Your Perspective — ‘KGP Elections and Student Bodies’

Disclaimer: Article under “Your Perspective” is the perspective of the students of IIT Kharagpur on the prevailing issues and the incidents. Awaaz, IIT Kharagpur has no take on this.

My name is Ksheera Sagar K N. I am an alumni of IIT Kharagpur of the class of 2018. I am currently enrolled in PhD Statistics at Purdue University. I am from Hyderabad. I am contesting …. oh wait, get the sweat off your faces. I am happy with my job. The purpose to write this article, is to show the dark side of election process in KGP and which I couldn’t put it in public for the last 2 years. In this piece I will talk about politics, equations and processes behind VP elections only (because it drives all other systems).

So let’s start debugging! I will try to give a comprehensive view of the system (along with my opinions) and will try to conclude with the proposals that I will work on if I would really contest. To maintain a smooth flow, I will take you through these 10 sections as follows:

1. “VP” — Misconception that the KGP has
2. “The Mid -January” — How the process begins?
3. “Formation of Pacts” — An optimization and a game theory perspective
4. “The election Market” — तुम इक घोरक धंधा हो |
5. “#_for_VP and Hall Days” — The fool’s game-1
6. “Fundae & Art of proposal making” — The biggest joke of the season
7. “SOP-BOX” — The fool’s game-2
8. “How KGP votes” — The same way…
9. “Results and Tenure” — Farmer waiting for the second rain
10. “If I was a VP” — From the bottom of my heart…

Note: The aim of this article is not to target any professor, hall or an individual. But just a mere reflection of how we have evolved and with a small hope that a bright day will come for sure. Secondly, I have written his article entirely using “he/him”. I declare that I don’t have any gender bias and “he/him” can be replaced with appropriate gender pronouns wherever needed. Lastly I didn’t put this public for the last 2 years because I felt that I can’t alone bring a change being in the system itself and at every situation my batch-mates, seniors, & juniors were at the risk of penalty. So I decided to put forward everything now, before the crap starts once again within a few days. I am also sorry, embarrassed and guilty for not acting as a responsible KGP’ian and reporting earlier.

“VP” — Misconception that the KGP has

If you start watching the videos of previous SOP-boxes, the very first line or the 2nd line would be “VP is the crucial link between the admin and the student community…………………..”. The true and the sad thing is, he is merely a link which is used by the admin to know what students are thinking and convey what they are thinking. Same from the students side too. It is a typical role of “Narada Muni” who passes info between loka’s and creates problems, but our VP doesn’t !

The biggest misconception that most of KGP’ians (even me till the start of my 4th year) have is: “VP is the power”. If we think deeply enough, a Hall President is more powerful than VP (excluding the role of CDC and Senate).On an average, a Hall President directly oversees the welfare of 600+ students, has ~25 people working under him who follow his orders and go to great extent’s to do anything for the hall. He has a financial power of 15+ lakhs for regular activities and 5+ lakhs for infrastructural development of the hall. He is free to take initiatives, decisions and can become a crucial person in adding value to the lives of his boarders.

On the other hand, a VP has great deal of signatory powers in fests and some activities of TSG. But his power in CDC/ Institute Senate/ Financial Space is totally restricted. Each and every step has a Professor as a checkpoint, which is required but becomes a problem for the scope of development most of the times. One shocking thing is that “VP has no unilateral power in setting an agenda item for an institute senate meeting”. Every proposal (if at all he has) which has a direct impact on academics or indirect impact, should go through program evaluation committees comprising of Deans and various professors. If it gets choked in the pipeline, then it’s gone. Nothing would be discussed on that matter anywhere and there is no way even to question back. I am telling this, based on my experience as a UG Representative to senate, 2017–18, where 4 of my proposals were passed and 4 others got choked.

One more classic example that I can give is: Revamping Curriculum. The first orders came on September 21st 2017, instructing all departments to start the work. It has been 15 months so far, but no significant work has been done. Now, neither the VP nor the UG Representative have a power to question this delay, because they do not have unilateral power to set at least one agenda point. The rigidity in CDC, TSG…. and all make our so called “VP” a helpless chap. It’s like saying:

“हप्पा के पास ढेर सारा पवर है, पर उसका इंस्टी में कोई सुनता नहीं
VP का हर कोई सुनता है पर उसके पास कोई पवर नहीं ”

“The Mid -January” — How the process begins?

