Narayana Murthy’s barb on IITs kicks up war of words

After Jairam Ramesh, Infosys chief NR Narayana Murthy commented on the sorry state of research in the IITs and IIMs.
“IITs have lost their sheen and have turned into mere teaching institutes without paying attention to research,” said Murthy at IIT Gandhinagar on Tuesday.

According to Murthy, between 1991 and 2006, only 36 papers from Indian management and technological institutes were published in international journals.

This is not the first time that India’s premier institutions have been criticised. Senior minister Jairam Ramesh had also taken the IITs to task for the same issue.

“It is a fact that our institutions don’t figure in the world’s top 150 lists. We are like infants when compared to MIT. Research needs funds and it must come from industry. But the level of research going on here fails to prompt industry to spend money. Students now don’t prefer research as it’s not a lucrative job,” confesses an IIT professor, requesting anonymity.

“He might have impression of his own time (seventies) when actually IIT’s were not doing any research. We are doing very good research now. IIT-B is publishing more than 1,000 papers in international journals every year. Our research grant reaches Rs180cr which is 10 fold from 2007-08,” said professor Devang Khakhar, director, IIT-Bombay.

“Few bright students are delivering but what happens to general students? Research is not the IIT’s cup of tea now,” said Dr Ravi Manchanda, of the Astrophysics department, Tata Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Mumbai

“Government interference is harming research. These institutes are crying for autonomy,” opines an IIM-A professor. MHRD had appointed a committee to pave the way towards autonomy in the chairmanship of Dr Anil Kakodkar.

“Financial independence is a must to excel in innovative research and research should contribute to the country’s needs too. We have to work hard to be recognised globally,” says Kakodkar in his report.