The Brain in the Drain: Does Autonomy compromise the Sanctity of IIT

There have been many times that IIT's autonomy issues have been raised in the print and broadcast media and discussed in the IIT's senate, which have never been analysed in the context of how it really affects the academic environment at the institute and its real effects on the community that IIT is meant for : the students. First of all, there are 4 government institutions which have distributed powers related to various administrative and financial decisions governing the institutes of national importance. And these bodies are The Ministry of Human Resource Development, the ministry of Finance, the IIT Council and the IITs. When people say autonomy, they may mean any of the 3 below :
1) Administrative autonomy of IITs from IIT Council
2) Administrative autonomy of IIT Council from MHRD
3) Financial autonomy of IIT, IIT Council from Ministry of Finance.

Where as the administrative autonomy means powers, it means ability to take decisions , but the financial autonomy on the other hand means Financial self dependence, or less dependence on the government sources, that IIT is parasitically dependent on at the present.

A few months ago, all the newspapers in India reported that IIT faculty refused to be granted more autonomy when offered by MHRD. No one really focussed on which kind of autonomy is IIT faculty opposing? A brief analysis of the statements given by the IIT directors and IIT faculty shows that it is the financial autonomy that the Faculty is afraid of , for it will expose the researchers to an added responsibility of attracting investments and donations. Panick followed, and the faculty cried for "no more autonomy".

But the fact is that the administrative autonomy is still being incremented for the institutes on a regular basis. What it really means is that the movement of powers is from MHRD to IIT Council and from IIT council to IITs. This movement of powers has led to sudden growth in the seminars, lectures and symposiums at IIT over the recent years as their approvals are done right inside IITs themselves. Recently at the Pan IIT alumni meet a whooping 2 crores were spent on the already wealthy IIT alumni for attracting donations. A whooping 3 crores were spent in creating the online infrastructure of IIT, which ideally should have been a computer science department's weekend assignment for students. All these expensive projects are approved because of administrative autonomy that the institutes enjoy, without any liability to the money spent because this administrative autonomy is not accompanied with the financial one.

But where does the government interfere at all? What is the intersection point of the powers of IIT and powers of Government? A study of Institute of Technology Act of 1961 shows that only post where the government if at all can interfere is the Director. Quoting an IIT faculty, The Director virtually appoints the complete senior administration including the deputy directors and deans, chairs all the faculty selections including that for the Professors, is the chairman of the senate and thus the academic head, is the financial head and also the administrative head. For most people living in the campus, which includes 90% of faculty and students. But every institute and a university has a leader, how is this post of director different from the post of president at the Harvard University ? The fact is that the Director is also the chairman of the local municipality (all major complaints on water, electricity, sewage etc. would reach him). This ensures that the buck almost always stops with him . And for another reason that IIT's leadership is different from others is that this tech-only institute is administered completely by the researchers and over the years the smart MBA people and Indian civil servants have been kept away from even eyeing the institute's leadership by the cry of autonomy. And this leadership is not just academic but everything : the whole legislative, executive, treasury and judiciary of the 320 acre campus. IIT may be the only institute in the world which has too much to offer to the researchers, an administrative leadership, otherwise in the top universities of the world, technical researchers rarely can climb above the post of dean of their respective school. The last technical researcher to make it to the president of the Harvard University was Bryant Conunt, a Chemistry professor way back in 1933 about 80 years ago, when the ongoing world wars had shifted the focal point of leadership in the universities to the Academic Chemistry.

The skill sets of IIT's technical researchers for administering a university may be beyond my scope of intelligence and credentials, but the aspirations of some of the faculty in penetrating into the administration is however not a secret. Heads of Departments, Deans rarely are found in the labs, available only on appointments, their courses offer less student-teacher interaction in after class hours. Point is not that their interest in teaching/research is compromised, but that their research interest does not hinder their love for their administrative job.

When the sets of people working in Academics and people working in administration doesnt remain mutually exclusive, then there is a conflict of interest and reposibilities, especially at the intersection. It keeps academicians busy with their beloved jobs of administration. But more autonomy should mean more research, more hassle free teaching and less bureaucracy. But the fact is that for a student, time availability of a teacher for research has reduced, for teaching has reduced and centre point of the bureaucracy has shifted to the midst of student-teacher relationship, which may not have happened before in the history of Indian Academics.

