Industry Consortiums to Invigorate Manufacturing

Need of 'Made' by India Products and Brands

India has less then 3 percent share in the world's nominal GDP, based upon exchange rate and mere 2.1% share in the world manufacturing, inspite of a 17.8 percent share in the world population.  China too had only 2.4% share in world manufacturing in 1981. But, today it has a 23 percent share in the world manufacturing and has thereby pushed the US to second position with 17.2% share in world manufacturing.  Moreover, of late, in the post reforms period India has even been experiencing deindustrialization, on account of liberal imports and growing foreign direct investments (FDI). Most of the foreign MNCs, which have brought FDI into India have mostly been bringing their components or completely knocked down (CKD) kits from outside and are merely assembling their products into the country. So, the real manufacturing, including manufacturing of the original equipments has been going down, ever since the onset of the economic reforms in 1990s. Besides, the Indian brands and indigenously manufactured products are also fast losing their market share, and many of these are turning to be extinct. They are being replaced by the Chinese or other foreign brands. More than two-thirds of the manufacturing in most of the sectors in India has gone under foreign ownership and control in last 24 years of economic reforms which was largely under Indian ownership and control, before the reforms. Even, many of the Indian brands too have Chinese or other imported components or even sometimes the Indian brands too are assembled outside India, mostly in China, and merely bear the tags of Indian brands. Besides, on account of dumping of cheap products by China, Industry and industrial cluster after cluster are turning sick and facing closures at a large scale. The worse target of cheap dumping are the tiny and small scale industries, ranging from toys, cycle and cycle parts glass products, leather products  furniture to electricals and so on. Therefore, there is an urgent need of pursuing the strategy to our manufacturing technology and promote 'Made by India' products and brands. In several major sectors of economy. India has only a miniscule share in manufacturing. For example, in world ship-building, share of India is just 0.01%. While South Korea, which has 5% of our area and 5% population has 26% share in world ship-building, inspite of the fact that India is 4th  largest steel producer in the world with a large pool of skilled manpower. To the contrary, wherever the industry is provided an enabling environment by the government, it had done well. For instance, in case of pharma sector, by virtue of an enabling patents regime provided since 1970 onwards till 2005, the Indian pharmaceuticals sector has become capable to contribute almost 10% by volume, in the world pharma manufacturing and now provides affordable medicines world over. Thereby, India is also called the pharmacy of the world. But, now this sector is also on rapid decline on account of changes made in the patent laws of India, since 2005 to comply with the agreement on TRIPS of the World Trade Organization (WTO). So, today, India can grow only if indigenous industry flourishes. This requires to promote domestically owned enterprises. For this the domestically owned enterprises have to enhance their technology, quality and bring economy in their operations. For launching more aand more by India Product And Brands in pace of for foreigen companies.

Relevence of Industry Consortia

For this India needs to adopt consortium approach to move fast on the path to upgrade and develop  technologies across the manufacturing value chains in different sectors, needed to make Indian manufacturing and services economical and competitive world over and attain an edge over the foreign products and services. The industry consortiums approach, already having firm footing in Euro-American and other industrialized countries can only place Indian manufacturing in the front rank, worldwide by virtue of their time tested capability to develop affordable technologies at the least cost. The major industry clusters if transformed into consortiums and consortium development in stepped up across the country, horizontally as well as vertically for most of the sectors this can only help the country to overtake other the industrialized countries including China. 

Industrial Research is a high cost prerogative and most of the industrialized countries have promoted industry-level pre-competitive cooperative researches by sharing the cost of developing latest state of the art technologies for a host of industries with liberal financial support from government via 3 cooperative routes. The 3 common cooperatives routes have been: (i) Initiating formation of industry specific consortia for technical and market research and liberal state funding of these consortia. (ii) Facilitating formation of Technology Development Cooperative Association and state funding of these. (iii) Facilitating, recognizing and supporting Technology Development Cooperation Agreements among 2 or more companies as well as by industry level agreements. The United States has enacted the Cooperative Research Act, as early as in 1984 to develop Industry Consortiums for collective industry level efforts in R&D and market researches with government support. Even the Airbus corporation was initially developed as an industry consortium of aerospace component manufacturers of Europe to launch a high-end civilian aircraft in competition with the Boeing of the U.S. This Airbus Consortium i.e. “association of Aerospace component manufacturers” from across the Europe, then developed and launched high-end civilian aircrafts under the brand of Airbus Industries consortium. The same Airbus consortium has been converted into Airbus Corporation much later. All the consortium members, who were aerospace component makers became shareholder into the corporation made from consortium.

