life can be packed in the disk of your computer that may store few terra bytes. You will be overloaded with the information, winner will be the one who knows how to mine the data and convert it into knowledge. Can we have such an empowered university? 

Virtual University
It is time that we should start looking at the possibility of creating a Virtual University in India through networking of all the universities and other educational institutions for imparting universal tele-education. Virtual university will have the following tasks: 
a)      Act as a central hub of all universities which are networked. 
b)      Identify experts of national/international eminence in specialized areas. 
c)      Coordinate, organize, schedule and broadcast the lectures of specialists at a mutually convenient time to all participants. 
d)      Record the live transmission of the lectures with interaction details in a data bank for easy access by participants for review learning. 
e)      Digitize all the university libraries and make it available for seamless access by all the universities. 
f)      Provide for all the 3-Ls of learning- Lectures, Laboratory and the Library- all over the Internets and 
g)      The universities need to become learner centric. 
This experiment across the country will provide a common platform for teaching Schools, Colleges and Universities and even vocational courses. This will give equal emphasis on theory and experiments, inspite of the fact that it will be done in the cyberspace. Such is the power of the technology and our understanding of it. This facility would also help in expansion of telecommunication 

and IT services. All this would lead to synergising the strengths of different universities in promoting quality education to our students in a cost effective manner. I suggest the Five Universities which have been recognized as having "potential for excellence" should be asked to create virtual universities on the five areas of excellence which will enable sharing of excellence by all the Universities. 

Concluding remarks : 11
initiatives
UGC has formulated number of initiatives for promoting excellence in higher education as per Xth Plan Target. I would recommend certain initiatives, which can make the educational sector vibrant and meet the challenges of providing vital human resource for national development. 
1.      a. In the first phase 5000 PURAs (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas) are planned out of the 25,000 possible PURAs in the country. Youth with knowledge, skill and passion are required to be in the centre stage for participating of such PURAS. An integrated programme should be developed at graduate and postgraduate levels for developing technologists and managers for creating and sustaining PURAs. The first course may commence from academic year 2004-05. 
b. University needs to become the knowledge partner in the programmes such as India's vision 2020, interlinking of rivers, desalination of water through nuclear and solar energy etc. 
2.      A transparent system of University performance Evaluation scheme is required to be evolved. Evaluation criteria may include areas such as quality and quantity of research, contribution to societal transformation, utilization and performance of 

the students who have passed out in the previous five years, quality and standing of the teaching staff, promotion of E-governance, transparent examination system and the student centric responsive administration. 
3.      Performance evaluation results could also be used to plan merger of some universities for promoting synergy and excellence and reducing managerial overheads. 
4.      A simple, easy to implement "educational loan scheme" should be evolved by UGC in collaboration with the banks for enabling meritorious students to pursue higher education without disruption. 
5.      UGC should create a dynamic curriculum review mechanism relating to current socio-technical needs of the country. 
6.      There are a number of young prodigies in different areas. A system for recognizing these prodigies and promoting their growth consistent with their abilities different from the conventional system needs to be designed and implemented. 
7.      UGC should create simplified uniform inter-university mobility norms for students acceptable to all universities. 
8.      UGC should plan to build a common digital library for the all universities and provide them seamless access to the literary resources. 
9.      Build Educational Grid which connects Universities for resource sharing, content generation on their core competence, e-learning, tele-education and universal certification. 
10.      Enlist great teachers of the nation who love teaching from various sectors. 
11.      Lead to the approval of empowered university with private initiatives, national/ international. 



Wish you all the best.