higher education is heading nowhere/somewhere?

Got to watch parts of a good show on the status of higher education in India on the Sahara Samay channel.

India has less than 300 universities, from what I heard, but before most of us wonder at this minuscule number, I think we should remember that India still follows the British education system to a large extent - that of having colleges affiliated with universities. The India-famous Delhi University is one such example. There is no such concept as a DU culture, but its mainly about the dozens of colleges that are affiliated to it all around the city.

The Government seems to have woken up after so many months of bullshit from its HRD Minister - Mr. Arjun Singh, who, as I have said so many times already, is there because of his obeisance to the Gandhi family. So there are 7 new IIT's coming up, and the ones in Bihar and Andhra will start taking in students from later this year or next year. Then the seventh IIM at Shillong is also to start functioning this year, though still on borrowed space at the North Eastern Hill University. Conveniently, its named after Rajiv Gandhi. Also in the works are 30 new other central universities and a lot more colleges.

It is good to build, but I think they need to take a look at how our existing universities are functioning too. In most parts of the world, universities are the center of innovation and new thought, and Indian universities have also been such centers, but I think this is fading slowly. We have not much money to spend on R&D at these universities, or at least they make it out to be. There are moral policemen roaming all our nooks and crannies, ready to browbeat new thoughts and anything that their small minds can't digest. The point is this - the fundamental right to free speech is now preceded by the fundamental right to not agree with it and very importantly, create a ruckus against it.

While the government is planning more of its own and private money into the higher education system, I would like to make it clear that for the most part, I am against foreign direct investment in our universities. While I understand the importance of importing best practices from all the world's best universities, I feel our focus should be on self-improvement and aiming to improve the quality of our own universities. India has had great universities, places of new thought, freedom of expression and dissent, but today, the only place that still seems to live that way is JNU. Don't get me wrong, I have many charges against JNU, or rather, the way the commies have occupied it, but I also know that any free country needs such centers of dissent. The level of innovation that should be coming out of the much touted and craved IIT's and IIM's is also way below potential. The IIM's are not about innovation and development, for most of the people who aspire for it - mainly the IIT graduates, it is but the step that will take them into 7 digit salaries. Why this craze for most IIT engineers to crave for management degrees after getting a supposedly great technical degree from the IIT's? I dont know, but what I do know is that for in most of our youth, the zeal for learning and innovation is dead, and the only thing that runs in our blood is the desire for more money.

So I think nothing will happen till we continue to see a lack of clear policy for our higher education. Building more universities is good, but what is more important is to improve the existing ones, most of which today are in shambles. Our universities need to be insulated from the daily political dirt that floats in the air. They need to be grown as centers of free thought and our professors need to be given more respect and at least a decent amount of salary. I am sure most will agree that our teaching professions are in shambles as well. Most are at the mercy of politicians and paid a pittance. Where will be the will to teach? That is why so few of them have it any more. All these are just as important as the grand plans for more universities.

Who is Raj Thacck...whatever?

You know, Jaya Bachchan ji isn't an astute politician, neither an seasoned, wily one, but there is one comment she made that made a lot of sense to me - "Who is Raj Thackrey?"

She said this after Raj Thackrey attacked Amitabh Bachchan and his family for their apparent siding with the "North Indians", when it was Mumbai which had given him his fame.

Currently Mumbai is under attack by hooligans and thugs led by Raj Thackrey, and Mumbai Police is standing with its tail between its legs. People travelling in trains were asked their state of origin, and beaten up if they were from the north. Shops owned by North Indian immigrants were ransacked, immigrant taxi drivers were beaten up, and there wasn't even an iota of courage, or willingness, shown by the state government to crush such amazingly anti-national and anti-democracy actions.

Just depressing to see our country stoop to new lows on every social front. People such as Raj Thackrey are usually the most loud bastards in any democracy, but are usually the most sidelined. But here I was praising Mumbai in front of some of my friends for its openness and modernity, and the Thackrey puppy comes in and rains in on my parade.

If this country has any hope of actually moving forward - never mind the rosy macroeconomic picture - then we will have to at least attempt to modernize our thoughts as much as we are trying to modernize our lives. Raj Thackrey is a goon, and I hope this country and its government realize that letting dogs bark will do nothing but hurt our ears.