The monster called IIPM

As a blogger, I feel it is my duty to rise to the occasion and let the people who read MY blog know what is going on. Amit Varma has summarized the issue well, but anyway here is my little bit on it.

I was writing just yesterday about freedom of speech and expression, especially that of the written and blogged word. As it happens, that has direct reference to what I am about to mention. Rashmi Bansal, editor of a youth magazine called JAM is being targeted by IIPM because of an article published in her magazine way back in June. The article was an expose on the tall claims made by the management 'corporation' (I can justify my using that title because of the kind of advertising the organisation has been doing, more like a corporation than an educational institute), Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM), headed by Arindam Chaudhuri. I have read a number of their advertisements in many dailies over the past months and have been highly skeptical about what they say – that the institute is almost on par with the IIM’s, that their students are placed in top companies, their infrastructure is out of this world (Wi-Fi, swimming pools and so on and so forth). The truth is that a lot of these statements are not facts, and this is what was unearthed by JAM. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Rashmi’s blog got some ridiculous and disgusting comments targeting her personally, over the last few days. None of the comment-posters (supposed to be IIPM or ex-IIPM students) clearly mention their identity or are able to refute JAM’s claims. In addition to this, Gaurav Sabnis, an employee of IBM and an active blogger in his own right, took up her cause and wrote his own views about it on his personal blog.

It so happens that IBM supplies laptops to IIPM. After issuing a legal notice to Gaurav, IIPM put pressure on IBM to ask him to delete his posts with reference to IIPM and the JAM article and apologise, or resign from IBM.

Today, Gaurav Sabnis resigned, because he believes that that was the right thing to do, that it was the ONLY thing to do to keep his self-respect intact.

Desi Pundit has a lot of links to people who are raising their voices in support of Rashmi, Gaurav and free speech. Blogging can be a powerful tool to spread awareness, and I intend this post to be one too.