Far From The Madding Crowd

Here’s one for the attempts to bridge the digital divide. According to The Hindu, dated 24th December:

BITS, Pilani alumni have launched “Project Embryo” to offer live, interactive lectures and seminars with the help of internet-based video-conferencing. Live lectures will be delivered online by BITS alumni experts are accompanied by interaction between the speaker and the students creating a dynamic environment for the dissemination of knowledge. It also helps to bring global and emerging trends in science, business and technology right into the student community.

After a barrage of complaints from overseas publishers, the Chinese government recently imposed a ban on photocopying foreign textbooks. The question now is: Will the Indian government follow suit?

The laws are already in place. There is the Copyright Act and the Intellectual Property Right of the author. The problem is one of enforcing the law.

For the students this is a familiar sight. Whole books being photocopied, many times cover included. But while photocopying entire books is a violation of these laws, so is photocopying even a single page, if even for reference.

There are arguments to both side of this story. Students argue that the books are too expensive, even by Indian standards, and given the large number of books that need to be referenced, it is not possible to purchase all of them. Subroto Majumdar, Chairman, Anti-piracy, Copyright and International Relations Committee, however, begs to differ. He claims that if the books are indeed so important, students should purchase them. Especially since the price of books in India is the cheapest compared to their price in any other country. Further, he counters, if students wish to refer to just a couple of pages from a book, they should visit the local library and jot down the main points (like there were many of those in India).

The issue gets complicated when any textbook photocopied for personal use cannot be seen as a violation of the Copyright Act, so students cannot be seen defaulters. Only those making an earning of such copyright violations can be punished, so perhaps those actually photocopying these books can be punished. But with laws so difficult to implement here in India, the jury is out on this one.

What do you do when you decide to appear for the Civil Service examinations but cannot clear them because you do not have enough resources to help you out? Well, when faced with a similar predicament, Vraj Patel, a Central Excise Customs officer did quite the unimaginable - he opened a library to provide the needed resources.

The Maharishi Dayanand Foundation Library, located in Dadar, Mumbai, was established by Vraj Patel with a specific purpose - to cater to the needs of the students who are preparing for management exams, particularly the Civil Service entrance exams. At a nominal annual fee of Rs. 2000/-, students can avail of reference books, textbooks and guides for 25 optional subjects of the Civil Service exams. Besides, a faculty of experienced teachers guide students appearing for these exams by giving lectures during the weekends.

While the revival of interest in regional languages continues, many still prefer to study English as they see it as a means by which they could earn a decent livelihood. The obvious career path within a BPO unit not withstanding, many also realize that learning English allows one access to information and knowledge not readily available in regional languages.

For the full text of the article on this paradigm shift, click for the BBC website here.

Excerpts from an editorial of the Hindu, dated December 09, 2006:

Source:From the survey reported in The Times Higher Education Supplement, October 6, 2006. Each column subsumes the previous column: a university in the top 20 is also in the top 50, 100 and 200.

Time for some serious introspection, we presume.

For the whole text of the editorial, click here