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As Tier 2-3 cities join exodus abroad its time to focus on 'Study in India'
(The Times of India, 203-11-20) Rao, V. Ramgopal
Last year, the number of Indian students taking admission abroad exceeded 750,000, marking a remarkable 50% increase from 2021. Notably, more than one-third of these students chose the US, indicating a substantial 35% surge compared to the preceding year. An intriguing observation highlighted by a recent TOI report is that now one in every four international students on US campuses hails from India. While anecdotal data suggests a significant decline in the number of IIT students venturing abroad, the surge is predominantly attributed to students from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Projections indicate that Indian households will spend an estimated $70 billion towards their children’s foreign education by 2025. Given these economic dynamics, it comes as no surprise that international universities are aggressively wooing Indian students with scholarships, newer academic programmes etc. and several countries have strategically improved their student and employment visa policies to attract Indian talent. Notably, geopolitical considerations have contributed to a decline in the number of Chinese students pursuing education abroad, while India is experiencing an exponential growth.
Fewer students going to US could be a new beginning
(The Indian Express, 2026-02-04) Rao, V. Ramgopal
How Indian colleges can step up efforts to prevent campus suicides
(The Times of India, 2023-03-06) Rao, V. Ramgopal
Ivy league or India, universities need public funding for innovation
(The Times of India, 2025-11-17) Rao, V. Ramgopal
When Trump recently cut federal research funding, the tremors were felt even in America’s richest universities. Harvard, Stanford and MIT, with endowments worth tens of billions of dollars, were forced to cut budgets, delay projects and draw from reserves to stay afloat. The academia in the US soon realised that private donations and endowment income cannot replace the steady flow of govt support. That decision has shaken the very foundation of the American research ecosystem and offers an important lesson for the rest of the world. Public funding is not charity. It is the backbone of a nation’s knowledge economy. Not charity but investment: When govts withdraw support, universities begin to behave like businesses Every great university system, both public and private, is built on predictable govt support. In the US, private universities like Stanford, MIT and Caltech each receive hundreds of millions of dollars annually from federal agencies. Every grant carries an overhead, often between 40 and 60%, to support laboratories, staff, maintenance and compliance systems. These overheads sustain the invisible infrastructure that keeps research alive. Without them, even the wealthiest private universities would struggle to survive.
Making chips intelligent
(Financial Express, 2025-12-15) Rao, V. Ramgopal
A 3-nanometre transistor is no longer science fiction; it is inside the phone in your pocket. Yet classical silicon is gasping. The next leap will come from nanoelectronics: new materials, new device physics, and integration at atomic precision. This includes today’s scaled CMOS, powering everything from AI chips to edge devices. This is not just about making chips smaller. It is about making them smarter, cheaper, and greener.
Peer review crisis is stalling India’s scientific progress
(The Times of India, 2025-09-15) Rao, V. Ramgopal
Perception parameter a black box in NIRF rankings’: BITS Pilani Group V-C Ramgopal Rao urges more transparency
(The Indian Express, 2025-09-18) Rao, V. Ramgopal
With BITS Pilani entering the top 10 in the ‘universities’ category of the NIRF rankings this year for the first time since 2016, Prof V Ramgopal Rao, its Group Vice-Chancellor pointed to what worked for the institution this year and the issues he thinks are to be addressed in the rankings. Prof Rao, who is a former director of IIT Delhi, and has been a faculty member at both IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, co-authored a paper – ‘Unpacking Inconsistencies in the NIRF rankings’ – published in the journal Current Science last year. The paper raised concerns about the reliability of the rankings, flagging issues like the “subjective” nature of the ‘perception’ parameter that is included in the rankings, inadequate transparency in the methodology, and reliance on data that is self-reported by institutions.
Placements slowing down but colleges can adapt to new normal
(The Times of India, 2024-03-31) Rao, V. Ramgopal
Unemployment among our youth is a burning issue for India. While the ILO data on India’s employment scenario is debatable, there is another statistic that we should take note of. According to the department of economic affairs 2024 review, the employable percentage of pre-final and final year students in India stood at 51%. Given this shortfall and the huge middle-class population, it’s no surprise that for students and parents, choice of a college or even the discipline in India is primarily governed by the quality of placements. In the US and other developed countries, the role of career centres in universities is quite different from our training and placement cells. Career centres in these countries provide awareness about options, beef up resume writing skills, organise industrial meets and career fairs as well help with interview preparation. In India, while the good institutions do all of this, they also take on the responsibility of placing students in industries. Our institutions, therefore, vie with each other in improving their placement scenario and compete on the percentage of students placed. Even rankings in India use placements data for comparing institutions.
