My request is simple: please leave IIMs alone

This is in response to your news report, ‘Subsidies for MBA: IIM fees cut 80 per cent’ (IE, February 6). At a time when the BJP-le...

This is in response to your news report, ‘Subsidies for MBA: IIM fees cut 80 per cent’ (IE, February 6). At a time when the BJP-led NDA government has been proving progressive in its agendas and policies, there is one person who is intent on bringing disgrace to the whole system through his retrogade licence era programmes.

Murli Manohar Joshi, the Union minister of human resource development, after playing with school textbooks, is now tinkering with the one remaining jewel in the Indian education system — the Indian Institute of Management (IIM).

The IIMs (and IITs) are what they are because of the financial and academic autonomy they have enjoyed over all these years. The kind of facilities the students get in these institutes is truly world class. And world class institutions come at a price — a price the students are both willing and capable of paying.

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When the aim should have been to make the institutes financially independent and use precious government grants to upgrade other colleges, Joshi is trying to make these institutes toe his line, by making them financially dependent on the Ministry of Human Development Resources.

Seeing what he has been doing to the field of education ever since he has been heading this ministry, makes me wonder how a learned professor can go to these extents for exercising power and influence.

As an alumnus of the system, I can safely say that the fees that students of IIM have to pay have never been a problem for them. With banks falling over each other to extend them loan (without collateral) and companies falling over each other to give them well-paying jobs, the repayment of loans in no time is really not a headache. My request then to the powers that be is simple: please leave the IIMs alone.

Modi will address a rally in the district and open the Purnea airport that will provide air connectivity to several metro cities, fulfilling a longstanding demand in the Seemanchal region.

PM Modi to open Purnea airport, launch Makhana Board in Monday’s visit to poll-bound Bihar

India29 min ago

PM Modi will visit Purnea, Bihar, on Monday to inaugurate projects worth Rs 36,000 crore, including an airport and launch the National Makhana Board. The visit is aimed at boosting development and addressing the neglected Seemanchal region. PM will also announce projects worth Rs 35,461 crore and distribute benefits to beneficiaries under different schemes.

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