Dear Sir/Madam, There is a sudden increase in enrolling for Ph Ds in most of our universities in recent time. After Karnataka Govt. appointed 2000 plus lectures for First Grade Colleges, it has become doubled. The Karnataka Govt. made it clear that M.Phil holders must have a NET/Ph D to get Sixth pay scale was one of the reason to increase in Ph Ds. But the underlining factor is that most the Ph D aspirants and students have had a kind of a perception that obtaining Ph D is easier than qualifying NET and collecting all sorts of information -good and the bad of the guide and the institutions. The trend is not indifferent to library and information science domain also. The argument here is that this perception of obtaining Ph D is easier than qualifying NET is wrong and setting bad precedent for research itself. The reason for hating NET (not difficult) by most of us is that in many cases we have studied in vernacular languages, we find it difficult to write in English. The stop-gap in our education after completion of PG courses, we find it difficult to read huge pile of books, which is important for qualifying NET. Apart from these two reasons, there are other reasons as well. But Ph D also needs huge concentration as well as reading lot more than what we have to read for NET. Ph D is long process and need lot of effort and concentration from our side. We are forgetting this element, taking lightly and having a notion of research can be completed once data collection (survey is completed) is over, is need to be debated. This notion is questioning the sanctity of research. Research is a truth and searching/seeking truth is always difficult endeavor. If we tread this difficult path, the success is immense. Recently there was an editorial in the Hindu in memory of Prof. K N Raj, former Director of Centre for Developmet Studies (CDS)- Thiruvananthapuram by J. Krishnamurthy (12 Feb 2010). I found it interesting. Some paragraph of the article is reproduced verbatim. “I was inspired by Raj to do research at the School rather than take the default option of competing for administrative services. I found out soon enough that as a Ph D supervisor or “guide”, Raj was a hard taskmaster. He did not believe in rewriting his student work and he did not want his student to write joint papers with him. He expected each chapter to be typed and finalized before it was submitted to him. He would than read it and indicated by underlining or making on the side whatever he felt needed attention. What was exasperating was that he would not indicate what precisely was needed; I had to work it out and make the required changes. When I complained that one of my chapters had already gone through six revisions, he smiled and told me that the Ph D degree was only a trade union card. However, before I was admitted to the trade union I would have to prove that I could think logically and write clearly and well.” ------------------------- With best wishes Vasantha Raju N GFGC-Periyapatna Mysore The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.