Dare to Think? - The IIPM Debacle.

I've been too much of a lispnik these days and less of the usual rants (maybe proportional to more hacking). But only recently I stumbled upon the IIPM debacle which is happening all over blogsphere (Seems even NDTV did a coverage on this). I have always lamented about the pathetic state of Indian engineering education, but it seems that the world of Management education is infested with a bunch of fradulent institutions and the fact that most of them behave in such an utterly despicable manner makes one wonder wether these megolomaniacal idiots should even be allowed to roam free in a system that seems to value the principles of freedom?

Whats the point in blowing our trumpets hard on being the 'Biggest Democracy in the World', when people can't go on practising the fundamental right to 'Freedom of Expression'. Isn't it guaranteed in the constitution? So why back to the usual rants, because of the IIPM vs Bloggers debacle thats unfolding right here in the blogsphere. Here is a small report for the convinence of the readers.

Gaurav Sabnis , a sales manager at IBM blogged (in his personal site) about the questionable authenticity of the claims made by IIPM in their full page ads carried out by various popular newspapers, linking to an article from a small magazine called JAMMAG edited by Rashmi Bansal. And wah-la!!! for the free country India is, hell bent on honouring the integrity of 'Freedom of Expression' , Gaurav was served a legal notice on counts of defamation and slander. Also, pressure from IIPM evantually made him resign his job, and that too on a matter of principle skyrocketing him to the status of a hero in the blogsphere. Support from the blogsphere was espescially amazing with almost every one who seems to know of this issue raising in unision for the support of the cause. Varun.V.Nair is tracking this issue online. Check that out for more info regarding the whole issue.

My POV :
Shocking! Simply shocking. Being the part of an Indian eductation system, I am not new to the fact that the quality of the education in terms of both the staff and the infrastructure is pitiable. As an example, My school in my opinion had better staff than what my college has. There are certain things that always seem to piss me off with the situation in India.

Firstly education in India is a business, not an institution as most of them claim. With a population of more than 200 million students its a very big market, agreed. But this is the only sector of the business where the whole consumer-producer equillibrium is turned upside down. The fact that these institutions can bully others into taking crap is not only unbelievable, but completely unacceptable.

Fundamental rights of students everywhere are simply stepped upon, and now they have the audacity to send legal notices to some one who is expressing their opinions on a personal blog? Thats undemocratic, anti-libertarian and for heavens sake fucking arrogant.

Now, comming to the IIPM issue, with a byline that goes like 'Dare to dream beyond the IIM's' might be good marketing, but for beating their breasts about for being the 'Best B school' their responses to the supposedly false allegations (accusations?) by serving legal notices that not only seem far below the standards that any self-respecting lawyer would sign his name on, is simply hilarious. The easiest way to put an end to all this controversy is simply by providing hard evidence but IIPM hasn't done it so far, and I guess it can't either.

The only way the 'management gurus' at IIPM decide to fight back seems to be by starting a string of fake blogs with names like 'IIPMStudent9' , 'OracleCoder' (Never knew management graduates had to be writing SQL querries in oracle) and who end up posting rather sexist comments on Rashmi's blog. Really do they even think such comment would get them anywhere if their aim is to clear their names ? What does such allegations achieve - Absolve IIPM of its impotency? Not only are these fake bloggers sullying the names of other IIPM students (making their predicament more unfortunate), but infact making it worse for IIPM itself. Its high time that these people realised that bloggers are smarter than what you think of them to be. But whats most appalling is the fact that the main stream media sans NDTV is almost completely silent. Seems like the fourth estate has stooped so low to become as cheap as say real estate.

But the issue that pisses me off the most here is not the fact that IIPM is a big fraud, or the fact that they are behaving like a bunch of retarded hooligans. But the fact that they have started stepping on the right to free speech. Free speech is the freedom and the right to express what I please, and hear and listen to what I think is appropriate for me. And thats a right that I am at no point of time willing to give up. Blogs provide an ideal medium to express my thoughts and opinions and I would at no point of time see that essential right be allowed to be taken away from me. This holds true for all bloggers, and hence I support the cause of free speech.

So, here is my little contribution for the sake of perserving the Right to Free Speech.

I fully support Gaurav and Rashmi for their courage in standing up for their convictions!

So as bloggers what can we do to support their cause? here is a small list of 3 things you can do.

• Blog about this issue
• Link to their posts and ask your readers to give the site a quick peep, maybe we can atleast help those who are looking ahead for management careers by making them realise the truth.
• Support them and the cause for free speech!

Its high time that we expose such institutions for the big frauds they are.

Signing off,
Vishnu Vyas