The truth is rich Indians can afford to send their children to schools and colleges anywhere in the world and because of the dearth in our own country even middle-class Indians scrape together what they can to send their children to foreign universities. The only people who suffer are the poorest of the poor.

There are too few schools and colleges in India because the infamous license-quota-permit raj is still thriving. It can be abolished as it was for industry but no prime minister has shown the political will to do this. If Manmohan Singh pushes for change, chief ministers will line up to copy his example. And, his government will be remembered for more than doing its best to cling to silly old ideas like quotas and permits at a time when the Indian economy is booming. They put restrictions, we are told, because they want growth to be “inclusive”, more available to our needier citizens. What can be more inclusive than allowing a million schools and colleges to bloom? If Rahul Gandhi succeeds in pushing his idea through, he deserves to be prime minister and I say that, I with my known aversion to baba log in politics.