Hostel Building Hit By Air India Plane In Ahmedabad, Over 240 Dead In Crash
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Hindustan Times
11 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
AITA?: A look at the ‘trolley problems' of today
Should you credit AI when you use it at work? Are there things that simply can't be forgiven? What kinds of everyday lies are justified… and does it even matter? A recreation of a popular trolley problem meme. There's a lot that's changed about the 'trolley problem'. These used to be a set of philosophical questions that sociologists examined, and people pondered in their free time, in attempts to decode human motivation and behaviour. In a common example, a trolley is going down a track. It stands to kill five people. You can make it switch tracks so it kills only one, but that one is someone you love. The answer to 'What do you do?' is also the answer to 'Who are you, really?' This thought experiment was first introduced by philosopher Philippa Foot, in an essay on abortion, in 1967. Our world has since acquired more layers; the cult of the individual has grown stronger; and the internet has altered almost everything, including how we engage in such debates. In one such dramatic shift, the web has taken philosophical debates out of the classroom and lab and thrown them open to the world. The most widely used platform for modern-day 'trolley problems' also cuts through the niceties to simply ask: Am I The A**hole? Posts uploaded to this Reddit thread, over 12 years, have become a riveting body of intricate, intimate information on the moral minutiae of everyday life. Questions include… * Am I wrong for not going to my sister's wedding after she called my child 'disgusting' in public? * AITA for giving my wife a written performance review because I'm so tired of her being partial to one of our kids? * Am I a bad person for swapping my almond milk with regular milk, to prove that my lactose-intolerant roommate was stealing from me? * Is it my fault that I don't want to spend all my holidays with my husband's surly kids? * Is it wrong to hate my parents for spending my entire inheritance on my sister, who got pregnant at 18? The AITA subreddit remains the largest such repository, but it is now one of many across social-media platforms. Responses tend to be detailed and laden with emotion too. This vast and growing collection of dilemmas and reactions to dilemmas is now serving as a goldmine for social psychologists. 'It's a kind of living archive of moral life,' says Daniel Yudkin, director of the civic research initiative Beacon Project, and a visiting scholar in social psychology at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 'It's a rare window into not just what people think is right or wrong, but why.' Yudkin has been scouring through AITA threads on Reddit for five years, gathering insight on how people deliver judgment and grapple with accountability. His research began as a postdoctoral fellowship, in 2019, and he has since published papers exploring how these online repositories offer a more well-calibrated means of studying modern morality than the hypothetical scenarios still used in labs today. Even the trolley problem, he argues, is an amusing hypothesis compared to these immediate, real-world challenge, all drawn from a recognisable context. 'AITA posts tend to be complex, emotional, deeply social,' he adds. 'They pit loyalty against self-respect, social norms against personal values. They're not about maximising utility. They are about balancing competing obligations in messy, real relationships.' Guilt-edged Using AI to sort r/AITA posts into categories, Yudkin began to empirically analyse them. In a paper published in the journal PNAS Nexus in May, he showed that the individual's most deeply felt dilemmas tend to involve parents, partners, roommates or friends. This is a reminder, he says, that 'morality isn't just a set of rules; it's a way of managing the fragile web of responsibilities we have to the people in our lives.' Part of his study focused on which issues of morality drew the most negative feedback and the least support. It surprised him, he says, to see how harshly people judge dishonesty. Cheating and lying were condemned even more than intentional harm, his study found. Trust violations hit a particularly deep nerve, he posits, because they undermine the glue that holds relationships and communities together. Another unexpected finding was that people were surprisingly forgiving when someone failed to meet another's expectations. Individuals conflicted over whether to prioritise the self over the other were often offered reassurance, with the understanding that what they were really trying to do was take care of two people at once. Posts from the pandemic years proved particularly poignant. There was, after all, no handbook here. No one had debated these dos and don'ts ahead of time. And, unusually, the cost of a misstep could now be a literal matter of life and death. Questions like 'Am I wrong for not visiting my parents at all during lockdown?' reflected new, and deep, moral dilemmas, Yudkin says. Futures trading The thing about real-life moral dilemmas, though, is that they were never meant to be played out on the world stage, he points out. To make a private dilemma public can be a dangerous thing, and amid the debate and entertainment, it can be easy to lose sight of that. 'Presenting a version of yourself, and inviting judgment, can bring the unexpected clarity of seeing your conflict through the eyes of strangers. But it can amplify anxiety,' he adds. It can also cause a great deal of inner confusion, given that there is every kind of opinion in a global community. Meanwhile, Yudkin says, it is interesting to note that the really big moral conundrums aren't playing out here at all. The biggest global dilemmas today have a lot in common, in fact, with that original trolley problem. And the way we have been reacting to the biggest of these, the climate crisis, indicates just how clearly we would choose the things we love over the assured destruction of a large population. Making the right choices in such a situation requires deep empathy for people distant from us not just in space but also in time, Yudkin points out. 'And that's particularly difficult because our brains are wired for immediate relationships — in an imperative that did once help us survive.' At the same time, he adds, people do care deeply about obligations. 'Perhaps if we take the moral questions people are really asking — about fairness, honesty, and care — and bring them into the bigger conversations, we might have a better chance of arriving at the clarity we need.'
