September 09, 2004

New Indian government frees universitiesNews

The new Indian government is unleashing universities from some of the pro-bribery, anti-intellectual freedom regulations the previous government imposed:

[Education minister Arjun Singh] has… scrapped a controversial order, also issued by the BJP government, that required private donations to public universities to be routed through a special government agency; and allowed India’s universities to seek collaborations with their foreign counterparts without obtaining the government’s permission. In addition, Mr. Singh has ordered the replacement of high-school history textbooks that the previous government had changed to reflect a Hindu-supremacist viewpoint.

Centralizing financial control over donor money? No prizes for guessing what the purpose of that was. Striking down the new regulations allows more intellectual freedom:

The academics were up in arms because they thought it was an effort to blatantly promote ministerial intervention and curb the autonomy of the universities.

And the education minister calls the reversion of textbooks ‘de-saffronisation.’ So far, the new Manmohan Singh government is doing good things.

manish on September 9, 2004 04:59 AM in News · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post