Water, India and Pan-IIT 2008

By Ram Krishnan [1967-BTME]

Tuition fees set at Rs 75 for the whole year

That is the correct amount, in those days. Being such an old alumni myself, I do not know what the students have to pay for tuiton these days. In today's economics, Rs 75 is equal to 1 cup of ordinary Coffee in the US and may be 2 cups of coffee in India.

Yes, all of us got away with paying pittance for an education, that has over the 40+ years, given us a secure career, built a family and enjoy the fruits of work. This only means that our education was paid by the Government of India and in turn by the people of India.

Alumni from all age groups from IIT madras are celebrating the 50th Anniverary of IIT madras this year. In addition, all IIT's are coming together at IIT Madras this December to hold the PanIIT 2008 International Conference on Dec 19-21, 2008.

Log in at www.PanIIT2008.org and sign in.

In addition to the planned 3 days of major events, one sub-track on Rural Transformation is participating in a 10-watershed projects spread across the 2 States of Tamil nadu and Andhra Pradesh. We did offer a few sites in karnataka but the alumni match did not succeed.

When you run short of drinking water, what do you do?. Assuming that you have a few Rupees in your pocket, you run/drive to a nearby store and get a bottle of water - Bisleri or Acqua Fina - for about Rs 12 per 1 litre. But what if your daily income is Rs 65 (breaking stones, making match boxes, making charcoal), you will not spend 1/5 of your daily income on a 1-litre bottle of water. And that is the position of our villagers today.

We are grateful to about 50 IIT alumni (not just IITM alumni) who have responded to the 'call for action' and supporting a watershed projects being executed by DHAN Foundation of madurai.

You can find more details of this PanIIT water project at
http://sites.google.com/site/paniitwater/Home

Continuing with the theme 'making a difference' in the lives of our poorer brothren in India's 7 lakh villages, we have assembled the best field workers in one of the PanIIT tracks called 'Rural and Social Transformation"

More at this track 5-minute YouTube link at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-2xe0lZVws

I know that in your heart, you want to 'make a difference'. And at the same time you are almost clue less where and how to get started. We all need examples to follow. We all need to get inspired by hearing actual success stories.

If this is you, you must sign up for the PanIIT conference.

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