But it is unfair to judge a researcher or an institute by the quantity of research and even more unfair to judge them by the quantity of time they are giving. A mistake which often the statisticians and economists do while comparing the nations and their universities by the number of publications, or patent filed (& not the patent registered). So the Quality of the research has to be judged by altogether different parameters.

Any publication is a result of hard work done by the research method: first find a research gap, then search for a conference or journal, then write, then send, then remain fingercrossed, then get accepted, then apply for travel grant for yourself and your spouse, pay for your kids if need be and plan a family trip. More autonomy will only mean easy approvals for finances. I have been dazzled by the choice of conferences that faculty (not all) attend at the tourist places like Singapore, US, UK. Some apply for only those conferences abroad at the countries where their children are based, so that the family trip gets compensated by the government. Whereas the international research unions like IEEE are steadily shifting their conference venues to east to save costs, while allowing a better tacit knowledge transfusion and networking opportunity, and it cuts their travel grants expenditure too, but the trend is yet to be seen in the Indian researcher's choice of attending the conferences. The statistics of travel grant applications at the finding agencies like MHRD, UGC, INSA and IARCS may speak louder which is not available in the public domain. When IITs started accepting the SAARC nationals and even decreased their fees in Feb 2010, there was a scope of more knowledge transfusions among the IITs and institutes in the neighborhood. But the preference of the researchers for the west, which is only going to increase with autonomy has nullified IIT's potential contribution to India's research diplomacy in the subcontinent. Over all this depicts a picture of autre-academic intentions of indian researchers for the tech-research.

Last year when V Ramakrishnan won the nobel prize, a debate on " Can IIT ever fetch a nobel prize" got triggered. It is very far fetched question to ask that Whether IIT faculty is nobel-laurable or not ? A better question is what exactly are their aspirations and what is the next milestone after becoming a professor at IIT ? are the autonomous incentives at IIT making the right aspirational play for the researchers?

2 years ago when I was doing a literature survey for a project at NUS Singapore, I was amazed with how my every search for IIT in top journals like Nature and Science resulted in nothing. My further interaction with the researchers exposed me to a perception in the international research community that if a paper is from IIT, it has to be theoretical.

And this is since how many years?
It has been throughout.

So the next better question is to ask if Autonomy can increase the aspirations ? I will choose to answer myself "No" . History is evident that Autonomy can only increase one thing among the researchers - Procrastination. And when it will come with Finances funded by the government, it is only going to contribute in the negative.

A scientific research is involved with an art of framing the facts and discoveries. But Science may be more logical, but publishing a paper is not. Researchers who target international journals always endeavor to look for a general topic and India-Centric research is avoided. Why ? Because "India" decreases the publishablity of a paper. Atleast this is a perception of Indian researchers targetting publishing in the International journals of repute. So, with this perception, how is IIT or how can it ever contribute to national priorities? Can autonomy improve on this. It will only worsen. Autonomy will not only make the institutes centre for selfish career-designing but will dismantle the channels of funding the research areas of national priorities. More autonomy may not have anything to focus on Nation's key areas.

For answering that how Autonomy will really effect students one need to look at the kinds of decisions that "within-IIT" administration has taken in the past. For the last 2 years, IIT students have been appealing for permission to keep coolers at hostels which have only fallen on deaf ears. Some students have even been penalised for keeping the coolers in the hostels. And Institute has if anything to offer is timely raids by the administration to check if coolers have been kept by students. Stray dogs too have an enmity of past several pastlives. Institute is yet to consider and do something about the dogs even after several live canine encounters faced by the students. The increased water borne diseases at IIT required a newspaper report for it to be resolved by the administration, when RO systems in hostels were replaced recently. Mess at hostels which maintain daily record of food wastage, have only contributed to increased market for nearby restaurants (among those who cant tolerate the mess food) and increased sales of Vitamin B tablets (among those who are regular at the Mess). The institute's tender system is every year renewed and every year same people apply and win their closed envelope bids. Student Organizations at IIT Delhi, even after past 2 years of arguing about these same problems, have been unable to do anything. In many decisions, students are not made the stake holders, and wherever they are made the stake holders in the administrative and financial decisions, especially in the cultural fest Rendezvous and techfest, Tryst, they got involved in money-eating exercise. Autonomy never accompanied the scope of external auditing and willingness for internal auditing, and this reduced the student posts and fest posts to money eating and CV enhancing opportunity, leading to deterioration of student culture and academic environment.

