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Beyond Affiliation: Why India Needs Collegial Universities

Part I: Reimagining the University The University We Forgot to Build India possesses one of the world's largest higher education systems. Tens of thousands of public colleges, hundreds of universities, millions of students, and an ever-expanding ecosystem of specialized institutions together form an educational network that reaches every district of the country. Over the past three decades, this network has expanded considerably through the establishment of engineering universities, medical universities, agricultural universities, private universities, and specialized institutes catering to increasingly diverse professional needs. Most discussions on higher education naturally revolve around improving research output, increasing employability, strengthening institutional autonomy, modernizing infrastructure, enhancing faculty quality, and improving national and global rankings. These are undoubtedly important priorities. Yet an equally important question is seldom asked: What is th...
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Forward Deployment: The Technology Industry's Next Great Shift

Introduction For nearly three years, the global artificial intelligence race followed a remarkably familiar script. Technology companies competed to build larger foundation models, train them on ever-growing datasets, acquire more powerful GPUs, construct hyperscale AI data centres, and climb benchmark leaderboards. Every major announcement revolved around model releases, reasoning capabilities, inference costs, context windows, or custom AI chips. Governments launched sovereign AI missions. Investors poured hundreds of billions of dollars into compute infrastructure. Enterprises rushed to experiment with generative AI. The defining question of the industry appeared straightforward:  Who can build the world's smartest AI? Then, almost quietly, another race has begun. Over the past few months, a series of seemingly unrelated announcements from some of the world's leading technology companies has revealed a remarkable convergence. On 11 May, OpenAI launched the OpenAI Deployment ...
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Administrative AI: Building Institutional Intelligence for India's Public Administration

Beyond Government AI Artificial intelligence has rapidly moved from research laboratories into governments around the world. India's central and state governments are increasingly deploying AI to improve citizen services, automate routine processes, summarise documents, analyse large datasets, and assist public officials in carrying out their daily responsibilities. As governments continue their digital transformation, AI is widely expected to become an integral component of India's public administration. Much of the current discourse, however, remains centred on relatively familiar applications. Governments are experimenting with AI-powered citizen service portals, grievance redressal systems, document processing, translation, compliance monitoring, policy analysis, and departmental automation. Equally common is the use of AI by individual civil servants to draft notes, summarise reports, conduct research, or prepare presentations. Yet an important question has received compar...
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From Ownership to Stewardship: Why India's Universities Should Steward Local Heritage

India possesses one of the world's richest and most diverse heritage landscapes. Some sites attract millions of visitors every year. They feature prominently in tourism campaigns, receive significant government attention, and enjoy dedicated conservation efforts. These iconic monuments and pilgrimage destinations have become symbols of India's civilizational heritage. Yet beyond these well-known landmarks lies another India — one of forgotten temples, archaeological mounds, historic schools, abandoned monasteries, intricate inscriptions, stepwells, traditional water systems, sacred groves, old pilgrimage routes, community archives, and European-era buildings. Many of these assets are historically significant. Only few attract tourists. Consequently, they often receive limited public attention and intermittent institutional support. The problem is not that India lacks heritage. Nor is it that these sites and collections lack legal owners. The problem is that many of them lack st...
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