Indian varsities lag behind in research

China and Taiwan have taken the top spots in the Times Higher Education Ranking 2014 for universities in BRICS and emerging economies. India has ten of its universities on the list, with Punjab University ranking the highest at 13. PHIL BATY, editor, Times Higher Education Rankings, shares his views on the rankings.

Why was Peking University, China, selected number 1? Did it meet the overall 13 indicators? In which particular indicator does it stand out?

To be really high in these rankings you have to show strong performance across all areas. But Peking University in particular has got the maximum score for industry income. It has been successful in attracting money from industry and businesses for carrying out research and development. The single best indicator in the rankings is the research impact, and here Peking performs pretty well — one of the strongest performances of any university.

It also has a strong global reputation for providing high-quality teaching, with positive best faculty-student ratio.

Which of these economies has an overall good infrastructure for education?

The outstanding performer by a long, long way is China. It prioritised developing world class universities in the 1990s. It has had a very specific focussed government drive to improve the quality of its research universities, with a strong investment in building its research infrastructure.

It has had generous scholarship schemes to attract Chinese nationals back into China, and those who left China for their Master’s courses and doctorates have been lured back with generous salaries and good packages.

Though I think it’s also a political drive. China has earmarked a smaller number of elite universities for special attention to make them globally competitive, and that has made a big difference. This is where it perhaps differs from India as both countries have had huge expansion of student numbers, so they have to build capacity just to meet the massively growing demand. But while doing that, China also gives special support to universities to keep them world class.

What was the basis of selecting Panjab University as the top Indian university?

Panjab University has a very strong school for research. It has contributed research papers which have pushed forward the boundaries of knowledge in the field. It is doing research which is influential globally.

Its highest score is the citation impact, which is our research influence indicator. It is outstanding in research, which gives it an edge over some of the IITs.

Why have the IITs not made it to the top 10?

IITs are renowned for high-quality education; they take the finest students. But, it’s partly the methodology of the ranking — what we are looking at is world class, research-led universities. We give more weightage to research output. The research infrastructure in India is not quite as strong, and they have not received much investment in comparison to places like China, for example. While they produce excellent graduates, they fall down a bit on the research indicator.

Indian institutions, in general, have more restrictions on attracting foreign talent, exchanges and international recruitment. Universities need to be attractive to international faculty, master’s and doctorate students.

But things are changing, so I’m sure we’ll see India improve in these rankings. They are already well ahead of Russia and Brazil for example, in terms of large emerging economies (in the rankings). So that’s very encouraging news.

Delhi University which is known to be among the best universities in the country has been left out. Your comments...

One of the challenges we have with India is that there has been a hesitation to participate in the rankings. In order to create the ranking list, we need universities to actively engage in the assessment process.

Some universities haven’t been forthcoming in sharing data. DU was not on the list of participants. So, this is not the complete picture.

We are working with the Ministry of Human Resources and Development and the Planning Commission to encourage Indian universities to embrace these ranking, so that they properly benchmark their performance against the world’s best universities.

What are the shortcomings of the universities (Indonesia, for example) that did not make it to the list?

In Indonesia, the universities are developing; there is a young population and a burgeoning economy. So, it’s a real power to watch. If they successfully convert some of their economic growth into investing in higher education, it would be an exciting future for Indonesia. But as of now, they don’t have the research infrastructure and research output. They haven’t focussed on being globally competitive or internationalising their research activities.

There’s enthusiasm in Indonesia in making sure that universities are part of the economic development of the country. In future, we will have exciting countries (in the list).

But, it’s partly the dominance of countries like China and Taiwan, which has pushed out other countries that do not make it to the list.

In one respect, half of the places in the ranking list have been taken up by China and Taiwan. This shows how far they've come in the development of prioritisation of higher education as a major driver of their economies.

How do you find the quality of best universities in the emerging economies vis-à-vis the best universities in the US and Western Europe? Where are they lacking and what key areas can be improved upon?

