About the Book : Educational institutions in general and more particularly the higher learning institutions are in deep crises. Everyone expects that reform has to be initiated only by the centre and state governments. To address the problems a new policy framework is evolved. But it has not crossed the tables of the critiques. Political executive and policy community have to play a crucial role in reforming this sector. There is no second opinion on the above argument. But lot of initiatives can be taken by the conscious teachers who are serving in higher learning institutions. In the context of commercialization of education, teachers have a role to play at the ground. Against this background, lots of initiatives have been taken at the ground by us as teachers. They are being captured problems of the institutions and students are analyzed at a micro level. They are also being captured in this work. All the chapters in this book appeared in different journal as articles in different periods. All are brought out here under one theme.

About the Author : G. Palanithurai is an academic activist served in Annamalai University and the Gandhigram Rural Institute for about 34 years in teaching, research and outreach activities integrally. He held several managerial positions form the Head of the Department to in-charge Vice-Chancellor. He has to his credit 73 books, 22 edited volumes, 95 monographs, 42 chapters in edited volumes, 136 research articles in refereed journals and 394 popular articles in newspapers and magazines in English and Tamil in his area of specialization local democracy and development. He has prepared 42 research reports for international and national research agencies and both the governments. He has evolved innovative training modules to build the capacity of the elected representatives of the people in rural local bodies. He has trained 8000 gram panchayat presidents and of them 5000 are women and dalits. He was the Professor in Rajiv Gandhi chair for Panchayati Raj studies in the Gandhigram Rural Institute. He closely worked with state and centre planning commissions for preparation of research reports. He was a visiting professor in cologne university Germany for a semester. He introduced two innovative master programme M.A development administration and M.A. governance and development. He was awarded fellowships by Shastri Indo Canadian Institute, World Academy of Art and Science USA, the Toolkit Foundation, Netherland to visit abroad to conduct studies and to write books. He organized and participated innumerable workshops, seminars, conference at regional, national and głobal level. He received awards including Ram Reddy Award, V.R. Krishna Aiyar Award and Seven Generation Award for the outstanding activities done in the field of Panchayati Raj. Currently he is the Director of Rural Development Division (SARVAM) of Sri Aurobuido Society, Puducherry. Email: [email protected], Mobile: 9159099809