 So, as I said I wanted to have a small interactive session where I thought I will just share with you some of the larger issues which confront all of us and which you will be facing in about one year or two years time as you pass out of the respective colleges and go out in the field. But in general is the direction you want to take after you pass out as you decided. Because there are multiple choices you can either take up a job and either you want to continue to remain a techie or you want to become a manager. Some of you might want to start some enterprise of your own. Some of you would like to do research. How many of you have a clear dream to be achieved in the next 20 years to very few? Even I dream at my age so you should be dreaming for more. I would suggest you start dreaming, start thinking about long term future. One of the problems that afflicts our society is almost all our thought processes are short term. We think of immediate requirements like for example you have a semester going on. So your focus will be on the exams at the end of the semester. Earlier focus will be a quiz tomorrow or an assignment to be submitted after tomorrow whatever. These are priorities naturally. These are called tactical requirements. They must of course be satisfactorily answered. But because of these tactical requirements which govern your day to day life you should not discontinue long term thinking that usually happens. And then because life seems to go on well you are doing well in your exams, you are doing well in your sports whatever whatever whatever you come to believe that this tactical short term thinking is adequate for life. What happens then is you are all smart people so you will definitely achieve things in life but almost all those achievements will happen incidentally. Not because you desire not because you plan, you are letting the environment force the pace of your life the direction of your life and I don't think that is good. I don't think that is good for you, I don't think that is good for this society because you represent the leading edge of this society. Have you ever wondered about the demography of the nation? How many people are there of your age and younger? Do you have any clue? You read about the statistics of the population of the country. 370 million Indians are less than 20 years old. 370 million, that's 37 crore people. That's larger than the population of entire United States of America. That's larger than the population of the whole country. I said you are the leading edge because you are the ones who are towards the upper end of that large body and you are the ones who are getting into the professional activities earlier than most of it. So just go back and think of when you were young. 5 years old, 6 years old, 7 years old. What did you do? You didn't understand anything so your parents took you to some school and you started studying. Today a much larger number of parents are trying to get their children to start studying. Imagine if you had not got an opportunity to study well in your first, second, third, fourth, fifth standard. You would have missed something in life. Imagine you did not have a good middle school or a good high school education. You would have missed something. How many of our children today continue their college education after finishing school? Any idea of the percentage? No idea. You are all studying in colleges. Most of your friends are studying in colleges, right? If not in the college, you are in the college, some other in the college. If not in the college, science, commerce, right? Most of your friends. Are you sure all of your friends are studying in colleges? Just go back and reflect on the class of 12th standard that you passed. How many students do you have in your class? About 50, 60, 100, maybe. Are you sure all 100 are studying in college? Do you have a clue on how many roughly are studying in college? That ratio is called enrolment ratio. An enrolment ratio for any nation tells the world what percentage of people are getting educated better. It does not necessarily follow that everybody goes into college gets education better. Because education and going to college are not necessarily the same thing unfortunately. But assuming that something substantial happens in the life of a person once he goes to college, that ratio is important. The ratio in most developed countries in the world is of the order of 50 to 60 percent. The ratio in India is less than 14 percent. Out of 100 students who pass out their 12th standard, 14 only continue their college education. This is the enrolment ratio. So, a whole lot of students in this country drop out of educational system at or below 12th. In fact, there is another horrible statistic which says that number of students who drop out after 10th standard itself are also very many. Now, do you think we can construct a nation where all our dreams will be fulfilled if a large percentage of population is not getting educated? Let us look at your own education. Out of the 14 percent that I said join colleges, what percentage of students join professional colleges? Do you have any idea? Like you, some Indian colleges you are there. So, let us take Indian as a professional college, not medical, law, pharmacy. They are also a professional college. Any idea? What percentage? No idea. Hardly 3 to 4 percent. The majority of them go to other cities. This percentage has been increasing over the