Promoting Research in Pakistan: A Few Ideas

Dear Indians! Thanks for commenting on my article so seriously and bringing zionist conspiracies, Ummah and Islam in an unrelated stuff. Why do Indian always like to bring it inside even if it has nothing to do with the subject being discussed ?

OK! Let me elaborate my stance. Their is nothing to take negatively. Being too much

A few decades back, many Indians left India and went to US. They lived there, got educated and achieved good status in academia and industry. There is nothing bad to feel that an Indian prefers other Indian. People coming from third world are normally hardworkers so were indians and chinese. As a result, they became an important part of academia and industry in US. When they became senior enough, they helped their Indian juniors to find places in better positions. During 90s, when the first generation of expat Indians had become old enough, some of them wanted to go back. They brought back all the good things they had earned from US. It included influence, experience and wealth. So what is bad in having all that ?


Shishapa! Every article I read coming from a US PhD student as a first author, 70 % of the times it involves an Indian PhD advisor. Again, nothing bad in it. World goes like this. It seems a joke if I myself go through some conference and give you name of the prof having all indian students. You can consider that I chose anexceptional case. I invite you to google for a conference proceedings, choose one senior indian professor in its program committee and see his publications and co-author is those publications. See for the PhD students working for them. Right now, I have 3 papers on my table written by Indian professors outside india. Two of them have all indian research team. Third one is however written by a Chinese and american co-authors.

Netizen! If student is good enough, he should not work with a desi professor. If he is bad, ``doobtay ko tinkay ka sahara``. :)

The standard of education in the Undergraduate Institutions in Pakistan on the whole is inadequate because it fails to provide a comprehensive education into humanities such as the General Education Requirements in an American university.
Science and Research do not exist on their own in a University, rather they are connected to Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Establishment of Universities that not only perform vital research in every field but also provide quality education is not a priority for the Government of Pakistan. The reason American universities are able to conduct superior research is because of the multi-million dollar educational grants available to them from the US Federal Government as well as subsidies from State Governments combined with the monies from Alumni donated funds.
America is filled with Pakistani professionals, but do these Professionals contribute money to their respective alma maters? Do graduates of KE, Sindh Medical College, UET, Punjab University etc raise money to raise the quality of education in their institutions by establishing labs, providing abundant scholarships, etc.
Afraid that their hard earned funds will go to the fatten the wallet of some Bureaucrat.
And nothing gets done!
Research this, O Pakistanis:
In a country, where rapists roam free whether it is the rape of Mukhtar Mai or the Rape of the Pakistani Treasury by the Army, How is progress of any sort a priority?
What good is any research, if Pakistan cannot give justice to the majority of its population. Its Women, The mothers of the Nation!

Since the author and Charlie have brought India into this....

Outsourcing Innovation
First came manufacturing. Now companies are farming out R&D to cut costs and get new products to market faster. Are they going too far?

While the electronics sector is furthest down this road, the search for offshore help with innovation is spreading to nearly every corner of the economy. On Feb. 8, Boeing Co. (BA ) said it is working with India`s HCL Technologies to co-develop software for everything from the navigation systems and landing gear to the cockpit controls for its upcoming 7E7 Dreamliner jet. Pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline (GSK ) and Eli Lilly (LLY )are teaming up with Asian biotech research companies in a bid to cut the average $500 million cost of bringing a new drug to market. And Procter & Gamble Co. (PG ) says it wants half of its new product ideas to be generated from outside by 2010, compared with 20% now.

The result is a rethinking of the structure of the modern corporation. What, specifically, has to be done in-house anymore? At a minimum, most leading Western companies are turning toward a new model of innovation, one that employs global networks of partners. These can include U.S. chipmakers, Taiwanese engineers, Indian software developers, and Chinese factories. IBM (IBM ) is even offering the smarts of its famed research labs and a new global team of 1,200 engineers to help customers develop future products using next-generation technologies. When the whole chain works in sync, there can be a dramatic leap in the speed and efficiency of product development.

Sweeping Overhaul
India is emerging as a heavyweight in design, too.The top players in making the country world-class in software development, including HCL and Wipro, are expected to help India boost its contract R&D revenues from $1 billion a year now to $8 billion in three years. One of Wipro`s many labs is in a modest office off dusty, congested Hosur Road in Bangalore. There, 1,000 young engineers partitioned into brightly lit pods jammed with circuit boards, chips, and steel housings hunch over 26 development projects. Among them is a hands-free telephone system that attaches to the visor of a European sports car. At another pod, designers tinker with a full dashboard embedded with a satellite navigation system. Inside other Wipro labs in Bangalore, engineers are designing prototypes for everything from high-definition TVs to satellite set-top boxes.

Re: # 3

To all the universities that i know of, your application is reviewed by the graduate admission committee. Once admitted you undergo 2/3 rotations in different lab and by 2nd semester choose the area of research to your liking. I would say it is a mutual agreement between the student and the advisor. There was a unwritten rule in my school ``never work for a desi advisor``. Infact he was boycotted for several years because of his attitude towards his students.

Freewill is necessary for all progress.

``Just like the Indians have done well and made strong lobbies in many good universities and multinationals``

Omer,

I work at one of those multinationals here in US. Believe me, there is no lobby of
Indians in my company. And frankly, I do not know what we would lobby for.
We are too busy working to get good rating at the end of the year and keeping our job.
And I have many friends who work in some of the multinationals here in my area and I never heard them talking about lobby of Indians in their company.

Since you made the statement, could you please give name a multinational
where Indians have a lobby and what that lobby does?

