The Prime minister has established a Knowledge Commission and it has a website listing its members and their e-mail addresses. If one looks hard, one can also find who the members of SAC-PM are, and write to them. But does anyone know who is in charge of plans to upgrade some existing institutes to IITs?

How does one gets in touch with them and point out the possible mistakes and make suggestions? Why are they doing things like the old days? Why the secrecy? Why the arrogance?

Can they explain why the seven institutes chosen initially to be upgraded to deemed IITs, IIT-likes, IIT-cousins—or whatever they are being called now— significantly add to the already terrible regional imbalance with respect to institutions of higher educations?

The answer is probably that they wanted to reward the best institutions in the country, regardless of where they are from. That is a fair answer. And I would accept it if it were true. Unfortunately, it is not. When the shortlist of seven were made, National Institute of Technologies (NITs)) were not considered.

So, if the idea was to pick the best institutes and upgrade them to deemed IITs, what is the logic of not considering the NITs?

The Dataquest ranking of 2005 shows that six of the handpicked seven are worse than many of the NITs.

I understand the Dataquest ranking is just another ranking, but it is clear that NITs were not considered when deciding on which institutions will be upgraded.

... contd.