Page 98 - EducationWorld May 2021

Postscript

Ease of doing business joke journeyed to Sri City to write a comprehensive, highly
complimentary cover feature. But curiously, your editor
who visited the campus and interviewed key members
CCORDING TO A WORLD BANK 2020 REPORT, of its blue-blooded faculty including vice chancellor
India has improved its ranking by 79 positions Dr. Sunder Ramawamy, received not a word of thanks
Ain its Ease of Doing Business index in five years from Ramaswamy or any communication from any of its
(2014-19). Currently it is ranked 63rd among 190 nations. worthies thereafter.
However, this report finds few takers in India Inc. In Reportedly, a suggestion of this publication’s market-
private, industry leaders are unanimous that doing legit ing team to KU that it purchase 50 copies of the issue for
business in India is a high-risk undertaking in which distribution to faculty and board members was inter-
businessmen are routinely subject to a thousand unnatu- preted by Ramaswamy — ill-advisedly plucked out of a
ral shocks. provincial American university and appointed founder VC
Right now the Central government-controlled National of KU — as “taking commercial advantage”. That’s poor
Investigation Agency (NIA) is investigating three cabi- math given that a page of advertising in EducationWorld
net ministers of the coalition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi is priced at Rs.1 lakh, and we wrote a seven-page cover
(MVA) government which governs India’s most indus- story — a gift of Rs.7 lakh to this penny wise pound fool-
trialised state, on charges of extorting huge sums from ish institution with a proclaimed endowment of Rs.700
businessmen. NIA’s arrest and grilling of assistant police crore.
inspector Sachin Vaze, under investigation for the murder For KU’s sake one hopes that the media management
of businessman Mansukh Hiren whose deadly gelatin skills of Rangarajan, a former journalist, are better.
sticks laden car was found parked near the 28-storey
home of India’s wealthiest business tycoon Mukesh Am-
bani on February 25, has unearthed astonishing revela- An extraordinary life
tions about how the country’s greedy, amoral politicians
routinely pillage industry leaders and businessmen. T’S A SIGN OF THE TIMES. WHEN A POLITICIAN
According to Vaze, transport minister Anil Parab succumbs to the thousand unnatural shocks that flesh
directed him to squeeze Rs.50 crore from the Saifee Iis heir to, the evil they have done is dressed up as good.
Burhani charitable trust which is executing a massive But the good of the truly good is interred with their bones.
redevelopment project to upgrade a rundown Muslim These musings came to mind upon hearing about the
ghetto in Central Mumbai. Moreover, in a written order untimely demise of litterateur, editor, columnist and
Parab directed Vaze to extort Rs.2 crore from all civil con- culture propagator Anil Dharker in Mumbai on March 26.
tractors approved by the Shiv Sena controlled Mumbai During his eventful life, Dharker greatly influenced the
Municipal Corporation to overlook their acts of omission literary and cultural awakening of the country in several
and commission in executing corporation projects. spheres before the abhorred shears prematurely cut this
That’s not all. Mumbai’s top cop Parambir Singh thin spun life. Although he qualified as a mechanical
told the Supreme Court that the state’s home minister engineer and started his career in an architectural firm
instructed him to extort Rs.2 lakh from all 1,650 bars and back in the 1960s after he returned to India from London,
restaurants operating in the city. he quickly established a reputation as an insightful film
All these mind-boggling charges and counter-charges reviewer and critic and was appointed the first chairman
— the MVA alleges it’s a Central (BJP) government of the Films Finance Corporation where he managed to
conspiracy to topple the state government — are being squeeze funding from the Union government to finance
traded in the country’s commercial capital. Ease of doing British director Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, arguably
business! A cruel joke. the greatest biopic of all time.
Subsequently, he transformed into full-time journalist
Second chance for Krea and edited Mid-day, Sunday Mid-Day, the path-breaking
men’s monthly Debonair (where your editor succeeded
him with less success) and the superior upscale daily,
HE APPOINTMENT OF DR. MAHESH RANGA- The Independent (alas no more). Yet perhaps his great-
RAJAN, a former journalist and respected envi- est achievement was conceptualising and organising the
Tronmentalist as vice chancellor of Krea University, annual Times of India Mumbai International Literary
sited in Sri City (Andhra Pradesh), a two-hour drive from Festival which attracted the choice and master spirits of
Chennai, offers the institution the chance to make a new English literature from around the world to India’s com-
beginning after a damp squib start. Krea U was estab- mercial capital.
lished in 2018 with high hopes as India’s first “interwo- Organising this annual literary extravaganza was an
ven liberal arts, science” (and business management) extraordinary feat requiring handling the egos of global
university. literary legends, and raising resources to fund the litfest
Promoted under the Ashoka University model of that catapulted crassly commercial Mumbai to the world’s
collective philanthropy with a huge corpus of Rs.700 literary stage. Typical appropriation of this litfest by
crore, Krea University (KU) aroused great enthusiasm the Bros Jain of the Times Group prompted Dharker to
as the pioneer liberal arts varsity of peninsular (south) promote the competitive Tata Literature Live fest which
India where science and professional (engineering, took its toll on this creative man of letters. Indeed the
medical) higher ed institutions are the rule. To the extent elements were so mixed in him that he will be impossible
that your editor, despite not quite in the pink of health, to replace.

98 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2021