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ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಿ - Krishna Shastry
ಪ್ರಾಣಿ ಹಕ್ಕುಗಳು, ಶುದ್ಧ ಸಸ್ಯಾಹಾರ, ಪರಿಸರ, ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ಇವೆಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ಒಳಗೊಂಡ ವೀಗನಿಸಂ ಎಂಬ ತತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ನಂಬಿಕೆ ಇಟ್ಟಿರುವ ಒಬ್ಬ ಸರಳ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗ ನಾನು.
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I am a simple Kannadiga following veganism, that cares about animal rights, pure vegetarianism, environment and health.
My other interest include ethics, public healthcare, public policies, innovation, science & technology, Kannada language and linguistic policies.
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Friday, June 1, 2012

Is it a sin in this country to enforce a rule strictly?

“Is it a sin in this country to enforce a rule strictly?” If someone asks you this question, what would be your reaction?

Whenever there is a rule and attempt to enforce the same, some people might feel that “rules are made for our better living” and some others might feel that “we are living under tremendous pressure due to various rules”. What do you think about following case?

The same powerful question was recently asked by A S Srikanth, COMEDK Chief Executive when some people felt COMEDK was too harsh in enforcing certain rules.

About COMEDK: Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka is is formed by the Karnataka Private Medical & Dental Colleges Association, in their endeavour to offer an effective, fair and objective testing procedure to determine merit of students seeking admission to the member institutions. COMEDK has been assigned the task of organising a common entrance test for the academic year 2012-2013.
Note: This is excerpt from http://www.comedk.org/

In a nutshell, the issue is that COMEDK didn’t entertain some aspiring students during the Post Graduate Medical and Dental seat counseling process after students failed to comply with some of the rules COMEDK had specified earlier. Students felt COMEDK acted harshly and unreasonably, ignoring their high merit, and thus ruining their chances of getting seats; on the other hand COMEDK defended its stand of sticking to rules strictly without deviations.

I have been following this interesting issue. Before I share my view on this, I think it would be better if you go through the following links:


News Coverage in Deccan Herald

Note: don’t miss the readers’ comments too, they are only few in number):

18th May 2012: DD bungling costs Comed-K PG seat aspirants dear

19th May 2012: DD issue haunts dental seat aspirants too

22nd May 2012: Comed-K: Students move HC

25th May 2012: Comed-K hopefuls get a reprieve

30th May 2012: Don’t fill seats till plea is decided, colleges told

31st May 2012: HC annuls order on Comed-K recounselling


Notifications published by COMEDK

Counseling Process Document

Recap of Procedure for PG Counseling 2012

Kind Attention PG aspirants

Note: I am not sure if above notifications were published by COMEDK in timely fashion, whether they were sent to aspirants through emails, printed copies etc. However they were clearly available in the website at least, no doubt about that. And also I have read any news item that talked about students’ claims that rules were not clearly published.


My views

Alright, I believe you have gone through above links and formed your own opinion. Here are my views on this.

When my father first drew my attention towards this, I felt that COMEDK was unreasonable. Then after going through COMEDK’s website, my opinion was changed. Though I feel sorry for the aspiring students who missed seats, I personally feel that COMEDK is relatively more correct than the students. As you can see in COMEDK’s notifications, rules were crystal clear – maybe people who don’t care to even read such rules do not deserve a seat. If they had questions regarding which is a nationalized bank or not, they could have and should have contacted COMEDK.

Improvement area for ComedK: Why only DD was specified as payment method? What was the reason behind specifying only nationalized banks? Why so much of importance on the bank’s counterfoil? Giving KPSC’s example doesn’t explain COMEDK’s actions – maybe KPSC also acted without much forethought, who knows? Explaining the real reason behind the rules is the way to go. I hope Srikanth realizes this and patiently explains the same.

There is one particular issue mentioned in the news report about Bank of Maharashtra: in that particular instance, COMEDK seems to have messed up badly. I am not sure exactly how that student is supposed to get justice without conducting entire counseling process again. That probably is going to be a headache for COMEDK unless the student has missed something else also.

A middle path: The rules were not totally unreasonable, but mistakes by students can also be pardonable to some extent. I believe the strictness is mainly to avoid unnecessary delays in the counseling process because of irresponsible students. Considering this, I believe maybe there could have been a milder “punishment”: Give the counseling opportunity for such student only after 10 or 20 more candidates with lower ranking are done with their counseling. This way, a strong message is also sent out to students to be more responsible, but at the same time a meritorious student’s one time mistake doesn’t get a severe punishment also. What say?

Note: A penalty in terms of money is not the solution here, I think. Rich students will continue to be irresponsible and get away by paying such penalties without any regret or anxiety.


Conclusion

Anyway, the issue hasn’t come to an end yet, maybe students will still go to Supreme Court and continue to fight. Lets see what happens. Whatever has happened has happened, I am hoping for an ultimate decision in favor of COMEDK this time (except in one particular issue of Bank of Maharashtra explained above) and also hoping that COMEDK would take a middle path next year.

Disclaimer: I am not directly involved in this issue and my views or solely based on reports in Deccan Herald mentioned above, and information that I found in COMEDK website that I presented above. There may be much more to this whole thing that I may be missing. Feel free to bring such things to my notice and I would be glad to stand corrected.

5 comments:

Pradeep B V said...

A rule is a rule is a rule. Because of the all-pervading 'swalpa adjust makdkolli' mentality things do go haywire sometimes.

The way out of this senario could have been:
1. COMED K says we give you a temporary seat allotment letter which will be confirmed only after you come in with the proper DD and the counterfoil from an approved bank.
2. Ask one of the banks to setup a counter in the counseling center to issue DDs as required.

But we are all wise in hindsight.

Anonymous said...

When a rule is silly, it is silly. Trying to legitimize it by trying to pretend that you are "high minded" is a fools errand. A DD is a DD insisting that it be from a nationalized bank is idiotic. Will procuring such a DD make the medical profession better? No, you will only be disqualifying a fine candidate. There are lots of idiotic rules, enforcing them with an iron fist is regimentaion. If you are happy to live in such conditions, more power to you. For me, our energy is better spent in fighting to change these rules by challenging them than to put the officials on a pedestal and praise them for following the "letter of the law" instead of the intent of the law.

ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಿ - Krishna Shastry said...

@Anonymous: DD is a DD, no doubt. If any of the involved parties had challenged such rule when it was published, I would have supported such a fight. Anyway, I might be little high minded, but at least I write openly and try to think towards a greater good. I don't write anonymous comments disrespectfully.

Umesh said...

I think it is childishness to insist on this and that kind of payment method and mostly agree with the comments of Anonymous.

lakshika Mehta said...

The Exam directing expert hosts the COMEDK 2021 Admit card Considering the online approach from May to all permitted entrants. Entrants got to download the admit card from this page by consuming a user ID and Password.

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