So, after understanding that VP has no significant power, and he can do very little for the value addition to student community of KGP, why are students so crazy to have a VP from their hall ? When I asked this question to Hall presidents of early 2000’s of my hall, they all had similar kind of replies, like we should have some one who could save guys in disciplinary committee meetings when booked for taking OP, or for some help in HMC, Civil Works, T & P (Training and Placement) etc. It was clear that no hall was putting forward their candidate by dreaming for a better tomorrow ! I don’t know what the halls think as of today, but it was pretty much the same till 2017.

How so ever the process is, it should start anyways and it generally starts in January. First, the hall president shortlists all the “society and the fest wala”3rd years. Now he along with some other men, see credentials, reputation (in hall and in social circles), contribution to hall, criminal history (arguments with G.Secs’s of the hall or with some seniors) etc. Weighing all the factors they will come out with 2–3 names who can be potential vote pullers. The next phase is when they enter the market to make pacts or even get approached to make a pact. Now the biggest mistakes that they make till this point are:

1. They take no consent of who is interested or not, unless it comes to them through air.
2. Decent people who work for the hall day and night are ignored.

From the last 3 years, I have been a strong advocate of: “A hall kind-a-person becoming VP rather than some society/fest guy”. Because a guy who works for a hall knows the sentiments, troubles of his juniors & batch-mates, the hardship of pulling of events, managing 100’s of crowd in Illu and Rangoli etc. On the other hand the society/fest guy may be professional, so on and so forth. But I bet that they have very minimalist understanding of what a student sentiment is and how does it work.

“Formation of Pacts” — An optimization and a game theory perspective

The simple fact is that, everybody likes to win. To win, you need strength.Every hall president realizes that: “we need numbers and our own hall is not at all sufficient”. This is why halls form pacts (group of halls which mutually promise to vote for each others candidates). Behind this, there is an interesting Optimization problem which gets solved using principles of game theory — Risk minimization. (assume we are from pact-1 and usually 2 pacts are only formed)

So if we get into the question of how do pact’s really from, first it starts with the relations that a hall president (HP) develops with other hall presidents over the student senate meetings (union of all HP’s and SSM’s) during the Autumn Semester. Generally all halls (even if they do not have a candidate who is potential of becoming a VP), they have 2–3 names for VP at first. The random chaos begins at some point, where a HP meets other HP and both project the number of VP candidates they have (not the names!). Now they analyse scenarios where they try to optimize the above equations by picking best combinations and see whether they can reach the target or not. Similar kind of conversations happen in between few of the “n choose 2” combinations of HP’s. After one round of conversations, hall’s realize their true potential and search for G.Secs, if their candidate can’t be pitched for VP in the market. Again, the 2nd round of conversations happen with numbers of G.Secs. Inherently all of them will be having 3 names for 3 portfolios (So-Cult, Sports and Tech). Once again, the equations are solved. In this way the conversations will be keep on going until a strong base of 3–4 halls form a core pact. (Similarly other pact is formed).

Now these 3–4 guys will go into market (in disguise) and find out what is happening with other halls. Their main job is to pull maximum number of halls and to keep the core pact strong. Some times, the core pact gets weak if a hall plays double game by being in both pacts and leaking the info from the core. But our system is so dynamic that, core gets new restoration with in 2–3 days. One problem that hits the core is, when there are 2 or more candidates in a hall/in a core pact for a VP and there are 2 or more groups with in a same hall/ in a core pact supporting them. It gets generally solved by internal SOP or by using power politics. This problem may even arise when a hall has decided to go for a G.Sec but a VP springs from no where. Again, it will be resolved by an internal SOP or power politics. Even if then it’s not resolved, then the chances of that candidate converting into an “Independent” May arise.

I personally haven’t seen any independent candidate(s) so far. Even if they seemed to be, they did all the same things (discussed in next section) which pact politicians do. But they did it in a disguise of being independent.

In this way, before the hall days start, a more or less final pact of (1 VP+ 6 G.secs) will be formed on the both sides. In the mean while, profile pictures are changed, #’s are started and the so called grooming session starts of the VP by a dedicated team. Besides this, there will be several promises made to halls by the hall from which VP is contesting regarding various posts in TSG, CDC and others.

“The election Market” — तुम इक घोरक धंधा हो |

So far the pact system goes on well (of course with a lot of power politics) but from this point on wards it gets worse. After strengthening the core, it becomes the job of the core pact to pull UG — PG mixed halls & Exclusively PG — RS halls. Because many a times, they play a crucial role in deciding the election results.

