A few weeks back, the Academic Ranking of World University (ARWU) 2014 for Computer Science was out. It saddens me that the only university from India in the top 100, Indian Institute of Science has dropped to 101-150 ranking. I started talking to people (seniors, profs) to see what's causing it, at least to understand it from a students perspective. If we look at the Universities in the top 100, this is the distribution by country, listed alphbetically:

# of Univ 	Country
      4 	Australia
      2 	Belgium
      4 	Canada
      2 	Denmark
      1 	Finland
      4 	France
      4 	Germany
      2 	Israel
      3 	Japan
      4 	Netherlands
      1 	Norway
      1 	Russia
      3 	Sweden
      5 	Switzerland
      8 	UK
     52 	USA

Countries with significantly lesser economy, population, intellectually less history etc. like Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands have representation in the top 100 and India, being looked at as the next big knowledge superpower, this comes as a big shocker. Is our countries higher education system and Universities spiralling into hopelessness? Is Indian academia suffering at the hands of the service based Information Technology Industry. Is it possible that the so called "IT industry" is styled to present an image of wealth, riches, comforts and security? As Prof. CNR Rao observed, has the IT industry destroyed Indian academics and research as much as it contributed to the economy? Is education abroad so attractive and easy to get to shift focus away from the institutes in India which have stood the test of time? Is it the lack of opportunity in the country for higher studies?

One particular apparent reason is jobs and I quote from an article here

A student does his M.Sc and then heads for Outer Ring Road instead of a Ph.D. because…well, because the companies on Outer Ring Road pay more to do mindless repetitive tasks than a professor at a university would earn trying to build a knowledge society. It’s a triumph of materialism that has infected every part of our culture: from politics to economics and medicine to applied art. Or so we like to believe. But, there are a couple of flaws in the argument. Even if a student wanted to pursue research, where are the universities and the faculty to ensure the quality of research that students aspire for?

So here we are, seemingly in a spiral of hopelessness: To begin with, we lack a culture of research; adding to it is the fact that faculty and facilities don’t quite encourage a life of academic and scientific pursuit. Let’s phrase it another way: We just don’t have the right fuel to fire a knowledge society. But, can we stop blaming the knowledge economy and the pay cheques that come with it?

In 1985, Indian researchers accounted for 12,500 research papers indexed by Thomson Reuters. By 2000, India began to see a remarkable growth in its scientific output. By 2007, more than 27,000 papers were indexed by Thomson Reuters. ..... Indian desire to pursue research hasn’t exactly died. Far from it. But great Indian institutions and inspiring faculty to support the desire to pursue knowledge have slowly vanished.

Adding to this: Firstly, youth need role models like Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, who give them hope that one can rise with hard work and talent in Research and Academia.
Secondly, how many quality higher education colleges do we have; 4 Lakhs students give entrance tests every year for mere 500 seats in IITs and IISc at post-grad level. So, you had already excluded majority of students at this level who had interest in that field. When the institutes don't scale them or set satellite campus for the fear of brand dilution, they will kill the mediocre guy who has urge to pursue research but can't stand in top 1%. Even if they do scale up and set up IITs where is the faculty? IISc itself has admitted more students this year (2014) than any year before and has opened up more labs and increased staff. This is an unsolved conundrum which has remained a question for the past few years, partly due to poor planning.

Here is another article about the contribution of India to research being a mere 3.5% to the global output.
Furthermore, this article has statistics about the number of people heading abroad for higher studies increasing by over 256% over the past decade. This wonderful article almost translates my thoughts to words as to why students take up abroad education. Talking of brain drain our IITs graduate programs have become more feeders for foriegn Universities than being an Indian asset. Over the coming decade you will hear of more "Indian-origin" people doing wonders across the globe but having no ties back to homeland (being settled in elsewhere) and that number will plateau before dropping off steeply over generations if we donot improve the state of higher education in the country.

I believe in walking the talk. I myself quit my high paying respectable non-service IT job and joined IISc and I believe so far the path to self discovery and knowledge quest has been more than enjoyable. I urge everyone to think about this if you are a person with academic acumen, research and have a liking for the pursuit of subject depth and knowledge, consider walking down this path and when you do so, do look into the opportunities available in India before your sell your soul and live in debt in another country as a Gaijin - Japanese for 'outsider' (even if you can without the latter).

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below....