In US, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan etc. there are several hundred industry consortia, both vertical as well as horizontal, which are liberally supported by their respective  governments for pre-competitive research, technology development, market research and brand promotion. In US, there are more than 1200 consortia for the industries ranging from Photonics, Automobiles, Telecom, IT, Pharma, Energy, Agrochemicals, Biotechnology and so on. Most of which are funded by the government from 70% to 90%. The rest is contributed by the individual corporate units, member of the industry consortium concerned. Most of the advanced Researches on each industry segment are being conducted by the industry consortium concerned. Through such researches being conducted by the Industry consortia, the U.S. and other countries are powering the development of advanced technology for having an edge over other countries. India can take an edge over the whole world in technology development through consortium approach.

Concept:

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals,firms companies, associations, universities, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal, especially for group of industrial enterprises either for developing a  new technology or cultivate a market or similar other objective. Generally an industry consortium engages in pre-competitive research at industry level. But there may be other types of consortia also. Mostly, in a majority of countries consortium is a co-operative research effort among business firms, governments and universities to help the participating companies or firms to attain and maintain leadership or gain a competitive edge over their international competitors in a particular industry.

Benefits:

Mostly, the industrialised countries also emphasize over various advantages of consortia such as minimizing the cost of developing new technologies by reducing unnecessary duplication of research efforts, sharing the risks of undertaking R&D, getting immediate access to new technologies, new markets and cheap production sources, and making otherwise big and complex research projects possible.

 Consortia in US :

In the United States, technology consortia, mostly horizontal, have rapidly grown after 1984, when the Congress implemented the National Cooperative Research Act (NCRA). This law allows American firms in the same industry to establish consortia that conduct precompetitive R&D. In the United States, however, the formation of industry specific R&D consortia was earlier hindered by antitrust laws that penalized cooperation among competitors until the US Congress passed the National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 (NCRA). In 1993 the NCRA was amended to include cooperative production and redesignated the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993 (NCRPA). These legislative acts reflected a new technology policy to facilitate cooperative research with sharing costs aimed at reducing risk for individual companies. Governments often liberally extend financial grants for the commercialization of new technologies crucial for any industry to grow and compete globally.

Research and development consortia in the US are required by the NCRPA to register with the U.S. Department of Justice, which recorded more than 600 new consortia from 1985 to 1996. While the NCRPA does not provide exemption from antitrust laws, it limits the damages that may be assessed if an antitrust violation occurs. Where antitrust laws provide for triple damages to be assessed, the NCRPA limits liability to single damages. In addition, any alleged antitrust violations would be judged under a rule of reason standard, rather than assuming they were illegal per se. In the years since NCRA was passed, no antitrust proceedings have been brought against registered consortia.

Under the NCRA, firms within an industry may form consortia to conduct "precompetitive" research. Precompetitive research is research that is considered generic to the development of multiple products of basic and primary value to all participants. By forming R&D consortia, manufacturing firms can avoid duplicating basic research tasks and share the results more cost effectively. As a result they are able to compete more effectively in the global marketplace.

After the implementation of the NCRA, technology consortia have increased substantially in the United States. There are now about 350 technology consortia involving about 1500 American and 50 foreign firms. As indicated above, they predominate in high-tech industries. The Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Software Productivity Consortium (SPC) are examples of co-operative research ventures that involve companies in similar markets.

 Common Features of Industry or Technology Consortia in the US:

•         The Primary goal of most consortia precompetitive research is to conduct on an ongoing basis, and the secondary goal is product development. The government gives liberal grant to most of the consortia.

•          The funding for technology development consortia is mostly provided by government-industry shared programs. Less than 25% consortia are funded solely by the private sector i.e. member units of the industry.

Technology Development Cooperative Association - An alternative: Such associations can be created for a variety of sectors with pre-defined contribution and pattern of sharing the benefits. Or the benefits of co developed technology can be accessed, availed and commercially exploited by all equitably.

Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) - Another Alternative:Such agreements can be worked out between two or more companies, research laboratories, universities, technology institutes or any combination of these.A CRADA is an agreement inter se one or more companies, institutes, laboratories and or any of the one or more parties under which the can share technocrats, other personnel, services, facilities, equipment, or other resources toward the conduct of specified research or development efforts. Such research must be consistent with the mission of the one or more parties. The CRADA partners contribute any one variable or all of the above and funding to the project to share the benefits in predefined ratios.CRADAs involve collaborative research which may result in the sustained growth and development of inventions. Mostly a CARDA is signed with either a government or a governmental agency.

Examples :

Some examples out of several hundred consortia actively engaged in research in industrialized countries are being briefly described hereunder:

1          The Airbus example : Airbus Industries was formed in 1970 as a consortium of aerospace component manufacturers to manufacture the Airbus range of aircraft, with the retention of production and engineering assets by the partner companies and initially making the Airbus Industries consortium as a sales and marketing outfit. This arrangement some initial inefficiencies and inherent conflicts of interest to among the four partner companies as; they were both shareholders of, and subcontractors to, the consortium to make aircrafts jointly. The companies collaborated on development of the Airbus range of aircrafts, but also had intent to  guard the financial details of their own production activities to maximize the transfer prices of their sub-assemblies. But all these initial problems were overcome with shared vision and ambitions of participating companies and governments. After successfully running this consortium, it was consolidated as European Aerospace and Defence Space company. As consortium the Airbus Industries launched its first 300 seater A300 in 1972. It was converted into a joint stock company in 2001. It has facilities at 16 places across four countries viz France, Germany, Spain and UK. It now has 63,000 employees across these 4 countries and a turnover of $ 70 billion (Rs. 5 lac crores).

2.         The European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) : The EPIC is a good example of not-for-profit association with headquarters in Paris, France. EPIC serves the photonics industry community through a regular series of workshops, market studies and partnering. EPIC focuses its actions on LEDs and OLEDs for lighting, optical fiber telecommunications,laser manufacturing, sensors, photovoltaics and photonics for life sciences. EPIC coordinates its activities internationally through its membership in the International Optoelectronics Association.

EPIC was originally founded in 2003 by five companies: Aixtron, CDT, Osram, Philips, and Sagem. Today, more than 180 companies, research organizations, universities, and other industry stakeholders are members of the consortium. The membership works together to execute the mission by proposing and implementing influential initiatives of significant impact on the industrial landscape. The strength of EPIC comes from its capacity to represent the European photonics industry with a clear and articulate voice. Industry associations such as EPIC have a key role to play in identifying market opportunities and in helping their members to work together to capture the opportunity. The European photonics industry is made up of a broad community of highly innovative small companies. When economic pressures create turbulent markets and make planning difficult, an association can help companies to create partnerships and find a better way through the crisis by finding new revenue streams.

Key initiatives: The EPIC has following breakthroughs to its credit.   

      

(i)         Photonics21 i.e. European technology platform: In 2004 EPIC proposed the creation of a European Technology Platform in photonics to the European Commission. EPIC’s members worked in partnership with other European organizations to develop a vision of photonics as a well defined science leading to disruptive breakthroughs in telecommunications, life sciences, manufacturing, lighting and displays, sensors and education. The European Commission accepted this vision and established the Photonics-21 Platform at the end of 2005.

(ii)        Merging Optics and Nanotechnologies (The MONA Roadmap) : During 2005-2007 EPIC and its members developed and participated in the MONA project to create a study to identify synergies between photonics and nanotechnologies, and to identify opportunities for industry in these areas. The goal of this project is a roadmap leading from the R&D environment to mastering nano-electronics and nano-photonics technologies at an industrial scale. This roadmap has been completed and is available to the public.

(iii)       Advanced Components Cooperative for Optoelectronics Research and Development (ACCORD): Beginning in 2007, EPIC and its members initiated the ACCORD project which purchases prototype photonics components and systems from SMEs and awards them to university R&D groups based on competitive proposals. ACCORD is inspired by PTAP, (Photonics Technology Access Program), a similar exchange initiative developed by the OIDA, also a member of the IOA.

 (iv)      Leadership in Fiber Laser Technologies (LIFT) : EPIC organised and led a consortium of 20 companies, SMEs, and research labs in a proposal to the European Commission for a €17 million project to develop new technologies for higher brilliance fiber lasers. The project has been accepted and started in 2009. EPIC also initiated and manages the Linked-In site for Fiber Lasers.