Coming to the market, the size is roughly of 8 Lakhs — 12 Lakhs (excluding visible arrangements made on hall days). It generally happens that the core pact’s nearly have the same total virtual numbers of expected votes and to get a “margin” they need support of UG — PG mixed halls & Exclusively PG — RS halls at any cost. Moreover we follow a modified kind of First-past-the-post voting system, due to which the candidate with simple majority wins, but not the candidate who is uniformly popular. Suppose, if at least 3 halls among larger UG Halls come together to vote as a pact (say 1st pact), then it will be a clean sweep on their side even if the other side gathers majority of the vote share from all other halls. This is the biggest disadvantage of simple majority system. Basically it translates that “number matters, rather than the proportion of people across halls who support you”. In the above case the 2nd pact will become more desperate to secure support of UG — PG mixed halls & Exclusively PG — RS halls. This is one of the most important reason behind the election market.

The cash flow in the market happens to bring in new players into the core (after the core is formed) by organizing numerous मेहफ़िल ‘s . Some times notes-for-votes also take place. The cash flow also happens to maintain the core strength of the pact. This is the time period when the HP’s and SSM’s become busy to the peaks. Their schedules get reverse, eating habits change, relying on weed/tobacco for longer stays in nights increase… so on and so forth. I really fell pity for them who spend immense energy to get a margin in votes, and convince various people by “entertaining” them.

For a moment if we think that this is all fine, the second worst part which happens is: “Dividing people on the base of language, state and caste”. It happens when a core pact is finding difficulty in bringing the hall as a whole (mostly PG/RS — sorry for this but it’s true. Now-a-days the trend has started in UG too) they find key people in the hall based on language/state/caste etc. For example jaat’s, punjabi’s, haryanvis, rajput’s, odiyas, bengalis, marathas, southies etc. Now they send people of the same class form the core to negotiate with(“entertain”) these people. They also try to reach people from cultural organisation’s of various states. Once the negotiations succeed, it’s very important for the core to keep them in their control. (like the congress keeping their MLA’s in resorts after Karnataka’s election results).So more cash flow and acts of entertainment happen here (especially during hall days and days before elections).

So if we look through the above, our elections are no where different than the panchayat elections of any state. We have a tag called “IITian” but they do not.

So what I propose to end the cash flow in election market, is to adapt aproportion based electorate system (do visit the link) rather than simple majority. This will promote the candidates to gain uniform popularity across all halls (rather than unanimous popularity in selected halls) and also will remove the invincible advantage that a candidate has, whom the larger UG halls supports. This what the retired IAS officer and the chief of Loksatta Party, Sir Jay Prakash Narayana suggest, to remove the corruption and note-for-a-vote policy in the Indian elections starting from the Panchayat level.

“#_for_VP and Hall Days” — The fool’s game-1

As soon as the profile picture of the candidates is updated, we all start with the #’s. The halls form a dedicated PR team for spamming, commenting, sharing and doing all kinds of obnoxious things. But I just kind-a-think that, we all are such a fools, who just accept a candidate’s face for the sake of hall/society/friendship etc but do not think anything of what will he do if elected. We of course crazily roam behind them during hall days.

My principle argument in this case is: The election manifesto of a VP candidate should be released (through official channels) at least a day before the hall day season starts (by mid March), else his candidature should be cancelled. Also we should never encourage any one to come to our rooms and tell their introduction during hall days unless they have their manifesto released. We should be no where interested in knowing their names, but should be more interested in discussing what will they do if elected.

One more stupid thing that happens in hall day is, the visit of a VP to a hall is considered successful if he comes out after answering all questions out of a notorious wing. Basically this wing contains jingoists of the pact’s VP and who will be waiting to grill the opposite pact VP in all ways possible. They hardly ask any logical questions except screaming, blowing smoke on candidate. So in a nut shell, the PR promotion and Hall days is a fool’s game.

“Fundae & Art of proposal making” — The biggest joke of the season

As the HP and SSM will be busy in making connections with new players, they will form a dedicated team consisting of mainly final years who have no other job after placements and also a group of 4th years who are willing to work in a die-hard fashion for our hero. I really like the spirit in which they work selflessly, expecting nothing. These guys literally drive the entire process.

This dedicated team will have a 5th year (usually) as a head and he will be the god father for the candidate till this elections. The candidate’s schedule, where to eat and where not to eat, what to wear, whom to talk, what to collect, what to study …..everything will be dictated by him which our hero follows silently. Another guy (shadow) will be paired with the candidate to note down all things and keep reminding the candidate when to do what. Its actually the shadow who puts more effort than the candidate to make sure that the candidate becomes potential. The shadow’s selfless service is really unparalleled.