The positive thing about this ranking is that universities from the emerging economies are already making progress against the universities in the rich economies. Peking University and Tsinghua University, China, for example, are in the top 50 in the world rankings. The University of Cape Town, South Africa and National Taiwan University, Taiwan, are already in the top 200. So, the top of this list is already starting to compete on level terms with the US and Western Europe.

But the harsh reality is that money is so important. Places like Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and Cambridge — that head this list — are able win huge competitive research grants from their national systems. It does really come down to money as you need money to build infrastructure, to pay salaries to attract the staff, to build an environment to draw top students.

But, what we are seeing is that the growing economies have, at different levels, recognised the importance of investing in universities. In India, there's a commitment by the government to increase the proportion of GDP on research — this could be significant as the Indian economy grows.

Only two universities from Russia make it to the top 100 in the rankings…

We try to accommodate a wide range of institutions in the list. We do include IIT and LSE, which are very focussed. The methodology we follow is to ensure that different types of institutions can be compared fairly together. But, when the universities are too small and too specialist, it is not statistically valid to compare them. It’s hard to compare a small specialist Physics institute, for example, with Oxford or Harvard which are very large comprehensive institutions.

Russia has two institutes (Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Moscow State Engineering Physics) both of which have done well in physical sciences in world rankings, but they are too specialist to be included in the overall analysis.

National Monsoon Mission

Government has launched the National Monsoon Mission to set up a state-of-the-art coupled ocean-atmospheric climate model for a) improved prediction of monsoon rainfall on extended range to seasonal time scale (16 days to one season) and b) improved prediction of temperature, rainfall and extreme weather events on short to medium range time scale (up to 15 days). 

The mission is envisaged to achieve the operational implementation of the state-of-the art dynamical prediction system for more accurate monsoon rainfall prediction on all spatial and time scales over the Indian region. The improved system will help us in issuing more accurate short range forecasts (up to 3 days) and warnings for extreme weather events like heavy rainfall events, active (heavy) and break (weak) spells during the monsoon season in advance and more accurate seasonal forecasts for all-India monsoon rainfall.

An allocation for the mission is Rs. 400.0crores for a period of 5 years (2012-2017).

Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences Shri S.Jaipal Reddy gave this information in reply to a written question in the Lok Sabha Sabha today.

Research on Climate Change

Ministry of Earth Sciences has a long-term program of monitoring one of the major fjords at Ny-Ålesund (1200km to the south of the North Pole) on the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic region to understand how it may respond to changing climate. Main objective of the project is to establish a long-term comprehensive physical, chemical, biological and atmospheric measurement programme to study:

i) The variability in the Arctic/Atlantic climate signal.
ii) The effect of interaction between the warm Atlantic water and the cold glacial-melt
iii) fresh water on the biological productivity and phytoplankton species composition
iv) and diversity within the fjord.
v) The winter convection and its role in the biogeochemical cycling.
vi) The trigger mechanism of spring bloom and its temporal variability and biomass production.
vii) The production and export of organic carbon in the fjord.

In addition, following the understanding on February 2013 Delhi meeting of the Belmont Forum, a new multi-institutional Collaborative Research Activity has been proposed for exploring the linkage between the Arctic and Antarctic climate variability and the Monsoon as a new global initiative to be led by India and France.

Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh

The Government of India had set up a National Population Stabilization Fund (NPSF) in the year 2004-05 with a one-time grant of Rs.100 crore in the form of a corpus fund. This is now known as Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (JSK). To empower the NPSF, Government of India has set up Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (JSK). This is an autonomous body registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. JSK can take all the policy related decisions. It can raise contributions from organisations and individuals that support population stabilisation.JSK implements two schemes, namely, Santushti and Prerna.