But more hilarious the reaction of autonomous IITs to the student suicides. IIT Kanpur planned for removing fans and replacing them with table fans so that no one can suicide by hanging. IIT Madras dean analysed suicide statistics in percentage terms, commenting that the % figure is ignorable. These led to serious doubts on the bright tech genii in the ability of handling the administration of a university.

But higher autonomy didnt just give the legislative, executive and treasury to the administration. It also gave the judiciary. The Disco meetings at IIT decide the fate of the students (found culprit in a crime or deemed to be a crime). This makes the whole governance of the 320 acre campus dependent on the researchers' personal idea of fairness and justice. Earlier too, the demands for appellate authority for IIT has been suppressed which leaves IIT administration to single play the fate of the students. The verdicts of Disco have been unprecedented in the history of academics globally. From hostel expulsions to semester F grade.. from intelligibility for IIT posts to suspensions.. some verdicts have destroyed careers, friendships, memories, reputations and virtually everything that a normal college graduate finds important in his life.

all this at the end of the day, makes a professor most important entity (only inside the 320 acre campus). This enhanced importance contributes the master-slave component in the teacher-student relationship, where students for their entire tenure find their degrees at the stake. The Communication gap has widened in the classrooms, and IITians after some time in the institute have nothing but a false ego in their heads, hiding from the world how their childhood dream of being in IIT, betrayed them at the end.

The Brain in the Drain: Student Politics at IIT Delhi

Student Politics
Ankit Ratan & Pranjal Choudhary

It is a bit strange that we should call student body elections in IIT as Student ‘Politics’. I have spent four years in this institute, entitling myself to speak with some knowledge about the whole process. At the same time I should also admit that I haven’t been too enthusiastic about it (Elections) in any case. While this does make me a bit of an outsider, it has allowed me to view the whole process dispassionately.

Let’s get back to my initial idea of an apolitical environment on this campus. There are supposed to be no formal political parties on campus, atleast on paper. Still, I am sure most people are aware of Axis (it’s amazing how iitians come up with such grandiose terms for almost everything). There are supposed to be two major Axis on the campus and almost all posts are influenced or decided between the two Axis. But unlike parties there is no political agenda which binds the different factions of an axis together. The axis is formed more from personal bonds and characteristic hostel bonhomie than a common agenda. Thus IIT student body elections are devoid of any political propaganda, there are rarely any issues which are heard of. Securing an IIT level post involves a detailed bargaining for posts between the axis and distribution of certain posts to satisfy people to earn support.

Getting back to what politics is. Foremost is the requirement of an agenda, which defines why a specific group of people have come together. That obviously seems absent. Most parties and people (in colleges and other institutions) want to come to power to enforce their agenda upon the system in which they wish to get elected. Not only is any such motive clearly absent amongst almost all candidates, what they do about issues that crop up during their tenure is also least heard of. Then what is the drive that forces most candidates to work relentlessly for weeks; carrying on propaganda; giving parties to would be supporters and delivering infinite fundaas to convince people of their suitability for the post. I am sure there is that temptation for power and post but it can still not fully explain this mad drive for being Gen. Sec. etc.

Did someone say CV! While it unethical for me to brand the whole student election processes as a CV enhancement exercise, I am sure there are few more who would agree with my point of view. The control theory suggests that when output is a function of input, and if output has to be controlled , then control the function . The input for IIT is talented students, math genii, numerical problem solvers . Most of the people at IIT have previously nill exposure to voluntary services at their school , because they chose to limit their extravagance of time on non academic activities . But this change in colour is something more than an unreasonable mimicry .A past few years have seen a visible change in eligibility conditions by recruiters where there has been too much stress on holding posts inside the campuses. The training and placement cell which is yet to respect the Minor degrees of IIT itself in its auto resume generator , has given special columns to the posts that students held during their stay at IIT. Even during the visit of the President on institute’s golden jubilee, when the General Secretaries represented the institute , the authorities didn’t find people with high academic caliber or mouthwatering CGPAs and good sportspersons at IIT , eligible enough to be introduced to the President (or is it that they looked for people having same credentials as her excellency the President). Whereas institutes all over the world impose fines, or suspensions to punish students as disciplinary actions, IIT may be the only institute where Students are punished with ineligibilities for posts at the campus, proving that administration too acknowledges eligibility for posts as necessary component of incentives and punishments at IIT. And it is here we crack the code , the feedback loop in the circuit is being sent to the students by the IIT itself . The rules, incentives , punishments at IIT exposes the next batches to the virtual importance of the posts at IIT , leading to the fuss during the election period.

