Neeta PrasadNew Delhi, Jan. 31 -- Years back, while travelling to her ancestral village in Purnia district of Bihar, the author recalls that the bus would stop at a concrete gate that read "RL College, Madhavnagar". This was in the early nineteen-eighties, just a few kilometres from her village Mahwala.
The concrete gate was the only visible sign of the college, at least from the highway, and she was always curious about what life was like beyond the gates. Today, it is apparently a constituent college of Purnea University, one of the 495 State Public Universities in the country.
These universities account for nearly 81 percent of students enrolled in higher education in India, and hold the vital responsibility of nurturing their competen...