Latest news with #IIT
News18
2 hours ago
- General
- News18
Are Indians The Most Overworked People On Earth? Netizens Debate Over Viral Post Claim
Last Updated: His observation, made in response to a conversation about reservation and employment, has sparked wide-ranging responses online A viral post on social media platform X has reignited discussions around work culture, education pressure, and social mobility in India. The comment, made by user named, Akshat Shrivastava, claimed that 'Indians are the most overworked people on earth. Not by choice. But, by system." His observation, made in response to a conversation about reservation and employment, has sparked wide-ranging responses online — from agreement to criticism, and everything in between. In a detailed post, Shrivastava outlined why he believes this pattern of overwork is deeply embedded in Indian society. He wrote: 'Kids studying for IITs would easily study 10-12 hours/day. This ability to 'slog" continues at work. This habit to 'slog" continues in adult life… While their European colleagues would have 'down time", Indians would sacrifice their sleep, family and health, to serve their company." Shrivastava pointed to the pressures young Indians face early in life, stating that the drive to overwork often stems from a lack of options and economic security. 'What's the root cause of all this? Well, it comes down to building survival instincts from a young age. Many hardworking kids have no choice but to slog. Build merit–> build a better life. That's their only option to a better life." His post was a reply to another user, Ravi, who had commented on the reservation system, stating that general category students do not lose seats to reserved category applicants, but to other general category candidates. Shrivastava's response quickly went viral, sparking a flurry of reactions. Some users supported his perspective, agreeing that Indian society encourages relentless effort from a young age. 'Indians don't hustle out of ambition. They hustle because the system taught them there's no safety net, only grind or fall," a comment read. 'Glorifying 'slogging' as the only path feels like accepting a broken system. Isn't the real tragedy that survival depends on such extremes?," another user responded. Others, however, pushed back against the idea that overwork should be normalised. 'Hard work is not a problem. Mindset is. Indians need to know: hard work isn't always the key to success — leverage is." 'Indians are often trapped in a cycle of relentless hard work, chasing middle-class stability without questioning the true return on investment for their efforts. The grind for IIT or NIT can open doors, but why does the pressure to top the class start so early, robbing teens of their youth?," another added. One user sharply criticised Shrivastava for lacking social insight, despite his strong grasp of financial matters: 'I've never seen someone so brilliantly astute when it comes to financial literacy and that part of the horizon and then be a completely oblivious illiterate when it comes to social aspects. just fascinating that someone can be this knowledgeable and this ignorant at the same time."
NDTV
4 hours ago
- General
- NDTV
X User Says "Indians Are The Most Overworked People On Earth", Sparks Discussion
Akshat Shrivastava, a finance advisor and a content creator, has sparked a debate online after saying that Indians are the most overworked people on earth, not by choice, but because of systemic pressures ingrained from a young age. Taking to X, Mr Shrivastava cited the example of children studying 10-12 hours a day to prepare for competitive exams. This ability to "slog", he argued, carries over into adulthood. "Many hardworking Indians migrate abroad. While their European colleagues have downtime, Indians sacrifice their sleep, family and health to serve their company," he wrote. The content creator attributed this pattern to a survival mindset that begins from a young age. "What's the root cause of all this? Well, it comes down to building survival instincts from a young age," he said, adding: "Many hardworking kids have no choice but to slog." "Build merit - build a better life. That's their only option. They work silently, putting in hours. Right from the time they are 12-13-year-old kids. Why? because working hard is 100x better than entitled begging," he wrote. [1] Indians are the most overworked people on earth. Not by choice. But, by system. Example: kids studying for IITs would easily study 10-12 hours/day. This ability to "slog" continues at work. [2] This habit to "slog" continues in adult life. Example: many hardworking… — Akshat Shrivastava (@Akshat_World) June 19, 2025 Mr Shrivastava's post has triggered mixed reactions on social media. While several users agreed with him, others shared their critical perspective. "Indians are often trapped in a cycle of relentless hard work, chasing middle-class stability without questioning the true return on investment for their efforts. The grind for IIT or NIT can open doors, but why does the pressure to top the class start so early, robbing teens of their youth?" questioned one user. "Indians don't hustle out of ambition. They hustle because the system taught them there's no safety net, only grind or fall," expressed another. "It's not hustle culture, it's survival culture. For many Indians, hard work isn't ambition-it's the only way out," commented a third user. "India's work ethic is rooted in survival, not passion. From competitive exams to corporate cubicles, the system teaches us that hard work is the only escape from poverty and mediocrity. This mindset-while admirable-often rewards burnout, not brilliance. Children sacrifice play for tests, adults sacrifice health for targets," said another. However, one user wrote, "Hard work is not the problem. Mindset is. Indians need to know: hard work is not the key to success - leverage is." "If you are born among 1.5 billion people in a 3rd world country, Hard work and Struggle are inevitable," expressed another.
