Doneology

A real friend offers something profoundly rare: unoptimised presence. Family is structured by blood. Marriage by institution. Work relationships by utility. Friendship survives purely through mutual choosing. Nobody has to stay. And yet some people do. — Pranav IPS & columnist

Stop worshipping innovation. Start worshipping reliability

[An article by Aditya Vikram Kashyap is currently Vice President at Morgan Stanley, New York, Published By: OM Gupta]

This article peaked my interest, sharing the original link here - https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/talking-points/story/stop-worshipping-innovation-start-worshipping-reliability-2909073-2026-05-09

[Agony Aunt Article]
SCRAP THE “CHIEF GUEST” CIRCUS. THIS ISN’T A DARBAR. THIS IS EDUCATION.

Let’s stop pretending.
An educational event gets “graced” by a chief guest and then what happens?

Nobody shows up.
Event collapses.
Students waste time.
Faculty scrambles.
And yet, nobody asks the obvious question:

Why does this absurd system even exist?
---

This is not respect. This is ritualized inefficiency.
We are running 21st-century institutions with medieval court protocols:

- Wait for the VIP
- Delay the event
- Clap on command
- Offer shawl + coconut + bouquet
- Listen to a generic, recycled, irrelevant speech

And then we call it “learning”.
No. This is intellectual theatre.

---
Let’s call it what it is: STATUS ADDICTION
The chief guest culture is not about education.

It is about:
- Institutional insecurity (“Look who came!”)
- Personal ego stroking
- Optics over outcomes

The speaker doesn’t prepare.
The audience doesn’t care.
The institution gets a photo.

Everyone performs. Nobody learns.
---

Evidence? Look around.
How many times have you seen this pattern:
- Chief guest arrives late → schedule destroyed
- Speech starts with “I was not prepared…”
- Ends with vague motivation + clichés
- Zero domain depth
- Zero actionable insight

Yet, 45 minutes gone.
Multiply that across thousands of institutions.
This is a national productivity leak.
---

Meanwhile, the real experts?
They are:
- Not invited
- Not heard
- Not celebrated

Because they don’t come with entourage, security, or “protocol”.
We have confused:
Visibility ≠ Competence
Fame ≠ Expertise
---

And the hypocrisy is peak.
We teach:
- Critical thinking
- Time management
- Efficiency
- Meritocracy

And then we run events that violate all four principles simultaneously.
---

Let’s be blunt.
If your event cannot start without a “chief guest”…
👉 It is not an academic event.
👉 It is a status ceremony disguised as education.
---

The solution is embarrassingly simple.
But uncomfortable.
1. Abolish the role of “Chief Guest”
No VIP dependency. No delays.

2. Invite practitioners, not personalities
Domain expertise > social status

3. Start on time. End on time.
No exceptions. Even if the “VIP” arrives late — they join the audience.

4. No felicitation drama
No shawls. No bouquets. No 10-minute introductions.

5. Replace speeches with interrogation
Short talk → long Q&A
Force substance.
---

Radical? Yes.
Necessary? Absolutely.

Because right now, we are training students in:
- Passive listening
- Authority worship
- Time wastage

Instead of:
- Critical questioning
- Independent thinking
- Respect for competence

---
Final question (and this should sting):
If your entire event collapses because one “important person” didn’t show up…

Was your event ever important to begin with?
---

Enough of the darbar.
Build institutions, not stages for validation.

Or accept that we are not educating —
we are just performing prestige.
-—
PS: While I too belong to academic fraternity and if given assignment to invite and coordinate with chief guest, I will do it dutifully. Its not hypocrisy; What I have written is what goes in my heart, and that I truly believe that one of the factor to improve Indian Education is the need to drop dignitaries and chief guest pampering. I understand that not all academics will chime with me, these are my personal thoughts and point of view.