Ranking and citation rat race is hurting India's academic reputation
(The Times of India, 2024-01-13) Rao, V. Ramgopal
The rising obsession of Indian institutions with metrics and rankings is leading to a crisis in academia, with dire consequences for the credibility of research emanating from the country. Academic contributions have been reduced to a numbers game, and institutions are being measured by their publication count or citation scores, not by the originality or real-world impact of their research. In this atmosphere, academic integrity is often the first casualty. Some universities have resorted to dubious practices, including manipulating publication metrics, to climb the Indian and global rankings ladder. A recent article in the journal Science highlights the proliferation of “shoddy commentaries” designed solely to game the metrics system. Researchers demonstrated how some institutions artificially created citation networks to inflate their visibility. The data accompanying the study reveals that some Indian institutions are producing hundreds of low-quality papers annually. This practice not only distorts the true quality of research but also diverts resources and attention away from meaningful academic pursuits.
Semiconductor mission’s great but academia can chip in
(The Times of India, 2024-03-03) Rao, V. Ramgopal
Shrinking devices, expanding possibilities
(Financial Express, 2025-12-13) Rao, V. Ramgopal
A 3-nanometre transistor is no longer science fiction; it is inside the phone in your pocket. Yet classical silicon is gasping. The next leap will come from nanoelectronics: new materials, new device physics, and integration at atomic precision. This includes today’s scaled CMOS, powering everything from AI chips to edge devices. This is not just about making chips smaller. It is about making them smarter, cheaper, and greener. The global nanoelectronics market, encompassing scaled CMOS semiconductors, sensors, and IoT edge devices, is heading toward $1 trillion by 2030. Nanosensors already detect a single virus particle. Ultra-low-power chips enable IoT networks that run for ten years on a coin cell. Flexible electronics printed on plastic will turn any surface into a display or a health monitor. From electric-vehicle powertrains to satellite constellations, every high-growth sector rides this wave.
Viral robodog video shows why Indian universities need less spin, more substance
(The Times of India, 2026-02-23) Rao, V. Ramgopal
The recent episode involving a private university at the AI Impact Summit has been painful to watch. First, a word for the students and faculty. There are good students and committed teachers in every institution. When something goes viral for the wrong reasons, it is not only the management that feels the heat. It is the final year student sitting for placements. It is the young assistant professor building a research profile. Social media can be brutal. The debate quickly escalates into questions of national prestige. That part is deeply unfortunate. Now to the uncomfortable questions. What is fundamentally wrong in such incidents is not one exhibition or one poorly handled explanation. It is a culture where optics begin to dominate substance. A serious academic institution does not send a marketing executive to explain a technical prototype. The person standing next to a demo must be someone who designed it, built it, coded it or experimentally validated it. The moment scripted marketing language replaces technical depth, credibility collapses. In today’s world, every audience member can fact-check in real time. Second, excessive freedom to marketing teams in academic matters is risky. Universities are not branding agencies. Communication must be academically vetted. Leadership must take responsibility. Public claims are not just about visibility. They reflect the intellectual integrity of the institution.
What India can do to end science Nobel drought
(The Times of India, 2024-10) Rao, V. Ramgopal
It’s Nobel Prize season. Since their inception in 1901, only 12 individuals of Indian origin have been awarded the Prize, with just five being Indian citizens. Among them, Dr C V Raman remains the sole Indian to have won in the science category, with his 1930 Nobel in Physics for the discovery of the Raman Effect. The 94-year gap since Raman’s achievement is concerning, especially when there have been Indian scientists who have made significant discoveries that went unrecognised. To position Indian scientists for future Nobel recognition, we must act now to foster an environment where ground-breaking research thrives. Science is the foundation of all technological advancement. The mobile phone which everyone uses today would not have been possible without at least a dozen Nobel Prize-winning discoveries behind it. Be it the transistor (1956, Physics), laser technology (1964, Physics), information theory (1965, Physics), integrated circuit (2000, Physics), conducting polymers (2000, Chemistry), semiconductor heterostructures (2000, Physics), fibre optics (2009, Physics), LED technology (2014, Physics), lithium-ion battery (2019, Chemistry), etc., each of these discoveries and several others were critical for the modern revolution we see in consumer electronics. It’s vital to remember that countries don’t invest in science because they are developed; they become developed because they invest in science. Here are five steps to improve India’s scientific output and pave the way for future Nobel laureates.
Why NAAC accreditation system needs a rethink
(The Times of India, 2025-02-17) Rao, V. Ramgopal