The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
For IISC, big joy in ‘small’ list
Times Higher Education ranks IISC among the world’s top 10 small universities, institute director credits a century of hard work and the independence given to researchers
THE INDIAN Institute of Science (right), which was among the world’s top 100 engineering and technology universities in 2015 in annual rankings put out by the Uk-based Times Higher Education (THE), has now taken a place among the top 20 ‘small’ universities for the year 2016-17.
In rankings released by THE on Tuesday, IISC, Bengaluru was placed No. 8 in the list of the World’s Best Small Universities. THE introduced this new category in 2015-16. IIT Guwahati and Savitrabai Phule Pune University were placed 14th and 18th respectively in the list last year.
To qualify for the Best Small Universities list, institutions had to feature in THE’S overall World University Rankings for 2016-17, had to be teaching more than 4 subjects, and have less than 5,000 students, according to a statement on the new rankings put out by THE.
IISC has consistently been the top ranked Indian university in THE rankings over the last few years — it is now in the 201-250 band globally. According to THE, “India’s leading university — the Indian Institute of Science — is edging closer to the top 200, claiming a spot in the 201-250 band, its highest ever position”.
IISC Director Prof Anurag Kumar said, “I have not seen the numbers but this (World’s Best Small Universities) seems to be a new category at THE. One of our strengths is research, and we would expect to score best in that category. This ranking is the result of over 100 years of hard work, a high quality faculty, independence given to researchers, government support and an ability to compete with the top universities.”
Oddly, despite being the top Indian university, with a ranking in the 251-300 band in 2015-16, IISC did not feature in the top 20 small universities category that year. IIT Guwahati, which ranked in the 501-600 band, and Savitribai Phule Pune University, which ranked in the 601-800 band, were the Indian universities that made it instead.
The California Institute of Technology, or Caltech, has retained its position from 2016 as the world’s top small university in the 2017 rankings. Caltech is incidentally also the only university in the small universities category to also feature among THE’S rankings of top 10 universities in the world. It has come in at No. 2 behind table leader University of Oxford.
The École Normale Supérieure, based in Paris, is placed No. 2 in the small universities’ list, and is at No. 66 in the World University Rankings. Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea, the top small Asian university, is at No. 3 in the small universities list, and at No. 104 in the world rankings.
The world university rankings are based on marks allotted under five key areas — teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook — with a maximum of 100 marks in each category and for overall performance. According to countrywise data put out by THE, universities in Singapore are among the best in the world on all five counts, while Indian universities tend to be weak on scores for citations and international outlook.
Caltech — No. 2 in the world rankings and No. 1 in the small universities rankings — had an overall score of 94.3, with 99.8 for citations, 90.8 for industry income, 63.4 for international outlook, 95.7 for research, and 95.9 for teaching. Caltech has 2,181 students and a teacher-student ratio of 6.7. It has 27% foreign students.
IISC — No. 8 — scored 47.3 for citations, 48 for industry income, 18.1 for international outlook, 49.2 for research, and 50.1 for teaching. IISC has a total of 3,398 students, making it eligible for the small universities category, and a 8.3 student-teacher ratio. However, only 1% of its students are foreigners.
The South Korean Pohang University of Science and Technology has a overall rating of 59.6, with citations registering 79.2, industry income 99.6, international outlook 34.2, research 48.7 and teaching 53.8. The university has 3,017 students with a teacher-student ratio of 10.
Despite its strong showing in the THE small university rankings, IISC has lagged in recent years in other rankings for international universities.
In the Shanghai rankings or Academic Ranking of World Universities put out by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, IISC’S best ranking was between 201-300 — back in 2003. Since 2005, IISC has been slotted consistently in the 301-400 rank bracket.
