An year back I added a microscope to my collection of gadgets, however, didn’t get much time and interest to play around with it. Finally, I got some time to experiment and I must admit, I am falling in love with microscopic world. Here are some microscopic shots, will be sharing more in future posts.
Arranging technical conferences in govt. and private engineering colleges has become a revenue generating business in India. I was going through different conferences that are being held in India in the fields of computer science and was totally shocked at the registration fee for each of these conferences. Registration fee in the range of $200 - $500 is ridiculous for the economy like India.
Now, let’s try to understand the facts. I run a discussion community called “Technical Research papers” on Orkut and it has over 1500 members. Most of these members are students, who aren’t aware much about research and how technical papers needs to be written. After moderating the community for more than a year, I thing that was clearly evident that, majority of the students in India doesn’t care about research. All they want is a tag of publishing a research paper to enhance their chances for securing an admission in a university (mostly foreign). These students pick the research papers from internet and publish it claiming that it’s their own. Apparently, they don’t even realize that its plagiarism. This is where the educational mafia assists such students.
The conference organizers are well aware that majority of the Indian students are doing plagiarism and they also know that, these students desperately need a publication to their credit to get an admission in a university. This is where the ‘give-and-take’ relationship begins. Or rather, I should say, educational mafia takes over. International and National Conferences are organized by govt. and private educational institutes that accept plagiarized papers. The trick here is that, these conferences generally have inflated registration free, something of the range $200-$500. Considering Indian economy, this price is too high, however, the organizers of the conferences are well aware that, they will still receive paper from students who want to publish papers at any cost.
Now, I don’t mean to say, all the conferences organized in India are of this type and all the Indian students do plagiarism. However, majority of the conference are of that type and majority of the students do plagiarism. When you question these organizers, they act like mafia. Typically, when asked for scholarship/registration fee waiver, they would simply reject the paper. In fact, there is no concept of scholarship/fee waiver. The worst thing about all this fraud is, it is being done by highly educated professors. When you meet them in person and question them, they would say “they are promoting research among students and they are being lenient so that student attends conferences and learn’. That’s a very lame excuse. In they want to promote research among students, they should arrange workshops for students. Accepting plagiarized papers should be strictly avoided.
In India, AICTE provides funding for educational institutions to arrange conferences. Even if a particular institution fails to acquire funding from AICTE, the institution should fund the conference. However, majority of the govt. and private colleges don’t take this route. Instead, they arrange the conferences purely from the money they obtained from registration fees from the participants. And to make things worse, they try to derive profit out of it.
I wonder, for how long this education mafia and plagiarism would continue in India. And I fear, this will deeply affect the reputation of Indian researchers…
This story was forwarded to me by a friend, thought of sharing with you all.
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A wise and saintly rich man, sensing his approaching death, called his son to his side and gave him these instructions: “My son, I shall be leaving you very shortly. On the day when I die, and they have washed my body and come to wrap it in the shroud, I want you to put one of my socks on my foot. This is my final request of you.”
Soon after this, the old man did indeed die, leaving behind his goods and property, his children and his dependents. Family, friends, acquaintances and neighbours attended his funeral. The body had been washed and was almost completely wrapped in the shroud, when the son remembered his father’s wish. Finding one of his old socks, he handed it to the washer of the dead, saying, “In accordance with my father’s last request, please put this sock on his foot.”
“That is quite impossible:’ Said the man. “Such a thing is utterly impermissible in Islam. I cannot act against the Shariah.” Despite this valid objection, the son insisted, “That was my father’s final request; it must certainly be carried out.”
The washer of the dead was unmoved. “If you won’t take my word for it,” he said, “go and ask the mufti. He will confirm what I tell you, that it is not permissible.” Holding up the funeral, they consulted the mufti, preachers and scholars, all of whom declared that this was not permissible in Islam. Just then, an aged friend of the deceased interrupted the debate with these words to the son: “My boy, your late father entrusted me with a letter which I was to hand over to you after his departure. Here, this letter belongs to you.” So saying, he gave him an envelope. Taken by surprise, the boy opened the envelope and read out the contents of his father’s letter.
“My son, all this wealth and property I have left to you. Now you see: at the last moment, they won’t even let you give me an old sock to wear. When you yourself come one day to be in my condition they will also refuse to let you keep anything but your shroud. Eight yards of shroud are all you will be able to carry over from this fleeting world into the Hereafter. So pull yourself together and be prepared. Spend the fortune I have left you, not for the satisfaction of vain desires, but in ways pleasing to Allah, that you may achieve honour in both worlds.”
One of my colleague emailed me that, according to Tech Crunch Website, Google Bangladesh has been hacked. Below is the TechCrunch article.
Google Bangladesh Site “OwN3D by TiGER-M@TE”
The story is indeed true. When I search Google Bangladesh, I see the following results
As you can see from the Google results itself, it says “Google Bangladesh OwN3D by TiGER-M@TE”. What is even strange is that, Google hasn’t yet fixed it. When I click on www.google.com.bd, I see the following page
This is probably one of the biggest hacks in recent times.
