Ok. That was a disaster. Can we look ahead please ? If I was Rafa
Out - Riera(5M), Babel (10M), Degen(3M), El-Zahr(2M),Aquilani(15M),Aurelio(free) Total : ~ 35M
In
1. Joe Cole(Chelsea) : He is out of contract at Chelsea. Would fit brilliantly into the Liverpool Starting line-up. Liverpool should pay him what he wants and get him (Replaces Babel)
2. Stephan Wornock (Aston Villa) : Former Liverpool player. Had a really good last season with Villa. Would love to see him back at Anfield. Approx ~ 10M (Replaces Aurelio)
3. Raul (Real Madrid) : Raul doesn't seem to fit in at Madrid. It's hard to make a case for playing Raul when you have Higuain, Benzema and obviously Ronaldo. I don't think Madrid would look for a fee if he wanted to leave. I can see him forming a good partnership with Torres. Raul's game was never based on pace and he's hit 20 goals in the last two seasons before the previous ones.(He scored in his last game but came off injured). Free (Replaces El-Zahr)
4. Martin Petrov (Man City) : Petrov is out of contract at City. I've always liked Petrov and thought his finishing and power were really good. Would be a straight swap for Riera.I think he would make a good squad player. Free (Replaces Riera).
5. Higuain(Real Madrid) : He is good. Higuain has been Madrid's top scorer for some time and his presence has saved them once too often. For some strange reason Madrid seem to want to get rid of him. Liverpool should pull out all the strings to sign him.Torres + Higuain = Lots of Goals. Approx ~ 30M.
I think that all this might end up costing Liverpool as much as 10M, but it's a better shaped squad with a better starting XI and a better bench strength.
So How does Liverpool line up ?
Reina(GK) - Johnson(RB), Carragher (CB), Agger (CB), Warnock (LB) - Mascherano(DM), Joe Cole (LW), Maxi Rodriguez(RW), Gerrard (AM) - Torres, Higuain.
Subs : Random-GK, Skrtel, Lucas, Benayoun, Petrov, Kuyt, Raul.
Squad Players : Another-Random-GK, Kyrgiakos, Insua, Ayala, Shelvey, Ngog, Pacheco, etc etc
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Of Donating to IIIT
I was recently reading Halley's blog post on Alumni Funds. He talks about what some other colleges have been doing with their alumni funds and their targets and so on. He goes on to talk about other things like his experiences with the Alumni fund among others. For those who need a bit of a history lesson Halley and I are perhaps the two most vocal critics of the IIIT administration on both the campus and the blogosphere . It's important that one understand what the Alumni fund is doing and why it's very important to contribute to it.
What does the Alumni Fund do ?
Evey year among the many kids who write AIEEE and get ranks good enough to make it to IIIT, there are a few who cannot afford to come here. Yes the fee at IIIT is very high. But this is a group of students who cannot afford to pay for any form of college. They have neither the savings nor any form of holdings to provide a bank guarantee for a loan. This is a situation unimaginable for most of us. But it happens. The Alumni fund is to help such students whom nobody else is willing to help. The money in the alumni funds is given out as a very low interest loan to pay for the tuition fees of such students. This money doesn't go anywhere else. Yes the money does indirectly go to IIIT but they would get that money anyways. If not form this student than another richer one who can afford it.
Why is this important ?
We all know how hard it is to get into IIIT. Some of us took extra time beyond our 12'th class to get year. And whatever one may say , IIIT has provided us with an education, an exposure and above all access to opportunities the rest of the country can only dream of. When a student who clears AIEEE and gets a rank good enough to go to IIIT, drops that idea because of something like money, it is a collective failure on the part of IIIT community to promote merit. In some sense out-pricing somebody from an education is tantamount to reservation; reservation for the rich. As a community IIIT has always put merit on the highest pedestal, and this would be a step in line with those ideas. The situation is best summed up by what Varun Boppana wrote in a mail on our mailing lists.
"It's not like, we are asking money for IIIT..its for some students studying there...for their fees..just to get to where we are..thats it!."
Why this should not be a big deal for IIIT Alumni
Over the last couple of years the average pay of a IIIT graduate has been about 7 LPA. If you gave just 1% of what you earned to the Alumni fund, it would be enough to support all the needy students. 2K3, 2K4, 2K5 and now 2K6 have about 150+ students who have graduated with pretty nice jobs. That's about 600 people. If we assume 25% people contribute that's 150 contributions. If each of these contributions are at least worth Rs.5000 then that would make up 7.5 lakhs, which is almost 75% of what is required to support students. The rest of the money would come from donations from caution money, loans recovered from students and off course contributions from other batches. As a community that has almost 2000 members we should be able to support about 20 students per batch. It's not a big deal. For starters, donate your caution money. Yes BLN might give you a weird mess bill to settle or the office might have something in store for you, but still donate your caution money to the Alumni fund. That will take care of your first year after college. After that it's up to you and your generosity
Don't mix this with other things
Whatever your experiences/opinions of the IIIT administration may be I think it's not relevant to Alumni Fund donations. I have heard classmates say "IIIT never gave a damn about me, so why should I ?". Well, donating to the Alumni fund is about helping fellow students. Donating to the Alumni Fund, does not imply you are okay-ing whatever is happening in college. Rather, it shows your concern for IIIT and that what happens here is still important to you. In some sense you continue to remain a stakeholder long after passing out. And it's the right thing to do, you know it :)
You can donate here
What does the Alumni Fund do ?
