Salary Crisis At IITs and IIMs

I invite you to read this article: Mammoth crisis threatens India’s IITs and IIMs | Mint (ampproject.org)

There you go :)!

We raised this flag way back in 2009 when the IIT Faculty Federation protested for salary hikes. The then Minister HRD, the deeply obnoxious Kapil Sibal (who generally fights cases only for criminals because the innocent can't afford him), responded by coming on TV and humiliating us for "being greedy" and not having enough of a "spirit of renunciation" (Kapil Sibal! Imagine that!). Some IIT directors and "wanna be directors" of course exhibited their usual sycophancy and stalled their own colleagues instead of pointing out that there indeed is a serious economic lacuna in our faculty hiring.

We were "decent" as usual and arrived at a "compromise".

Now deal with it, Mr. Kapal Bharati 😏.

PS-1: You are welcome to confirm the truth of the following statement by comparing the faculty in IITs/IIMs with technology and management institutes globally:

'Approximately the best 25% in any department aside, our children are being taught by folks simply not up to the mark.'

These 'best 25%' are either (a) folks who can get an academic position globally but need to stay in India for personal reasons or (b) a few folks still falling for the oldest politicians' trick in our country: "we will make serious money, make sure we are paid well, but you should keep 'serving the country' at low salaries in a 'spirit of sacrifice'". Fortunately more and more people are waking up and the number of faculty members in category (b) is reducing rapidly - as it should, to ask for a fair remuneration for one's services is our right and the right thing to do.

75% of the faculty members in any department/institute being below par is a very serious matter! Our children deserve better!

Every field of activity in society, education included, has a 'fair economic sense' associated with it. You *have* to address this for quality to improve in the field. There are no shortcuts around this reality.

PS-2: Make no mistake about it, this disease of underpaying teachers goes all the way to our schools. The damage being caused by this shortsightedness is way more than is being acknowledged.