Pan IIT - the IIT alumni conference is held in Chennai this year. This year's offering has some impressive speakers including Orkut Buyukkokten, Amartya Sen, Hema Malini and Ameen Sayani. But grabbing the news real estate has not been the formidable speakers but the controversy over a program for the spouses of IITians dubbed "Sampoorna". To quote from their website (emphasis my own):
The theme for the spouses' track in this year's PANIIT is "Sampoorna" - programs meant for the complete woman, who is able to perfectly balance her personal, professional and public personality. With this in mind we have a galaxy of presenters and performers who are bound to enlighten the IIT spouses.
Women constitute a minority (between 2 and 8 percent) of the IITian population. Even then it does seem extremely chauvinist that a group of select individuals who are representative of the Indian intelligentsia would overlook women engineers. Some protests from women IIT alumni here and here.
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Yes, it is indeed annoying. The whole concept seems alien to me anyway. They seem to be selling PanIIT in a full-fledged manner there!
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