The voluntary component in the voluntary activities , ceases to be voluntary when there are incentives for holding that voluntary post. Students posts no longer remain voluntary , and desire to hold them is slowly turning to greed. Though, The hostel posts are decided by an all student vote, none of the other posts are based on the concept of universal adult franchise. Even the freshly elected representatives from the second year are supposed to vote for these posts. How are they supposed to make an informed choice is anyone’s guess. Hostel elections do involve basic infrastructure issues, casteism, regionalism etc., thus in a way displaying the typical characteristics of any student election and can deservedly be termed as political in nature. The elections on the bigger stage though are devoid of any political colour. The term ‘Student Politics’ (or ‘poltu’ as it is popularly called), therefore can only be used in the context of hostel elections. The lack of a political agenda has rendered the institute’s political environment impotent. The institute policies are only debated in AIC and SAC meetings, where the Director’s word seems to be the final argument (reference to minutes of such a meeting is ample proof). The system seems more like monarchy with certain ‘noble class’ representing the people infront of a king, who finally makes a judgment based on his idea of fairness.

Certain reforms are needed to give some credibility to institute elections and the executive processes performed by these elected representatives. Foremost being the formation of an independent review committee which will monitor the actions of all elected and non-elected post holders on campus. Such a committee should be a mixture of students, faculty and few members of alumni as external members. The other more important reform needed is the formation of an Institute Secretary similar to the hostel secretary. Thus there will be an office equivalent to the Prime Minister and there would be no ‘passing of the buck’ on critical issues. Such a representative would also be a true representative of the students. The election of such a representative should be based on principle of universal adult franchise, without which the whole process might again just end up as another post on the CV.

The Brain in the Drain

At IIT Delhi, cultural fests and competitions is a matter of concern for all the students. While the whole world and the Brain Drain activists may question about the patriotism which every IITian keeps in heart for his motherland , but those who have been in the student life at IIT , are in least oblivion to the patriotism that every student has here for his hostel at IIT . Often, the students arrive in number to the dance and music competitions to cheer up for their hostel, and as expected from the most competitive people on the planet, there is cheering down activity for other hostels as well.

Winning is everything. If hook does not work , then let the crook work. The conspiracy theory about NASA's 1969 moon travel , included american government ordering NASA that "if you can not make it, then fake it". Seems like India's brightest minds, caught it well. When the experts in newton's laws of motion start competing in entertaining others, mistakes are bound to happen. And of course, this competition is a necessity rather than a luxury that motivational books for IIT preach to the middle class of this country. From the past many years the recruiters had focussed on the EQ of the students, which basically means the participation in the dances and dramas. And these competitions prepare best for the roadies show that people are prepared to participate in..

It was Music Manoranjan, a cultural competition organised by the Music club at IIT delhi, and the Aravali hostel was on the stage ready to present their show. And as it appeared in next few minutes , India's brightest minds chose the Draupadi cheer haran to be staged and get entertained with. The performance included a male student dressed up in a sari with its pallu ready to be pulled by another male student. Contrast was that this draupadi had grin in her whole script. And as the script unfolded , the draupadi's pallu was pulled, and to add to entertainment, draupadi smiled, and laughed, enjoying her strip out. And as the stage which once witnessed the Nehru's speech for the technological vision he had for the nation and how IIT will help that out, it now witnessed the laughs of the audiences, laugh of the draupdi herself. But the stage had a saviour.

While the draupadi's cheer haran was in progress , one of my friends in the modern-minded audience rushed towards the stage. As a staunch religious hindu from lucknow ,he jumped on the stage, slapped the draupadi, Krishna , and the one with pallu in his hand. It was difficult to guess that it was not a part of the show. For one reason that IITians can do anything for winning .People thought if it may had a message to be unfolded. It took a while for the audiences to understand that this is not the part of the show. But it took a bigger while for draupadi to react to do something different than what her script programmed her for. While my friend was busy in slapping down others, the citizens of the Aravali hostel behind the stage realised that he was from Nilgiri Hostel , and here arrives the hostel patriotism. The citizens of Aravali jumped into the stage and avenge the spoil of the show.

