11 NIT dirtectors sacked..

About 11 NIT Directors being sacked immediately after the change of Govt

Prologue (for people who dont know what are NITs, RECs and what I am talking abt) REC - Regional Engineering College. India has these second rung of Engr Colleges (Second becuz, first are the well known IITs, and as a group they are definately next to them. Individually, I would say, some are next to the IITs. Well, this post is not abt the ranking so let me go on...). There are around 18 in total, one per state. A govt is elected at the center (BJP), has grand designs for the RECs, promotes many of them to deemed university status calling them NIT (National Institute of Technology). has plans to improve the quality to, well, if not equal to that of IITs, atleast somewhere close to them. atleast somebody had realised that 7 IITs are not enough anymore for a country with a huge and growing educated population as India.

Then it calls for interviews for the position of directors of the NITs. Really good candidates turn up, they are interviewed and appointed as Directors. NIT Karnataka, (KREC formerly, my college), similarly got Prof. S S Murthy, a Prof. from IIT Delhi as its director. The director is doing a gr8 job, has a gr8 vision for the college (I had finished college when he was there, so this is what I had heard from Profs and students). In the meantime the govt's term comes to an end, there is election and a different party (congress with allies) forms the govt. And all of a sudden Prof. S S Murthy along with 10 other such directors is sacked!! Just becuz of a govt change? Just becuz they were selected by a previous govt? Not even evaluating what they hav or hav not done. And a press statement is also given that they hav been sacked!! Politics at its lowest level. Why does the govt even bring in such politics in education? If only I could get hold of a paper clipping, I would post it here. Why dont they realize that the 7 IITs are not enough for India.

I am not sure why am posting this. Am sure nothing is going to change now and nothing ever will. The college will (am definately hoping that it will) remain as good as it was before. May be, it wont reach the heights that Prof. S S Murthy could hav taken it to. And clearly, its wrong. why I am blaming Ms. Sonia Gandhi, cuz she is the leader of the majority party. She and our PM are/should be responsible for what happens under their govt.

(epilogue) If nothing this post atleast lends a voice to someone out there fighting for this seemingly small but really important cause. Tossing a director is not like tossing a governor of a state who doesnt have much power. The director can either make or break a college. This man could have brought NITK on the world map. The problem I see though is that nobody is really fighting (including me). NIT alumnii esp. NITK/KREC's have not been even 10% as active as IIT alumnii.