last few years, but when the percentage increases, there is always a dilemma of quality loss because you may have bright students wanting to study, but you must have an appropriate academic structure to support those studies. Traditionally, the academic structures were, you know, IITs, some two or three good colleges instead. Are you aware that till about 1980, there were only 80 or 90 Indian colleges in the country and even at that time we had a sizable population. Understanding that the government will not be able to arrange for professional education for so many people, the government of that day, both at the center and states, permitted private institutions to be set up. Several good private institutions have been set up, but several other private institutions do not have education as their primary focus because you see, they are not getting any government grant. They have to run on their own, so they have to collect fees and the fees is unfortunately controlled by courts and committees and so on. So, this is not the free market economy model. In the United States where there is a free education like this, a college decides what the fees is and you take it or leave it. Unfortunately, we have adopted a semi-open economy model and therefore we have these fees. Of course, it does not mean that if you permitted large amount of fees to be charged by Indian colleges and if they did charge and people did pay, it does not necessarily mean that those colleges will necessarily utilize that money for betterment of education. That's another problem. Someday hopefully this country will resolve this problem. But let me come back to the main theme. You know, many of you would have some dreams even if you are not articulated. But I can send some common dreams which, for example, I had when I was a student like you have when they are in this case and they are about to pass out. So, let me iterate some of the common dreams on which there should be no casualties, perhaps no descent. The first dream, after passing out, I should be able to get a good job. Any problems with that? Most of you would wish to have a good job. You would like to have a successful professional career. You would like to live a happy life. Anybody who by design wishes to live an unhappy life? So, these are common sense dreams. Your successful career, you would define tentatively in two aspects. Material success and professional success. Material success, you would like to get good money return for the work that you do. You will see that most of the placement efforts all across the country in all colleges, not only in new colleges, in all colleges. You know, companies come offering jobs, students fly for that. And you can do a relative ranking of what is the first choice of students, what is the second choice of students, what is the third choice of students, etc. 99% of the time, the choices get invariably related to the pay package that the company offers. It is not necessarily related to the professional work environment of those companies. Does it mean that people don't care for professional environment? No, they do. But the priorities are very clear. My priority is I would like to earn good amount of money. And incidentally, I would also like to have a good professional environment. So, this being the priority, generating wealth, obviously, is very high on your dreams, whether you articulate it or you don't articulate it. And how do you generate wealth? Mostly by doing a job. Sometimes, by becoming an entrepreneur, without becoming an entrepreneur, you cannot generate wealth non-linearly. A job generates wealth linearly. As many months as you work, that much of salary you get. But if you want to increase your wealth two times, four times every year, then you have to build an enterprise, a company and expand it so that you earn more profit. That's a different world. Most of us are satisfied with a job. But the comparison is what drives you even there. So, you would like to get a job which will pay you, let's say, Rs. 50,000 a month. You get a job only for Rs. 30,000 a month. If all other colleagues of yours in your college get jobs around Rs. 25,000, Rs. 28,000, Rs. 27,000 and you are the highest paid job-obtener in that college, you will feel okay about it. Imagine now that if everybody else in your class gets jobs of Rs. 70,000, Rs. 75,000 and you are the only joker getting Rs. 30,000 a month. What do you think? Bad? You agree with this? Now reflect whether this is correct. I come from Madhya Pradesh. I study these Hindi. I don't know if you can understand Hindi, but we have a very interesting khabar. People are not as sad as people are happy. People are hurt more not because of their own pain, but because of the satisfaction that they see in others. This is a human trait and I would like you to guard against this trait because that is no way to move to greater achievement. Comparison eventually stinks. Unfortunately, you have spent all your life time in getting compared. Imagine when you pass your fifth standard exam. Most of you would have done well in your school, so your parents would say, wow, sabash beti, sabash beti, whatever, top marks. Your marks decided, what was your social standing? Fifth standard, eighth standard, tenth standard. You got 90% marks? Wow, brilliant. I got 40% marks. I am almost treated as an idiot. So first my teachers will tell me, tera kya hoga pata main? My colleagues start looking at me very