The details of schemes, funds allocated, released etc. are as follows:

SANTUSHTI STRATEGY

Santushti is a strategy of Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (JSK) for the highly populated states of India viz Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh & Odisha. Under this strategy, Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh, invites private sector gynaecologists and vasectomy surgeons to conduct sterilization operations in Public Private Partnership mode. According to this Scheme, an accredited private Nursing Home/ Hospital can sign a tripartite MOU between the State Health Society as 1st party, accredited private health facility as 2nd party and JSK as the third party .Upon signing the MOU the private hospitals/nursing homes shall be entitled to incentive by JSK whenever it conducts 10 or more Tubectomy/Vasectomy cases in a month. The accreditation is done by the district and approved by the State Health Society.PRERNA STRATEGY

In order to help push up the age of marriage of girls and space the birth of children in the interest of health of young mothers and infants, Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh (National Population Stabilization Fund) has launched PRERNA, a Responsible Parenthood Strategy in seven focus states namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

The strategy recognizes and awards couples who have broken the stereotype of early marriage, early childbirth and repeated child birth and have helped change the mindsets of the community.

Setting up of Equal Opportunity Commission

A High Level Committee under the chairpersonship of Justice (Retd.) Rajindar Sachar had, inter alia, made recommendation for setting up of an Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) to address the grievances of deprived groups. Government had set up an Expert Group to examine and determine, inter alia, the structure and functions of an EOC. Based on the Expert Group Report, recommendations of Group of Ministers constituted for this purpose and comments/ inputs received from various stakeholders, a draft Equal Opportunity Commission Bill for setting up of EOC is under consideration of the Government.

As a follow-up action on the Sachar Committee recommendations, the mandate to set up National Data Bank was given to the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation. A National Data Bank web page has been created on the website of Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, which at present contains 97 tables on population, education, health and labour & Employment.

Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development, National Skill Development Coordination Board and the Office of Adviser to PM on Skill Development have been subsumed into the National Skill Development Agency (NSDA). The NSDA is an autonomous body located in the Ministry of Finance. One of the major functions assigned to the NSDA is to ensure that the skilling needs of the disadvantaged and the marginalized groups like Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs), minorities, women and differently-abled persons are taken care of. So far as the erstwhile National Skill Development Coordination Board is concerned, the basic function was to coordinate the skill development activities in the country. The National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has been set up as a not for profit company, under the M/o Finance, primarily to catalyse private sector initiatives in skill development. Individual Ministries are implementing schemes targeted at different social groups including the minorities.

Making human rights a reality

Making human rights a reality

Progressive judicial pronouncements were a reaction to social action groups and movements that sought judicial intervention to persuade the government to defend the rights of the marginalised

Today, December 10, is commemorated internatiodnally as Human Rights Day. The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 with a view to bringing a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. It was primarily meant to promote a simple yet powerful idea that all human beings are born free and equal in terms of dignity and rights. With the Declaration, it was made clear that rights are not conferred by any government; they are the birthright of all people. It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we are. Because we are human, we have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.

In the 65 years since the Declaration was adopted, many nations including India have made progress in making human rights a human reality. Gradually, the barricades that previously prohibited people from enjoying the full measure of liberty, dignity, and humanity have come down. Public interest litigation and the judicial activism of the Supreme Court played a major role in expanding the scope of human rights and in giving it much-needed legitimacy through some important verdicts. In many places, indiscriminate laws have been repealed, legal and social practices that degraded humans have been abolished, vulnerable groups have been given due recognition and their lives made secure. These progressive judicial pronouncements were a reaction to social action groups and movements seeking judicial intervention to persuade and pressure governments to defend and fulfil the rights of the most marginalised. This progress was not that effortless. People had to fight, organise and campaign in public and private forums to change not only laws, but hearts and minds.

However, there is still much to be done to secure that assurance, that actuality, and progress for all people. We have repeatedly witnessed such human rights violations: awareness about human rights needs to be made universal. Our endeavour should be to mould a society with no gender discrimination and no violence. When women are empowered, that ensures stable societies. Likewise, when leaders of nations empower people through futurist policies, the prosperity of the nations becomes certain. When religion transforms into a spiritual force, people become enlightened citizens with a value system.

While there is acceptance of universal respect and adherence to human rights, infringement of internationally recognised norms continues unabated in almost all parts of the world. The overall situation has been characterised by large-scale breaches of civil and political rights, as well as economic, social and cultural rights. It is a fact that India, being the world’s most populous democracy, continues to have considerable human rights problems despite making commitments to deal with some of the most prevalent abuses.

