[rushabh]

The talk was on the Aakash tablet, India's very ambitious and highly controversial and potentially disastrous low cost tablet project [1]. Dr Phatak is one of the top adivsors to the Indian government on e governance and the recently appointed head of the project. I can't believe there were no questions for that talk.

Confession: I did not ask one either, as I was not as well aware of the latest developments. I questioned the next presenter though who talked about the Spoken Tutorial. And it was the only question asked.

[1] http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/167/aakash-tablet-india-...

[shriphani]

I am really not sure what can be asked whose answer won't be a rehash of the gov's PR. I can't expect why the average person in India would scream "Scandal!" at the project's failure - the government doesn't have a fantastic track record and doesn't have the resources to attract the kind of people that can make such stuff (i.e. the Aakash Tablet) happen. The average Indian isn't so concerned about their government screwing up because that is the norm.

Anyway that was offtopic. The IITs have a very high average IQ that manifests itself well in the form of publications and the accomplishments of the alumni/students/faculty - they are definitely not "education factories" and an engineering degree from there is very respected. Pitting them against institutions with endowments in excess of 8bn is unfair.

[sundae79]

Sure they do, that is why there is not a single nobel prize won by an IITian when ten Indians have a nobel prize.

[shriphani]

I assume a lot of IIT's top faculty and brightest kids major in engineering. That puts their nobel count at a disadvantage.

[sundae79]

I agree with you. IITians are not good at fundamental science for which nobel is awarded, otherwise they would have gotten it by now.