The reactions were swift and instantaneous. Students blamed the Chairman of Infosys, one of the topmost IT company in India, of running a “sweatshop.” The multi-million dollar coaching industry hit back accusing him of pointing the blame in the wrong direction.

(Above: Infosys Center in Chandigarh- An impressive "sweatshop"?)

As with everything in India, it is perhaps not fair to take extreme positions.

It is blatantly absurd to accuse Murthy of running a sweatshop. He and his company were instrumental in the growth of Silicon valley of India, and rise of the country as the preferred destination for IT services, worldwide. You do not achieve this by running a slave galley (the term is an affront to the hard working youngsters).

Interestingly CEO of one of the coaching centers at Chandigarh while taking an umbrage at Murthy’s statement, narrated an episode from Mahabharata. He pointed out that Dronacharya, the guru of Pandavas and Kauravs, during one of the archery lessons, asked his pupil of what they could see about the target. Only Arjuna, the legendary archer, the CEO continued, saw just the eye of the bird, the real target! So the guy asked, what is wrong with preparing students with single minded devotion, for one of the most coveted entrance tests in the country? Was it not the job of the regular schools to impart a broad education? And should not they shoulder the blame for the falling quality?

And, teachers in the IIT point out what about the falling standard of teachers? Are IITs able to attract the kind of teaching talent required to develop world class students?

Murthy, while stating that only 20% students at IIT were among the best, the rest average, may have inadvertently referred to the famous 80:20 rule. Those familiar with Zipf’s Law will know that in every kind of collection (manmade or otherwise), every attribute will be distributed according to the Power Law delivering the  80:20 distribution (Tall head with a long tail). So no matter, what kind of selection process you may have, the rule will prevail. Mr. Murthy may also have fallen prey to the oldest illusion of the “reverse generation gap” where, the elder generation tends to believe that the younger one is falling down in standards!!

There is no denying that the selection process for IIT Entrance examination needs to change drastically. The current process is biased heavily in the favor of those who have “exam clearing skills”. Ask any student (and parent) of the kind of stress JEE puts them into. This, coupled with some recent scandals in the conduct of the examination, has not exactly covered the selection process in glory! Extreme dependence of 1 exam has to go!

We may also have to look at the Chinese example of attracting teaching talents from all over the world!

BTW the $35 tablet released in India yesterday, came out of a thesis by a student of IIT Rajashthan, a feat which was considered almost impossible to achieve at that price!