Thursday, October 27, 2005
I am deeply concerned by this. What should I do?
1. Please sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/IISER/petition.html
But a petition itself may not have that big of an impact. Please do as many
of the following as you can. In the least case, please do 2.
2. Send a letter or a fax to the PM with copy to Smt. Gandhi.
For a sample letter and address of where to send, please see
http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/10/open-letter-to-prime-minister-of-india.html
3. Participate in http://iiser.blogspot.com by regularly visiting it to get updates, sending new information that does not appear there (including information on what you or your group has done), by writing in the comments section, etc.
4. Contact national media in India and tell them about this and request them to cover this. For example, send emails, and letters to editors. Send in op-ed piece to media. etc.
(Ours is a unique protest in the Indian context
and the cause is genuine. Finally even though we are particularly
concerned with respect to Orissa, this is a matter of national significance
as the HRD ministry over the years has based its mega investment decisions, on politics rather than on fairness. As a result, while some states have multiple central universities and/or institutions of national importance such as IIT, IIM, IIIT etc., others like Orissa and Rajasthan have none. This is unique with respect to the various Indian ministries. The roads, railways, ports, health, etc. etc. are all done openly and fairly; while centrally funded IIITs were made based on the home state of the then HRD ministers. Similarly it is not at all clear why the IISERs were decided to be in Pune and Kolkata when both state have IITs, while a better location in East would have been Bhubaneswar and a location in NWest would have been Jaipur. Neither Orissa, nor Rajasthan have any central universities nor any IIT, IIM, IIIT etc. Many speculate that the contingent of MPs from West Bengal who are allied with
the UPA government bullied the government to have the earlier announced Bhubaneswar location change to Kolkata.)
5. Urge your friends who you think may be concerned (and who have web access) about this to read this site and do 1, 2 , 3 and 4.
6. Contact your friends and family who may not have access to Internet and tell them about this, send them details on this and request them to do 2 and 4.
7. Think of anything else that you can do for this cause, but without involving violence or econmically harmful practices such as rasta roko, bandhs, rail roko, etc.
For example, if you are a group of people then you can do some innovative form of protest that is beneficial to the society and at the same time attracts the media attention due to its innovative ness. Some examples are given in http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/11/being-creative-non-harmful-and-even.html.
If you are a journalist/columnist/etc. you may consider writing about this. See http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/11/i-am-from-media-are-there-storylines.html for some story lines.
But a petition itself may not have that big of an impact. Please do as many
of the following as you can. In the least case, please do 2.
2. Send a letter or a fax to the PM with copy to Smt. Gandhi.
For a sample letter and address of where to send, please see
http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/10/open-letter-to-prime-minister-of-india.html
3. Participate in http://iiser.blogspot.com by regularly visiting it to get updates, sending new information that does not appear there (including information on what you or your group has done), by writing in the comments section, etc.
4. Contact national media in India and tell them about this and request them to cover this. For example, send emails, and letters to editors. Send in op-ed piece to media. etc.
(Ours is a unique protest in the Indian context
and the cause is genuine. Finally even though we are particularly
concerned with respect to Orissa, this is a matter of national significance
as the HRD ministry over the years has based its mega investment decisions, on politics rather than on fairness. As a result, while some states have multiple central universities and/or institutions of national importance such as IIT, IIM, IIIT etc., others like Orissa and Rajasthan have none. This is unique with respect to the various Indian ministries. The roads, railways, ports, health, etc. etc. are all done openly and fairly; while centrally funded IIITs were made based on the home state of the then HRD ministers. Similarly it is not at all clear why the IISERs were decided to be in Pune and Kolkata when both state have IITs, while a better location in East would have been Bhubaneswar and a location in NWest would have been Jaipur. Neither Orissa, nor Rajasthan have any central universities nor any IIT, IIM, IIIT etc. Many speculate that the contingent of MPs from West Bengal who are allied with
the UPA government bullied the government to have the earlier announced Bhubaneswar location change to Kolkata.)
5. Urge your friends who you think may be concerned (and who have web access) about this to read this site and do 1, 2 , 3 and 4.
6. Contact your friends and family who may not have access to Internet and tell them about this, send them details on this and request them to do 2 and 4.
7. Think of anything else that you can do for this cause, but without involving violence or econmically harmful practices such as rasta roko, bandhs, rail roko, etc.
For example, if you are a group of people then you can do some innovative form of protest that is beneficial to the society and at the same time attracts the media attention due to its innovative ness. Some examples are given in http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/11/being-creative-non-harmful-and-even.html.
If you are a journalist/columnist/etc. you may consider writing about this. See http://iiser.blogspot.com/2005/11/i-am-from-media-are-there-storylines.html for some story lines.
# posted by chitta @ 4:27 PM 