critically. Par de, par beta, par beta, par iksha re, whatever. My parents will give me up. And if that happens with the first standard, practically everybody around me will give me signals that I am no good. You know what will happen to me? I will become defeated and eventually I will become despondent. I will start believing that I am no good. And I will actually become no good. Yesterday there was a discussion briefly where I talked about self-confidence. That self-confidence and self-esteem has to be preserved. It is unfortunately extremely difficult to be preserved when I am getting constantly confused. Marks in the examination has been the only major of your success so far. Am I wrong in saying that? Everywhere, admission to this college, admission to that place, this competitive exam, whatever, whatever. Good marks, good person. Bad marks, bad person. So basically you have so far participated successfully in rat races. And here is my humble submission. Every rat race will produce a few winners and a large number of losers. The winner rats acquire over confidence. And sometimes that borders on arrogance. For last 40 years I am seeing such arrogance in the minds of a few people who come to BB Tech for a year here. They have to bash their heads for 6 months to tell them, look, there are enough smart people all around you. So don't put any air to your head. Because in absolute terms it may not mean much. But because you are one rat race, you feel overconfident. And the moment you become arrogant, you actually stop having that small advantage which you had related to you. Worse, a rat race has many loser rats. And they develop, as I said, diffidence bordering on disformance. And now let me state one product theory you may call it. In these rat races, every rat wins some rat races and loses some rat races. So for example, I appear for joint entrance examination. I just miss getting computer science, which I decided to do. I get computer science in summer institute. Now I would have won the rat race because I got admission computer science in a good college. But I lost the rat race because I did not get into IS. And this would happen with each one of us at some point or the other. So as we grow, we carry a very curious emotional mix in our hearts. We are simultaneously leaning on overconfidence in some spheres because we have done better than others. And also equally, we are also different on some other aspect. Maybe I am good, better than him, but not as good as him. This comparison. And as I said, comparison's thing. So here is the final part of my theory. The product theory says that every rat race has a few winner rats and a large number of loser rats, but only rats, not human beings. And you are human beings. Since you have participated in rat race, you have to be very, very careful. You know what comparison you can legitimately make? A good comparison. Every time you do something, whether it is a competitive exam or a task or something like that, could I have done it better? I have thought myself to ask this question again and again and again on everything that I do. And believe me, the only answer I always got is yes, I could have done it better. Now, when there is huge scope for doing something better and which I understand, why the hell do I need to compare myself with anybody else? I don't need to. I have my answer. What is the answer? I am not good enough in my discharge of my activity. Am I not good enough capability-wise? That is the answer. Here is another story which I often relate to prove how nonsensical it is. How do you evaluate intelligence in people? IQ test, right? How many of you routinely give IQ tests and how many of you have seen the rest of the world actually using IQ tests? None. The rest of the world evaluates your marks. Are marks related to your native intelligence? Are marks related to your preparation? How many times you have faced the exam? You have prepared hell of a lot but you could not solve some problems and you got less marks. Equally well, how many times you have studied only 50-60% of the syllabus but the questions that you got in that particular exam are so good that you scored 90% marks. Hasn't it happened with all of you? The marks are clearly not reflective of either your knowledge or your capability. What defines that capability? The capability is fundamentally so different that a 90% or should be treated as an extraordinary genius and a 40% or like me should be treated as an easier. So here is my challenge. Take any difficult logical problem to be solved. One problem which I don't know whether you have attempted it is learning a foreign language. How many of you have tried to learn French, German, Arabic, something? So how do you go about it? You attend some course. I will tell you about how people learn German language to people. If they do a first course in elementary German, then they do a one-year course in advanced German. I have seen some people in Mumbai going to Pune to attend the Max Müller Bawal interchange program for six months. At the end of it they are able to speak German reasonably well. Not very fluently or rapidly but reasonably well. They can read German, translate it into English. We call them very intelligent people. Not all of us are capable of solving that problem. If that defines adequate intelligence to solve hard logical problems in life, then why do we forget that each one of us learned a foreign language at