(v)        Workshops on key photonics opportunities : EPIC organises workshops and symposia on key topics and opportunities identified by its membership. Proceedings and synthesis of these meetings are available to the public. Some examples are presented for workshops developed in collaboration with the SPIE.

2. CAR Industrial Consortium: The CAR Industrial Consortium has been in operation since 1999, and has since then succeeded to see  the participation of 25 automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers. Over the years, it has grown with an initial membership of 10-12 companies. The following members in the CAR Industrial Consortium are global giants from across the globe. Some of them are"

• Bosch • GM    • Renault           • Chrysler         • Honda                        • Tenneco         • Cummins

• Lubrizol          • Transportation Research Center                       • Ford  

Thus, research and development consortia can provide member companies with many benefits and take the country to ever newer heights. They are formed to share expenses and resources and to pool talent and expertise. Consortia that are formed in the United States to compete globally are eligible for government funding. The most common type of consortia is horizontal, consisting of competing firms within an industry. Vertical consortia include firms ranging from materials suppliers to finished product manufacturers. India can also undertake this initiative in all the sectors.

विश्व व्यापार संगठन पुनर्सशक्तीकरण की नहीं, विवेकीककरण की चिंता करे भारत

Union Budget: Addressing Diverse Aspirations

The welfare centric Union Budget of Modi Government for 2018-19 has attempted to address diverse aspirations of a wide cross section of society. It is a historic pro-poor budget. A higher outlay on infrastructure would also help the country in achieving higher economic growth as well. It would also bolster alround development, including agriculture, employment generation, women’s welfare, with special emphasis over quality education for wider masses, better healthcare for the vulnerable sections, and housing for all and improve overall human development.

Farmers, Poor, and Common Masses in Focus

Farmers, rural masses, poor people, women and SC-ST are well in focus in the budget. The budget has reasserted government’s resolve to double farmers’ income. In a major boost to farmers, the minimum support price (MSP) for all upcoming Kharif crops has been assured at 1.5 times the cost of production. In case the market prices are lower than MSP, government would procure the produce or ensure farmers get right prices.

Agricultural market and infra fund with corpus of Rs 2,000 crore will be created for 22,000 gramin agricultural markets and 585 APMCs. Cluster development model of agricultural commodities and emphasis to encourage for organic farming are welcome. Allocation for Food Processing has been doubled. Operation Green will produce farmer producer organisation, logistics, warehousing etc with an allocation of Rs 500 crore. Export of agri commodity has been liberalised to tap India’s agricultural exports potential of $100 billion. Agricultural Credit limit has been raised to Rs 11 lakh crore. To boost bamboo sector and animal husbandry, kisan credit cards will now be extended to fisheries and animal husbandry farmers. A restructured national bamboo mission with corpus of Rs 1,290 crore would be set up. Rs 10,000 crore are allocated to set up two funds to promote fisheries and animal husbandry.

Quality Health-Care to all

The poorest of the poor will be covered by universal healthcare to the tune of Rs 5 lakh per year. This Health insurance scheme proposes to cover 500 million beneficiaries of 100 million families. The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced a cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per year. The Government has targeted health as well as pollution, causing health problems by providing

500,000 rupees per family annually for medical reimbursement under National Health Protection Scheme. Finance minister targets to protect 50 crore poor people by this world's largest health protection scheme. Removal of crop residue would be subsidized to tackle the problem of pollution from burning of crop residue.

Ease of Life for Poor and Disadvantaged Masses

In terms of social welfare and ease of life, gas connections will now be provided to 8 crore poor women. In pursuit of ease of life with respect to the energy coverage push, Rs 16,000 crore for PM Saubhagya Yojana is allocated for connecting 4 crore households with free electricity. It would illuminate 4 crore households and help to achieve social and economic empowerment. There is a target to construct at least 2 crore toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission. Also, under Housing for All by 2022 and PM Awas Yojana (rural), 51 lakh affordable housing units would be constructed in rural and 50 lakh in urban areas.

For boosting economic empowerment, enhance livelihood opportunities and private enterprise, target for loans to self help group for women has been increased to Rs 75,000 crore. Allocation to National Livelihood Mission is set at Rs 5,750 crore. A total allocation of Rs 14.34 lakh crore from extra and non-budgetary resources has been estimated for housing, infrastructure and livelihood in rural areas. Mudra Yojna lending target has been set at Rs 3 lakh crore. With aim to bring 60 crore bank accounts under Jan Dhan Yojana. Allocation of Rs 52,719 crore for social inclusion of scheduled castes is proposed in the budget. Besides, PM Jivan Bima Yojana would give benefits to 5.22 crore families. Under Jan Dhan Yojana, the entire lot of 16 crore accounts will be brought under micro insurance and pension plans.

