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Journalism of Courage
The daily opportunity of rubbing shoulders with active
research scholars stimulates learning and lends extraordinary value to life in the university. I have always felt that there is a need to have an academic culture in which we could have wide-ranging experience that would lead to the overall development of critical faculties. I wish universities in India would begin to show some more ardour for academic and cultural activities, which should become a daily experience, not a rare event.
literature, sexuality, fashion and technology are of utmost significance.
At the end of the day the computer enthusiast or the scientist does unwind in a theatre or a concert hall or spends an evening in the company of a book or listening to music. And who says that science is not pertinent to the social sciences? The scientific finding that chaotic systems embody deep structures of order is one of the widespread implications that have attracted interest across a spectrum of disciplines, including the Humanities. Varying ideas of order and disorder enable original readings of scientific and literary texts from Newton8217;s Principia to the hyper real 8216;Cybria8217; of Baudrillard, from Dadaism to the post-industrial forces of production.
Principles of academic freedom and of the imagination, of opening up new courses or options to build connections between the university and the larger community are a must. As Chomsky says, it is a commitment to a 8216;free marketplace of ideas8217;. Real reform is possible not by enforcing restrictions, but by constructing alternative programmes inside the university which can succeed in attracting the more creative students and faculty members. Alternative programmes of study and action, of teaching and research are very compelling on intellectual and moral grounds, and will have great impact on the intellectual ambience of the university.