the age of three years to five years? Which was later on called the mother tongue. How did you learn your mother tongue? Did you attend a class? Did somebody tell you you got 90% then I got 40%? I am not saying all human beings are equal in intellectual capability. But I am saying that fundamentally God has given each one of us adequate brains to solve very complex problems in life. Each one of us. There may be slight differences. Some of us are very articulate at the age of six years. Some of us are not that articulate. But in so far as the ability to convey my emotions and thoughts are concerned to anybody, I have that capability at the age of six years. In so far as understanding what is being conveyed by others to me, I have that capability at the age of six years. You got 90% marks, you have that capability, I got 40% marks, I also had that same capability. What is it then which made life different for me and you over the next 15 years, 12 years? What made the difference was that I lost some of my characteristics which I had preserved, which I had. So again a God's donation. So let me list some of these characteristics. These are the child's characteristics. The first and most important. I am curious about everything that the child sees. You would have forgotten your childhood but you would see nephews, nieces, cousins, young cousins, children. Have you ever seen a three or four year old child which is not curious about everything that it sees? Everything. What is this? And the child is bold. The child is asking questions. What is this? What is that? What is that? In fact the child, even if it asks stupid questions, sometimes we still humour the child. The child says that. So we encourage the children. There are two fundamental traits by the way which are crucial in any learning endeavor that you do. Curiosity and boldness to ask questions. Imagine what happens when you go to the school. Some teacher like me in the fifth standard tells you don't disturb the class. You go to high school, somebody says don't ask idiotic questions. By the time you come to Indian college you are stopped asking questions. And you know, you must realise one thing. When a child asks a question, the question might be addressed to the father, sister, brother or friend. But actually the child is asking a question to itself. What is this? It is a question that arises in the child's mind. So the child is asking the question itself. It is only articulating it. When you stop asking questions, you are stopping being curious. Lack of your boldness forces your curiosity to laugh. Tell me how best learning can occur. You can never learn at the same pace and with the same intensity that you could when you were a child because the laws of these two correct. And there is a third equally important characteristic that all of us had asked to do. Perseverance. Perseverance. Ability not to give up. Have you ever seen a child who decides to do something? Something particularly naughty. And then child gives up on it. I have not seen one child there. You know breaking glass and throwing glasses is the most favourite pastime of children. Unfortunately the glass is hanging on a table which is rather tall. What will a child do? It will come around, try to climb up from this side, that side, reach the glass. It will fail three times, four times. Once it will fall, it will cry. Maybe the mother will come out and suddenly the child has some naughty design. So mother will make the child stand in a corner for five minutes. The child will cry, will stand for five minutes. After five minutes it will look again here, there. Come back to the table. Finally the tenth attempt, eleventh attempt, it will pull this chair, climb up on this chair, climb up on the table and throw that glass and break it. And when the child achieves that, the child will dance with joy on this table. When did you last dance with such joy? I am not suggesting you break glasses by climbing on table. But I am suggesting that why have you all forgotten this fundamental capability that God has given to all of you to perceive here and not to give up. Translate it into problem solving. When you are in first year, probably you are trying to solve problems given at the end of the textbook. I remember when I was in first year, physics attracted me. So me and a friend of mine used to solve all problems at the end of a chapter. And there were some hard problems, typically they become harder. So we attempt them, attempt them and then two problems which we could not solve. We went to a teacher, not our teacher, but his associate, that young person and we asked him how to solve that problem. Unfortunately the person did not have time at that stage. So instead of asking us to come again or instead of telling us something encouraging, he suggested that these questions are not important from the examination point of view. And we immediately agreed and came back. Since then we don't remember having even looked at more difficult problems. But we remember having seen the examination question paper pattern very carefully of the university. And we studied that and we said we may limit our studies only to this. Other things are not important. It's only when I came to IIT to do my M.Tech I realized that it doesn't make sense. It doesn't work that. Why is IIT system different? Why are some courses taught in some of the NITs and some of the better colleges are different is because there the