Boost to Education and Social Protection

For comprehensive social welfare program under the National social assistance program over Rs 9,000 crore have been allocated. Education in country would now be treated without segmentation from KG till class 12. Aim to move from black board to digital board with push for digital technology and e-education. The FM has announced that by 2022, every block with over 20,000 tribals and over 50 per cent STs will have a special Eklavya school.

Government proposes establishment of 24 medical colleges and two new Schools of Planning and Infrastructure. In a major boost to healthcare and medical education, the FM has pledged to set up at least one medical college for every three parliamentary constituencies. Allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore has been proposed for revitalising and upgrading education sector. Government

proposes to set up 1.5 lakh centres under Aayushman Bharat programme to provide health facilities with an allocation of Rs 1,200 crore.

Domestic Manufacturing & Employment Generation

Domestic manufacturing and MSME are key to employment generation. For special support to the MSME sector the FM Arun Jaitley allocated Rs 3,794 crore capital support and industry subsidy by 2022 for the MSME sector. Under Mudra Yojana, Jaitley set a target of Rs 3 lakh crore. The finance minister said Rs 4.6 lakh crore was sanctioned under Mudra Yojana. To give boost to Made by India through domestic manufacturing, customs duty on mobile phones, TVs has been hiked for providing fillip to domestic value addition in India. To discourage imports government also proposes 10 per cent social welfare surcharge on imports.

Infrastructure & Tourism

Mr Jaitley has rightly highlighted the need of Rs 50 lakh crore for the infrastructure sector. He said that construction of a new tunnel at Sera Pass will also work in promoting tourism. A total 10 prominent tourist sites will be upgraded as iconic tourist destinations. The flagship Bharatmala project aims to connect India’s eastern and western ends with a 35,000 km highway and roads network, an outlay was announced to the tune of Rs 5.35 lakh crore under phase 1. For toll payments on highways, Jaitley said that the government will introduce a new system called “pay as you use”. Total capital expenditure for Indian Railways is also set at Rs 1,48,528 crore. A special railway university will also be set up in Vadodara, Gujarat.

On the whole the Budget 2018-19 reflects the Government’s firm commitment to boost investments in Agriculture, Social Sector, Digital Payments, Infrastructure and Employment Generation on the one hand and simultaneously stick to the path of fiscal rectitude by aiming for a reduction of Fiscal Deficit by 0.2% of GDP over RE 2017-18. This is substantiated by increase in expenditure of Rs. 2,24,463 crores over RE (2017-18) while simultaneously keeping the fiscal deficit at 3.3% of GDP, which is commendable in term of fiscal discipline in RE 2017-18, the total expenditure has been kept at Rs. 22,17,750 crore and is more than BE 2017-18 by Rs. 71,015 crore. The increase in total expenditure is mainly due to the outgo on account of GST Compensation to States, increased outlays on some important schemes and also to meet the recommendation of 7th CPC with respect to allowances and pensions. As a consolation for personal income tax the middle class has got Rs 40,000 standard deduction against travel and medical expenses. It would again place the country as the fastest growing economy with inclusive growth and optimum fiscal discipline.

Higher Education: Time for Self Regulatory Autonomy

Higher Education: Time for Self Regulatory Autonomy

Bhagwati Prakash^*

Higher Education in its present state in India appears to be grossly disadvantaged in keeping pace with the fast escalating global benchmarks of quality and innovativeness. It is also being said to be disjunct with our ethos, values and heritage, and not succeeding well to ingrain, requisite ethics and morals in the conduct and behaviour of the graduating youth. The quality deficit in education, places India at 60^th rank in the Global Innovations Index (GII) ¹ and keeping it devoid of any place among the top 50 international destinations for higher education. India is able to attract only a miniscule 0.61 % of the international students from abroad to study in India.² Our patent filings under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) too have been very meager at 1529 in 2016, against a large tally of 56,595, 45,239 and 43,168 respectively for the US, Japan, and China. In the field of nanotechnology, we have 14 international patents and 5000 research papers to our credit for all IITs together since 1970s. Whereas, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is fathoms ahead of us with 705 international patents and 29591 research publications. No Indian could secure a single Nobel Prize for his/her research conducted in India after Bharat Ratna Dr. C.V. Raman in 1930.³ There are universities with double digit Nobel Winners from tiny countries like Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, having a miniscule population of 50 to 90 lacs. The highest number of 151 is from Harvard University, though a Private University.⁴ Moreover, 8 out of top 10 alma maters of highest number of Nobel Laureates are American private universities.⁵    

