I teach in a university located in a remote corner of the third world. I often wonder if the universities in such unreached locations are serving any 'purpose' at all. If yes, what must be the mission of such universities? The world's first universities were established at Bologna, Salerno and Oxford etc during 11th/12th centuries as a "community of scholars",right? Even India had ancient universities such as Nalanda and Taxila, and Egypt, Alexandria. But what hapeened to sholarship and t...

I teach biochem and do research on soil actinomycetes and bacilli. We work in a tiny lab,smaller than a phone booth> And most of the time we face shortages of costly media,chemicals, and protocols and they are often difficult to get locally.The worst problem is acdemic isolation and lack of institutional feedback.Can one do creative science in such a setting or must we not try at all. Is science meant for only rich contries. Then do we leave all our resources to be exploited and patented by r...

I mean there are great teachers. And there are excellent researchers/scholars/scientists. But combining great teaching and excellent research in one individual-isn't it a rare phenomenon. Except ,of course,persons like Richard Feynman who was a great teacher and excellent physicist. One hears of hawking as a great physicist but never heard of him as a great teacher. So also Einstein. Or Watson of the double helix fame, to cite an example in another domain. I mean why teaching and resear...