Till now it’s all fine. A dedicated team, a dedicated shadow and everything. The reason why I call this process a biggest joke is because, in this entire process of so called “grooming” the contesting VP candidate literally uses his brain and heart to the least. All strategies of publicity, ground work for proposals, ideas for proposals, what info to get and what all to understand, is everything planned by this group.

The enthusiasm of this group will be so high that, even if a candidate has slightest interest in becoming a VP, they will make him capable of sitting in the SOP box with in a month. I reiterate the fact that, the candidate literally puts the least effort in figuring out what KGP is he dreaming of and what is his vision for KGP.

The other reason due to which I call this process as the biggest joke is because, the so called proposals are framed, typed, and proof-read, just hours before the SOP Box (The work might have started earlier in some cases, but I am telling what I have witnessed). Imaginary people are created, imaginary ground work documentation is made, new proposals are created on fly, that too just 3–4 hrs ahead of SOP box. I knew this personally because when I was the SSM, I did the same for my Socult candidate and last year I was helping in framing the lines of proposals (with documentation) for one of the VP candidate. I feel guilty for these actions.

“SOP-BOX” — The fool’s game-2

The SOP box is again well planned with questions, hooting, and many other things which can be just accepted. But the thing that I feel really hard to accept is the emphasis on lakhs, crores, percentages etc and the bare minimum time given to proposals. It is really funny when you get to know that the VP has no financial freedom even which a HP has, yet he is boasting of lakhs and crores.

Again the 2nd fool’s game starts when nearly 10–15 minutes are given to read all proposals (which take nearly 8 minutes & more than that if some fancy app demo on a tablet is included) and questions are asked only on the 1st proposal. There is no time to analyse the feasibility of a proposal, so how can one ask good questions out of that. So again we all are made fools by showing some demos, and by pitching infeasible, senseless portal proposals.

“How KGP votes” — The same way…

This is another topic of great interest to me, which tells about the pattern in which we vote. The pattern in which we vote coincides the analogies given by Dr. Subramanyam Swamy (MP, and a member of BJP). He directly tells that, “elections are not won on the basis of manifesto and the development work done so far. They win the election who have the control of the booth. If you have no booth under your control, then you will loose no matter how excellent work you do”.

So the same thing happens in KGP too. Some of us vote in the name of Hall, some vote because of personal friendship, some vote because of the candidate is from the same state from which he is and some vote because they are from same society/ fest. The people who follow this trend are nearly 40–50% of the total polling percentage. But the rest 60–50% is managed by the “booth controllers”. A fancy network of few individuals who try to pull of max. number of votes for a candidate by using force, brain wash, continuous input and by even using “chits of names”.

Booth controllers are a chain of individuals who control the vote of a voter right from the voters room, up to the point till he casts his vote at the booth. This network starts right at the hall. They go from wing to wing and encourage the voters to go and vote. They try to send people together as groups. As soon as a group leaves the hall, they send this information to other group who will be at TSG and they receive them at the earliest and lead them to the polling booth. During this time they reiterate the name(s) of the candidates number of times (VP and the G.Secs in the pact) whom they have to vote. They try their maximum to avoid interception from booth controllers of other pact. So starting from the hall a voter is guided by these booth controllers to make sure that the voter cast’s the vote to the candidate whom they want.

There are second kind of booth controllers who are more dangerous than the first kind (who just merely encourage and try to do target polling). These Guys form a blockade at the entry and exists of the hall.Their main job is to tally the people who are voting at the booth, people who are leaving the hall and people who are coming back. They restrict the access to people of other pact, whom they think as potential vote pullers for the other side. They even use power politics, strength, fights to ward of people from the other pact. I myself have experienced this, when I was stopped at the gates of a UG hall where I just went to return the DSLR camera that I took from a junior last night.

The next ugly thing that they do is the proxy voting. They collect the ID’s of all lazy brats, and the students who can’t come to the booth owing to some difficulties and send proxy guys with these identities to the booths to vote. This accompanies with an internal setting with the polling officers, who are in general the mess managers/mess supervisors/hall office staffs. They simply ignore the mismatch of the identity at the signal of booth controller and encourage proxy voting.

This way, the pact whose booth controller chain is the strongest will win the election.

