1 I disagree with the author.The population almost increased by 100-150 % along
with more talented students from all walks of life; thus there is a need to
expand the number of IIT's in keeping with increase in population. Further they
should open up their faculty recruitment to bright established faculty from
state funded institutions. I have seen quality journal articles from many of
these state instituitions even though they do not have the same financial
resources as the IIT's.

Kal Sundar

Posted by: Kal Sundar

2 Instead of opening IITs or e-IITs India needs industry participation in existing
colleges.Also instaed of sapending 4-5 yrs or 6 yrs for PG .
What large chunk need is 1 yr training which can be given by Industries and used
by Industries.This will solve problem of employment as large section of society
don't have time/money to spend so huge money on education coincidently Industry
too spend time /money on passed out students to train them.Thus it will be
WIN-WIN situation.

Posted by: Swapnil Deshmukh

3 I disagree with the author in regard of opening more IITs. Well, with the
increasing no. of tallented engineering aspirants there is a great need of
building more IITs, so as to accomodate the very deserving ones. As far as the
e-IITs are concerned, its a very good step but its not the complete solution to
the problem, the reason being that all the engineering streams can't be taught
just theoretically. The well equiped labs are the most important thing, it needs
infrastructure as engineering is all about practical learning. The e-courses are
good for providing a detailed or an much better organisation of the course, but
at the same time lab work is required to understand the theories. Instead of
building new IITs directly, the exixting NITs can be upgraded to IITs by taking
suitable measures to increase their standard and new NITs can be built instead.
This will help in increasing the standard as well as suffice the aspiration of
quality education to the future of India.

Posted by: Manoj

4 It is very good, seeking better opportunities for people. In west decades of a
persons life may be used to learn things which may be said to be vaste of time.
Small practical courses and proofe established in the end as authorithy of that
knowledge, may be very good, but then it is the structure of such courses
adapted to the need of time which is the challenge and this organisation is
called the scuience of wholeness enterprise.
Cheers Rajananand Dhananjaya
Ps. Books, magazines, homepages are there introducing the enterprise and its
practicallity for optimum achivements!

Posted by: Rajananand Dhananjaya

5 Good idea, better utilized if you take basic education - primary schooling- to
rural India. That is the true need of India.

Looking at the Tata Indicom ad on TV, one wonders if they will do what they show
and not leave it as a marketing gimmick

Posted by: Coot Crazy

6 The name is immaterial. And 'Hype' or 'Brand' is not always 'the ultimate'. We
require schools/colleges with improved infrastructure/equipments/faculty which
are relevant and practical to the requirement of Indian industry. SUMIT BASU
(Author of "LOOK BEYOND MONEY TO GROW RICH"
- A book on Self-development, Soft-skills of management & entrepreneurship tips
etc. Dr A P J Abdul Kalam has praised the book. pp 274 - Rs.200/-
For a copy please contact the publisher at: kdiwan@ubspd.com)

Posted by: Sumit

7 IIT current strategy is similar to a number of education institutes around the
world.
Currently, schools are seeking ways to differentiate from others and one way is
branding of schools. It might work assuming that the quality of students
reflects the brand e.g. IIT. Going digital or helping students in distance
learnnig as is the case in Finland is a far more better solution than naming
each school or highest bidder IIT. Digital distance education in countries with
well developed existing IT structure is cheap and educationally effective
solution. Good luck with IITs efforts to digitalize their educational offering.

Posted by: Jari Salo

8 opening IITs and pumping up the seats in any existing institutions are almost
the same , wherever there is a demand for IIT that only for the political point
of view, so its not like vending zones that we should open here and there , it
has a prestige and should be maintained ,, let the students work harder to get
in, yes we can do like what exactly the course curriculum for technical
education in india, and we can tryn improve that.

Posted by: Subhendu Biswal

9 Better suggestion is to rename all colleges in India as IIT, so that the entire
nation can be proud of so many IIT engineers. IITians know of only bragging abt
their Univ days and live in that glory for decades....so if we convert all
colleges into IITs our nation can brag endlessly of the millions of IITians
being churned every year !!

Posted by: Ram

10 Instead of opening an IIT in town, why not have an auction, and name the highst
bidding Engineering College in every town as an IIT? It will be just the same,
and get some revenue for the city administration!

It is like printing money, and thus devaluing it. I have recently been to a
"National Institute of Technology", and it looked like a dump. I think there are
twenty or more such NITs across the country.

