PhD in Computer Science

Tone of this post may seem very authoritative but to be frank I am a rookie pilot not yet taken off
Being on top of the world university rankings is a great achievement. Maintaining your position there is still bigger job and getting your stature to rise from there is the toughest thing to do. Rankings show that no Indian University appears in the list, within the top 200

•  IISc is between 251 to 300.
• IIT-B is between 351 to 400.

Another eight come between 400 to 600 while seven more in the 600 to 800 range.

Totally 2+8+7=17 in the top 800. Under these circumstances if you want to pursue a PhD in any Indian University its worth would be seen through this prism(context). So there you are working as a faculty in another institute by the side of a road which is in a/leads to a mega city(ironically its the city that you quote to be recognized). Life seems utterly worthless. Over all this the societal pressure to achieve something or be someone. People laugh and make fun of you,  

couldn't think of a better job?

First mover advantage has its own value. Indian Universities most of which came into existence not long back have a large distance to cover to reach the top. What if were to start running long after the gun shot. After each and every global competitor has passed by and nearing the finishing line.

You run anyway....

India is a place where people take birth to dream of going abroad. Any fish which tries to swim against the tide has enormous odds to face. Alas... its not the road less traveled ... Its the road untraveled.

Enough of philosophy I think. Coming to the title... i have been dabbling in several fields at once. I have handled subjects not in anyway related to each other. I think I am a jack who dies in the movie titanic.... Jack come back... Jack come back...(ringing in the ears)

Jack is not a master of any trade. Ravaged by time, Once upon a time he was a young graduate not sure of where to go or what to do...

Opportunities knock many times. Doing nothing I thought I was conserving my intellectual energies. I thought to myself, I will somehow struggle till 50 or 55 and then do what i really like to do.

Off late it has dawned on me that I(or We) cannot be happy in a job that I(or We) do not like. Its not that I do not like teaching. I had this picture that life of a teacher is a bed of roses. Hours and hours of free time to do whatever seemed interesting to you. You could pursue your intellectual curiosity. You could do research(had faint idea what it meant to be a researcher, then). It has only dawned now that it is a very very slow process. Slower if you are lazier. Your capacity to think reduces as you age.

The first synopsis I wrote for PhD came a cropper. It was written in haste and never reviewed properly by anyone. It was on "Cryptography" a topic I chose just for the heck of it. I thought such a vast field can accommodate another PhD very easily. The synopsis never went beyond a survey on current research and did not have any proper problem statement or methodology.

There you are the first bit of knowledge that I glean. Even a synopsis should have a well defined problem that you think you can crack. Then a way that approximately leads you there, is the methodology. Have these two things right and your synopsis is going to sail through.

The problem may be a small one, does not matter. Recently I met a professor whom I consulted for advice, reviewed my profile and found that I have been going from one guide to another without any proper process or due diligence. He advised me to handle the subject related to the topic on which I propose to work.

If that were to be a barometer on which I choose the topic, then I should be doing research on Graphics. Related field of Data Compression a topic which I have handled once is also a good choice of research for me. I once taught in class that one of the holy grail of image/video data compression was the generation of a human face which would read news. The input to the program would just be text and the lady would generate sound and look like uttering. I guess that text book was surely outdated and the state of the art has moved well beyond this. If your PhD has to be state of the art it has to be path breaking. I hve always been a perfectionist and a procrastinator and hence my reluctance to register for PhD.
One more thing... The role of the industry in shaping the academic environment is quite inadequate. There has to be more relevant research and our industry due to government policies had never achieved the maturity that the present times demand.

One more piece of advice before I end, get all papers you reference and look at their citation count. Find which papers are more important. Categorize the papers that you have into groups based on certain criteria.(have many things to say about this but some other day)