Super 30, and the Indian dream

There is no denying that education is an important and un-avoidable part of modern, human society. It is a human right, and access to education is essential for emancipation.

I recently came across a series of video documentaries on Super- 30, and education movement spearheaded by a certain Anand Kumar, who has helped thousands of Indian students change their lives. In order to do this, he has set his sights on the IITs, the highest institutions offering engineering education in India, and runs coaching centres to coach high school students to 'game' the IIT test system. Students who are able to 'crack' these tests get to join India's premium engineering colleges, paving their way to a well-paid job, and successful lives afterwards. Instead of being overambitious and enrolling as many students as he can, Anand had decided on training 30, and only 30 students any given year. These would be the smartest, brightest and most hardworking students from those who apply for his unique course. Hence the term: Super 30.

The first of the documentaries was filmed 10 years ago and uploaded in 2008. Al Jazeera, tracked and followed the daily lives of around 5 of the super-30 students, and vigorously documented the lives of everyone involved. Not only the students and their teacher, but also friends and family of the students, and even the local police officers. The life of the students and their teacher is clearly shown to be in ruins, Anand gives his daily maths class in something that looks like a remnant of a workshop, and the 30 lucky chosen are given special coaching in a similar, separate enclosure. The parents are farmers, daily wage labourers, or stay at home housewives. Their surroundings may be dim, but there is optimism in the air. There have been no engineers or doctors in their families so far, and everyone has placed their hopes on the one child who has been chosen into the Super-30.

The students give the test, the results are announced. 29 of the 30 clear the entrance to IITs across India.

Fast forward 10 years now. The second documentary tracks three of the students who were documented earlier, to try and chart their success and live afterwards. It is mind-blowing.

Not only are they all living better lives, they only have a faint resemblance to their former selves. They are healthier, wealthier , and wise.

One of them, Raju, the son of a farmer, is now a software engineer living and working in the tech city of India, Bengaluru. Working for the offices of an American automobile company at the time of the documentary, he now speaks English fluently (all the boys spoke only hindi in the earlier videos), and travels abroad for work. He himself seems surprised on how the education he received changed his fortunes.

Alok, son of a labourer, is now working as an electrical engineer in the nation's powergrid. He could not get into IIT, but wisely picked up a course from NIT. He had to move out of his hometown , as local goons began extorting money from his family, as the son had become and engineer.

Jyotish, another one of the students, is doing well, but in a different direction. He dropped out of IIT, and found his calling in Economics, where he has a PhD. He now teaches , and is happy and content to be contributing to his people and country.

But no one changed their lives around as much as Pranav Prince, who now works full time abroad as a; wait for it..; management consultant ! In the first videos 10 years ago, Pranav was the brightest of the 30, and had scored highest. He said his dream was to become a scientist, and open a research centre in India, on par with NASA. That could have been the naïve child in him talking, because he has now thrown research out of the window, having discovered the perennial money spinner that is blue-chip management. He had caused quite a scandal to Anand 10 years ago, when he attributed his success to the coaching of a rival institute, and almost shutdown the super-30 program.

Access to the nation's highest engineering program changed these lives. Hundreds of thousands of youngsters have a similar story to tell, and many more are still being written. It is an empowering story of how sheer determination, and perseverance can positively affect one's future. My own story is similar, though I never even tried to get into IIT.

The IITs of India today produce the world's top engineers, who then go on to work of multinational companies around the world, though that was not why the IITs were setup in the first place. They were created to produce engineers for the nation, who would help develop India' future. A lofty ,well intended goal. It’s a shame that most students who get enrolled there do not share that vision.

Nevertheless, this story proves that education is possibly the only path to better futures, and permanent emancipation. And that is the Indian dream.

Scientists Discover Hidden Asteroid Crater Under a Mile of Greenland Ice

 

Scientists have discovered a colossal impact crater hidden under a mile of ice in northwest Greenland, according to a new study in Science Advances that could have major repercussions for several scientific fields.

This is exactly the kind of news we need, but the mainstream media simply does not cover. I found about this on the radio today morning, none of the print media here or in India mentioned it. The crater was actually first detected in July 2015, but only now have scientists been able to verify the discovery. It’s the first time that a crater of any size has been found under a continental ice sheet. The enormous cavity is bigger than London and ranks among the 25 largest impact craters on Earth.

The crater stretches for 31 kilometers (19 miles) underneath Hiawatha Glacier, and was blasted into existence by a mile-long iron asteroid that unleashed the equivalent of 700 one-megaton nuclear bombs of energy upon impact. It is the first impact crater ever detected under Greenland’s ice cover, and ranks among the top largest 25 impact formations known on Earth.

The discovery has been in the making since 2015, when lead author Kurt Kjær, a geochemist at the University of Copenhagen, noticed a weird depression under the glacier in maps made by NASA’s Operation IceBridge.

As a bonus twist, the discovery may shed light on the heated scientific debate over what catalyzed the Younger Dryas, a period of sudden global cooling in the Northern Hemisphere from 12,800 to 11,700 years ago. A 2007 study suggested that the Younger Dryas could have been set off by an asteroid impact that plunged the hemisphere into ecological disarray and helped wipe out megafauna species like mammoths.

Rebuttals to this idea abounded, and the Hiawatha Glacier crater could end up being totally unrelated to the Younger Dryas. But for now, it’s one of many intriguing questions that Kjær’s team hope to pursue in future research.

