Talk:Jawaharlal Nehru University
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'Andres Oppenheimer of the Miami Herald refers to it as the "most politicized of all major Indian public universities". Crtics have attacked the large amount of public funds spent on JNU, with little apparent benefit to the Indian society. The critics assert that much of the "prestige" of JNU is hype generated by alumni in the media with JNU being essentially a mutual admiration society. Its graduates are not readily employable in India's booming IT and manufacturing economy'.
The above view is not neutral. JNU has a culture of debate and student activism, but that does not detract them from serious academic activities. It maintains a highly selective yet "progressive" admission policy. The allegation of "JNU being ... a mutual admiration society" is difficult to substantiate. An international assessment like THES league table 2006 was not conducted by JNU alumni. Foreign language and MCA graduates from JNU have good placement records in private firms. Social science graduates too hold their own ground in the academic job market in India and abroad. The IITs and IIMs, no doubt, contributed to the IT boom. But JNU is envisaged to play a different kind of role in policy reseach (eg. foreign policy) towards human security while promoting Nehruvian values and humane understanding in a muticultural society like India. No doubt, JNU was a child of the 1970s during the heydays of Indira Gandhi's socialism. With the benifit of hindsight, it may have to redefine some of its roles for post-Reform India.
Though its original social visions are still valid, JNU may have to adopt more market methods to excel and maintain its academic autonomy. To some degree, academic autonomy is linked to financial autonomy. While state funding is necessary, it is time that JNU generates its own untapped resources. It is time to learn the art of fund-raising, offer better scholarships, cut unproductive expenditure (esp. bureaucracy), and market its knowledge capital more aggresively. For instance, distance education and publishing are potential areas where JNU can earn extra cash to upgrade its inadequate infrastructure. JNU certainly needs to attract private endowments for professorial chairs, travel grants and fellowships from its own alumni and other private donors. Market expansion in higher education will ensure more accountability and productivity. Total dependence on public funds and the tax-payers' money sooner or later breeds complacency and poor social auditing. We know academic wallahs are a bit shy about such money matters. But intelligent institutions need to adopt "best practices" to survive at a time when everyone competes for limited Government funds. Till now, JNU did a very poor job in marketing and advertising itself - From ex-JNU student
Not only is the view "not neutral", it is also blatantly flawed. An University in which more than 75% of the students are part of liberal arts and language programmes, will not cater to an IT and Manufacturing economy demand, will it? JNU doesn't have a management programme to prepare graduates to take up managerial roles in the New Economy! Yet, today, students from the Economics Center and language schools are increasingly being recruited by various IT/Marketing/Finance Consultancies for their respective niche skills in Market analysis/Econometrics/ Language specializations. The speciality of JNU is its liberal arts and humanities concentration, as part of the School of Social Sciences. This school is rated by THES as among the top 60 in the world. Most graduates from this school either are absorbed by the mainstream media or by the Civil Services and a vast number of them turn out to become leading academicians, helping in social science research or in consulting with various governmental/non-governmental agencies. Bureaucrats with a JNU background are renowned for their pro-people approaches and sensitivities. Academicians from JNU have typically become world renowned for research depth in social sciences. Several Op-Ed writers in newspapers, media houses and NGOs are from JNU. Lastly, the Leftist orientation of the Student Polity is not an accident, but something which has been cultivated by rigorous democratic activism over the years. No questions have been raised about the virtually foolproof electioneering process followed in JNU, run by students exclusively. The system of debates and discussions add lustre to the democratic environment considerably.
It is the marxist orientation of JNU graduates, many employed in the media and civil service, that has so hobbled the growth of the Indian economy and kept hundreds of millions in abject poverty. Ideologies discarded in their countries of origin are kept alive at JNU as generations of students are brainwashed into believing that opposing development is "pro-poor" and marxist style redistribution of wealth will remove poverty. The thuggery of JNU student union activists needs no further mention.
The final sentence of the previous paragraph reveals the nefarious attitude of the writer toward the Democratic processes in the Student Union Elections in the JNU Campus. As for the writer's concerns about poverty, funnily enough JNU Students in Economics and Political Science would give him/her reams and reams of accredited research papers to show how Poverty has actually increased ever since policies of liberalization, globalization and privatization and withdrawal of state have been followed by successive governments since 1991. Its only because of the intervention of JNU scholars such as Profs Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, Zoya Hasan, Jayati Ghosh and others such as Prof Jean Dreze of DU who worked with students from DU and JNU to monitor NREGA implementation, that schemes such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act came about which have provided succour to millions of landless labourers driven to abject poverty in the countryside. Pro-active Government intervention in the health and education sector, protection of rural credit and provision of minimum support prices are arguments that have been elucidated academically by Prof Utsa Patnaik, confirmed empirically and reported eloquently by Journalist P.Sainath (a JNU Alumnus) in The Hindu Newspaper, and have been accepted as a crisis by the Current Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh (a Visiting Professor to JNU). Note the commonality ...its easy: JNU. Progressive bureaucrats such as Y.K.Alagh, ex-President K.R.Narayanan (who was known to have a deep and enduring commitment to the underprivileged, particularly the Dalits) have all had deep associations with the JNU as Vice Chancellors and people deeply integrated with policy making and running student affairs in the University. All this and more go on to establish the fact that the cutting edge socio-politico-economic thinking in JNU has infact gone on to ensure that JNU remains one academic institution in India which has played an enduring progressive role that is originally envisaged for all premier universities in the World.
Funny how economic liberalization works so well in China, raising hundreds of millions from poverty but in India, social scientists from JNU find the opposite, despite plain evidence to the contrary. Make-work programs like REGA that do nothing to permanently raise the living standards of the poor are touted by JNU while SEZs are obstructed. The Chinese are building their country while JNU drones are building socialism. No wonder India remains poor.
It is a lack of history training and a lack of a good understanding of China that is preventing the writer of the above lines from viewing the Chinese situation holistically. Let us be very clear: The reduction in poverty in absolute terms was a venture that was taken up by the pre-Deng era and was greatly successful. Deng consolidated upon the social programs by instituting land reforms (a key demand of the Left and the JNU scholars particularly) once he came to power and economic reforms were tilted to achieve growth after having largely eliminating poverty before. India has neither eliminated poverty nor has it created reforms such as Land Reforms effectively and have shifted onto neoliberal growth without enough homework. Mini-steps such as NREGA are minor ways of controlling the nefarious effects of neoliberal economic reforms.
Funnily even in China today, the Chinese PM Wen Jiabao has talked and has acted upon enunciating policies that have been measured to decrease rising inequality and take China away from the notion of High-Growth led trajectory but effective redistribution on health and education.
Again the writer above displays the arrogance of an "empty pot" reminding one of the age old adage.."Empty pots make....you know what I mean!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.117.234.65 (talk) ; Multiple comments added from 26 February - 16 March 2007
[edit] B.Tech in chemical
please ans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.103.63 (talk) 05:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Engi.graugate B.Tech in chemical
please ans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.103.63 (talk) 05:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