Evey year among the many kids who write AIEEE and get ranks good enough to make it to IIIT, there are a few who cannot afford to come here. Yes the fee at IIIT is very high. But this is a group of students who cannot afford to pay for any form of college. They have neither the savings nor any form of holdings to provide a bank guarantee for a loan. This is a situation unimaginable for most of us. But it happens. The Alumni fund is to help such students whom nobody else is willing to help. The money in the alumni funds is given out as a very low interest loan to pay for the tuition fees of such students. This money doesn't go anywhere else. Yes the money does indirectly go to IIIT but they would get that money anyways. If not form this student than another richer one who can afford it.
Why is this important ?
We all know how hard it is to get into IIIT. Some of us took extra time beyond our 12'th class to get year. And whatever one may say , IIIT has provided us with an education, an exposure and above all access to opportunities the rest of the country can only dream of. When a student who clears AIEEE and gets a rank good enough to go to IIIT, drops that idea because of something like money, it is a collective failure on the part of IIIT community to promote merit. In some sense out-pricing somebody from an education is tantamount to reservation; reservation for the rich. As a community IIIT has always put merit on the highest pedestal, and this would be a step in line with those ideas. The situation is best summed up by what Varun Boppana wrote in a mail on our mailing lists.
"It's not like, we are asking money for IIIT..its for some students studying there...for their fees..just to get to where we are..thats it!."
Why this should not be a big deal for IIIT Alumni
Over the last couple of years the average pay of a IIIT graduate has been about 7 LPA. If you gave just 1% of what you earned to the Alumni fund, it would be enough to support all the needy students. 2K3, 2K4, 2K5 and now 2K6 have about 150+ students who have graduated with pretty nice jobs. That's about 600 people. If we assume 25% people contribute that's 150 contributions. If each of these contributions are at least worth Rs.5000 then that would make up 7.5 lakhs, which is almost 75% of what is required to support students. The rest of the money would come from donations from caution money, loans recovered from students and off course contributions from other batches. As a community that has almost 2000 members we should be able to support about 20 students per batch. It's not a big deal. For starters, donate your caution money. Yes BLN might give you a weird mess bill to settle or the office might have something in store for you, but still donate your caution money to the Alumni fund. That will take care of your first year after college. After that it's up to you and your generosity
Don't mix this with other things
Whatever your experiences/opinions of the IIIT administration may be I think it's not relevant to Alumni Fund donations. I have heard classmates say "IIIT never gave a damn about me, so why should I ?". Well, donating to the Alumni fund is about helping fellow students. Donating to the Alumni Fund, does not imply you are okay-ing whatever is happening in college. Rather, it shows your concern for IIIT and that what happens here is still important to you. In some sense you continue to remain a stakeholder long after passing out. And it's the right thing to do, you know it :)
You can donate here
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
My $0.02 on IIIT's new admissions Policy
I like certain things in this years admissions process. On the top of my "I Like" list is the admissions to the Dual Degree program for people who have cleared the Math/Informatics Olympiads at the national level. I don't know how many people will apply as most people in this category get admitted to some IIT anyways. For any student who attends a national camp at the Math/Physics/Informatics Olympiads we should
1. Allow them to join any course they want at IIIT
2. Give them a 100% tuition fee wavier
3. Have no limit on the number of such students we admit.
Whatever financial implications this may have will be more than made up for in other ways. This might mean that we would get to see more people like I.V. Aprameya Rao and Anshuman Singh and Nadeem ( Yes they are examples of people who have participated in national Olympiad camps) on campus. Even if we manage to admit say 5 such students every year, we would eventually have 20~30 of them on campus and that would make a great difference to the atmosphere at IIIT.
I am also pleased that with the different avenues of entry IIIT is considering to look at while admitting CNS dual degree students. The CNS course is slightly different from a regular B.Tech course and perhaps it calls for special admission procedures. The list of Olympiads/Scholarships listed there is quite long and I am hopeful that some of those people who join will be pretty enthusiastic about course. Personally I don't agree with the philosophy of shoving kids into a particular stream without letting them explore other areas of study. I don't agree with either the CNS or the CNL dual degree courses.
