So that thinking has to change. Academics often don’t think highly of commercial business , instead pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it can't be the only thing which you push. There has to be some kind of a mix between the knowledge creation and commercialization of knowledge
+
+**What do you think is the most stark difference between India now and India in the eighties?**
+
+Those were the days of control, and the license raj.
+
+So that time you couldn’t do anything without government permission. Imports were not allowed. Today you can import what you want. Those days everything had to be cleared by what is known as director general of technical development. Foreign exchange a huge constraint. And the private sector and money making and becoming rich and all those things were absolutely frowned upon.
+
+Technology of course has made a lot of difference to India that you know things like this.
+
+Everything was in short supply. If you wanted a phone connection you had to wait for years to get a phone. Wanted to buy a car you had to be in for years to buy a car.
+
+When I got to Delhi in 1973, I was in UP and then – mobile for five years, even to buy milk you had to get a permit to get your milk supply. Everything was in short supply. Railway wagons were not available. Telephone calls could not be put through: you had to book a call and wait for your turn before you were connected from Delhi to Kanpur.
+
+These changes are almost unbelievable. One now wonders, how did one manage In those days. This whole computer business didn't exist, internet didn't exist.
+
+**On a closing note, any general advice you would have for students here, especially the graduating students who you will be addressing?**
+
+I think you people here are the elite of India's intelligentsia. by you people I mean in the IITs, and IIMs. You can't leave the task of India's development only to the government. Over many years people in India have built up this attitude. That _ye kaam to sarkaar hai_. Even if it's something to be cleaned ~ _Sarkar karegi_, if there is something not working ~ _Sarkar mein kharaabi hai._
+
+It can’t work that way. If you want this country to become a better country for yourself- and you guys have got 70 years to go- Who will do it for you?
+
+Believe me, the political system won’t. You don't expect things from the government. You have to do it yourself. You have to get involved.
+
+Don't distance yourself.
+
+That is when things will happen.

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