In The Media ⁽⁴⁰⁰⁾

Read full article As in school education, India has broadly won the battle of numbers in higher education. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), which measures the number of students enrolled in higher education institutions (HEIs) as percentage of population aged 18-23 years, has risen from 8.1% in 2000-01to 25.2% in 2016-17. But just as in school education, the battle for quality of education has barely begun. One dimension of the quality is the number of universities recognised globally for the quality of their education and research. How does India do along this dimension? India Absent In the 2018 Times Higher Education (THE) university rankings, no Indian university appears in the top 200 institutions. China has two in the first 100 and another two in the 101-200 category. Among the institutions ranked between 201 and 600, India has six and China 19. Several smaller Asian countries — Hong Kong with three in the top 100 and two in the 101-200 category, South Korea with two in each category, Singapore with two in the top 100, and Taiwan with one university in…

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Read full article Abstract: Trade openness today faces both external and internal challenges in India. Externally, tariff hikes on aluminium and steel imports by the United States invited retaliation by us, at least as a last resort. We also face challenges of secondary sanctions arising out of the US sanctions against Iran and Russia. Internally, bureaucratic forces have regrouped to return India to import substitution. This column is exclusively about the latter, internal challenge. Despite repeated assertions that ‘Make in India’ is about making for the world, in reality, it is the ‘Make in India for India’ view that is winning. The first significant tilt in this direction came with the extensive tariff hikes in the 2018-19 budget, which the revenue secretary later defended as necessary to promote import substitution. True to his word, he went on to deliver additional tariffs subsequently. To top it all, we have now appointed a taskforce headed by the cabinet secretary aimed at cutting imports of items that India can produce at home. It may be recalled that the key elements of our 1991…

Read full article Abstract: A Russian parable has it that a man once visited a natural history museum and returned all excited about some rare insects he saw there. When asked what he thought of the dinosaurs at the museum, he replied, what dinosaurs? Something similar has happened to the commentary on the recently released Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill, 2018. While focussing on certain legitimate but correctible shortcomings, this commentary has entirely missed numerous path breaking features of the Bill. To put the matter in perspective, the Bill These are truly major desirable departures from the existing regulatory framework of higher education, bringing us closer to global best practices. If the government can appoint truly outstanding individuals with unimpeachable integrity to HECI, the latter would be in a position to truly transform India’s higher education system for the better.

Read full article Abstract: Collection of broad-based taxes is more efficient if done by the Centre than individual states. Expenditures on items such as education, health and local infrastructure require decentralisation. This calls for the Centre to collect the broad-based taxes and share them with the states. But who is to decide how this divisible pool of revenue is to be shared between Centre and states? A neutral umpire is required. The Constitution designates the Finance Commission (FC) as that umpire. It calls for the appointment of an FC minimally every five years. The current FC is the 15th such commission. The FC must perform a tough balancing act. If allocation to the states is disproportionately small, there is risk that expenditures on education, health and local infrastructure, which must be substantially locally provided, will go underfunded. Equally, if allocation to the Centre is unduly small, national public goods such as defence, internal security, highways, waterways and railways may go underfunded.