2 days later, My friend was taken in front of dean, to get the verdict of the mistakes he had done. The dean found him guilty of spoiling the entertainment that draupadi cheer haran had to offer, and issued him a warning. This was a victory of modern ideas over fanatism. A victory of tolerance over revolution.

But what Dean did had very less to debate with anyone at IIT. The punishment system at IIT, is solely on discretion of the professors in the great institute. Hardly anyone is in oblivion to the "Disco" at IIT. The disco is acronym for the "disciplinary committee" at IIT. Members of the disco include non nobel laurates (as almost all professors are) at IIT, willing to award punishment to someone who is accused of a crime or deemed to be a crime. The disciplinary committee is a "high level punishment" awarding agency , known to have given nightmares to the rule breakers and people accused of breach of discipline at IIT.

The disco meeting is similar to Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) of India. It is not like a criminal code, where you are innocent until proven guilty. It is like, you are guilty until proven innocent. The innocence may be justified by someone in the committee itself. Often the member students try to speak some words in favour of their classmates, the choice of words often is subjected to whatever does not put their own degree at stake. The student-criminals often try to negotiate in the committee in attempts of minimizing the punishments and divert the academic punishments to some social ones.

Often there have been questions on the choice of punishments. Some of those choices, like Hostel Expulsion have a reason back in 2007, when the Human Resource Development Minister of India increased the seats at IITs to counter the criticisms on the reservation policy he was going to introduce. The increased number of seats have affected the living conditions of hostels at IIT, that many in India would not be aware of. Hostel Expulsions as punishments often attract the Disciplinary Committee, for it not only serves as the most lenient possible negative incentive, but also serves to relax the continuous burden that IIT hostels are facing. Since major revenue generation is happening through the government funds rather than student collection, and student actually pays less than the lodging, messing and internet services that IIT pays for him, hence , there is little that is cared about the loss in the IIT treasury through hostel expulsion, it actually relaxes that.

Often there have been negotiations in the punishments, where students have demanded the social service or NSS hours as substitutes to the punishments awarded to them. In one such incident, student was replied with the possibility if he could sweap the premises of the Bharti Building at IIT during the day hours. Where as Social service as a mode of punishment has reached so many research papers in the legal research, but the absence of department of law at IIT, has made the people in the administration into oblivion to the world of rationality. This oblivion has often put the student-teacher into ego clash, which often reaches to prey-predator relationship, where prey's degree is at predator discretion.

Similar such disrespects to the student community has been evident in the disco meetings. Since disco consumes a lot of time of the professors of the great institute, it obligates the verdict to necessarily have some punishment for the offenders, thereby justifying the time wastage . In one of the cases in the third week of November, 2010, regarding the proxy hacking by the students of the nilgiri hostel at IIT Delhi , it was straightforwardly informed by a member of jury, that disco rarely comes out without any punishment to the students, in order to legitimize the time wastage of honorable members of disciplinary committee, and it later turned out, three students were punished with "only" hostel expulsion, keeping in mind the recent suicide at IIT Kanpur, while at the same time , giving hostels more space for better accommodating the students left.

Much of the student punishments are provocative to extreme steps , because the embarrassments that punishments bring to "once upon a time school toppers", but also massive publicity that IIT administration does, to each and every offender. Minutes after the verdict is announced by the jury the final verdict reaches all the students in the institute in their email inboxes. No stone is left unturned for penetrating the embarrassments for the offenders and victims of the disco committee, into the IIT community through Notice Boards at all the hostels and the whole academic area.

To be continued ...

The Academic Imperialism and the IIT : Part 2

But the students of IIT are not the only people who are stakeholders in the IIT hegemony. There are many. Non-IITians who keep seeking internships, campus exposure, participation in the petty tech-fests are much more responsible hegemonists of IIT. There are some who introduce themselves as IITians to strangers too after doing petty trainings at IIT. But what it clearly shows the imperialism that IIT has already established in the academic world. And how much it effects the mind of both kinds of people : those who make it, and those who dont. IIT has nothing to pay back to the middle class of this country which has been "hegemony"sing it since the last 50 years. It is this hegemony, which has lead to more easy loans for IITians, and a separate column for IIT graduates in matrimonial columns of newspapers.