With respect to the lacuna of education being disjunct with our heritage, one finds that till date we have been teaching the same outcast Aryan invasion theory, coined out of the European colonial politics, and altogether refuted by the present day archeological and other studies. Besides, the infinite narratives embedded into our ancient scriptures, corroborating the present-age scientific wisdom, as well as several postulates of various social sciences and humanities, including those of the Economics, Geography, Political Science, Public Administration, Psychology, Sociology, History, Linguistic, etc., find no place into our curricula and the suggested readings. Endeavours to ingrain values, ethics and national ethos in the conduct and behaviour of the graduating youth by means of suitable pedagogies are also very feeble to produce tangible results.

One way to remedy these limitations can be the broadbasing the fora of academic autonomy with wider participation of the academic fraternity for democratic self-direction and more open brainstorming. Beginning can be made with open departmental committees, accessible to all faculty members, along with participatory boards of studies to incorporate all the members of faculty in the department directly or indirectly. Moreover, 3 tier self regulatory autonomous councils, democratically constituted for each subject and faculty, involving the entire academic fraternity on the lines of professional councils for self regulation can offer a better solution. For instance, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, the Institute of Company secretaries of India, the Institute of Cost and Works Accountants of India and the Bar council of India etc. are able to continuously improve and maintain the standards, through their respective 3 tier self regulatory autonomous councils (comprising local chapters, state associations and national level councils), all constituted democratically through one person one vote. In higher education as well, beginning can be made from the teaching departments of universities as well as colleges for having open brainstorming and spreading it into the Boards of Studies (BOS) by making them participatory, instead of constituting them with only handpicked nominees. It would help to overcome the limitations of inbreeding of the vision of only handpicked members in the BOS. This participatory self direction can be taken ahead, as aforesaid, by constituting subject-wise ‘self regulating multitier autonomous subject councils’. Each of the subject being taught can have 3-tier, self regulatory autonomous councils, comprising national level council, state level associations, and the local chapters with autonomy to set benchmarks for curricula framing; develop & prescribe pedagogies- including the requisite and relevant teaching-learning approaches comprising the andragogical, heutagogical, peeragogical, constructivist, transitory, transformative and similar other approaches; evaluation patterns and practical training etc. Such self regulatory autonomous councils for all subjects, faculties and for the overall structure of higher education can revolutionarise the quality of education, and place India in the league of countries known for excellence in higher education. 

'Indian higher education has suffered the brunt of over-regulation in a top heavy system.⁶ Higher education in India is largely steered in tandem with the recommendations of a series of independent commissions and committees, comprising one or more handpicked experts, and all of them had invariably been the academicians of very high repute. Beginning with the Sarkar Committee (1945-49) to S.S. Bhatnagar Committee (1947), the Radhakrishnan Commission (1948-49)⁷ and so on, there had been around two dozen plus such committees and commissions, whose recommendations have been instrumental in shaping our education since Independence. Yet, certain sections air their grievances about autonomy in the words that the policies formulated at the centre by the MHRD along with a plethora of centralised regulatory authorities, keen on holding the reins, are sent as commanding directives to universities, who themselves, in quite a majority of cases, are silos having numerous colleges under them.⁸ So, room for curricular reforms, scope for renovating teaching-learning methods, change in evaluation pattern or any other rationalized norms for admissions does not exist in several cases with universities, let alone colleges.⁹ In a vast country like India, endowed with one of the largest higher education system of the world, excellence in academics, good governance and financial well being of institutions can no doubt be achieved with optimally decentralised autonomy, along with participatory self-regulation, coupled with corresponding responsibility and accountability.¹⁰  Indeed,  autonomy, according to some thinkers, has to trickle down from the very source of all powers, the HRD ministry up to  the delivering units, comprising  teaching departments of  universities as well as colleges,  across the country.¹⁰ Self directional autonomy in spirit, needs to be deliberately infused with widest possible, and optimally self regulated participatory mechanisms, to incorporate pluralistic realities and pluralities aspirations of the vast category of stakeholders and a variety of education providers in the country like India.

