Rediscovering Our Universities

As a person who has been in one Indian higher education institution or another all his life, also having grown up in the campus of one such, some views on higher education have inevitably lodged themselves inside me. This is a subject on which each of us has strong and different views. Such differences and even clashes of view are welcome (action would be even more welcome). I put down some thoughts here; the general spirit is of thinking globally and acting locally. I hope that some local action will result somewhere, sometime soon, from some of you. I will focus here on what I regard as the natural centrepiece of higher education, namely the university. I have a sinking feeling, commonly shared, that over the decades we have witnessed a great decline in these institutions, both in their 'radius' of action, and in the creation of knowledge through them.