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IIT BOMBAY STUDENT MEDIA BODY | ESTABLISHED 1997 INSIGHTIITB.ORG | VOLUME 15 · ISSUE 3 | APR 2013 | PAGES 10 THE INSIGHT OUARTERLY © 2013, FOR PERMISSIONS TO REPRODUCE ANY CONTENT FEATURED IN THIS EDITION, PLEASE REACH US AT [email protected] We bring to you Insight brings to you Alumni share with 04structure of student 06 behind the scene 08 us their perspectives bodies across several IITs stories about IITB's triumph on the placement scene at along with JNU and DU at this year's Inter IIT IITB and their first jobs Discerning the Election Rules and Procedures ARCHANA DAS, SANKET DABADE, SARAT CHANDRA, SIDDHARDHA SUKKA, SIDDHARTH BHANDARI, SMRITI MITTAL, SUMAN RAO Do the candidates on election day know how many Closed Electorates for Institute Secretaries votes they are trailing or leading by? What does the Should Online Campaigning be election committee do with a blacklist? How is the Banned? An improvisation over the last elections was the intro- election committee formed? InsIghT probes the facets duction of closed electorates for Institute Secretary which form the hallmark of the even semester - the With an almost two-fold increase in student pop- posts. The election committee felt that a large number Institute General Elections. ulation and the recent decrease in campaigning of these posts directly concern only a small section of time, it has become very difficult to reach out people. The elected GS anyway oversees broader poli- The Web Interface to the electorate. A past GS candidate anony- cies. Hence it doesn’t make sense for these candidates mously told InsIghT, “We can at best cover about to canvass across the institute. The closed electorate Bhai, apna candidate das vote se peeche hai” 60% of the wings, that too spending at most 20 was hence introduced. For example, the electorate for The only people who have access to real-time odd minutes in a wing. That is if you are brutal the Institute Dramatics Secretary will comprise of the “voting data are the MLC nominee and the Web in your stamina to campaign”. In such condi- Institute Cultural Council, and 5 nominees (dramatics) Nominee, who have access to the voting statistics tions, it is but natural that ‘polt’ starts having per hostel chosen by the hostel GSec. The nominees’ to ensure maximum voting in hostels, as well as to overbearing significance. credentials are sent to the Election Committee for keep an eye on possible niggles. While online campaigning is curbed for the fear approval. of rampant ‘polt’, it may indeed be the means to There were many who claimed to know the stall the importance of ‘polt’ and increase the Why aren’t ISHAs and ISAAs elected too? vote-leads and vote-trails on election day. While focus on the candidate’s worthiness. technically candidates (and others) could know of While the work profile of cultural and sports the vote counts from the nominees, Chief Election Says Prof Gopalan, ex-Dean, SA: “Why should secretaries is largely defined by the respective Officer (2013) Ishan Shrivastava thinks it is highly we judge the candidates on the basis of how communities, the same is not the case for ISHA/ unlikely. “The two nominees sit only in the DoSA’s many wings s/he has covered? I don’t think we ISAA. “The profile there is largely defined by the office, and we take care to ensure that no communi- should promote any one criterion as a good cri- elected GS, and the posts themselves are more of an cation goes outside the office. A security personnel terion for people to judge. If people want to vote assisting nature. Hence it makes more sense for the is also present there” for me since they like my tummy, so be it, we are elected GS to appoint them”, says Abhishek Agarwal no one to judge. Jokes apart, moderated online (Monty), GSHA 2011-12 who proposed the system. The Blacklist campaigning might be a good way to increase interaction between the students and the can- How is the election committee formed? Each candidate is allowed to list 15 people who s/ didates. That said, care should be taken to keep he suspects will influence the elections. Contrary the page internal to the institute. We shouldn’t The election committee by default is the team of to what most people think, being on the blacklist wash our linen in public”. outgoing GSs, along with a five nominees (MLC, doesn’t mean an automatic trip to the SAC jail. Nor Web, Boys, Girls and PGs). There have been con- does it mean sure shot pizzas at the SAC jail. Says In the open house on elections at IRCC (16th cerns across some sections that the GSs themselves Chandra Mouli, GSHA and Election Officer, “Being March), the election commission was presented could be biased, and could swing the elections. on the blacklist