Silicon Valley, 2015: As I was approaching the last stages of writing this book, I felt it was important to hear from my friends, family, and countrymen and -women about India’s new Golden Age. So I started a survey and made it available on my Facebook page. I also sent e-mails to over a thousand contacts and called some of them. I was pleasantly surprised by the responses, which came from India, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Thailand, Singapore, Sw

Mumbai, 2014: “Check out the ‘broken window’ syndrome,” suggested Gopal. “It will explain why everything in India is in a crisis mode—land, air, water, education, you name it.” R. Gopalakrishnan—Gopal or RG to his friends—is one of the most fascinating people I have ever met. An IIT Kharagpur alumnus, Gopalakrishnan is a director at Tata Sons, an author of several best sellers, and a member of the board of directors of many corporations and educational institutions. What is t

Palo Alto, California, January 21, 2014: Arogyaswami Paulraj, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, was awarded the prestigious Marconi Society Prize. It is considered to be the Nobel Prize in the field of information technology. According to the Marconi Society’s press release, “[Paulraj’s] idea for using multiple antennas at both the transmitting and receiving stations—which is at the heart of the current high-speed WiFi and 4G mobile systems—has revolutionized high-spee

Berkeley, California: Bob, a valedictorian at his high school in Philadelphia, was a highly sought-after student. He received scholarships from a number of Ivy League schools, but he found UC Berkeley and the west coast’s unique culture appealing. Like Bob, tens of thousands of talented students from California, the rest of the United States, and around the world are attracted to study at UC Berkeley every year. UC Berkeley was recently ranked #4 in the ARWU world rankings. I

Los Angeles, April 2014: Bill Chang, Mike Davis, Janaki Mitra, and Emily Vasquez, friends in their high school dance club, are seniors and discussing their college plans. Thanks to the California Master Plan and additional excellent choices of colleges and universities in the state, they are all planning to pursue undergraduate education at an institution that matches their aspirations, interests, and preferences. They are going to a community college, state university, Unive

New York City, 2014: Mayank Gupta, K. Venkat Raman, Lakshmi Reddy, Rajesh Sinha and Kusum Thomas are a few of the many Indians who have just arrived at the JFK International Airport. These five are headed to various universities to pursue undergraduate and graduate studies. Like them, close to 900,000 students from over 100 countries are enrolled in US colleges and universities. US universities are magnets that attract the best and the brightest students from around the world

Nalanda Vihara, between 629 and 645 CE: Xuánzàng, a renowned scholar from China, arrived in India. The objective of his historic visit was to learn about the Buddhist principles and doctrines, see India’s famous shrines, and gather sacred texts. He traveled extensively and spent several years at Nalanda University. Xuánzàng was one of many scholars who visited India from around the world, especially China, Indonesia, Korea, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, and Tibet, who were attracted b

Bengaluru, July 2013: Anjana Kapoor and Partha Basu returned to India after completing their PhDs at the University of Texas (UT), Austin. At UT Austin, they got hooked on research, teaching, and each other. For family and personal reasons, Partha and Anjana wanted to return to India. For professional reasons, they both really wanted to work at either an IIT or IISc. Life had other plans for them and they ended up joining a multinational company (MNC). Higher education instit

San Francisco, June 1994: Anand and Poonam Mehta and their two young children just finished their green card processing at San Francisco International Airport’s (SFO) immigration desk. They have come a long way from India. Anand and Poonam want a bright future for their kids, so they are migrating to United States. Their story is similar to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of families who have left India to escape the broken higher education system and the burden it pl

Pune, January 2014: Mukund Kapase recently joined an automobile company as an assembly-line worker after his dreams of joining the IT industry were repeatedly crushed. He was deemed “unemployable” by the IT companies even after receiving several degrees. India’s higher-education system has let Mukund and his family down. His story is similar to millions of India’s youth graduating from colleges and universities across the country. What is the state of India’s higher education