There is also this thing to admit foreign students. I haven't a clue about SAT scores and really don't know how that is going to work out. I just hope that we don't end up admitting some yahooo's who think that they own the campus.
Also CBSE and CCB deserve a kick. Their sheer stupidity has forced us into having our own counseling. This also pretty much completely screws up the idea of a national time table for all colleges (Which I thought was a nice idea !) Kapil Sibbal if you read this, fire whoever is running CCB!
I have spent some time looking the dynamics of admissions in US universities. And Indian Universities. The major difference I can see is a lack of diversity on campus in Indian universities. Almost everybody here doesn't have very many skills(of note) other than being good at Phy-Chem-Math. Yes the odd person can sing and paint and dance and some more people can play something but nothing significant. I think that makes for very poor exposure and a sense of elitism that only people really good in PCM have a right to study Engineering at the best places in India. I would love to see IIIT admit kids who are really good at say some arts or sports or something else. Of course we also have to make sure that they have a minimum academic standard as well (perhaps a mixture of 10th+12th Marks + AIEEE scores or whatever) so that they can successfully complete the course. I don't think that studying engineering should be the preserve of only the very insanely nerdy PCM kids. Any sincere kid who does well at school is good enough to go through the curriculum.
IIIT has already been very bold with the present initiatives and perhaps this idea comes ahead of it's time. However I suspect that this is something that the think tank at IIIT has had at the back of their mind. I think having a center like CEH is a step in that direction. The problem with that approach is that you are going to have to deal with kids who have a mindset where joining a place like CEH is simply "not an option". Lets admit some different people for a change !
PS : I don't understand why IIIT has asked people to register before the AIEEE results are declared. Before the results are out a lot of people would like to believe that they have a chance. I can imagine around 6~7 thousand people registering at the very least. IIIT might as well have had people register after the results were declared or at least charged them later. I am not aware of the logistics of doing something like this (I assume it would not be trivial), but if they have done this to make some money then it is indeed very naughty.
1. Allow them to join any course they want at IIIT
2. Give them a 100% tuition fee wavier
3. Have no limit on the number of such students we admit.
Whatever financial implications this may have will be more than made up for in other ways. This might mean that we would get to see more people like I.V. Aprameya Rao and Anshuman Singh and Nadeem ( Yes they are examples of people who have participated in national Olympiad camps) on campus. Even if we manage to admit say 5 such students every year, we would eventually have 20~30 of them on campus and that would make a great difference to the atmosphere at IIIT.
I am also pleased that with the different avenues of entry IIIT is considering to look at while admitting CNS dual degree students. The CNS course is slightly different from a regular B.Tech course and perhaps it calls for special admission procedures. The list of Olympiads/Scholarships listed there is quite long and I am hopeful that some of those people who join will be pretty enthusiastic about course. Personally I don't agree with the philosophy of shoving kids into a particular stream without letting them explore other areas of study. I don't agree with either the CNS or the CNL dual degree courses.
There is also this thing to admit foreign students. I haven't a clue about SAT scores and really don't know how that is going to work out. I just hope that we don't end up admitting some yahooo's who think that they own the campus.
Also CBSE and CCB deserve a kick. Their sheer stupidity has forced us into having our own counseling. This also pretty much completely screws up the idea of a national time table for all colleges (Which I thought was a nice idea !) Kapil Sibbal if you read this, fire whoever is running CCB!
I have spent some time looking the dynamics of admissions in US universities. And Indian Universities. The major difference I can see is a lack of diversity on campus in Indian universities. Almost everybody here doesn't have very many skills(of note) other than being good at Phy-Chem-Math. Yes the odd person can sing and paint and dance and some more people can play something but nothing significant. I think that makes for very poor exposure and a sense of elitism that only people really good in PCM have a right to study Engineering at the best places in India. I would love to see IIIT admit kids who are really good at say some arts or sports or something else. Of course we also have to make sure that they have a minimum academic standard as well (perhaps a mixture of 10th+12th Marks + AIEEE scores or whatever) so that they can successfully complete the course. I don't think that studying engineering should be the preserve of only the very insanely nerdy PCM kids. Any sincere kid who does well at school is good enough to go through the curriculum.
IIIT has already been very bold with the present initiatives and perhaps this idea comes ahead of it's time. However I suspect that this is something that the think tank at IIIT has had at the back of their mind. I think having a center like CEH is a step in that direction. The problem with that approach is that you are going to have to deal with kids who have a mindset where joining a place like CEH is simply "not an option". Lets admit some different people for a change !
PS : I don't understand why IIIT has asked people to register before the AIEEE results are declared. Before the results are out a lot of people would like to believe that they have a chance. I can imagine around 6~7 thousand people registering at the very least. IIIT might as well have had people register after the results were declared or at least charged them later. I am not aware of the logistics of doing something like this (I assume it would not be trivial), but if they have done this to make some money then it is indeed very naughty.
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