simply means that the election team with arguments that ‘polt’ is but a function of What could be the alternatives? will keep a close watch on you on the day. You are large population and how moderated online In the 2011 elections, the GS team had partially still allowed to move freely, but we will be watching campaigning (Facebook/Blogs etc) might be opted out, and a team of ISMP representatives your actions”. the way forward to ensure participative and as well as GSes formed the election committee. fair elections. The outgoing commission agreed However, is then dawned that the GSes, having to it in principle, leaving it as definite food for been through the process, could best understand thought to the next commission. and manage the elections. Why should we Says Ishan Shrivastava (GSAA-UG), “The GSes still remain the only students in authority who can judge the candidates understand the election dynamics and manage it. And while people have voiced concerns about the on the basis of how Online Campaigning enormous influence a GS can wield in an election, think about how much influence he can wield with- many wings s/he has When campaign rules were formed decades ago, out guilt if he isn’t even on the election committee” there was no need to frame policies for online covered? I don’t think campaigning. The most people could do was to Vote Penalties write candidate names on cows and let them roam we should promote the campus, and no one would be any the wiser. A facet of the elections which are debated and However, with social media growing more and morphed every year are the rules for vote penal- any one criterion as more central to campaign dynamics, it is the fear of ties. Until this year, the vote penalties levied were the unknown which stops us from allowing online never such which swung an election. If there was a good criterion for campaigning. “We cannot control what goes online such a penalty, then it would be cancelled. This and what does not. Hence it is best to disallow any created a strange paradox: of what use is a penalty people to judge" - such campaigning”, says Chandra Mouli, GSHA. if it cannot change an election at all? Why should “We want candidates to win on the basis of their anyone be scared of a penalty? Prof. Gopalan hard work during campaigning and not because of This year, however, penalties were decided, levied well-honed publicity”. While the election commit- and conveyed before commencing the vote count. Ex-Dean SA tee conceded that nothing much can be done about This lent some semblance of meaningfulness to the implicit canvassing in the form of likes and sta- penalty system. Notably, the penalties imposed this tuses, explicit canvassing is heavily frowned upon. year were much less than those last year. THE INSIGHT QUARTERLY is the students’ newsletter of IIT Bombay. The views expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of Students’ Gymkhana, IIT Bombay. Contact us at [email protected] for permission to reproduce contents Why Don't We Study at IITB: Part 2 Teaching and Learning issues KSHITIZ SWAROOP, NIVVEDAN S, SAAZ SAKRIKAR, SAHIL VAIDYA, SIDDHARTH BHANDARI, SOMESH SONTAKKE, TANMAY SRIVASTAVA As promised in our last issue, we continue our analysis on why students don’t study at IITB, with this article. For those who missed our last issue, this is a part of a series of articles that InsIghT has been sporting aimed at examin- ing the role that academics plays in undergraduate student life on campus. In the last issue, our focus was on the Learning pursuit of other passions and its impact on academics while this time we dig into the factors that concern effective t is extremely easy for the students to blame the teaching and learning. teachers, but the student community too must intro- Ispect. InsIghT’s survey results show that 75% don’t spend any time on academics if there are no upcoming assignments or exams and 80% of students study less Teaching than 3 hours a week. Why is it that the student body is urveys among our students have consistently are more enthusiastic and some less. A study done so demotivated when it comes to academics? shown them to be unhappy with the teaching by Prof. Sudhakar shows that course evaluation for Sat IITB. The last survey conducted by InsIghT the same course shows huge variation when taken The Placement Pull showed that 88% of the respondents feel that one of by different instructors. Conversely, it also shows A common theme that arose out of our discussions the important factors why they don’t study is because remarkably consistent response over years for the with both the faculty and the student body is the the professors haven’t succeeded in generating same faculty member.

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