Articles by B Venkatesh Kumar

India is estimated to require at least one million new faculty for its colleges and universities if it is to meet the government's ambitious target to offer higher education to 20% of all young people by 2020. But the output of the current Indian higher education system falls far short of meeting this need. A report of a survey of about 1,000 Indians who are currently undertaking or have completed graduate studies in the United States to find out their willingness to return to India and the key factors affecting their decisions.

Three years after the National Knowledge Commission submitted its report suggesting that there is a need to create an overarching regulator in higher education, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has finally come out with a draft Bill. This article reviews this Bill and finds that it seeks greater centralisation of power, essentially in the appointment of vice chancellors and on issues which traditionally should fall within the domain of universities. Although there is a need for a new regulatory system in place, this has to be more like a facilitator and as a catalyst in enabling universities to pursue teaching and research within an autonomous, and yet, accountable framework of self-governance.

With the United Progressive Alliance government moving speedily towards establishing 14 central universities in the states that do not have any, the manner and undue haste with which vice chancellors to these institutions have been appointed has come in for some debate in academic circles.

The bill to amend the Representation of People's Act all but dilutes the directives contained in the Supreme Court's verdict and appears to have been drafted only to push out Election Commission's more stringent guidelines.

In the rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, democratic decentralisation through the panchayat raj institutions has been instrumental in allowing people to generate a prompt response to urgent problems such as acute water shortage.