Thursday, January 6, 2011

Moral High Horse

A few years ago, I had an opportunity to meet Ratan Tata in a conference in a conference in St Gallen Switzerland. He was the speaker in a session and I was a delegate. When I reached the hall there were a handful people and Ratan Tata was there. I told him we started our career from the same place. He looked startled. I told him that he started his career as the chairman of Nelco and I started as an Assistant Engineer. He was excited and he asked me if I knew about Abhyankar, Mahasur and others. I told him that I worked under them designing UPS, DC Drives and AC Drives.

Last month, he was in news for two reasons. He addressed somewhere in Uttrakhand and talked about how he refused to pay bribe and never got to start a Airline. It was telecasted and several channels had discussions on morality in business. A couple of weeks later the Nira Radia tapes were released and Ratan Tata featured there too. His stature seems to have fallen a bit after the release of these tapes.

Personally, I have very high regards for Ratan Tata. However, one lesson emerges from the episode. To practice morality and ethics is a perfect virtue. However, to sit on the moral high horse may not be a good idea. For when you fall from it, you seem like a villain when you are a hero.

In academic environments, we tend to climb the moral high horse. At the same time heating, copying and plagiarism is quietly practiced by students and teachers alike. The BPUT exams require one invigilator for every 20 students. This indicates the expectation of the unethical behaviour when the situation demands. One professor friend from UC Davis, recently told us he does not invigilate in exams; he expects the students to be honest when unsupervised. I wonder when we can expect that from our students.

4 comments:

Bulletproof said...

IIIT bhubaneswar also has rampant copying...sir..It baffles me to see how MTech students indulge in innovative ideas to copy when they could have spent the same energy on doing constructive and purposeful study. It is time to set the IIIT house in order.

Bulletproof said...

IIIT bhubaneswar also has rampant copying...sir..It baffles me to see how MTech students indulge in innovative ideas to copy when they could have spent the same energy on doing constructive and purposeful study. It is time to set the IIIT house in order.

gaurav santhalia said...

I think it is the trend started in IIIT from beginning onwards . Believe me It can't be stopped at any cost unless and until proper committee and action is taken against such activities.

People think M-Tech students are quite mature enough and they can't be involve in such activities. If such is the case they are wrong..

I believe marks are not going to matter much if a student maintain between 70-75%. He/she may fool IIIT but can't fool outside this domain.

jitesh upadhyay said...

finally after getting a good job and good organization it is good to be back for the comments, firstly as sir wrote about this blog that mr. ratan tata gave an statement in dehradun the state capital of the most beautiful paradise on earth uttarakhand, he told about the thingswhat happened with him and after few days when the tape was just leak between him and a corporate lobist the scenario was great.....no one can be ideal... a the most important thing is about that we never should have to follow a person and we shold not have to impress with a particular personality. no one is perfect here but who is tending towards perfection. i was searching a job but i never went through the our acedamic people for that on reason beacuse already i predicted that nothing will happen and i was 100 percent correct on that issue.

mr jenus raj was a person who was our co-ordinator for placements. the fact was like that kpit-cummins conducted an online interview session, it was amazing that desired profiles were not short listed. next move is about the il&fs was in college and dear friend they hired me . after few days in company one of my friend and mate there from iiit bbsr said and inform to il&fs management that i am planning to change my job and moving around cities and the blind management of the company never thought about that i did not take any leave for that. lot of political game happened and finally i left the company. and in bangalore i searched jobs and get lot of job offers as huwaei, bit stream ibm , Mobisy likecompanies and finally joined a company working on mobile software developments, so now inside of a u.k. based MNC and working as a J2ME ANDROID DEVELOPER.its the story of a person......
do not believe on any one and do not get impress with others friends. live this life in your own way. may be you and me are not great as iim and iit guys but we are only we, no one can play our role better then us n this world so lord jagannath choose us for our current roles.