This is to thank you for many things. Firstly, for publishing my viewpoint in your cover story ‘Joshi’s IIM grab angers middle class India’ (EW March). Secondly, for giving attention to education through your excellent magazine. Education is the most backward sector among the organised sectors. It has refused to change, still sticking to the organisation model and culture created 100 years ago. Thirdly, for your entrepreneurial venture. Very few journalists have done well as entrepreneurs. After your cover story was written, Dr. Joshi asserted on television that he knew more about education than Narayana Murthy. Nobody doubts it. But knowing about education is quite distinct from knowing about the ‘management of education’. None of his colleagues know much about the ministries they are in charge of — finance, commerce, industry, IT, telephony, transport, disinvestment, etc. Yet all of them are doing extremely well in managing their ministries. In my opinion, the HRD ministry should not subsidise IIM students who can afford to pay high fees, but should give scholarships to all poor students, including those in the other 800 management institutes across the country. Seven hundred of them provide low quality inputs, with low quality faculty, and yet are charging fees of Rs.1-2 lakh per year. The ministry should help these institutes to upgrade their faculties through the IIMs, whose main function ought to be development of faculty of other institutions. The IIMs are now producing graduates who enter already well-managed corporations, where their marginal productivity is low. Meanwhile, other than business, all sectors of the economy are in bad shape due to poor management inputs. The IIMs ought to help them to upgrade their management staff and managerial competence. N.S. Ramaswamy Bangalore Thoroughly exposed I have been following the IIM fee cut controversy provoked by Union HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi in the media including EducationWorld with close interest. You deserve the congratulations of the generally confused public for clarifying the issues at stake in your cover story ‘Joshi’s IIM grab angers middle class India’ (EW March) and your subsequent follow up reports and editorials on this issue. In your latest (April) issue, Rajiv Desai has thoroughly exposed Dr. Joshi’s “moffusil mindset” which has prompted him to foolishly subsidise IIM students whose financial riches are assured. Similarly in your editorial in the April issue you have also exposed the hypocrisy of Chief Justice Khare of the Supreme Court who is very concerned about the access of poor students to the IIMs but is supremely unconcerned about the access of the poor to the country’s utterly inaccessible courts of justice. Asha Seth Mumbai Curious paradox Appropos the fierce battle between the IIMs and the Union HRD ministry on the fee reduction issue, it is relevant to look at what is happening in other countries on the issue of funding higher education. The recent parliamentary debates in the UK signpost the way in which govern-ments are combating increasing pressure to fund higher education given the macro economic thrust to cut taxes and reduce public expenditure to control fiscal…