The Gajendragadkar Committee Report of the UGC on Governance of Universities had considered autonomy a pre-condition for success of universities. The committee has observed in its report that “the concept of University autonomy is often misunderstood. It is not a ‘legal concept’, not even a ‘constitutional concept’. It is an ethical concept and academic concept. This concept does not question that, in a democratic society like ours, legislatures are ultimately sovereign, and have a right to discuss and determine the question of policy relating to education, including higher education. The concept of university autonomy, however, means that it would be appropriate on the part of democratic legislatures not to interfere with the administration of university life, both academic and non-academic. The claim for autonomy is made by the universities not as a matter of privilege, but on the ground that such autonomy is a condition precedent if the universities are to discharge their duties and obligations effectively and efficiently.’’¹¹

A related issue, concerning the autonomy, often raised while discussing the performance of teachers in particular and universities in general, is that of 'academic freedom' and professionalism in teaching. According to Tight "academic freedom refers to the freedom of individuals in the academics to study, teach, research and publish; without being subject to or causing undue interference".¹² However it does not mean that it confers upon the academic community any unfettered rights of action and behaviour. The concept of academic freedom enjoins that the teacher be allowed to express his views freely and openly, even though they may be at variance with the 'official' view, without fear of being penalised. However, the academic freedom does not extend to, for example, neglecting teaching assignments in favour of research interest. Academic freedom is a privilege that invokes with it the responsibility of ensuring that it is used only for the welfare of the academic community and the good of the parent institution.¹³ In the views of Ramabrahmam I¹⁴, teaching can and needs to be professionalized by following interventions:

(i).    Promoting meaningful innovations in the classroom.

(ii).  Promoting research interest among teachers.

(iii).Promoting optimized participation of teachers in matters related to academics.

(iv).Promoting uninhibited expression by teachers in matters related to administrative reforms of education institutions.

(v).  Promoting commitment, challenge and control among teachers that reinforce accountability and are reinforced by autonomy.

These interventions require utmost autonomy, empowerment inspiration and facilitating culture for individual teachers and not for the universities alone as a body. The aforesaid intervention of optimized participation of teachers in most of the matters related to academics can be said to be the cornerstone of any meaningful autonomy in higher education. It requires widest possible representative access to the academic fraternity in all the ‘fora of autonomy’ from the departmental decision making, Boards of studies, Academic Councils, the Boards of Management, and even the state level University Coordination Committees. This would give access to every creative brain, may be on representative basis, in shaping curricula, pedagogical and other teaching-learning approaches, practicals and quality of research and to also facilitate integration and ingraining of the national ethos, values and heritage into higher education.

In most of the cases, the BOSs are often, comprising the dean and 3-4 handpicked very senor experts who may not be well familiar with many new developments. Moreover, as our universities are silos, incorporating hundreds of affiliated colleges under them, with thousands of teachers in each discipline; including regular as well as visiting ones, all overflush with immense subject-related intelligence, including latest as well as  ancient wisdom, which cannot be used for lack of their participation in academic brainstorming and decision making at any level, except in  teaching the lectures, allocated, by simple lecture method, without requisite autonomy in adopting right pedagogical, androgogical, heutogogical or peeragogical approaches and so on. So, it is no strange a fact that most of the disciplines are devoid of the latest and emergent developments, as well as the rich ancient heritage of ours, related to that discipline. Therefore, swayed by the mythic Anglo-European narratives of Aryan invasion theory, which has its origin more from the European politics, than anything else in Indian historical record or archeology,¹⁵ when extensive explorations carried out upto Northern Mesopotamia in the recent preceding decades,  including that of a joint French-American team led by H. Weiss of Yale University and several other investigations have established beyond doubt that most of the old-world civilizations were severely affected by a prolonged drought that began about 2200 B.C. and persisted for about 300 years. The most drastically hit region seems to have been the Akkadian civilization neighbouring India. Yet, most of the syllabi are replete with the Aryan invasion theory. It is so, inspite of scores of studies indicating that in most likelihood the drought triggered by massive volcanic eruptions had caused migration. Some satellite pictures indicate flooding as one of the reason for the migration of Harappan civilisations. Several independent explorations, conducted over a vast belt from southern Europe to India, clearly prove that civilizations over a large part of the ancient world were brought to a calamitous end by an abrupt climate change on a global scale.¹⁶