Improve the faculty, equipment and facilities at the existing schools (such as
the NITs) and bring them up to par as the current IIts. then, if there is still
demand, think of opening new one.

Posted by: krishna

11 is it IIT or ITI

Posted by: jayu

12 why suddenly everyone is concerned about rural development and taking "health"
to rural societies?

Some fishy....frying.....

Posted by: byebyesusan

13 I would challenge the premise on which the solutions of opening more IITs or
going digital or going abroad are advocated.

The fundamental questions people should be asking –

1. Does India need more engineers (which implies that there is no unemployed
engineer in India i.e. 100% engineering graduates get employment at Campus)?

2. More general question people should be asking – can India provide
employment to all graduates irrespective of the institute and / or line of study
(why only engineers that too from IITs)?

If the answer to any of the above question is “NO” than this article and the
entire debate is futile.

We should be discussing the real problem / issues of population control and
employment to already educated people in India rather that proposing the
imaginary solution to a non-existing problem.

Posted by: Amulya Gurtu

14 this is a case of supply and demand...there is excess demand, and so the two
solutions are to either increase supply of the IITs, or for students to go
abroad...if india wants to keep talented people then expanding IIT`s is the only
solution. the number fo IIT has not changed much since the 50`s, when the
population was approx 500 mill, today its 1000 million...

Posted by: rahul

15 I agree with Prof Govindrajan that opening more IITs is not the need of the hour
and the teeming millions of India can only be educated using Information
Technology. Also, what is the point in opening IITs when there are hardly any
faculty available to teach in these institutions. There is a dearth of faculty
in the country and the government has ignored this when it decided to open more
IITs. This will only dilute the brand of IITs.

Posted by: Siddharth Varma

16 Why IITs are planned to open at every corner? Coz of its brand name. India is
proud of IITs. IITs are our educational icons in the world. But, how did they
became one of the top class institutions in the world ? Its all because of its
quality education and reputation of top class faculties they have and the most
qualified students.

Lets say if we have IITs at each n every corner across India , do we have so
much of well qualified faculties available across all IITs? Do the world class
leaders like Mr. Narayana Murthy/Ratan Tata can visit all IITs and can give his
guest lecuters to all of them, if he/they wants to deliver some message to all
future leaders/business men? If we have so many IITs, do we get so many well
qualified students at all IITs? Do they continue to charm like Indian
educational icons in the world? Currenly every year we are hearing many
successful stories from IIT, If IITs are extended at each corner, do we continue
to hear them?

I dont think extending IITs is not at all a good idea. Instead we have so many
educational institutions in each every corner of India. Strengthen them. Improve
the standards of those institutions. Make the pupil studying there to IIT
standards. So IITs will get more qualified studends. Moreover IITs will have
enough funds at their disposal to make them more strengthen and they will be at
next level.

In my view, building the greatest starts with a solid foundation, and subsequent
rock solid construction makes it ever lasting. Pls dont make IITs as a toy for
fun. Even today in India, the person from IIT gets a special respect. We shoudl
try to make it higher but not the other way around.

Look at the other countries. They didnt make neither Harward II/Standford
II/Oxford II nor extended to all corners.

They are they and very special. Pls leave them as it is.

Posted by: Bhaskar

17 Mr. Kamath have summed up the best.What we need is innovation down from
pre-primary schools.Not IITs at every nook or corner.The education system as a
whole has to be re-structured.It should be more practical oriented.Our
institutes should gauge student's inherent talent and guide accordingly. Only
then can India meet the challenges in every field.

Posted by: N.J.Borah

18 Instead of looking from the top and making plans to execute to the ground level
how we people at the ground level are better in managing our assets. I have seen
graduates from IITs even working are labourers in different parts of the
country. Then where is the lapse in the system. Is it not our own sided
parameterised defeciencies that we have been dwelling with ? People talk about
security measures being built up like social security, social injustice, law
implementation corrupt practices, e-governance but is there any question on how
all these widened areas of concern are going to be resolved with. They talk of
infrastructural developments to be considered. Even if IIT's are to be multipled
in every city/district or even in villages where there can be a business of
panchayats and tehsildars/ sarpanchs and wealthy ;is the gap between rich and
poor going to decrease. India has almost all the high and lows of every aspect
of the society at large when compared with global prospectives. Technology can
sure play a vital role in bridging the gaps wherever required but can it be
built at such a large scale where no poor can even afford to it. Where are we
leading the panaroma guys? I don't think it is a question of IIT's or NIT's but
it is a question of how the male/female child, of how the adolescent girl/boy,
of how the teens , of how the youth, of how the citizens at large are to be left
with their dreams of conquering every thing they wan't to ? The only way to get
quality certified is to search for quality, seek quality, get quality, show
quality and demonstrate what each person is.

