There was a story (surely apocryphal) doing the rounds a couple of decades back when the number of IITs was just a handful.
Apparently the Directors of all the IITs met and decided that their designation has to be revamped.
Because, when they visit Shastry Bhavan (Ministry of Education) at Delhi for a meeting wih the Minister, the PR Officer at the Front Desk smiles and directs them to the Assistant Secretary's Chamber.
Because, in the organizations directly under the Ministry, Director is a lowly post and deserved no better than an Assistant Secretary per protocol.
They had to argue their case for hours before convincing the PRO that they were not run-of-the-mill Directors of the Ministry like the Directors of Primary Education, Secondary Education, Public Instruction etc but 'different', holding First Class Magisterial Powers over their Campus Domains, like Vice Chancellors, only much better.
Next time around there is a different PRO and the story repeats.
To end it all, they decided to appeal to the Government to change their designation and suggested that, like MIT, Harvard, and Yale, they better be called Presidents.
Since nothing like that happened, my guess is that they were told that there is no position like that in the GoI, other than the President of India, which post they were convinced was purely ornamental having no real power which rests with the PM which position they didn't much like to take up.
It is good in a way that they were not called Presidents because, in the globalized Hyderabad today, there is very likely to be a one-room Raddi Shop with a President, a Vice-President (Paper) and a Vice President (Cardboard).
The entire trouble was because the first IIT @ KGP was started at 5, Esplanade East, Calcutta directly under GoI in 1950 as one of its Departments, and had to wait till 1956 to be given an autonomous status. Much nomenclatural harm was done by then.
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When I joined IIT KGP, the entry post in the Faculty was Associate Lecturer (yours truly). Then one climbs the ladder (if he doesn't fall down) up the rungs of Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Professor and later Senior Professor.
That is not all: if you are too good to be Assistant Professor but not good enough to be Professor, you are made an Associate Professor which is a purely ad-hoc post like Trishanku:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trishanku
An Associate Professor draws the same pay as a Professor but is not allowed to sit in Senate Meetings (they all craved this privilege I don't know why). If I remember right, an Associate Professor has to appear before a Board every year for 3 years and if he is not found suitable to be upgraded to the Professor Post even then, he reverts to his Assistant Professor Post (though I recall none to be that unfortunate in the 5 or so years before wisdom prevailed and Trishanku' post was abolished).
But not before matrimonial embarrassment descended on me.
It so happened that after scaling the rungs of Associate Lecturer, Lecturer, and reaching the semi-final post of Assistant Professor, I got uppish and decided to get married (it took 14 years).
The Grandfather of my bride was a retired Executive Engineer at Tirupati in AP and must have been aware of all sorts of nomenclature anomalies bugging the Government Bureaucracy. When he interviewed me, he simply asked what my Pay Scale was and when I said it was 1200-1900, he was very happy and consented to take me in.
A couple of weeks before my marriage, I got a packet of 25 Wedding Cards (gratis) of the Bride's side to be distributed to my friends and seniors at IIT KGP.
I then found to my dismay that under the bridegroom's name (spelled correctly) my designation was inserted as Associate Professor!
Obviously I had to trash them because if I distribute them among IITians they would suspect a fraud from my side: an Associate Professor at KGP, although a Trishanku, was in the 1500-2200 scale, a cut above me.
When I protested later on to the good old Executive Engineer at Tirupati about the mistake he made in my designation, he defended himself saying there is no mistake on either side, but he could hardly have printed me as an Assistant Professor, which was the Entry Level at the Veterinary College at Tirupati in our lowly (Lecturer) scale: 700-1250.
And his famous son working in that Vet College and playing host in the wedding ceremony was in the next level of Associate Professor (1200-1900) equivalent to our Assistant Professor.
The old man simply brushed me aside and said:
"I wanted everyone here to know that you are as good as my son and no less!"
Phew!!!
He could as well have printed my pay scale:
Dr. K. Rukmini Devi M.D. (fresh from the oven)
weds
Dr. G. Prabhakara Sastry Ph. D. (1200-1900)
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Tailpiece
News Item in DC today:
"...The Prakasam district superintendent of police, Mr C.S.R.K.L.N. Raju...."
I would love to meet him and take his autograph on the back of a postage stamp.
Last laugh
Banta Singh was recruited as a Police Constable at KGP and caught 3 thieves the very first day and dragged them to his Sub Inspector, who asked their names to which they replied:
Mukherjee
Banerjee
and
Chatterjee
Banta wrote the names down as Mukher, Baner, and Chatter and said:
"Saley Badmash log kartey chori hain aur apney aap ko jee, jee, jee boltey hai!"
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