Months after he withdrew his candidature as chancellor of Nalanda University, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has now said that the Narendra Modi-led government wants to seize direct control over academic institutions. Sen has candidly written about his exit from Nalanda University in a 4,000-word essay, which will be published in August issue of the New York Review of Books. Ahead of the publication of the essay, Sen talked to a newspaper and hit out at the government for "extraordinarily large" interference in academia. In an interview to a Indian Daily paper, the Nobel laureate also expressed his worries about cut in budgets for health and education. "I have never been anti-industry but no country can become an industrial giant with an uneducated and unhealthy labour force," Sen said. Talking to the daily, Sen said: "I was certainly ousted from Nalanda”. "Some members of the Board, especially the foreign members were keen on carrying on the battle for me but I stepped aside as I did not want to be an ineffective leader. The government may have held up finances or statues had I continued." "Nalanda not a one off incident. Nothing in this scale of interference has happened before. Every institution where the government has a formal role is being converted into where the government has a substantive role." Sen further noted that the government refused to ratify the director"s appointment at the TIFR.