These discoveries could help to put an end to all speculations regarding the Aryan invasion as the cause of breakup of the Harappan civilization. Now when it is beyond doubt that the Vedic civilization far from coming into existence after the Harappan civilisation, in fact ended with it. The mature Harappan civilization was the last glow of the Vedic age. This recognition has brought about a fundamental change in perspective in the history and chronology of not only ancient India, but also nearly all ancient civilizations. It helps to answer several fundamental questions about the source of the Harappans - they should now be called the Vedic Harappans - and the age of the Rig Veda. Thanks to recent discoveries about the mathematics and geography of Vedic India, we are now in a position to answer both questions.¹⁰ Numerous findings of the archeological investigations are waiting to find place in our curricula and texts. Only wider access to the academic fraternity in departmental and BOS level deliberations is one of the easiest way to facilitate induction of quality and innovativeness as well as imbibing our ethos, values and heritage.

In most of the subjects of study, our rich heritage lacks, even a mere mention in curricula and texts. For instance the practice of supplementing of electromagnetic impulse of heart by a Silver-ion battery is corroborated by the hymns of Yajurved and hundreds of thousands of other scientific narrations related to Physics, Chemistry, life Sciences, Mathematics, Geography, or the doctrines of social science are vastly and well embedded in our ancient scriptures. But they not find place in our modern university curricula. We should incorporate all such new revelations into the curricula of all subjects from humanities to science and technology, including the social sciences.

This idea of constituting the national level and state level, local level and department level discrete multi-tier autonomous subject councils in all the subjects like, Botany, Zoology councils for History, Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and so on for each subject including all professional disciplines faculties and overall all India council for higher education can bring a sea change with respect to quality benchmarks, imbibing our ethos and heritage and in ingraining ethics in the conduct and behaviour of graduating students.

Notes

1. Issac Wolfe, India moves up six places to rank 60 in Global Innovation Index, Jun 15, 2017, www.forbesindia.com/article/special/india-moves-up/47267/1
2. Quamar Furquan & Bhalla Veena, Internationalisation of Higher Education in India, AIU 2017, N. Delhi p6
3. Remembering C.V. Raman, Indiatoday.in, Story, November 2, 2016.
4. Alder Jeremy, 50 Universities with Most Nobel Prize Winners, www.bestmastersprograms.org
5. Out of top 10 universities with maximum Nobel laureates 8 are American private universities having 60 to 151 Nobel laureates. These universities are, Harvard, Columbia, University of California, University of Chicago, MIT, California Institute of Technology, and Stanford. In India as well some of the private universities inspite of some discrimination, are doing well and can further outshine, if given a facilitating environment. Even, to date these are 11 private universities out of total 36 universities, including the elite institutes, ranking in top 1100 universities ranked by the Times Higher Education
6. Dash Sambit, What Indian higher education needs a lesson on autonomy, [Modified] https://www.dailyo.in>story, 3 Sept. 2016
7. Saha, Samir Kumar and Ghosh, Sangita, Commissions and Committees on Technical in Independent India, Indian Journal of History of Science, 47.1 (2012) pp 109-138
8. ibid 6
9. Powar K.B., Accountability in Higher Education, in Edited Vol.- Accountability and Autonomy in Higher Education , edited by Veena Bhalla et al. Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi p.15
10. Sambit Dash has also opined as above, though in different words, in the above cited article.
11. University Grants Commission, 1971, Report of the Committee on the Governance of Universities and Colleges, (Gajendrahadkar Committee Report), UGC, New Delhi, 68pp.
12. Tight, M., 1988, So what is Academic freedom? In Tight, M. (Ed), ‘Academic Freedom and Responsibility’, p 114-132. Open University Press, Milton Keynes.
13. ibid 9
14. Ramabrahmam I, Accountability of Teaching Profession: The Role of Academic Staff Colleges, Edited Vol.- Accountability and Autonomy in Higher Education, Edited by Veena Bhalla et al., Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi p.88.
15. The Politics of History, Hindustan Times, Nov.28, 1993
16. The Harappan Civilization and Myth of Aryan ‘’Invasion’’ http://archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/aryan-harappan-myth