Though India took many proactive steps and followed a welfare state model, the police and the bureaucracy have remained largely colonial in their approach and sought to exert control and power over citizens. The feudal and communal characteristics of the Indian polity, coupled with a colonial bureaucracy, dampened the spirit of freedom, rights and affirmative action enshrined in the Constitution. The country has a booming civil society, free media, and an independent judiciary. However, ongoing violent practices that harm vulnerable groups, corruption, and lack of accountability for their perpetrators, lead to human rights violations. Many women, children, Dalits, tribal communities, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and sexual and gender minorities stay marginalised and continue to suffer discrimination because of the government’s failure to train public officials in stopping discriminatory behaviour. Issues pertaining to police brutality, extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and detention, bonded labour, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, custodial deaths, corruption, labour and migrant rights, sexual violence, refugees, internally displaced people, terrorism, poverty, human trafficking and so on, remain. Continuous attempts are being made by the National Human Rights Commission to address such human rights issues. Some of these issues are being monitored as programmes on the directions of the Supreme Court.

Human Rights Day is an occasion for us to analyse the journey that our nation has undertaken so far on the path sketched by the Constitution, and prepare jointly to make dignity with human rights for all our countrymen a reality. Though scepticism still exists in some quarters, there has been a greater level of acknowledgment of the need to encourage and guard human rights, in spite of the abuse of the human rights discourse by the new imperialist forces.

If human rights need to have genuine meaning, they must be correlated to public involvement, and this participation should be preceded by empowerment of the people.

A sense of empowerment necessitates a sense of dignity, self-worth and the ability to ask questions with a spirit of legal entitlements and political consciousness based on rights. A process of political empowerment and a sense of rights empower citizens to participate in the public sphere. The splendour of human rights has to be maintained with nobility and glory. There cannot be any wearing down of values, deterioration of quality or any cobwebs in the procedure.

(The author, a former Chief Justice of India, is currently Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission)

bureaucracy

The bureaucracy can never be immune to political interference as long as bureaucrats are willing to twist and bend before politicians to get the postings of their choice

The Supreme Court’s recent move to set up a Civil Services Board for the management of babu promotions and emoluments, granting fixed tenure to them, and freeing them of the obligation to obey oral orders from the executive — though a boon to honest bureaucrats who are transferred frequently — has the potential to bring within its wake more harm than good. The Supreme Court has replaced the increasingly erratic and unresponsive executive power with the rule of the judiciary.

GOVERNMENT TO BLAME

Serious issues with this judgment challenge the very core of democracy and that of Parliament’s legislative authority. The UPA government — which through incessant corruption has destroyed executive institutions — is to share the blame for this judicial enthusiasm. A society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of its spirit will eventually cause its spirit to perish. By creating a governance vacuum, the UPA has voluntarily ceded its turf to the judiciary. It implies that an administrative policy paralysis suffered by the country in the hands of the present government has compelled the judiciary to go into matters pertaining to administrative reforms.

First, the Supreme Court has assumed itself to be superior to Parliament and is directing Parliament to enact new laws which seems to be violative of the fundamental principle of Separation of Powers. Although the court has used this power very rarely, it is not a valid argument for using it even once, because assuming another democratic wing’s characteristic power has serious consequences.

There is no clarity on how this petition was maintainable under Article 32. Article 32 is a judicial safeguard for the enforcement of fundamental rights. Administrative reforms, though abundantly desirable, cannot be classified as “fundamental rights” of a citizen, in a very basic application of constitutional law.

The petitioners — former Union Cabinet Secretary T.S.R. Subramanian, former Chief Election Commissioners T.S. Krishnamurthy and N. Gopalaswami, former Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Abid Hussain, former CBI Director Joginder Singh, former Manipur Governor Ved Prakash Marwah and 77 others — are a few individuals who claimed to know the exact mechanics that are most suitable for the functioning of the executive, in accordance with “public interest,” and asked the court to issue binding orders to the legislature to control the executive. So, fewer than 100 citizens — not legislative experts — essentially asked the judiciary to overreach into the domain of the executive. Are the four legs of a democracy not needed to be independent of one another any more? With due respect to the Supreme Court, by directing Parliament to make laws it is clearly undermining the legislative authority of Parliament.

