Policing social media

MHRD should focus more on improving the state of higher education

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is reportedly giving a push to ensure that each of the 900-odd higher education institutions (HEIs) under its control develops a “positive” social media profile. In itself, this might, at best, indicate misplaced priorities, given that the ministry has to manage a critical sector with many glaring problems and extremely limited resources. However, the social media initiative includes a disturbing element in that it recommends that all 30 million-odd students studying in the HEIs be asked to link their social media accounts to their respective institutes. That could create a situation where students