Mint
8 hours ago
- Health
- Mint
Meet Saurabh Bothra, IITian-turned-yoga coach who has built a 1 crore-strong wellness community — one habit at a time
From a room in Nagpur, Maharashtra, to living rooms around the world, Saurabh Bothra has quietly but powerfully built a wellness revolution. An IIT alumnus and yoga enthusiast, he is the mind behind HaBuild. This "habit-building" platform began as his personal mission to help his mother fight frailty, and has grown into a community of nearly 10 million people. On International Yoga Day 2025, Saurabh Bothra says building consistency is the key to a healthy wellness routine. The 33-year-old's tryst with yoga began when he was 19 years old. He started roping his engineering juniors to practice yoga together when he was in the fourth year of college himself. But it was only after graduation that he took to learning how to teach yoga properly from the Art of Living International Center. What was the turning point? He says it was during Covid-19 when his mother asked him to suggest her four yoga poses for knee pain. He requested her to join his session, following which she would ask him to simplify terms like hamstring, glute muscles and more. "Once we started the solving problem for her, it became so simple for me to reach out to other moms. Many women tend to think that they do household work and that is exercise enough. But we started reaching out to more women, asking them to join our sessions and see if it makes any difference. We were doing free sessions initially, and then it just became viral," Bothra tells LiveMint in an interview. Today, his community has over 10 million users, who are gently nudged into making a habit of a wellness routine, not so much as a challenge, but as a lifestyle shift. Saurabh Bothra, also the face of the platform with a Yoga Everyday motto, eases you into the journey with guided yoga, breathwork, live check-ins, and community motivation, hoping people continue to simply "show up" day after day. I had severe asthma as a kid. I used to fall sick every day. There was some or the other allergy I would catch, my immunity was low and I was not able to play sports. This was norm. When I was in college, I happened to attend a yoga program without knowing it would help me with my asthma issue. I liked doing the practices they mentioned. After a few months, I realized my overall health felt better. When something is going wrong, you notice it faster. But when things are going right, it takes time for you to notice. So, it took me some time to realize that yoga was helping me. My grandfather had done his MBBS in 1955. So, there was already an interest around Ayurveda and naturopathy in the house. I happened to do engineering from IIT, but I was more interested in being a doctor or getting to know more about how the body functions. So there was an interest which got ignited when I started practicing yoga. Yes, I think the combination of engineering and the learnings that my grandfather gave us, is very important. While we teach yoga online, there is so much that happens with the technology that makes it come to life. Otherwise, it is so difficult as we have almost 1.03 crore people who have signed up for our program. It would be impossible to be able to deal with this without the technology background. Saurabh Bothra says his wellness platform is aimed at mothers. After teaching yoga for around seven years during my voluntary work, I realized that it was so difficult for people to become consistent with it. I was trying to make people more aware about the benefits of yoga, but it was not helping in any way. During Covid-19, I had enough time to understand how to make a habit out of yoga. I genuinely wanted people to make yoga a consistent part of their life. So, I started reading more about habits. I started experimenting with what I could do in the class so that people become more regular. We used the fundamentals of habit-building. Our mind needs instant gratification. In my classes, we give that by measuring the habit itself by tracking attendance. People care whether they are doing it or not, and if you start giving gratification, you can actually hook them to the habit part. The second thing I realized was that for habits to form, there is something called as variable reward. For that, we avoid telling people what's going to happen in the next class, and maintain variety. Education and awareness are significantly important. It is a lot of hard work to break the notion that a person has to be there for the entire 45-minute session. When someone signs up, we tell them that consistency does not have to be 45 minutes in a day. It can be also 5 minutes in a day. The focus should be on showing up. It is not even important to do it the right way or the perfect way initially. Just show up and do whatever your body allows. And most times, people actually end up doing the entire 45 minutes when they show up. Frequency becomes important. Remember how we brushed our teeth as kids even if we didn't want to? The frequency of doing it so many times made it so ingrained that now laziness, lack of motivation, sleeping late at night, waking up late doesn't matter to us. We still brush our teeth. That can happen with exercise also, if the frequency is high. Reading is one habit that I have struggled with. It is important for someone like me to read more to get more information, stay updated. So, I try to read blogs and shorter articles or summaries of big