On legal reasoning, the court has been ambiguous at the very least. The Bench has relied heavily on various Administrative Commission reports — the 2004 Hota Commitee on Civil Service Reforms, the 2008 Second Administrative Reforms Commission, the 1997 Conference of Chief Ministers on Effective and Responsive Administration and the 1968 All-India Service Conduct Rules. By merely reiterating the reports of government-appointed bodies and directing Parliament to enact a new law, the judiciary has essentially ignored the limited scope of its power, that is, not to encroach upon the constitutional authority of the legislature.

The order in passing refers to the 2006 judgment in Prakash Singh and Others v. Union of India to establish its jurisdiction to issue orders of this nature according to Article 32 read with Article 142. Article 142 deals with procedural aspects and the two words “complete justice” cannot enlarge its scope. In construing the expression, “complete justice,” the scheme of the Article should be looked into. It is not right to construe words in a vacuum and then insert the meaning into an Article, explains Dr. R. Prakash in the treatise “Complete justice under Article 142” published in 2001.

POOR IMPLEMENTATION

Now, we come to the question of implementation. Where the UPA has methodically thwarted systems, what could be better than a multi-member independent Civil Services Board in theory? One in practice! In Prakash Singh and Others v. Union of India, the Supreme Court gave similar orders on police reforms, directing State governments to implement the order in six months from its passage, but seven years hence none of the States has actually implemented the order. State politicians can challenge its establishment on the ground of intrusion into State rights. Even in States where Civil Service Boards have already been constituted — as in Uttar Pradesh — arbitrary transfers and postings are the prevalent norms. Since 2008, Uttar Pradesh has also had a transfer policy. But random transfers — often to punish “erring” officers — are the norm. The case of Durga Shakti Nagpal is the most recent example of the fact that even established boards have little force when facing political will.

Some of what the court suggests as safeguards are already available to civil servants but they have been used rarely. For instance, an officer can record any minister’s oral instructions to him and send them to the minister for confirmation. One cannot really say if it is more the threat of transfer or the incentive of a patron-client relationship fairly early in their bureaucratic career that stops officers from using this provision. It is not certain that governments will do what the court has ordered. If the legislation asked for is not passed in three months, whom will the court haul up? The Chief Minister or the Speaker? That could provoke a constitutional crisis. Assuming that power comes with responsibility and accountability, should orders that are not enforceable be issued?

The Supreme Court order is not going to change the nature of the senior bureaucracy. The Cabinet, instead of the Civil Services Board, continues to have control over appointments made at the highest level. As long as bureaucrats are willing to twist and bend before politicians to get their choice of top postings at the end of a 25-year-long career, the bureaucracy can never be immune to political interference, and let’s not forget post-retirement incentives. Not only incentives, there is fear too. If civil servants begin to believe that even years after retiring, they can be criminally prosecuted for a mistake made in good faith or for a bona fide decision taken on the basis of the data that was available, there will be serious repercussions on the morale of serving officers.

Also, fixed tenure takes away the privilege of Ministers to work with the best officers of their choosing. No system should prevent a Chief Minister from choosing his own Secretary and the Chief Secretary of the State. When there can be alternative procedural safeguards to save honest officers from arbitrary transfers, why impose less-able officers on Ministers? Take the example of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who replaced his Finance Secretary and Chief Economic Adviser, and put together his team. Is that flexibility to be always denied to a Minister?

While it is necessary to stay the hand of politicians, so is it important to reform the bureaucracy. For instance, one-third of the All-India Service officers are “conferred IAS officers” promoted from the State services to key positions such as District Collectors, Secretaries to government and heads of departments. The three to five year security of tenure in key assignments enjoyed by conferred IAS officers is absolute — an almost sure-shot recipe for dishonesty and lack of integrity.

Can you consider the perils of a politically weak future government where every Minister would be answerable to the bureaucrats for the transfers he orders to ensure better administration? The danger of a country that is ruled by the judiciary is bested only by that which is ruled by the bureaucracy — voters cannot end their tenure in office every five years!