environment says you must attempt harder problems. There is very, very important reason for you to do so. You all play some sports or some games. Everybody knows how to play badminton. You may be playing, some of you may be playing. Imagine you have a three game match with me. You don't know how I play, right? So the first game you start playing your natural game. You'll discover in about two or three minutes that this fellow is not moving at all. See my role model is Ganapati. Like Lord Ganesha I stay at one place. If this shuttle comes my way I will return it. Otherwise I will just forget. You don't know it. So first few minutes you play hard. And then you realize you will lose. So some shuttle I return, some short I return. Any time you hit a shot I lose whatever. And of course you beat me at love. Now you play the second game, best of three match. Second game also you will be in hands down. Because I am not changing my strategy. But imagine how will you play the second game? In your second game will you not relax automatically? This is not going to happen. Maybe in the second game I will at least have a few service changes. Maybe in the second game I will score some points. I will still lose. At the end of these two games the best of three match you have won. And you will go back home illiterate, you know. IIT professor's words are fantastic. You know. It is an enormous pleasure. Consider another situation. You are playing not with me. But you are playing with a world champion. Of course some of you may be a really good player. But I am sure none of you is convinced that you will be able to beat the world champion in back. What will happen? The world champion does not know how you play. Would you not think that the roles would be reversed? You will play your natural style. But you will lose while you are at love game. Now imagine how will you play the second game? Will you not run a bit faster? Will you not attempt to concentrate a bit harder? Will you not get a few shots even at that world champion? You will. What it means is by the way when you lose both the game and you go back home you will be actually shattered emotionally. What will happen? That is what you said. But think about what has happened to your game. In the first match your game deteriorates in the second time. In the second match the game improves in the second time. Why? Because you are attempting the more difficult problems. If you agree with the fundamentals of this example, although this is an artificial example then you must agree with another theorem of Fata. He says that solving 10 simple problems will give you immense pleasure but no additional knowledge. Attempting 10 difficult problems but not getting a single one successful. Not getting a single one successful. Will give you huge frustration but far more knowledge. It appears common sense now. But do you attempt it? When you have the occasion do you attempt it? Do you seek hard problems? You don't because that rat races, the rules of the rat races don't permit you to spend time on hard talk. Remember when you participate in a rat race you are running an optimization battle. You are 21 hours a day. Some hours you have to sleep, some hours you have to play, some hours you have to do something and only in a few hours you have to work for the rat race. So you look at the rules of the rat race, the university exam system says this is the pattern of the question paper. Solve any 6 out of 10 questions. This was the pattern in my university when I passed from Indore in 1969. I don't know how it is now. Back here I studied very hard as I told you. Second year onwards I used to study 70-80% of the syllabus. It was adequate to give me 85-90% marks. Optimized. What did I lose? You lot of learning. I had to learn many of those things back here because here the syllabus was what the teacher was teaching and he said solve that problem and I would say if you are not studying today or if you have one night to study tomorrow this is very hard problem. You are fortunate because most of you come from colleges which have a good educational environment. But you are unfortunate because neither you nor your colleges insist on exposing you to hard problems as a fundamental requirement. Am I right? Please do something about it. You can. During this happening I had taken one year sabbatical leave in 2002 because I was worried about the quality of Indian education in the country. So I took that sabbatical leave and went around the country visiting colleges. I went to about 67 colleges in that year. I opened up. I would generally interact with students for half a day. Typically finally a project student and I would interact with the teachers for half a day trying to find out what their problems were. I will tell you when the students presented their final year project they were not polished people. They could not probably articulate themselves very well in English but the amount of effort that they had taken, the amount of learning that they showed indicated to me that at every college at least one or two groups stood out from the others and not the entire group because in these colleges when final year students do the project typically four or five students do it together three students, four students and unfortunately some of those group members are what I call sleeping members. You can immediately find out who is the sleeping member in this kind of interaction but those who have applied their mind they are as good as anyone else like you or like the students I have no difference. So what it means is that this nation has talent all across the country and I deliberately chosen smaller places. So I did visit some of the NITs and so on but not with this strategy. 