Time of India
12 hours ago
- Time of India
UGC NET sees 14% rise in PhD qualifiers, but 6% JRF cap may hinder research growth
Experts warn of research quality decline as JRF funding lags behind PhD demand. (AI Image) Over 1.28 lakh candidates qualified for PhD admissions in UGC NET 2025 exams, yet only 5,269 secured JRF Signalling a growing academic interest in doctoral research, over 1.28 lakh candidates qualified for PhD admissions in the recently declared UGC NET June 2025 results. This witnessed a 14% rise from the previous year, however, only 5,269 candidates secured the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), a figure that remains disproportionately low. Out of 1,88,333 candidates who cleared NET this cycle, only 5,269 qualified for both JRF and Assistant Professor eligibility, 54,885 qualified for Assistant Professorship alone, and the remaining 1,28,179 fell under the newly introduced 'PhD-only' category. This structural change, introduced in 2023 to allow candidates with NET scores to apply for PhD programmes without necessarily being eligible for teaching or research fellowships, has expanded the pathway to doctoral study, but not the financial support required to sustain it. However, without enough financial support, many deserving students are being left out, which also impacts the long-term research goals under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Speaking to Education Times, Brajesh Kumar Tiwari, associate professor, Atal School of Management, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, says, "The growing gap between UGC NET-qualified PhD aspirants and JRF awardees may harm India's research future and quality. While over 1.28 lakh candidates are now eligible for PhD admissions, only 4.1% have secured JRFs. This means several students lack the full-time funding essential for sustained research." Research in Social Sciences, Humanities, and other core disciplines require intensive focus. He says, "Without funding, many scholars take to teaching or work part-time, diluting their research output. This risks making research more quantity-driven than quality-oriented." Eligibility Expands Prof Tiwari says, "The 14% increase in PhD eligibility has been driven by several factors, including the updated UGC regulations in 2023 that permitted candidates to use their NET scores for both PhD admission and Assistant Professor roles. "This dual-benefit model made NET more attractive. Meanwhile, All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) data shows postgraduate enrolment rising from 43.8 lakh in 2020-21 to 45.7 lakh in 2022-23. A larger postgraduate base leads to higher NET participation. Yet, while eligibility has expanded, financial support has not kept pace. Despite a growing number of PhD students, rising from 1.69 lakh in 2014-15 to over 2.2 lakh in 2022-23, the annual JRF awards have stagnated between 5,000 and 9,000 for the past decade." Fellowship Limitations Budgetary limitations, the current JRF award model, are some of the reasons for this stagnation. "In the 2024-25 Union Budget, the UGC received Rs 4,066 crore, a marginal decrease from Rs 4,093 crore in the previous year. With much of this allocated to salaries and infrastructure, little remains for expanding fellowships. Meanwhile, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), a flagship NEP 2020 initiative meant to boost research funding, is yet to be operationalised. The delay in ANRF rollout has stalled the research funding setup," says Tiwari. The current JRF award model limits fellowships to the top 6% of candidates in each subject-category combination. Prof Tiwari says, "This percentage remains constant regardless of how many high-performing candidates there are or how much higher education enrolment has grown. This creates artificial cutoffs, excluding many deserving scholars. Globally, countries such as Germany and the UK adjust fellowship numbers based on actual doctoral demand and research priorities. India must adopt a more dynamic and responsive system." Some top institutions, including IITs, IISc, TIFR, IISERs, JNU, Delhi University, and the University of Hyderabad, offer internal fellowships and research or teaching assistantships. However, these are limited in scale and mostly confined to central institutions. "Internal support varies widely across institutions and disciplines. To address the funding gap, the UGC and Ministry of Education must incentivise and fund state universities to launch standardised, well-supported assistantship programmes at scale," says Prof Tiwari. The imbalance between the qualifiers and the JRF cap raises concerns about the future of India's research ecosystem. Ipsita Sapra, associate professor, School of Public Policy and Governance, TISS Hyderabad, says, "India lags globally in terms of high-quality research output, with fewer publications in reputed, peer-reviewed journals and limited contributions to original theoretical work. One key reason is underfunding of research. In India, publications are often treated as a means for career advancement rather than for contributing to original research ideas. Moreover, high costs and long duration of research, often taking 5-7 