India, April 17 -- Research is the cornerstone of great institutions. Without it, a professor should not be eligible to teach at the university level as he/she will not be in a position to teach anything new to the students other than what is available in textbooks. The only benchmark to judge the quality of a university is its research standard. And Indian universities and prized management institutes do not fare well going by this count. Quality in research is deteriorating and so are the great institutions that were built so painstakingly by our great researchers.

According to the World Bank , India's higher education system is the third largest in the world, next to the US and China, but it fares miserably in terms of expenditure per...