67 colleges that I mention are actually smaller colleges in it. So for example when I went to Karnataka I did go to Suratkal because NIT Suratkal has been close to us but I went to a college in Manipal, I went to a college in Nithya, a small place there. Likewise I went around. This is where I learned that that is when I started my eklavya project saying that there are too many eklavyas in this country is waiting to be mentored and equally well I found at least one or two teachers in every college who are treating education not as their job but as their dharma because that is what it has to be. For a teacher it has to be a religion it cannot be anything else just as for a student learning has to be a religion. So what these students do? You know one teacher in Orissa small college electronic teacher she would conduct a Sunday lab in a semester at the beginning they would define a problem of designing a circuit. Every Sunday two hours students will come they will discuss the problem and analyze the circuit, design it, fabricate it and make it work. I was excited I said oh do all schools come? He said no sir only about 10 or 15 schools come. 15 out of how many? About 70 students. But I said but that is not bad because these 50 students will make a difference to themselves and to everyone else because they are willing to work on a hardware problem which is not part of the syllabus. They are truly interested in solving problems that you are doing a great job. Unfortunately he said sir you are the first one telling me you are doing a great job. My colleague Laughat Singh Pagalai syllabus chode ke baar ka parata. So you see our environment is so officiated it has no provision to excite students to solve a hard problem. No provision. Now we are trying to correct that situation this national mission is about engaging teachers. So while we empower them in the respective subject whether it is basic electronics or thermodynamics or computer programming or whatever one of the things which we are trying to tell them is the message that there is no difference between your students and our students and between you and us because all of us I do not say that openly but all of us learn our first foreign language between age of 3 years and 6 years. No difference. The difference is only level of confidence and the difference is in the type of problem that you tackle. This difficult problem the ethos is so different I tell you I have attempted to tell you one more example which happened in my institute itself. Late K. C. Mukherjee my senior colleague in electrical engineering department used to teach fields. I had just become a teacher and when I was a student there was another student who used to be in the institute testing so I became a coach when I became a teacher and this student who was in 30 years electrical then came to me one day they met some paper question paper and he says how do you solve some question number 3 or something I do not remember some question. I read that question I had no clue on how to solve it but instead of telling him I cannot solve it I am now a computer science professor. He says no but your basic degree is electrical engineering so we looked at it again we could not solve it then we decided we will go to professor K. C. Mukherjee himself we took that paper to professor K. C. Mukherjee and the moment he saw for that walking in with another of his students with a paper in hand he started smiling and he said question 3 I said yes sir he did not say anything so this other student asked himself how do you solve it you know what he said I do not know and he was aghast then professor Mukherjee explained he said for that this is this question is a part of unsolved research problem pending for last 10 years but you know this batch is so smart I thought somebody will solve it what would have happened in most of the colleges if such a situation had prevailed in my college I can tell you in 60 years what would have happened the students would have gone on a strike they would have gher out a vice chancellor the story ends with an activity that happened that evening which tells you the difference in the atroast hostel 4 I think is there that could not have a large number of students from that batch belong that evening they threw a milkshake party in the hostel a milkshake party in those days is thrown in a hostel only when something of great consequence happens in the hostel it has won an inter hostel hockey tournament or somebody has won the debating sheet something extraordinary then a milkshake party is thrown and poor students for them a milkshake party is a great thing when they were having a milkshake party if general secretary was in fourth year he came and said what has happened I do not know what has happened in my hostel so why you celebrate oh you do not know the great professor Mukherjee thinks that our batch can solve unsolved research problem we are celebrating this is the difference this is the difference that somebody is saying that I believe you are capable of solving difficult problems is a cause for joy not cause for despair I would like you to take this approach back and within your