This article could have been a plain interview with the Director of IIT Madras. We would have had nothing more to offer than his answers to a few questions on the Brand IIT song that the world was given to hear not so long ago, and the dance it has been responsible for. Indeed, the exercise of interviewing the Director could have been quite dull, with only the long wait outside his office to write home about. Somehow, to substitute the name of Dr. M.S. Ananth for 'Director' reduces the very conceiving of that possibility to downright sacrilege!

Here we are now, with thoughts that transpired during the first meeting of The Fourth Estate with Dr. M.S. Ananth since he became Director of the Institute.

The first feeling that any report or newspaper article leaves one with, is that the IIT50 Meet at San Jose was essentially, if not entirely, a self-glorification exercise. It was the idea of a few eminent and many otherwise successful alumni to arrange a congregation of the greatest minds of the past half-century. The intergalactic, or simply international, or more simply American spotlight needed to be turned on the Indian Institutes of Technology, and their contribution recognised and applauded. Having Bill Gates, among others, speaking at the summit, and having CBS' 60 Minutes do a full feature on the IITs served this purpose quite well. In fact CBS did come over to IITM to interview the Director, but the camera team went only to IITB and even spoke to a few students there. The final program, as those of us who saw the screening at Saraswathi Hostel Night will remember, was made for a sensation-starved American audience. Every corner was shaped to sell - right from contrasting IITB to its surroundings - namely a patch of land that's home to snake charmers and elephants, to Narayanamurthy saying "My son wanted to do Computer Science in IIT. But for that you need to be among the top 200, which he couldn't manage. So he went to Cornell."

So for all the pats we gave our own backs, what was hoped to be achieved? It's all too easy to say that we're an institute at the level of MIT or Princeton and that we ought to be recognised for our quality. However, while our output is our students, these others differ in that they produce research of volumes that would quite humble us if we didn't consciously discount it. All that keeps us from attaining their stature is the difference in the funding received towards research - their grants being the order of several hundred times more than ours. And all we're known for is our undergraduates.

So, a group of people meeting and trying hard to sell Brand IIT in a way that's so typically American isn't exactly what it takes to get us there. IIT50 San Jose was about the celebration of the success of entrepreneurial IITians. However, the best from the academic world were conspicuous by their absence. The alumni may make it seem like they're drafting a vision for IIT. The fact remains that a vision for the IIT system cannot be drafted in the US - it has to be done here in India.

Dr. Ananth warns, however, that the meet cannot be dismissed as only so much. He adds that he was personally quite thrilled being there. Having taught in IITM for about thirty years and then become Director of the same institute, he found himself reunited with his 'mafia', and for the above reason, a larger mafia than any other director could have hoped for! Numerous smaller meets of alumni of the individual IITs happened as well. IITM alumni topped the overall attendance at San Jose! These meetings were clearly less sung about than those graced by Bill Gates and others, but were of great significance nonetheless.

The Directors of the respective IITs made their presentations at these meetings. (And anyone who has heard our director speak would hardly be surprised that a report I read described his speech as 'head and shoulders above the rest' both in terms of content and wit!) Dr. Ananth spoke enthusiastically of the various cross-disciplinary research programmes introduced by IIT Madras, as well as our Strategic Management Project. Another pertinent issue that came to be discussed was of Intellectual Property Rights. A lot of significant research is done in the IITs whose findings need to be patented. And we must exploit the fact that it's much easier to get a patent in the US than here in India.

The Director adds that the warmth of the alumni made the experience memorable. Our alumni clearly want to contribute. (I add as an observation that though this cause is probably not always on their minds, these urges peak when IIT is all around, such as at meets, or when an alumnus visits his or her campus). For this reason, Dr. Ananth feels there should be student volunteers to welcome alumni to the institute, take them around, update them, and make them feel like a special part of the system. But as far as contributing goes, he feels that attitudes need to fall into place. It's convenient to call the Ministry of HRD autocratic, and for the alumni to voice doubts about how their money may be spent. Dr. Ananth, however, says that the alumni and administration alike must see IIT as bigger than both. Nobody's doing anyone any favours. Besides, alumni contributions are a drop in the bucket - until now, they have totalled about 15 crores, of which about 11 crores came from a single couple! Compare this to the 100 crores that the ministry of HRD gives us every year. Alumni money, therefore, can only be used for facelifting, as with the hostel bathrooms last year, and development projects, such as the Reverse Osmosis plants.

Although this concluding part is probably off-topic, I asked Dr. Ananth about it, as he had brought the matter of JEE (and ideas for improving the system) up in a discussion in class before he left for San Jose.

The Director was for the idea of replacing the screening test with a 12th class score cut-off (Some of us may remember a SAC Meeting Agenda IP which mentioned this). This is to curb the coaching revolution, hoping at worst that these centres will start to coach for the boards. Also, the performance of girls in the boards is much better than that of the boys, and making that the screening criterion will give the girls a fair chance to get into IIT. As of now, the number of girls is small, largely because not all of them can attend coaching classes. Dr. Ananth also feels that the JEE is not a test of raw intelligence as much as of acquired and honed skills. He speculates that introducing general knowledge as a subject may be a good idea, but the urban edge may come into play, inviting instant protest, and beating down the very thought from being further worked on. And that's quite regrettable, given that it's the same confidence, zeal and awareness that we want in our students. It's only the people who come in here with that confidence, zeal and awareness (all parameters if properly defined and understood, are actually independent of urban or rural background), who leave with an education. Only those people eventually go on to do any good for the nation, or for science and technology. Or for IIT. Those are the people who make IIT a worthy subject of those TV features. And those summits.

And having somehow led this article all over the place, I am satisfied that I can take it back where it started, thus keeping it what may be called logically bound! It is with that satisfaction that I end.