years, discourage scholars, especially when financial support such as JRF is unavailable." Alternative Funding Mechanisms Countries such as China have invested in research, while India has not made comparable commitments. Prof Sapra says, "Increasing the number of JRFs is essential as is developing alternative funding mechanisms. Collaboration between academia and industry, as seen in global universities, should be encouraged. Government funding remains crucial, as institutional fellowships are often far below JRF levels and not sustainable in the long term. Several Indian universities have had to suspend their internal research support due to lack of funds." JRF plays an important role in enabling scholars, especially from economically weaker backgrounds, to pursue research without financial insecurity. "Without such support, many capable students are forced to abandon their academic goals for paying jobs. This results in a research ecosystem dominated by the privileged communities," she says. Creating a Bottleneck For Prashant Kumar, a recent UGC NET qualifier in Economics, the gap in financial support has posed hurdles. Prashant, hailing from Bihar, says, "There has been a sharp increase in students appearing for the UGC NET, from around 4.5 lakh in June 2023 to nearly 7.5 lakh in June 2025. But the number of JRFs has not changed. Without fellowships, full-time research is only possible for the financially secure. The rest are forced to either drop out, go part-time, or struggle under financial stress. " Prashant adds that while central research bodies such as ICSSR and DBT offer fellowships, their numbers are extremely limited, and the selection process highly competitive. "A few universities offer internal assistantships, but these are not uniformly available," he says, adding, "This uneven landscape means one's access to research funding often depends on where they study." Prashant who relied entirely on self-study, YouTube lectures, and past year papers, says, "Even after qualifying NET multiple times, I have not managed to qualify for JRF. I have taken the exam six times since December 2022, and except for my first attempt, I have cleared all others." Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
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First Post
17 hours ago
- First Post
London-bound Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner aborts take-off due to technical issues
Air India flight AI2017 to London aborted takeoff due to technical issues. The aircraft involved was a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and the incident took place just weeks after the fatal Ahmedabad plane crash read more Advertisement Air India revisits its safety standards. PTI Air India flight bound to London was forced to abort takeoff after the aircraft faced technical issues. AI Flight AI2017 was scheduled to depart from Delhi to London on Thursday (31 July). However, it was brought to a halt after the cockpit crew decided to 'discontinue the take-off run'. The aircraft involved in the incident was a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner . After the take-off was aborted, the passengers were asked to disembark as precautionary checks were carried out. Air India eventually provided the crew and the passengers with an alternative aircraft to complete the journey to London. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'Flight AI2017, operating from Delhi to London on 31 July, returned to the bay due to a suspected technical issue," an Air India spokesperson said after the incident. 'The cockpit crew decided to discontinue the takeoff run following standard operating procedures and brought the aircraft back for precautionary checks. An alternative aircraft was deployed to fly the passengers to London," the airline company furthered. The incident rings alarm bells of the past What makes the matter concerning is the fact that the incident came just weeks after an Air India flight bound for London Gatwick struck a medical college hostel in Ahmedabad minutes after take-off , killing 241 people. Indian officials at that time confirmed that the pilot issued multiple distress calls before the Gatwick-bound flight crashed in Ahmedabad on June 12. 'Thrust not achieved… falling… Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! ' the preliminary report of the Indian AAIB said before the aircraft lost height and erupted in flames. There were 230 passengers and 12 crew members on board, including 169 Indian nationals, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese citizens and one Canadian, according to Air India. Apart from the formal investigation, the Indian government has set up a high-level committee to examine the causes leading to the crash. The body will be focusing on formulating procedures to prevent and handle aircraft emergencies in the future, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in a statment. Meanwhile, Air India and the government are probing several aspects of the crash, including issues linked to its engine thrust, flaps, and why the landing gear remained open as the plane took off and then came down. The authorities are yet to share the final report on the crash.