“This study suggests several avenues for further research into both the nature and age of the Hiawatha impact crater and other possible subglacial impact craters,” the authors concluded in the study. “In particular, an improved geochronology for this impact event awaits the discovery and analysis of additional samples, from either within the crater itself or the surrounding area.”

 

 

India’s education mess

Today I saw a full two page ad in the national newspaper from Byju, the online student’s coaching startup. A full two pages about their free conselling session at home. This is despite the fact that their ads were recently blocked by ASCI in January this year for un-substantiated claims.

The Indian education system is a collage of contradictions. Its surprising that the world's largest democracy does not have a stable, self-sustaining system of eduction which can cater to the needs of millions of youngsters seeking education in the country. Successive governments have tried to 'reform' the education scene, whatever that means, but every time they have attempted so, something else has been broken. I  have been reading all kinds of news relating to India's education these past months, and they remind me of the hurdle I myself had to go through to reach where I am today.

These are the weeks of student winners, it is the time when various education institutions in the country announce the results of the 'toppers' in their examinations. It starts with the central government's CBSE announcing the names of students who scored highest in each of India's 29 states. There are two sets of exams, for 10th and 12th grades. I never understood why the 10th grades are so important, seeing that it is the 12 th grade marks which act as the qualifier for college admissions.

But wait, these are just central board. Every state has their own 'board' of education, and have students enrolled for 10th and 12th grade exams. And with 29 states, that is a lot of student toppers ! And then there is one more private, central school education board called ICSE, but no one seems to care about them.

Admissions to India's public colleges are based on the marks students score in these 'board exams'. Arts, science and language colleges setup a cut-off mark as the minimum marks required to gain admissions to their subsidized education courses. But simply scoring these minimum marks does not automatically guarantee admission, frequently parents arrange 'recommendation letters' from ministers and high profile officers and even religious heads as additional assurance. colleges also arrange for their own admission tests inorder to screen candidates. And some of those screening test are the toughest to crack in this country. 

The two streams of education most sought after after 12th grade education are Engineering and Medical courses. Students who pass out of these courses are trained engineers and doctors. And because of the demand and the overwhelming population of students applying,  the central and state governments have been organizing these 'entrance tests' at central and state level. Objective style reasoning tests with negative marks help screen the best of the best of millions of science graduates attempting to gain entrance to subsidized education. And there are so few seats up for grabs that there is immense competition.  For instance, only 4 of the 100 candidates attempting The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for medicine will win a seat. It is a little better for engineering seats, but that is only because there are more seats available.

And so, when the results of these entrance exams are announced, the toppers are again celebrated in the media. There are long interviews of the students, with their families and teachers, to understand how they cracked the system. And what are their tips and tricks to similar students who are attempting these tests in the future. Hell, some even appear on national TV, speaking about their experiences and giving out advise. Probably no other country parade their top scorers in TV like India does. In India, toppers are celebrities !

But again, these are the subsidized education seats we are talking about. The mafia in the private colleges are at an entirely different level. Education has turned to business in India, and if you don't have the wits to get a seat, you can definitely buy one. This is where the picture starts to turn bleak. Anticipating huge number of students who will not be able to clear the national tests, private colleges have mushroomed across the country, offering the same courses for a much higher price. In a way, private education is for the rich, but not academically gifted. The fees being charged at some of these institutes is so high that in recent years, majority of the seats remain unfilled.
Recently there was a directive to shut down as many as 150 colleges across India how had less than 50% of their seats filled. Just let that sink in.

Instead of trying and subsidising these additional seats in some way for the poorer students, the government simply wants to shut them down. Amazing governance.

But no test, repeat, no other is as tough and prestigious to crack as the Indian Civil Service exams. IAS exams. These are not education courses, but actual jobs people are applying for. Candidates need to have college degrees, and have to study additional subjects which are not covered by their college education. The civil services exam has among the lowest success rates among competitive examinations in the world, with a success percentage of less than .1 percent. Less than .1 percent of the applicants will land a job. Only one in every 10 candidate succeeds in the first attempt. There are people attempting upto 6 times, and some candidates can keep on trying until age 37 ! 

And as always, the IAS toppers are the media's favourites. The sheer prestige and security of the jobs means that anybody IAS topper is seen as the hardest, most hard-working and able minded of students. I think the assumption is that they will never have to face any problem in their life from that point onwards. They have cracked the system. Now they can sit back and reap the benefits, while the rest of us fight it out among ourselves.

The tale of getting into the civil services is one of hard work and dogged perseverance. That’s why it is all the more baffling how the Indian bureaucracy, which comprises such hard-working and committed people, earned the disrepute of running what is considered an inefficient government machinery.

They say history is written only by the winners. And this is in fact , true. Nobody talks about the trials and tribualations of the losers. Those who put in whatever they could, but failed to clear the system. Despite all these ‘free seats’ or subsidized seats, millions of students fail to get a chance to pursue their choice of education in this country. India also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, one student kills self about every hour in the country. 

Yet, no one talks about them. They are just the collateral of having a skewed public education system, one which relies on intense competition. It is a broken system, and somehow the authorities have managed to make it even worse everytime they try to change something. I had it much better and easier 15 years ago. The future generations are going to have to struggle very hard to just maintain the pace.

It is case of textbook Darwinism: survival of the super-ultra-mega smartest.