“Results and Tenure” — Farmer waiting for the second rain

Good or bad the process is, one candidate finally comes out as a winner based on simple majority. As soon as the winner is declared, congratulatory posts, #’s, #_hope_for_KGP, #_leader_of_KGP etc. start floating on Facebook. The winning pact celebrates and loosing pact shares sorrow. But this is not the end of this 3 month long unethical process.

After one or two days of results, politics for Placement Committee members, nominated posts of TSG, TSG annual awards and others start. I will not get into details of this, because it’s an another lengthy post like this which I may cover in the future. One thing which causes this favoritism may be, because of “sincere pay-back” which the VP thinks that he should give to people who have worked for his win. I believe that people who come out of this system as a VP have a strong feeling inside that: “without these people I am no where and I couldn’t think of myself in this post without them” which I believe is completely senseless. This again strikes back to the point where we discussed the manner a VP is groomed and the amount of personal thought he puts in framing his dreams. This feeling makes a part of VP “a slave” to the people who made him and makes the VP to do much more favoritism down the service line.

As of now lets directly jump into the tenure of the VP.

Tenure starts typically in July, (but his CDC work starts immediately after being elected). It takes 1–2 months to get accustomed in the system, to know the officials, loop holes, correct persons for correct tasks and so on. But as he gets set in the system, the CDC process of interns and placements absorb him completely and free him at the end of December. The trend of monotonous work at CDC for 5 months, makes him exhausted and motivates him to “peace mode” for the spring semester. In the spring, people who all are placed are happy with the VP and his team and the rest of student fraternity is “like a farmer waiting for the second rain”. Over the last 3 years, I have seen no significant value addition to all strata of student community that a VP has done in the spring semester, except attending the mandatory protocols and meetings.

And the tenure ends with “सब कुछ करने के लिए time थोड़ी मिलता है !”

“If I was a VP” — From the bottom of my heart…

Much of criticism done so far. Now I will speak out what I dream about the post, which I miss so badly even till date.

I view this post as the “only means which can add value to the lives of student community”. I am no longer the crucial link, but a crucial power in the student community who can change lives of many and inspire many others to work for the greater cause of this holy land. My credentials are as follows: (btw I will not include any of my achievements)

1. Secretary Mess — 2014–15
2. General Secretary Mess — 2015–16
3. Second Senate Member (SSM) — 2016–17
4. Adviser for Illumination — 2017–18
5. Vice Chairperson of UG Council — 2017–18

On the society front:

1. Started as a member in Technology Transfer Group (TTG) in 2014 and ended as serving in the post of Executive Coordinator in 2018

With my experiences so far in the hall and institute environments, one thing that I can tell for sure is:

“Students have to work themselves for their own development, admin is just a medium to achieve it but not the body which will work for you”.

The main issue with the KGP admin is, it always ends up in dealing with issues and has little space and time to think about it’s own initiatives for students. For example, the Office of DOSA and the Deans Council deal with 20–25 students every week (they call it “cases”) who are reported to Counselling center and hospitals in Calcutta. The Office of Dean UGS deals with approximately 1200 students every year with issues in registration, credit limits, permissions, de-registrations and many more. So most of time, the Deans who are responsible for welfare of student’s end up solving problems. Of course the admin has a partly blame, but I feel the majority of the blame to be taken by us, as we do not meet the true objective of “All Indians are my brothers and sisters…………. In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness”.

We are becoming self centered from day to day and are least bothered about people near us who are facing academic, psychological, and financial difficulties. So my proposals will be around this idea of inclusiveness and adding values to the lives of students. The very first thing that I would work on, is to extend my powers (again whose approval is in hand’s of admin).Because without them I know that none of these succeed. The powers which are needed to be extended are as follows: (proposals followed later)

1. Unilateral Power to all student representatives of Institute Senate to set one agenda item each in every Senate.
2. Power to call hospital committee meetings (currently lies with Deputy Director) and power of vote in hospital infra up-gradation.
3. Necessary powers in TSG in order to curb favoritism, corruption in activities of TSG (including Inter — IIT).
4. Recognizing the powers of Student Senate at institute level and giving more decentralized powers to halls in matters of governance in Mess and infrastructure development.
5. Powers to expedite the construction and renovation works related to halls and TSG.

Proposal — 1:

As of now, 17% of UG students belong to the “Academic Weak Category”. I would like to bring this number down to 5% in a span of 2 years.

The best way it can be done is the proper implementation of “Peer assisted Learning (PAL)” program which was passed by senate in March 2018. Alone this cannot help, but also implementing the self-help and meditation modules suggested by Dr. Saamdhu Chetri (Guest faculty in center for happiness)to get people out of depression, addiction and feeling low, will surely help to meet the target.