friends within some teachers whom you know whom you can talk to and discuss try to suggest to introduce some mechanism even in this dilapidated syllabus and that way which will encourage people to think about solving hard problems look at the problem you are solving this intention did you know the solution was it in the syllabus did you all solve it completely successfully no but now you know what more has to be done on that problem and you are going back with a greater confidence of having not just attempted but solved significant portions of that problem so why to fear unknown try to think about it try to reflect on it I would believe that this is what will carry you forward not only in your academics but even later because in real life when you join real life there is no syllabus ask your parent who would have studied education long time ago ask them what part of the education is directly useful to them in solving the problem that they solved today they will tell you hardly anything but what they may not be able to tell you is that the ability to apply your mind to solve problem that you learn during your education is what is coming to help them and that is what you have to carry with so this is what I wanted to share with you just a couple of other things this is important from a perspective of being a good and responsible citizen and a happy person because everybody said you would like to be happy you know when you earn your wealth when you earn your profession of fame you believe you will be really happy but if that fame and that wealth is not earned legally and ethically believe me you will not be happy legality and ethics are not natural traits to human people when we are children imagine we are actually the exact opposite we are possessive we want everything that the other fellow has and we don't care about the meals ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok sense that is what you call upbringing, Samska upbringing is what bring that, but there are temptations on the way which may tempt you to look away from some of these values. In your educational system now what is it called use of unfair means a very broad term. So, this includes for example, keeping into the neighbor's answer book. Everybody would be tempted sometime or the other. Copying an assignment, I mean I don't know that you have drawing as a course. Routinely one person would draw a drawing and other people will what we used to call glass dope, I don't know what it is called now. There were exactly two students in my class who did not copy any drawing, they drew each drawing themselves. One of them was the gold medalist, he was in PIFR as a great scientist, now my colleague here, never copied it, he did not have it, but he learned drawing better than others and his teachers even today said he would have been a better mechanical engineer than an electrical engineer if he did. This is a value to it, but there is a time that is to be spent. What is copying? Copying what are you trying to say? Actually you are trying to save your time, the time which you did not spend in studying or that time which you did not spend in understanding. So, you cannot recall the answer, you look at that answer. How many of you play bridge, card game? You know how to play bridge, right? There are four players who are playing bridge, forget about any game of cards, four players are playing. You know there is a bridge etiquette, he says that if my neighbour is not holding his cards properly and I can see those cards, I am supposed to immediately look the other way round and tell him to hold his cards properly. That is called good etiquette in this. Should that not be aborted in every exam that we give? If I can see my neighbour's answer book, I should tell my neighbour, hey, bhajurat. Do we do that? We are not even tempted to do that because it is not considered as a great value. I am trying to suggest please invite these as the greatest of values because what are marks to you right now for which you might be tempted to follow and unfair me would be money to you in your career for which you may be tempted to follow and unfair me. The principle is no different. Somebody cheating in an examination and copying a paper or copying an assignment and somebody asking for one lakh rupee bribe for doing something let me tell you mentally and emotionally they are no different. I am using unfair means to enrich myself either by marks or by money and this is hard problem. This is in fact the hardest problem in this and yet I have seen examples upon examples of ethical behavior. Examples upon examples. Someday I will write my memoir and the ethical behavior comes from the most unexpected people. I will quote one incident which happened in my class in my CS101 class about two years ago. After the mid-semester I had announced the list of top performers. So some 8 or 10 students I had a test out of 45 months. So somebody had 43 and a half, 44, 43 and a half or 43 and a half, 43, 42. Put that list. At the end of that class one of the students who was sitting there was a very large class I taught for the first time in Convocation hall 850 students and it was unmanageable so now we have split it into two parts. But anyway one student sitting in the front row told me after the class sir there is a friend of mine who will also be there in that thing. I said why what he said you see when we return the mid-sem papers there are always some possible