The silence maintained by IIPM is indeed intrigueing. But I am sure that the Legal notices sent were as fake as the pro-IIPM blogs that mushroomed at the time. IIPM, like most of our savvy people who know that public memory is very short, might have thought that keeping mum will not flare the issue and the dust of criticsm will settle down on its own.

>>students and alumni of IIPM must ask the
>>IIPM management to clarify the air in public.
Can’t agree more.

I’m glad that you’ve written about the need for greater responsibility and circumspection on the part of bloggers, especially in matters of public interest. I think your criticism of bloggers trying to eke out hits, MSM citations etc are fair; the issue has grown so large within the blogosphere that the essence of it is getting lost.

If you look at the core issue, it is a factual article published by JAM, and a related opinion piece published by Gaurav. Both these articles/posts were within the limits of civil discourse. If IIPM felt that it had been misrepresented or wrongly criticised, then what it should have done is to write to the JAM editor and to Gaurav and Rashmi to clarify the matter. I’m sure they would have published IIPM’s response, even if IIPM did not present facts in its defence.

But IIPM’s strong-arm tactics, threats of lawsuits and agitations (to Gaurav’s employer) do not fall within the norms of civil behaviour. Sending misleading legal notices and forcing Gaurav out of his job was an aggressive response. If they got aggression in response, then bloggers cannot be blamed for it. In fact, most of the well-known bloggers have been civil, rational and responsible in their coverage of the IIPM issue.

IIPM should publicly clarify its position on all the factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations that have now been dug out by various bloggers. Why doesn’t it do so? In fact, students and alumni of IIPM must ask the IIPM management to clarify the air in public. They have paid good money based on certain claims made, and it is their right to hold IIPM to the promises it made.

no one is threatening to burn IBM laptops if they did issue a press statement

Sig-11, Was “burning the laptops” an official response of IIPM? Again it’s just hearsay or at the most the retalitatory statement from their students. And that’s the real issue here. All the while we have been treating the student’s reaction as IIMP’s official reaction.

First, let me make my position clear, I am not approaching this as a case of steamy rotten story scam that JAM and the bloggers are trying to expose. Somehow, I do not see myself associating with that.

Give that, I find the quoted statement of yours interesting in another way. Is anyone denying or trying to deny IIPM the chance to speak for themselves? Maybe JAM may have not given them a chance to respond (I don’t know if this is true or otherwise), but no one is threatening to burn IBM laptops if they did issue a press statement to clarify their position. IIPM was acting within their right to sue JAM, but they should have stopped at that.

I find Atanu’s view quite balanced. See over here

http://www.deeshaa.org/2005/10/13/the-blogger-and-iipm-if-the-cap-fits/

Pankaj

The whole attitude of blogdom has been to take revenge and get ?footage? out of it. Moreover, if this really was a ?fight for justice? why this excitement on being talked about in Newspapers or the hits and referrers. I am sure many of the bloggers who wrote on this, giving it fervor of ?freedom of speech?, had no right to write, not because of another reason but due to the fact that they were ignorant of any facts. Various newspaper and magazine reposts that were referenced during this dance existed much before but nobody noticed. People just linked and spewed venom without applying any mind.

Blogging is meant for a healthy conversation but unfortunately, many of us have started perching on punditry. While it is good to have views, agree or disagree with others, but in this case, it has been an outright libel against IIPM. Where is the conversation part here? I think IIPM had every right to sue them for this libel. The only thing foolish on IIPM?s part has been that they kept mum and abstained from giving an official account of all this, and probably this is what added fuel to fire too.

Lastly, how many of us can take criticism positively, and here the criticism was grossly unfounded. This could have been the reason for the outrage amongst IIPM students and we all know that their act was borne out of ?mob mentality?, a phenomenon not uncommon in the student community. Nevertheless, the same mentality was seen amongst us also, people made derogatory posts, several fake ?ponytail? blogs surfaced overnight; we even went to the extent of soiling the Wikipedia rejoicing the swelling ?hit counters?.

We the bloggers have been wondering on why IIPM could not take the criticism well, I can only say that most of us get irrigated at any inflammatory comment we get at our own blogs. Infact one of the prominent bloggers in Indiblogdom, who has been part of this criticism cartel, has comments disabled on his blog. Criticism should be a two-way process; you have to debate it out. Why should people who do not believe in a ?dialog? themselves be treated seriously when they are better only at criticizing others with their ears shut?
I know it is difficult being non-partisan, but we could have tried, as I tried at the ?Nirantar? blogzine on the Mediaah, all the views deserve proper ?footage?.

As you said Harini, the debate should have been not on IIPM, but on such educations institutions who hide facts or exaggerate their potential or are defying norms.

As far as the quality of the institute is concerned, anything not recognised by AICTE will be suspect. Having said that there are a lot of institutes that are recognised by AICTE and UGC and are also suspect:)

But, i buy your point on patisanship and blogging. But, would like to point out that there is no media that has no agenda. It is impossible to have a non partisan perspective. It is all jaundiced by one’s own point of view

Is “freedom of speech” not relevent for IIPM?