books. But it's very difficult for me to read. The moment I start reading, I go to sleep. That can work even if I have had 8 hours of proper deep sleep. There's only one book I genuinely feel made a big difference in my life, and I was able to complete it. That is Atomic Habits by James Clear. It gives me more ideas of what can I do for people to make their habits stronger. I think the West had a role to play to make yoga cool again. I don't think I'm someone who's making yoga cool or the platform is making it cool. In fact, we would say that we are creating a space for people to embrace their imperfection, right? Everyone wants to be perfect in every form, and I think HaBuild allows people to be themselves. We don't intend to make yoga cool at all or that's not what our goal is. If it's happening by the way, it's great. When you talk about Gen-Z, almost 20 percent of our audience is younger. We primarily intend to make our content for mothers. All our programs are designed to reach out to more moms, and when moms do something, they ensure that the entire house, including the husband, kids, parents and in-laws, are doing it too. A mom is usually the last person to do something consistently for herself. When she truly does something, it sets the right example for the entire house. That's how a whole mix of people are joining our sessions. I don't think we have done a good job in terms of packaging. I genuinely believe that if something is good, the packaging becomes less important. When we talk about dry fruits, the packaging may make it look more interesting, but the real value is in eating the dry fruit. When people realize that the dry fruit is good even if it does not have a good packaging, it will still get word-of-mouth publicity. I think what we have done is shown people that yoga is beneficial and more importantly how can you become consistent with it. When people see the benefit, they tell others. There are days that really get to me. My best practice to deal with stress is to go to sleep. So the days I'm busier, I go to sleep early so that I can make sure that my next day becomes better. When things go beyond my capacity to deal with it, I simply go to bed. Drink a lot of water. Get up from you seat and move around a lot more. Practice deep breathing. Sleep before 11 p.m. Workout for 45 minutes at least thrice a week. A sixth tip is - don't try to do everything together, otherwise we usually fail and go into the 'all-or-nothing' trap.
Economic Times
8 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Fresh engineering graduate tells dad about his job offer. But got compared to auto drivers instead
iStock Reality Check: Engineering Job Offer Leaves Graduate Disheartened Amid Family's Reaction (Representative image) An engineering graduate broke the news of landing a job to his family. But instead of seeing them overjoyed, he was met with disappointment. His father was far from ecstatic when he heard his annual pay package and stated that he had heard of autodrivers who outearned him. The young man turned to the online community on the Indian Workplace subreddit to vent his frustrations. He revealed that although he had completed his engineering degree and landed a job with a salary of Rs 4 LPA, he was still in the waiting period for onboarding. When he shared this update with his father, he was told bluntly that such a pay scale was lower than that of the auto drivers in their locality. Feeling dejected, the graduate tried to reason with his father, explaining that he had worked hard to earn the opportunity and didn't deserve to be compared to others. But his efforts did little to bridge the emotional gap. The situation, he said, mirrored that of one of his friends who earns about Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 a month. His friend's father reportedly dismissed the income, saying workers at their family-owned store brought home similar young engineer reflected on the broader issue of how freshers in the engineering field, especially those from Tier 2 institutions, are significantly underpaid. According to him, many college graduates struggle to secure offers above Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 per month—equivalent to about Rs 4 LPA. Only a fortunate few land jobs paying Rs 5 to Rs 6 LPA, leaving the rest to navigate an industry where compensation seems disconnected from the effort and education invested. He questioned why large multinational companies, which generate massive profits by working with international clients, offer such meager salaries to entry-level employees in India. For him, this raises a fundamental question of fairness in corporate compensation practices. In response, several Reddit users weighed in with their perspectives. One commenter emphasized that holding a degree doesn't automatically translate into a high salary. In the job market, employers compensate based on value and skills brought to the table—not for years spent studying. They encouraged upskilling and building expertise as a way to climb the salary user suggested confronting the generational bias by asking parents if the individuals they reference—such as drivers or shop workers—started their careers earning large sums. The commenter pointed out that most professionals begin with modest incomes and work their way up. They stressed that unless someone has credentials from elite institutions like IIT or IIM or is recruited by top-tier tech firms, sky-high starting packages are rare.
