-The Telegraph The Planning Commission has accepted a proposal by scientists to create new academic centres for cognitive science, cyber security and other fields to be shared by scholars and faculty from universities across India. The proposal for inter- university centres (IUCs) is among key initiatives in science and technology planned during the 12th Five-Year Plan that covers the period up to 2017, K. Kasturirangan, a member of the Planning Commission, told...

-The Times of India The HRD ministry has overwhelmingly supported the proposed Bill that seeks to give reservation to SC/ST employees in promotion. But the scenario in HRD's own backyard is anything but enthusiastic.  Just over 32% of sanctioned teaching posts for SCs and 41.8% for STs in 40 central universities are occupied. This includes premier institutions like the Delhi University, Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, Aligarh Muslim University and University of Hyderabad. Vacancies exist...

-The Business Standard No movement yet on quality control in higher education The state of professional higher education in India is abysmal. Consider engineering. All told, there are 1.5 million engineering seats in the country. Almost a third of these are unfilled, so about a million engineers are produced every year. Yet, barely 10 per cent of them are readily employable. About a quarter don’t know enough English to make sense...

-The Times of India The government on Thursday launched an anti-ragging website helping students of universities, colleges and professional institutes lodge online complaints against ragging or harassment and seek faster response. The portal (www.antiragging.in) launched by HRD minister Kapil Sibal is also expected to maintain a database of students and will be connected to most universities by year-end. Sibal said, "Lot of young students have lost their lives, many loose their confidence...

Universities should not have to bow to research institutes, writes Debashis Gangopadhyay. Basic Sciences versus Applied Sciences Undermining humanities studies in schools will lead to a large number of science graduates in the market. This is a boon for multinational companies as profits will escalate — the cost of labour being lower. However, the danger to profits persist from another aspect. Students who study science out of their love for a subject are...