I am happiest in these days, but I am thinking.... (Please download the PDF)

Theme4:How the Central universities will be able to play a pace setting role? Each Central University has its own specific research and teaching specialisations, developed through its location, institutional history, and intellectual and social backgrounds of students and faculty. Moreover, since all Central Universities are research Universities as well, development of strong research profiles of individual departments can become interconnected core-knowledge producing units. With adequate

Theme 3:Observations on the encouragement and promotion of private universities The discussion with regards to amendments to the regulatory framework to (a) encourage and disseminate information about private universities fails to recognise that the motivations of private players is primarily profit. This will mean exorbitant fees, neglect of social justice agendas (particularly SC/ST, and OBC quotas, uneven spread of educational institutions, besides a negligible impact on GERs. Private player

Theme 2:Should not India develop its own ranking system relying on indicators more suitable to Indian situation as other ranking systems have heavy weightage for perception/subjective factors in which Indian Universities lose out. Whether developing one’s own ranking system or joining an international one, a ranking system is a bad idea either way. Any ranking system overlooks the basic reality that different kinds of universities and colleges serve different regional and disciplinary needs and

Theme 14:How can inter-linkages between education, culture and language be brought about in HE institutions? It is important that all students of a University learn something about the culture of other parts of India and not only those who study culture, literature or language at a University. To that end students, particular students whose disciplines do not engage with cultural studies at all, should be made to learn either an Indian language or read the literature of another culture (in tran

Theme14: Should Indology Studies be a part of curriculum? The term “Indology” has connotations of both colonialism and exclusion, and should not be part of the curriculum with that name. In colonial times, Classical Indology denoted the study of Sanskrit literature and Hinduism along with the other Indian religions, Jainism, Buddhism and Pāli literature, to the exclusion of the various other religions (Islam, Sikhism, animism, etc), languages (Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Asiatic, etc) cult

Theme 14:Should all universities have essential language departments with focus on dying or extinct languages? A: These centres should be multidisciplinary centres, involving linguists, social scientists, geographers, and not merely language departments. The objective of their work must be not only the documentation and description of the linguistic, anthropological and socio-political facts of endangered/minority Indian languages but also the interface between language and power. These Centres

Theme 14:How can cultural integration take place through language? A: Cultural integration cannot take place through enforced assimilation to a single language, but rather in first respecting the diversity of languages (and cultures) in India and encouraging communication within them. The mere reproduction of the existing inequalities of opportunity and access by designating a few languages as the repository and vehicle of ‘Indianness’ is an educational policy doomed to failure. Rather, in an m

Theme 16:Is it desirable to have a variable Student fee structure? No. A variable fee structure will be difficult to implement. Students entering the highet education sector are adults and their eligibility should not be determined by the incomes of their parents. This is true particularly at the postgraduate and research levels, they should be encouraged to be as financially autonomous as possible. Keeping fees low will facilitate this independence and ensure that no meritorious student is den

Theme 17:Can improving infrastructural facilities on university campuses such as student facilitation centres, international student’s hostels, faculty guesthouses help to attract more foreign students. Any higher educational institution that has adequate public funds to maintain autonomy and support an independent and critical academic atmosphere would automatically attract scholars and students from all over the world. Foreign students cannot be attracted for the sake of foreign exchange, but