"Why is Tata funding a Harvard ?".
Your edit (DNA,Mumbai,18/10/10) "Why is Tata funding a Harvard?" should provoke some thought among the industry, academic, political and bureaucratic circles. Why indeed three top industrialists are funding US educational institutions rather than Indian institutions? Of course, one reason, as you have pointed out, is their association with these institutions. The other reason is, again as mentioned by you, the promotion of excellence by the US academic institutions besides the autonomy that they enjoy.
Your suggestion that government needs to move away from running academic institutions will not find favour with the political and bureaucratic circles that enjoy dispensing patronage to their favourites among the teachers and students. Perhaps, these industrialists could have set up new educational institutions on the lines of Harvard with these funds. They could have become new Nalandas and Taxilas of the modern India.
Thousands of Indian students go to USA, UK, Canada and even to Australia for higher studies spending millions of dollars. Indian educational institutions with the same standards of excellence and autonomy could prevent this outflow and give our students insight into our problems and how to solve them. This is something for our businessmen and politicians think it over.
http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/editorial_why-is-tata-funding-a-harvard_1454109
( A response on the editorial in DNA,Mumbai dt.October 18,2010.
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