Time of India
10 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Which IITs made it to the QS World University Rankings 2026? A comparative analysis of their performance this year
India makes biggest leap in QS World Rankings 2026, IIT Delhi leads at 123rd. (Getty Images) The QS World University Rankings 2026, released on June 18, 2025, by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), have once again showcased the competitive landscape of higher education worldwide. This year's edition assessed over 1,500 universities from 106 locations, making it the most comprehensive ranking to date. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has maintained its place at the summit of global academia, securing the number one position with a perfect overall score of 100. Following MIT, Imperial College London and Stanford University secured the second and third spots respectively, marking a strong presence of North American and European universities in the global top ten. India has also made significant strides, with 54 universities featured in the QS rankings. Leading this contingent are the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), and Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), ranking 123rd, 129th, and 180th globally respectively. This marked progress reflects India's expanding footprint on the global academic map and underscores the continuing rise of its premier institutions. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Funding Food Innovation—Apply Now Zayed Sustainability Prize Apply Now Undo The legacy and strengths of IITs in India The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) form the cornerstone of India's technological education and research since their inception. The first IIT was established in 1951 at Kharagpur, and over the decades, the network has grown to encompass 23 institutes across the country. Each IIT boasts distinct strengths, but all share a commitment to excellence in engineering, technology, and science education. IIT Delhi, established in 1961, is often regarded as the flagship institute of the IIT system. Its reputation is bolstered by a robust employer reputation score of 95 and an academic reputation score of 67.9 in the QS rankings 2026. It is renowned for its strong industry linkages and research output, producing graduates who are highly sought after worldwide. IIT Bombay, founded in 1958, combines academic rigour with a vibrant campus culture and close industry collaborations. It ranks just behind IIT Delhi with a high employer reputation score of 97 and academic reputation of 73.3. This institution has consistently been a pioneer in research innovation and entrepreneurship. IIT Madras, set up in 1959, is noted for its rigorous academic programmes and strong research focus, especially in engineering and technology. It recorded an overall score of 58.4 in QS 2026 and has made significant improvements, rising from 227th to 180th in the rankings, indicating its growing global stature. IIT Kharagpur, the first IIT established in 1951, remains a pivotal centre for research and education with a wide range of academic disciplines. With an overall score of 54.5, it continues to build on its legacy of producing top-tier engineers and researchers. Other established IITs like Kanpur (est. 1959), Guwahati (est. 1994), and Roorkee (est. 1847 as Thomason College, later IIT from 2001) hold steady rankings in the mid-200s and 300s, reflecting steady performance and regional academic leadership. Newer IITs such as Indore (2009), BHU Varanasi (2012 merger), Hyderabad (2008), Gandhinagar (2008), and Bhubaneswar (2008) have rapidly gained recognition. Their focus on interdisciplinary research and innovation is reflected in their QS rankings and overall scores, albeit lower than the older IITs, yet demonstrating upward momentum. IITs in QS World University Rankings 2026: Detailed data S. No. Institution Rank (2026) Previous Rank (2025) Overall Score Academic Reputation Employer Reputation Employment Outcomes 1 Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) 123 150 65.5 67.9 95 51 2 Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB) 129 118 64.8 73 97 72.6 3 Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) 180 227 58.4 57 86 46 4 Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IITKGP) 215 222 54.5 43 79 48 5 Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore 219 211 54.2 56.6 46.4 15 6 Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) 222 263 54 49.4 82.7 47.6 7 Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG) 334 344 42.3 25.4 62 8.7 8 Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR) 339 335 42.2 26.8 52 20 9 Indian Institute of Technology Indore 556 477 30 8 17 5 10 Indian Institute of Technology BHU Varanasi 566 531 29.3 9.3 19 10 11 Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) 664 681-690 26.4 10.3 15 6.5 12 Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) 801-850 -- n/a 7 9 2 13 Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar (IIT BBS) 951-1000 951-1000 n/a 5 12 2 Comparative analysis of IITs in QS 2026 The rankings clearly indicate that IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay maintain their dominance in both academic and employer reputation, highlighting their status as India's premier technological institutions. IIT Delhi edges ahead with a slightly higher overall score, despite IIT Bombay's marginally higher employer reputation. IIT Madras's remarkable rise in rank from 227 to 180 is a testament to its expanding research capabilities and internationalisation efforts. The middle-tier IITs—Kharagpur and Kanpur—display stable performance with overall scores in the mid-50s. These institutes show room for improvement, especially in enhancing their employer reputation and employment outcomes to boost their rankings further. IIT Guwahati and Roorkee, while ranking lower, continue to solidify their roles as key academic centres in their respective regions. Their relatively lower scores in employment outcomes point to potential areas for development, particularly in strengthening industry collaborations and graduate placements. The newer IITs, such as Indore, BHU Varanasi, Hyderabad, Gandhinagar, and Bhubaneswar, are gradually carving their niche. Although their overall scores and reputations are currently modest, these institutions' focus on innovative curricula and research promises future growth. Notably, IIT Gandhinagar and IIT Bhubaneswar, despite lower scores, benefit from strategic academic plans that emphasise interdisciplinary learning and entrepreneurship. This spectrum of rankings across the IIT system reflects India's multifaceted approach to expanding quality higher education and research. As established IITs continue to excel, the newer institutes are progressing steadily, collectively raising India's profile on the global academic stage. Is your child ready for the careers of tomorrow? Enroll now and take advantage of our early bird offer! Spaces are limited.