You spend weeks preparing documents before validating the idea in the market, and at some point, you are no longer building the product; you are building the file around it. The focus shifts from solving a real problem to satisfying a process. Measurable outputs such as patents, events, and participation become the priority because they are easy to track, while real outcomes like product–market fit take longer and remain uncertain. The system silently starts favouring what can be quickly reported rather than what truly matters.

Classes and labs occupy most of the day, incubation meetings fill the evenings, and actual startup work is pushed late into the night. By the time you sit down to build, you are already mentally exhausted. Exam periods intensify this pressure, as deadlines from both academics and incubation continue without flexibility. A large portion of your time goes into presentations, progress reports, compliance, and reviews. You keep explaining what you are doing instead of actually doing it, and documentation slowly overtakes ex*****on.

Because uninterrupted time is scarce, critical work such as coding, design, and strategy gets squeezed into late-night hours when energy is at its lowest. What should be high-quality, focused work is constrained by fatigue. Startups, especially in the early stages, demand continuous iteration, but semester schedules, attendance rules, and assessments repeatedly break that rhythm. You may be refining a feature or engaging early users when exams abruptly take over. Each pause means losing context, momentum, and sometimes users, so returning often feels like starting again.

At a deeper level, there is a clear mismatch between how startups operate and how academic systems are built. Academics are optimised for predictable outputs like assignments and exams, while startups move in bursts of uncertainty, exploration, and fieldwork. Yet the system offers very little flexibility for this non-linear reality.

Mentorship is available but often remains conceptual. Frameworks are explained well, but when real issues arise—sourcing parts, managing delays, controlling costs—the guidance tends to stay theoretical. Ex*****on involves unpredictable variables that require lived experience, not just knowledge. Mentor access is also scheduled and limited, while problems appear at random. In ecosystems with stronger industry involvement, guidance becomes more practical and decisions are faster.

Many incubation cells operate with constraints: basic space, a few sessions, but limited investors, infrastructure, or deep industry links. Startups must still rely on external networks for testing and scaling. Even after incubation, funding is not assured; founders must chase grants and investors on their own. Incubation adds credibility and visibility, but structures around contracts, compensation, and IP often remain fuzzy. Ultimately, incubation offers a starting point, but the real journey lies in learning to build in spite of the system around you.

PS: Rephrased the article written by Nitika Shivani at https://news.careers360.com/incubation-centre-startup-ideas-entrepreneurship-slow-down-young-entrepreneurs-college-students-no-vc-fund-mentor-skill-iit-madras

HSX 2026 is happening in Mumbai on April 11th!

Last few days to HSX 2026 and here's why you should stop reading this and just register already!

The speakers alone: Arjun Vaidya, Akhilesh Agarwal (Accel), Kruti Raiyani (247VC), Kamal Lochan Das (PhonePe), Vivek Biyani (Broadway), Saloni Anand (Traya), Yashoraj Tyagi (CASHe), Neha Shivran (Kissht), and more — are the kind of lineup that makes you block the date without needing to know anything else.

Add to that a Shark Tank AMA, curated one-on-one investor meetings, 30+ startup stalls, three focused rooms for founders, investors, and incubators, and an energy in the room that only happens once a year.

We just dropped our prices one last time with a Special Event Day Pass.

Grab your pass before it's too late → headstart.in/hsx
On 11th April at KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, be there.

What can just publishing a research paper do?

Did you guys see the movie Project Hail Mary? The hero, Grace (a biology school teacher), published a research paper which became his ticket to intergalactic travel, befriending an alien, and saving the universe.

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/project-hail-mary/summary

[Idea worth sharing]
In venture capital, the deck is theater. The real signal comes from the founder sitting across the table.

Founders who master these traits teach their teams to solve problems independently, turning potential bottlenecks into growth engines.

[Source] https://www.entrepreneur.com/starting-a-business/as-a-vc-i-can-predict-a-startups-success-in-minutes/503204

Was the Supreme Court right to reprimand NCERT? Yes.

But where it went wrong — or exceeded — was when it penalised the faculty and the author who wrote about corruption in the judiciary.