I agree with yahyajamil. The standard of undergraduate level education in paksitan is beyond pathetic. Even the most `brilliant`` students are just rote zombies who get their brilliance by solving the text book questions from guess papers for millions of times before getting into the exam. What could be more pathetic that students at this level even memorize the mathematical questions. Formulating a `numerical` question or resolving a simple differential equation that is not in their curriculum is death for them. 99% of them wouldn`t even be able to define the subject of calculus or the purpose of it. Pakistan deperately needs an overhaul of the teachers training and its methods- changing the curriculum will not help; changing the teacher`s outlook on a subject that he has mastered will.

Re: # 8
``Yes, Standard at undergraduate level in Pakistani Universities is excellent. I am confident in saying it because I have been the part of this process and I have seen a lot of Pakistani students coming abroad on various programs from various Pakistani universities and many of them performing exceptionally well in MSc and then in research. ``
Charlie,
I am afraid I do not agree with you about the quality of our undergraduate level. It is really pathetic. Yes, there are some institutions of excellence, but for the bulk of the students (95%) the quality of undergraduate program is so bad that only those who manage to qualify from the few private quality undergraduate institutions get to do something. If you ever get to read the reports of the Public Servise Commission about the standard of students who appear in civil services exams it is really shameful. Their extracts have been published from time to time in the national press.
We really need to first bring up our undergraduate standards before we can think of feeding the research setups at the Universities. We also need to do something about the examination system. It tests the memory rather than the knowledge of the students. I beleive there are some serious steps being taken to improve the examination system and also capacity building of government educational institutions.

#8 by Charlie on March 16, 2005 7:46am PT


#6 First, Indians try to poke their noses in an article which is not related to them


Umm....did you RTFA? or your own comments?

Just like the Indians have done well and made strong lobbies in many good universities and multinationals, what about Pakistanis starting now and going towards attracting other Pakistanis for a strong community building process.

#4 Yes, Standard at undergraduate level in Pakistani Universities is excellent. I am confident in saying it because I have been the part of this process and I have seen a lot of Pakistani students coming abroad on various programs from various Pakistani universities and many of them performing exceptionally well in MSc and then in research.
Biggest problem for Pakistani universities not being good in research is that most of the students prefer to go abroad for MSc and PhD.

#6 First, Indians try to poke their noses in an article which is not related to them and then feel disturbed when they are responded.

Arjun said: ``That`s right...If the Indian students are doing well, it`s only because they`re favored by the Indian professors...`` and blah blah

Well! I didn`t say this. It is you who said you and reproduced your old ``zionist theory`` as you have been doing always.

It is QUITE normal for the people of a community to be attracted by the people coming from similar community. My arab PhD advisor has three arab Phd candidates out of four. The other french professor has two students and both of them are french. Even female researchers normally prefer girls as their PhD students as they feel easy while interacting.

Imagine, what if you were a professor at MIT and an Indian student from IIT (certainly with good educational background) sends you his application. Other student ALMOST equally good is chinese. What will be your choice?

Arjun! you show your sick mentality very soon without knowing what is being said.

Omer Cheema’s article is a commendable effort in drawing attention to the most challenging issue a developing country faces. Others who are involved in research and have the insights into research matters should write similar articles to create awareness in the masses. In my opinion, research needs inspiration together with resources. I do not know how well equipped our universities are for conducting research at present. In my time (1950s), research was an alien word.

To provide inspiration for research, the teachers, not necessarily all of them, but a few, should be research oriented. The universities should attract teachers/research scholars who have published original papers in the international refereed journals. In order to attract them to Pakistani universities, incentives will need to be created for them. A research scholar wouldn’t sit idle and waste his life if facilities for research are not available. These research professors will need to be compensated much better than the routine-of-the-mill teachers. There should be a cash award for each paper that they publish (have previously published) in an international refereed journal. A certain amount should be added to their normal salaries for each paper.

A fundamental requirement for doing research is a well stocked library which must acquire reputed international journals and research reports on a regular basis. Research laboratories should be directed by research professors and they should prepare the annual budgets for their facilities.

If a university succeeded in attracting research scholars to lead the research program but failed to provide them the facilities, in due time, they would quit. There are no short cuts to research.

This is the minimum requisite to initiate a research program. Once a tradition is established, it should be systematically and continuously nurtured and enhanced. What is needed at present is to seed a research culture. Wishing you well,

Mohammad Gill

#3 by Charlie on March 16, 2005 1:08am PT


#1 Ballu, Try to browse through the profiles of foreign professors (mostly chinese and Indian) working in European and North American Universities, you will realize that they prefer their PhD students coming from their home countries.


That`s right...If the Indian students are doing well, it`s only because they`re favored by the Indian professors...

If Indians in the US have a much higher per capita income than Pakistanis in the US, it`s because of the zionists....

If Azim Premji is the seconds richest muslim in the world, it`s only because he has a hindu last name....

yawwwwn....

One step that government can instantly take is to abolish the white elephants like PCSIR (Pak Council for Industrial & Scietific Reasearc); the existing facilities should be affiliated with Universities and money to support sitting bureaucrats in PCSIR should be diverted to respective departments to carry out the work thru students and faculty. Bureaucrats cannot do research only students and entreprenuers can.

Does Pakistan have any good quality undergraduate institutions to sustain higher-level research?

#1 Ballu, Try to browse through the profiles of foreign professors (mostly chinese and Indian) working in European and North American Universities, you will realize that they prefer their PhD students coming from their home countries. But when I talk of Pakistani doing something similar, it is making you feel uneasy. I don`t know, why?

``..... In my opinion, establishing a Pakistani community in a university should be a part of political game.........``

Oh Yes...it is the frking Ummah politics that these guys want in the research labs abroad.........