In the engineering category in the Shanghai rankings, IISC reached its top ranking in 2007, when it was slotted between the 77 and 106 ranks. The two subjects in which IISC has had good rankings over the years in the Shanghai list are chemistry, where it reached a high rank of 43 in 2013, and computer science, where it ranked at a high of 51-75 in 2013. WIKILEAKS HAS released a tranche of 8,761 documents that demonstrate how the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) uses hacking tools to breaks into apps, phones and other devices. However, the implications of the latest “Vault 7” leaks seem to be more for the technology companies than for the intelligence agency in question. Some of the details in the leaks clearly suggest there are serious vulnerabilities in both IOS and Android, the top two operating systems for communication devices. To recap, what has the CIA done? The CIA has a programme by which it enlisted hundreds of partners to create hacking systems, including “zero day vulnerabilities” (which the software writer itself is unaware of), for popular consumer devices and operating systems. This was in violation of President Barack Obama’s commitment in 2010 that security agencies would inform tech companies about new vulnerabilities they had discovered.
Wikileaks documents show that the CIA’S Mobile Development Branch created malware to infest both IOS and Android devices. It would seem that the CIA’S “arsenal” has “numerous local and remote ‘zero days’ developed by CIA or obtained from GCHQ, NSA, FBI or purchased from cyber arms contractors such as Baitshop”. Although Apple has just 14.5% share of the global smartphone market, the CIA had a disproportionate interest in its devices, as they are more popular among the political, diplomatic and business elite.
So what then are the big issues that have emerged following the leaks?
To begin with, it seems the CIA has for some time had the capability to listen into encrypted messaging apps like Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram. While millions of regular users use these messaging platforms to send text, voice and video messages, the fact that they are end-to-end encrypted also makes them attractive to terrorist groups and other subversive elements.
Apart from breaking into these apparently secure apps, the CIA hackers also used a programme called Weeping Angel to monitor users of Samsung’s F8000 smart television even though the devices appeared to be switched off. The so-called “Fake Off” mode in the smart TVS was apparently developed in collaboration with British intelligence agencies, and could be damaging for the entire smart-this-smart-that industry. This is a much larger issue — for the ability to switch on the device suggests a backdoor into the operating system itself.
In a series of tweets, former CIA employee Edward Snowden, who in 2013 leaked details of global surveillance programmes carried out by the US National Security Agency, said the latest leaks underlined the vulnerabilities in Android and IOS — and not in apps like Whatsapp and Signal. “This incorrectly implies CIA hacked these apps/encryption. But the doc[ument]s show ios/android are what got hacked — a much bigger problem,” Snowden, who now lives in an undisclosed location in Russia, tweeted.
The next logical question is, should you and I be worried?
Operating systems like Android are no longer limited to smartphones or tablets, as everything from cars to refrigerators are becoming smart — and using Android or IOS for this dose of intelligence. So, these vulnerabilities could give security agencies a window into what you are doing — a smartwatch can tell them you have walked a bit longer today, a smart car can tell them where you are headed and whether you are in a hurry, phone messages can suggest whom you are meeting and, of course, there is the capability of switching on your phone cameras and microphone to collect proof of that rendezvous having actually happened. Incidentally, the 2008 Shia Labeouf thriller Eagle Eye created the scenario in which a person is tracked using devices around him. In theory, and it seems in practice too, all smart technologies can be used to spy on you.
Some of it is already here. All computing devices can be infected with malware and spyware that give regular data to its creator on what the person who is being spied upon is doing. Such malware have already made their way into smartphones through the innocuous-looking Flashlight and other such apps that take far too many permissions than are actually required. Even without access to your personal devices, security agencies have had the capability to hack into closed circuit cameras remotely to spy on a person. In fact, a lot of CCTV cameras, especially in a country like India, are extra vulnerable because they have not been secured against such hacks.
Finally, do Indian security agencies have the capabilities that Wikileaks has shown the CIA to possess?
The Vault 7 leaks don’t have anything on the Indian security agencies. But if the CIA has actively collaborated with British agencies to create a hack, it is not unlikely that such conversations may be on even with their counterparts in India. Especially when Indian security agencies are fully aware that Whatsapp and Telegram are being used by terror elements seeking to target the country.