Lunch with BS: Javadekar on innovation and higher education in India

Javadekar tells how the lack of innovation has bedevilled higher education in India and what it will take to rationalise the school syllabus

The story of the rise of Union Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar (67) is incomplete without describing the role played by his wife, Prachi. She was an activist of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They met in jail during the Emergency (1975-77). It was a radicalising experience and both knew they wanted to work towards making the world a better place. Javadekar himself belonged to a political household (his father belonged to the Hindu Mahasabha and political differences would sometimes spill out into the open). But the young couple