திண்ணை

பெரியசாமி

Respected and Dear Madam/ Sir,

Iam a PhD student from science area. As media people, you must be aware of the fact that recently UGC announced a monthly fellowship of Rs.5000/ for students indulged in PhD research. But the sad fact is that the fellowships are only for students who registered PhD from a particular date. The other Phd scholars who registered PhD before that date and still doing their course are not fit to get fellowship, according to UGC.This is injustice. In science area, a student takes normally more than four years to complete PhD. Many NET-Lectureship qualified students are doing PhD without any fellowship just for the sake of research.

Atleast 3000Rs per month will do for them.

Recently UGC diluted NET requirement for college/university teaching by excempting PhD and MPhil scholars from it.As a result there was a 30% increase in PhD registration through out India, no need to say about MPhil. And that too, if you come to know about the dubious and self-serving procedures adopted in each and every guide, department, and even varsity for registering a student for PhD, you will be shocked. There is no standard, fool proof, straight forward procedure to recruit PhD scholars in any of the universities/varsities. Only very few are exceptions. Corruption, nepotism, communalism, politics,selfishness, perversion etc play a very important role in determining a candidate for PhD registration. In Madras university a candidate though NET-lectureship qualified, is not considered for PhD registration in science departments. The qualification prefered is a strong recommendation from a faculty (supposed to be the candidate’s relative or caste) or a recommendation from any of the state ministers/politicians/bureaucrats etc etc. If a candidate is not having link with upper strata people, he/she cannot enter the university though meritorious. In Madras University, Some guides are having a waiting list (all recommended) atleast for two years. Then where comes merit and what is the use of entrance exam and interview?. Both are conducted only for eye wash. In some varsities, though entrance exam takes place in a good manner, interview does not. The real deserving candidates have to roam like dogs for years to get registered. But other guys get a cake walk easily.

Moreover even for recruiting candidates for research projects funded by national and international bodies, the very same pathetic situation prevails. It is the rule that recruitment for projects should be done only by giving advertisement and conducting interview.For attending the interview, some foolish candidates come from a long distance well prepared and day dreaming.But some other prefixed candidate gets selected.

In India, there are schools which conduct entrance exam and interview for parents who need seat for their child in kinder garden. But in PhD, considered to be the top most academic course, all dirty things happen.

One will certainly shed blood tears if he/she comes to know that in this course, all evils play from course advertisement to thesis submission and viva voci.And some fools are dreaming of scientific achievements and excellent research publications from India.

Thank You.

reperian@rediffmail.com