Monday, July 20, 2009

A Poll! Oh!

Me: Hey! I had an idea!

Alfred: The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

Me: You don’t even know what it is! Atleast hear me out!

Benard: Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.

Francis: Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

Hippocrates: There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.

Me: Yeah, whatever! Can I speak now?

Jawaharlal: A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.

Me: Erm, is that a yes? Does someone else still have something to say or is it my turn?

Abraham: Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.

Me: Goddamnit! I’m outnumbered!

Abe: This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

Henry: Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

Mohandas: For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

Me: Which is exactly why I need you to let me say something!

Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Me: BUT I HAVEN’T SAID ANYTHING!

Thomas: The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

Me: Screw it!

And that’s when I decided that I wouldn’t rest until I found a way to say what I wanted to so that everyone could hear it. (And also, if needed, no one should find out who it was who said it)

Here lie the answers. The options atleast. A special thanks to Normal, Insti AAS for being very helpful and cooperative all along.

13 comments:

forever-explorer said...

This is a good poll, but I would like to see this poll making some changes in the current way insti is running. is there any guarantee that it will ring any bells with the authorities?

TH3 D@RK KN1GHT said...

Really a good poll. It does voice out many concerns faced by students. Keep up the good work

Anonymous said...

Nice post dude... :P

phani kishan said...

This is the TFE we are talking about people! I'm positive both the above posts have been put in by the editors themselves! :)

PS: More importantly, I'm fairly positive this poll is not going to affect the way the insti runs even slightly! Our admnistration is autocratic - admit it!

The Fifth Estate said...

Thanks a lot for the responses!
Just to clarify, the DoSA is aware of the fact that we're having a series of opinion polls around each issue we publish but the idea wasn't proposed by him.
This is a small step away from the "autocracy" from our side and it couldn't have been possible without you, make sure you tell everyone you know about it!

PS: We just equalled the Hindi team's record on the number of comments on a post!

RAHUL K said...

Good poll....hopefully should serve the purpose!

phani kishan said...

Btw why again are we having this poll? I mean there was a very similar and more exhaustive poll taken up the admin a few months ago which actually resulted in the lan cut being imposed.

I wish you good luck in this endeavour and hope it does cause some change in the way the administration works - though it probably will be cuz of the new DoSA. :)

PS: How come anonymous comments are not allowed?

konstant said...

it is sure dis poll isnot goin to make any differrence . but still we have right to raise our voice . and we shuld do it . and it might open insti admin's eyes.

The Fifth Estate said...

As they say, the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. We felt it would be a good idea to see how effective/ineffective the LAN cut has proved to be hence the poll. This is also a forum for you to express your views, we have added a comments section at the end and encourage everyone to voice their thoughts there too.

@phani: Anon comments allowed, thanks for pointing it out. :)

Anonymous said...

students and curtailing our freedom by implementing TNR rules... If our mess food is bad, are we united enough to stage atleast a one day boycott to improve the food? We have to show them we will not eat if u wont give us good food... What say juntha, we decide on a date and stage a boycott and see if it has an effect? We can do a trial run on tiffanys (:P)

Busa said...

Exactly dude Anonymous. We as a student body are dead. People will laugh at us if we talk about a student union. Outside political parties capture college elections and instate their own followers as 'student leaders'. And so when parties, media and people talk about 'student opinion' it is their opinion they care for.

I was not that involved in things or that learned, but
A little history...
When reservations issue was rocking AIIMS, all we did was form a human chain near gc along the way Arjun Singh was traveling. Pathetic!! He must have mistook it for a welcome. And then we chanted before one tv for about a half hour which did not give any remarkable coverage. Besides the student leaders of this humble protest got humbled by the so-called student reps(yeah the ones that our seniors voted for).

Last sem we got a 12-2 lan cut. Up and coming... 85% attendance, 2.5k late fee(especially given the obsession of our acad people to start classes on 30th or 31st Dec. I really don't get why they cannot start odd sem early and even sem late).

I need not talk about our(iitians in general) deep slumber on a national scale today. We will soon have about three times the usual number of graduates flaunting their IITian stamp(new IITs + OBCs). We won't question the wisdom of people who missed the simple fundaes about brand value. Or may the intent of the wise people who want to take a shot at the vote bank of 4,00,000 families(per year) that try to get their kid into some IIT. Again I don't claim to be an expert here.

I am just happy I will be passing out next year. You people enjoy :thumbsup:

PS: I hold no grudge towards any community or reps. Everything above was to point out our state of mind and indifference to events around us.

Anonymous said...

I totally second the previous post. 3 student representatives (Whose degree's and BTP are at stake) in senate ,what is that senate ? Is there any honest student representation? It's a total autocracy. A group of professors ,diro and deans try to decide our academics and facilities ? Can they even imagine our life ? Ask them to go through IIT procedures once before taking decision in their A/C conference rooms . Do they know what we want to study ? What we want to learn ? What kind of place where we want to grow up? No wonder everybody goes abroad after going through IIT, few unlucky ones get to stay here. To voice out our opinions we have to think a million times before we say anything , is this a democracy or autocracy? We students have too much to lose if we start to voice out, hence such polls spring up. Editors themselves said it that nothing useful will come out, why wasting time ? Instead of making the polls that don't work try motivating people to voice out their INDIVIDUAL opinions to the administration itself ... FYI i am a fourth year ... my name is Nitin (ME06B068) I live in jamuna hostel and i am known as Swamy. I am purposefully posting it as anon.

P.S. : At Busa " instead of just being happy that you are passing out" try making a difference here in institute for the people yet to come. Pardon my grammar and punctuations.

Anonymous said...

I dont remember the last instance when I missed any lecture and morning lecture in particular. Since the time I came to this forest, I have not missed a single class because I overslept or anything like that. I cut classes only when I have to attend to some very important and unavoidable work or fulfill commitment.I feel that your poll like most other student initiated polls in IITM will not make any difference to the life of people in this forest. You guys have to realize that the student body or the student representatives are nothing before the administration and the administration will do whatever they feel is apt for the student community. This polling exercise appears to be a part of a procedure which the secretaries or the speakers have been following for years. The reason is quite straight forward. The secretaries after all also want to do some work for the "welfare of the student community" so that later on they can claim that they did this .......did that .............blah blah . Lan cut was never an issue worth debatable. This service is provided by the institute for free and so they have every right to withdraw or make appropriate changes and the student community has not right what so ever to crib about it. When I say all this , I don't mean that I m not part of the student community or I don't care about internet service. All I want to tell you guys that student body has no say in the rules and regulations that are proposed and implemented by the Institute administration.

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