The measure of "negative hegemony" of an academic institute can only be done through its influence in changing the career tracks of the people away from their interests. Whereas the top brands in the world have allowed space to their graduates to look for their own interests. IIT may be the only institute in the world where departments choose people rather people choose departments. Certainly, Indians in 21st century are experimenting less with their careers and playing a risk-free game compared to their ancestors in 60s-70s who explored their careers rising beyond the rat-races that may existed at that time. Though there are examples of academic brands that have developed worldwide. Be it Harvards in US, LSE in UK, Peking in china, HEC in france , Todai in Japan and SKY in korea, but nowhere else in the world, an academic institute has penetrated so much in the social aspects of the people's lives to an extent that it influenced the people's goals, careers , interests and aspirations and emerged as solution to the desperate's money hunger.

Four days past, I am now free from this imperialism. But pity the middle class which is killing itself and its interests by its own aspirations.

The above piece is my feedback as Gurudakshina to IIT on the end of its golden jubilee year. Comments and Criticisms are welcome.

The Academic Imperialism and the IIT : Part 1

It has been four days since I graduated out of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,and when I look back my life these 4 years and see how it contrasts with my own aspirations and expectations of the middle class of this country who have only one way of exit from the hell they believe they are living in : to clear the Joint Entrance Examination and pursue a career at the IITs. I see the people who are just graduates and have a great confidence to take over the poor non-IITians in every company they will invade in, where not only they will be most listened to, but also more susceptible for promotions and perks. There is clear evidence of the existence of the IIT hegemony where the name sole helps the ease of the work for graduates, atleast they believe it helps and others believe that the name gives undue advantage.

In the humanities course of Science, Technology and Society, professor Vignesh has his favourite topic to lecture to the future beneficiaries of what is called as the Matthew effect. It is the effect where the nobel laureate gets a higher probability of getting published for a second grade research compared to the high end research by a non nobel laureate. It is evident that same goes for IITians and non-IITians also. Nobel laurates is just an example, the "rat race" following country that we live in, where generations have the habit of grading and degrading others on basis of castes, creeds and religion, had to do this with academics some day, partly because of the growing concern over education among the flourishing middle class, and partly because people believe in degrading each other. Sometimes I feel, India does not have brands, it only has negative-brands. IITian is not that big a brand, as the negative one "non-IITian" is.

But most of the middle class concerns over their "academic ego" comes more from the matrimonial market aspects in India, rather than the "employer market". India being the land of Matrimonial problems, (both post and pre-matrimonial problems), the stakeholders of a child's education rarely work to teach their child greatness, they rather work for increasing his credibility among indian employers which gradually increments his/her "matrimonial credibility". The leadership education in the country is suppressed, because matrimony is all about getting approved from others. So much that this mentality has penetrated deep inside the Indian DNA, that I doubt even any generation in the past which has ever thought of coming out of societal shackles and do something for its greatness. The one which did, is presently running the pseudo-monarchy of Indian Democracy.

So IIT is more or less, like, they take an exam which test the "algorithmicity" of the mind, and take in the people, who are best suited to follow the algorithms of success which is defined by every professor at the start of the course. The middle class with the aspirations of battling each other and make the way to the corporate success, gets in IIT. Then the professors with very unsatisfied life and salaries get in their hand the students desperate to do whatever required for what they define as success. The 4 year of "divide and rule" type of assignments and projects are given to the middle class students who are running the 4 years of pig race with the meat of hefty packages at the end. The students learn to compete, overcede and the one who is least harmed, wins the race of lasting confidence. At the end of the day, the great nation with the great taxpayers who paid in hope for more opportunity creation, ended up with people who competed for opportunities, rather than creating some. The argument that some ended up as entrepreneur triggers the debate on entrepreneurship itself. The credit of India being the land of entrepreneurs, goes more to the bad "bosses" and bad employee satisfaction rates in the country, which boosted the forced entrepreneurship. The kind of entrepreneurs emerging out of IIT include only those who are not satisfied with the job offers (read: meat) they got at the end of the pig race. The very word entrepreneur in India is different from the one you use in United States where people left the job more out of passion rather than self-or autre-approvals. Also the post IIT entrepreneurship is more effected by the changing admission eligibilities at the top US business schools, where entrepreneurial experiences increases the credibility in the Admission Committees.

continued to part 2 ...