As the program runs, our student representatives should actively pursue liberty in credit limits, flexible registration at the institute senate.

Proposal — 2:

According to one of the survey (2015), nearly 40% of entire student community fails to speak and communicate in proper English. The aim is to reduce this to 20% in 1.5 years & to ~0% in 3 years. This was identified by the institute admin long back, but a feasible solution is not found till date. There was a lead when “The British Council” agreed to help. But I do not know why this got stopped/ no news after that. Till now we are struggling with the stupid courses of “English for Communication — for UG” and “English for Technical writing — for PG & RS Students”.

A way out for this problem is a targeted delivery of personalized courses to students who are at different levels in terms of their expertise in written and spoken English. The students can be categorized based on a exam similar to TOEFL/ IELTS. Once the students are segregated based on scores — modular courses should be offered to students in stages, and the progress should be monitored.

Of course this has to be integrated with the academic curriculum, removing the senseless English courses and offering the English course in 1, 2 & 3 modules. 1 module for the people who are exceptionally well , 2 for people who are fine but improvement is needed and 3 modules for people who require a lot of improvement. So basically the 5 credits of English for Communication should be treated as 5 credits for students taking only module-1, (3+2) for students who are taking module 1 and 2 and (2+2+1) for students who are taking all the three modules.

So what I hope is, at the end of 2 or 3 modules, many of them would become good enough in spoken and written English so that they would face no more serious difficulties in GD’s / PI’s during placement process or in any phase of their career.

Proposal — 3:

Not with an objective to do a target delivery of a proposal to excite a particular gender of society, but what I have seen in my 5–6 bus travels in the campus shuttle over my stay (I use my bicycle a lot) is that: during the busy hours I see how girls feel uncomfortable in getting into the bus, stand in fully packed aisle and standing on the foot board.

So why cant we have a shuttle service exclusively for women and specially able students ? Like the “Matrubhoomi Express” of Indian Railways. I strictly find it needed to ferry female and specially able students at least during the busy hours.

Proposal — 4:

It has been the long stand demand of RS & PG students to have a code of conduct document for the students and their supervisors, with a special emphasis on work place ethics. Also a policy of research ethics, research feedback is much more demanded to get required right of authorship in research papers, accountability for work, access to funding & other financial resources, and to curb plagiarism, favoritism.

I came to know their demands in April 2018. Then I found out that there were manuals issued to all faculty in 2008 citing the code of conduct, research ethics and so on. But if they were all in place and if the students who were victims got justice on time, why would such a outcry still exist?

Our institute has a considerably strong ICC to deal with the matters of workplace harassment and authorities have also been punished. But I see no such significant action in the matters pertaining to research ethics and personal code of conduct.

If we dream our institute as a global institute and want scholars from all other countries to come and work here, we should be ready to provide world class laws in matters of ethics and conduct. Sadly only 2 Indian Research Labshave the code of conduct and ethics compliance on their website. So a one stop solution to all these problems is to establish a “Office of Ombudsmen”and to have a really powerful, reputed “Scientist not belonging to KGP / Powerful IAS officer ” as a head of this office. The same system is followed in all universities across Europe and America. The implementation wouldn’t be that difficult if we wish to take collaboration from DAAD & DFG of Germany who have the most strict policies in matters pertaining to research ethics and code of conduct.

Again this wouldn’t be that easy for our student representatives to argue in Senate even with unilateral powers. Coordination from RS & PG is needed as if they are fighting for their right.

Proposal — 5:

To improve the overall mental health of the campus, the initiatives like Induction Program, Assimilation Program (followed by Re-Orientation and De-Induction programs) for UG, should be properly implemented and we should try to bring it under EAA (for UG students). Of course measures and regulations should be taken to avoid and minimize the old fashioned techniques that Halls follow in the camouflage of these programs.

There is also a dire need to start similar kind of programs for PG and RS students. They come into a entirely new way of life where the expectations and stress levels are really high and their chances of ending up frustrated, depressed unable to meet performance levels is also very high. So the VP and the RS, PG council should chalk out a plan for their induction and assimilation into the institute.

Last few words…………….(adapted from Paltan-2018)

KGP’s flag doesn’t fly high because winds moves it,
It flies with the breath of numerous professors, students and workers who have spent a part of their lives for the sake of this land !

So let’s not let it fly because of wind ! and because of the wind !

जय हिंद !
Ksheera Sagar K.N