Posted by: Kaustubha S. Gudi

19 I agree with the topic, there need not be new IIT's every where. What we require
is a balanced hands at science and techonolgy. Only there is need for cross
disciplinery awareness for improving the scientific out puts into technologies.
Even in this new frontier of sciences we are lagging a lot. There are a lot of
gaps in technological advancements that this country India requires. Most of the
R & D centers are just following world sceitific advancements even without
undrestanding the basic required paraphernilia, like instrumentation support
etc.

Most of the cases it is just like this example if require a barber I shal be
asked to go to doctor. If I wanted a horse to purchased I shall be provided with
a donkey. There are number of problems associated with each and every R & D
works. If I need a good metallurgist or mechanical i shall be provided with a
chemistry person or mathematics. Of course each and every course has its own
advatage and disadvantage.

It is better to have trained personal just like in BARC, so as every person is
reoriented.

Most of the research works requires interdisciplinery type of workers, hence the
top personal also should have at least some knowledge about each and every
discipline.

I am not sure our entire S & T policy being leading us to more and more
disgruntlings and divisions among the subjects.

with this openeing IIT's at every nook and cornor shall not serve the purpose,
but reduces the standards of IIT's much below.

Posted by: D.Bheemeswar

20 I will agree with this point, that instead of opening an IIT at every corner,
it's always better filling the gap in education gap in our country,
But still the exception case,
Idea of establishing an e-IIT is the best option instead of spending lot's money
and time in establishing the IIT's, but the best Technical universities (like
IITs,NIITs) are easily reachable from any corner of country, then technology,
and learning curve will increase rapidly,

Posted by: Rajesh Koniki

21 Hey somebody look over here what these people are upto!!! We all think that
IIT's are the only best in giving education in this world. Some mass media
communication i.e., mainstream media news channels have also went ahead and even
newspapers too were in the race of claiming/indirectly proving and even
misguiding people that IIT's were ranked number 2 in the world by some
organization like the THES(Times Higher Education Supplement) . We have
purchased those reports as described by them. But nothing was the truth that
came out of them. Even there are many other institutes in the world far the best
than that of IIT's . Just visit the site http://www.arwu.org/ and all of you
people will come to know the facts. Now people are talking about making brands.
All of us should know what is required and what is not. India is nowhere ranking
between 303-400 in the rankings . It is absolutely the most official release
that any University ever has made. It's all about mean business and power or
self aggrandizement, politics that the entire world leads in. After all
Darwinism exists everywhere in this universe. All the people have the right to
speak. And even India is a democratic republic. Isn't it.

Posted by: Kaustubha S. Gudi

22 Spot On, there is actually no need of it. It will again focus on developing the
cream, whereas
reforms are required for the masses.The Standard of General Education, Statewise
Curriculum
and Stream wise should improve instead of opening institutions that still cater
to the cream

Posted by: Saurabh Bhatia

23 I dont think more IITs is the best solution to provide good technological
education in India. In fact 7 IITs were much more sufficient. Instead of that,
authority should think of improving the infrastructure and quality more of those
7 IITs. Now the scenario is like that, we have 13 IITs and out of that, six are
struggling to get compatibility to NITs. IITs are not only the brand name that
gives best technical knowledge rather, its the institutions which are providing
that. What better thing we can expect form the new six IITs? Atleast we used to
feel proud of having IITs here, now we cant say that too!

Posted by: Ranbir

24 More IIT's are a necessity and atleast there must be two IIT's and IIM's each in
every state. Along with it there can be the e-IIT's that will provide quality
education to Universities and colleges all over the country. Indians always kill
one prospect for the other. Like for the nuclear deal, the government has slowed
down the indigenous development of nuclear technology and power plants. If the
deal did not succeed we will be the losers.

Posted by: Vijay

25 well ofcourse the talents in the nook and corners of the country cannot see much
change with the establishment..

Posted by: girish