India needs 8 liberal art centres: Pitroda

From Shyam Bhatia DH News Service Washington: Sam Pitroda, the US-based techie who helped revolutionise India's telecommunications, has revealed himself to be a fan of the liberal arts. Orissa-born Pitroda, who graduated in physics, electronics and electrical engineering, is associated with the bright yellow STD PCO boxes that are available even in the remotest parts of the country. For the past five months as Chairman of the Knowledge Commission, however, he has been working towards a completely different goal that represents the antithesis of his own personal educational experience.

" I believe that leadership qualities come from social sciences", Chicago-based Piroda told Deccan Herald in an exclusive interview. " I find that the biggest key to success is understanding people and engineering schools don't teach you how to understand people." Picked out by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last October to head the Knowledge Commission, Pitroda's brief is to assess access to knowledge, creation of knowledge, knowledge education and knowledge services, or, as he puts it, the creation, dissemination and application of knowledge. Improving liberal arts education is one of the ideas that has come out of the meetings that Pitroda has had so far with other members of the commission. "We have good technical education, we have good medical education, we have good business education, but we don't have comparable liberal arts education", says Pitroda who is also chairman and CEO of World-Tel Ltd.

"We already have some liberal arts schools and we need to strengthen them, we may also have to create new ones." At the very least, he believes, both Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru universities need to be strengthened with more investment to raise their standard to that of Oxford and Harvard. His idea has been well received by other members of the commission, who include Dr P M Bhargava, Nandan Nilekani, Deepak Nayyar, Ashok Ganguly, Andre Beteille, Jayati Ghosh and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Asked where the money will come from for the eight new universities or liberal arts institutes he hopes to see created across the length and breadth of the country, Pitroda laughs and replies, "I think with $150 billion foreign exchange reserves I am not worried about it." www.orissapolitics.cjb.net