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will provide mental health and wellbeing support, life
skills, and career planning and management expertise to
400,000 adolescents in the age group 9-19 years. This
project will cover school-goers and dropouts, with the
objective to create a new workforce for development and
enterprise.
How optimistic are you about India’s future growth and develop-
ment?
India’s history of global commerce harks back from 1st
century BCE up to the 10th century AD. This trans-oce-
anic trade from the peninsular seaports which controlled
one-fourth of the world economy, is well documented in
William Dalrymple’s recent book, The Golden Road.
Whether India can replicate this world dominance in
economic growth is perhaps an overoptimistic dream. To
move up this trajectory will require equality of opportu-
Dr. Glenn Kharkongor (right) with MLCU students nity for all youth, loosening of bureaucratic hurdles, and
major budgetary allocations for education and develop-
ment research. Higher education must give up its over-
How satisfied are you with your connect with Indian industry academic mindset and interface better with the world of
and business? careers.
There is very limited industrial development in Northeast
India. Our interns are placed in a variety of professional Any other comment?
workplaces including hospitals, schools, NGOs, and If Indian higher education refuses to give up its bed-
small-scale community enterprises, apart from private ridden obsolescence and obscurantism, it will become
service sector firms. We consider these experiential learn- irrelevant and bypassed. Already some major companies
ing opportunities to be ideal for our students, as they have set up their own training institutes, reducing their
enable familiarity with placement opportunities in our reliance on unemployable graduates. Online education
region. from major global industries provide micro-credentials
that are valued in the corporate workplace more than
R&D and innovation are widely perceived as Indian academia’s college degrees. I am reminded of a CEO of a gaming and
infirmity. What’s your institutional response to create new animation company in Bangalore whose first question to
knowledge? interviewees is, “Don’t tell me what degrees you have or
The creation of new knowledge is the essence of a uni- what you know, tell me what you can do.”
versity. Rather than engaging in replicative research, our
university explores the unmined knowledge of India’s Sanjay Padode
Northeast with its rich biodiversity and indigenous wis-
dom. These cover a vast array of areas such as cultural, President, Vijaybhoomi University, Karjat (Maharashtra)
climatic, natural resources, and traditional knowledge
of healing, agriculture, and environmental conservation. n engineering and math postgraduate of BITS-
MLCU Press has published 17 books on these subjects in Pilani, Sanjay Padode is Chairman of the Center
the past two years. Afor Development Education, a Bengaluru-based
A project funded by the United Nations Develop- not-for-profit, which runs and manages the Jagdish Sheth
ment Programme (UNDP) documented the awareness School of Management (JAGSOM) and Vijaybhoomi
of our community elders about climate change as long University, Karjat (estb.2019).
as five decades ago and their measures taken to combat
global warming. The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Germany What are the major objectives set for your higher ed institutions
funded a book on tribal health traditions, and another until India’s Freedom Centenary year in 2047?
German organization, GIZ, sponsored a project on tradi- Our main objective is to nurture holistic, socially respon-
tional aquaculture. Research on traditional healing has sible, and continuously employable professionals. To
been funded by the Union Ministry of Health and Family attain this objective, our endeavour is to provide students
Welfare, and Department of Biotechnology. with opportunity to discover their passions and align
them with their career aspirations. We believe that pursu-
What’s your prescription for transforming India into a $ 30 tril- ing one’s passion automatically leads to excellence and
lion GDP economy by 2047? value creation for society. Therefore, we need to provide
Yes, it’s possible. But to reach that goal, India cannot all students with bespoke learning pathways aligned to
rely on a dozen top industrial families or a handful of IT their passion and aptitude by 2047.
companies. Millions of youth must climb aboard the en-
trepreneurial bandwagon. This will require new ideas and How satisfied are you with your progress thus far?
innovations, strong motivation and hard work. We have been successful in implementing bespoke learn-
MLCU has been awarded a World Bank funded project ing in Vijaybhoomi University and JAGSOM. Starting
by the Government of Meghalaya, named MPOWER, that with psychometric tests to help students identify their

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