India blocks 73 URLs criticizing IIPM, an MBA college

I think a lot of people are confused with the hawkish name of this institution. It represents the very worst of Indian education system, not the best or anywhere near it. Infact, it's a diploma mill which is not even in the Top 100 management institutes of India. Arindam, the director, himself comes from a family of illustrious cheats with a larger than life image.

Easiest way is skim through this site: http://www.iipm-fraud.com/

The govt has little clue of what it is doing. Hopefully 1 more year, and we can get rid of this regime for good.

To know more about Arindam - https://www.quora.com/Who-Is-X/Who-is-Arindam-Chaudhuri

Just to be clear- The university that you study has the right to censor certain websites because they are providing you internet and hence they can stipulate the rules(for the service they are providing). However, the argument here is that the government should not block URLs because they are not providing the service and they are just regulators of this service. The argument here is that as regulators, they are going out of their purview by curbing on freedom of expression (guaranteed by the constitution).

They've done this before against an excellent piece of investigative journalism done by an Indian magazine called The Caravan, called "The Sweet Smell of Success: How Arindam Chaudhuri made a fortune off the aspirations -- and insecurities -- of India's middle classes."

That article was taken down, but I'd pulled a PDF of it then, so here it is for anyone that wants to know more about the shadiness that is IIPM.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/15497688/Sweet%20Smell%20of%20Succe...

> here in the UK, the very same PM has trebled the costs of going to university for English and Welsh students, pricing many out

As far as I was aware, under the new scheme, graduates only start paying back their student debt once (and only if) their income crosses a certain threshold. That seems like a fairly good deal to me--a crude approximation of saying 'you only pay for your degree if you get financial value from it'.

> This whole thing is a bizarre contradiction to me.

I agree that education is a special case within international trade. But I do think that it is a matter for India and not Britain to curtail the ability of Indians to study abroad, if India believes that is (a) fair, and (b) beneficial to their domestic education system. I don't find it at all bizarre or morally perverse that the PM should act as a cheerleader for influential domestic interests such as our higher education system, especially when full fee-paying international students effectively subsidise UK students. And I've never seen Cameron say he wishes to reduce the number of fee-paying foreign students attending accredited UK institutions.

And a also disagree with the implication in your comment that the UK general taxpayer subsidies higher education too little. More higher education than a free market would provide is beneficial, but after a certain point the net benefit to society of the next marginal student buying subsided education would be less than the added public benefit. If you watch the front page of HN, there's occasionally an article or two about a higher education bubble; people are (probably) already buying more education (and certainly in some sectors if not others) than the job market can stand.

I like the idea of free education as a 'right', naturally or socially constructed. But moving towards that reality in Britain has to come from innovation slashing the marginal cost of education, and in the short term, by increasing the number of full fee-paying foreign students. Allocating revenue or large tax rises to up the number of students in higher education are going to be politically infeasible for at least a generation. (Not forgetting the looming demographic crisis on top of the current downturn.)