What’s missing here is a simple reality: corruption exists in India [https://arunkw.medium.com/3-types-of-corruption-6e7f9eddc803]. We rank high on global corruption indices, yet there seems to be discomfort even allowing it to become part of academic discussion.

At the same time, NCERT also made a serious judgment error. If corruption in India is discussed in a textbook, it should logically appear in a broader context — corruption in politics, corruption in business, corruption in bureaucracy, and corruption in the judiciary.

Instead, the reference to corruption appeared only within the chapter discussing the judiciary. That selectivity made it look as if the judiciary was being singled out and attacked on purpose.

What also complicates the matter is the process itself. The controversial Class 8 book reportedly had more than 60 contributors involved in the development process.
Source: https://www.rediff.com/news/report/who-prepared-the-controversial-ncert-textbook/20260227.htm

Yet the controversial draft was not fully presented to the National Syllabus and Teaching-Learning Material Committee (NSTC). It was reportedly shared digitally with only a few members instead of undergoing a full committee review.
Source: https://bestcolleges.indiatoday.in/news-detail/ncert-syllabus-row-sc-directs-centre-to-set-up-expert-panel-to-review-curriculum-8384

The Supreme Court itself questioned how the approval process became “casual.”
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/sc-imposes-life-ban-on-three-academics-for-corruption-chapter-seeks-action-on-posts/articleshow/129478790.cms

The Supreme Court has now barred the academics involved from future textbook work, effectively a lifetime debarment. This punishment appears very severe, and understandably courts should show a degree of leniency towards the academic fraternity, where debate, critique, and interpretation are part of the intellectual process.

Glad to have presented my research at the 9th International Research Conference [https://cimr.in/international-conference.html ] – Sustainable Futures: Leveraging Innovation in Business Practices and Social Enterprises hosted by Chetana's Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai held on 13–14 March 2026.

The conference brought together scholars and practitioners exploring how innovation in business practices and social enterprises can drive sustainable futures.

A great platform for learning, exchanging ideas, and engaging with the research community.

Minister is late by 5 min vs Cabinet is auto-delayed by 5 min.
This is Japan vs India.

Japanese culture
#1. The ownership (because of the delay) is taken by the minister.
#2. There is a sense of wrongdoing in the space.
#3. Irrespective of titles, authority, position, or age, it's absolutely OK to apologize.
#4. Integrity is reset and restored.
#5. It's human to err (that is understood); but they strive for integrity and excellence.
#6. They treat punctuality as ordinary, but that is what makes them extraordinary.

Indian culture
#1. Ownership is on none and taken by none; the blame is on circumstances. Those who are late carry an easy victim card.
#2. There is no sense of wrongdoing in the space. If anyone raises an eyebrow, dissuade the topic, get into whataboutery, and pessimistic small talk (“India में ऐसे ही होता है”), and build a friendly pool of flimsy relatedness.
#3. The higher you are on the ladder, the more impossible it is to say sorry. Just ask your higher-up: “When was the last time you said sorry publicly?” — Chances are it was a decade ago.
#4. Integrity is a personal power phenomenon. Why exercise personal power when authority power can easily be used to get the work done? Moreover, you can always do ज्ञान की बौछार in front of the yes-men.
#5. Your errors will be stacked and counted, and will come out during appraisal and during the hard talks. They will take a reductionist approach to weigh you out. This devalues and demoralizes you, because of which you start developing defense mechanisms to safeguard every step. — This is the beginning of jungle raj.
#6. Punctuality may be your default, but when others consistently fail to keep it, you have no choice but to do trivia—scroll through your phone, do small talk to kill time. With no punctuality, the sanctity of work and your image lose value. The irony is that we are the country where the concept of Muhurta was coined, yet we ourselves do not stick to it.

[Post inspired by source — https://www.gazetaexpress.com/en/was-5-minutes-late-due-to-a-traffic-accident--Japanese-minister-filmed-running--publicly-apologizes-for-being-late/]

Moot question:
Is it possible to carry Japanese culture and live in India?
Are you that person?