errors. Some question is not corrected properly, some total is not correct. So such answer was we asked the students to write their whatever they feel is not being done and return the papers to our TAs. Our TAs will correct them and then send that. So he said that fellows he has got 41 and a half and he is one question has not been corrected. It is a two mark question. So he will be 43 and a half and he will be in your list. So I just told him ok ask him to send me an email and I will be glad to put up his name in the next lecture. The next lecture was next week or the weekend I get a mail from this chap, Nithan Paidya was in. He says sir my friend told me to inform you whenever I get my paper return. So I got my paper return and I have been awarded two marks for the question which was not corrected. However before sending this email I re-looked at my question paper and found out that the original totaling by TA was wrong. It should not have been 41 and a half it should have been 39 and a half. So my correct total is 41 and a half only which you please record. Please understand the significance of this action. Our records now show 43 and a half. Papers have been written. There is no way anybody can ever say that the 43 and a half is not corrected. Look at what he is doing. He is geopolitizing his possible grade. AA grade which is given to only 15 or 20 top students out of 850. It will be given only to the top performer. He actually missed his A grade by half mark. But he did not care. Next class in the next week class I actually put up a slide saying extended honors list. I put up his roll number and name. I did not put up his marks. I just put up his name. And then narrated this incident. And then I said I hope you agree with me that this person deserves to be in the honors list. Everybody said yes sir, very loudly. Then I asked this fellow to stand up in the class. He stood up very sheepishly which I personally. There was the loudest clapping for him. Louder than the clapping earlier for the actual top performers. Each of whom I had asked to get up and this one. This convinced me that all of us respect ethical behavior. Independent of whether we succumb to temptation once in a while or not, we respect ethical behavior. It is not a large effort to convert that respect into actual imbibing of that effort. Everything that happens. I will tell you simple thing that happened is temptation plagiarism. You would have seen you know there are people unfortunately teachers who publish papers and include large paragraph from somebody else's research work not even citing the repress. Claiming that it is their own work. Is this not corrupting? If Kalmadi or Raja taking lot of money is high and corruption. This is not lower. This is higher. Avoid that. This is what I wanted to share with you. One is believe in yourself and keep asking yourself the question could I have done it better and work hard on it. There is no substitute for hard work. I have not found substitute for hard work and I am a clever person. So I am as good as optimizer as you are. But there is no shortcut. And second thing is values that you invite them. They will be with you. Remember I will tell you and by the way you will not miss much. You will not miss much on either earning wealth or you will not miss much on earning professional wealth. But you will earn something else which you will not advise you. You will earn an extraordinary reputation where people will say ah that person. No nonsense. No nothing wrong can happen. And you will be able to do one more thing in life. Two more things. One you will have a very nice and sound sleep. Your conscience will never bother you. Never. Whatever two hours three hours you sleep you will have a nice sleep. And second then you will look into the mirror you will be able to see in the eyes of that mirror. You will not be able to see into your own eyes if there is some problem in your attitude. If you value these things I think you should value them because they are the roots of all happiness. So continue with your professional activities. Learn wealth. Learn to solve hard and no matter what happens no matter what failure never ever lose confidence in yourself and don't let yourself be compared with others. Compare yourself with yourself and do well in life. I told you about realizing dreams for the nation. Believe me in the coming decade it is the professionals of this country who will contribute to maximum wealth generation. People like you and you are very few and you are fortunate. Not because only because you have done well but because your parents have taken care of you to nurture your talent to put you into a play and then you are taking your own efforts to do that. But you constitute three percent of the fourteen percent of the large population and you have therefore greater responsibility. Because just like you got facilities and opportunities to study when you are young you now have to give facilities and opportunities for the younger people out of the three seventy million. That is what will make this nation worth it. And believe me at the rate at which the national economy is going we are destined to do well provided the leaders in the provisioning of these facilities take their past seriously. You are the leader not just the leading edge of my demo. Each one of you can do exceptional things only if you decide that I will do something exceptional. Do it all the best. Thank you.