Report on varsities sidelined to serve interests of politicians: Prof Yashpal

“Politicians,bureaucrats and so-called academicians cannot get away from (interference). And here,I squarely blame the highest authorities of the government. And I stand deeply disappointed,” he said.

He echoed the report,submitted to the HRD Ministry last year,and reasserted that a university should offer a wide range of courses and that the students of such universities should have the freedom to study a mix of subjects and not specialise in one. “The idea of a university is that you are not put in cubicles — cubicles of expertise; that you can wander around,that you can meander,” he said.

Prof Yashpal,former chairman of the NID Governing Council,was delivering a lecture on “Was God an Architect or Designer?” “God must have been a designer because an architect needs something to work on,as does a manager,” he said by way of answering the title,which he himself had come up with.