A period of great disruption ahead... but big opportunity for countries like India

Larry Kramer, president and vice-chancellor of the London School of Economics (LSE), who is on an outreach visit to India, spoke to HT on Wednesday on LSE's vision for expanding and deepening its academic engagement with Indian universities, his take on ongoing churn in global politics, the importance of institutions, and what the present chaos means for the world at large and India.

- Roshan Kishore

Larry Kramer, president and vice-chancellor of the London School of Economics (LSE), who is on an outreach visit to India, spoke to HT on Wednesday on LSE's vision for expanding and deepening its academic engagement with Indian universities, his take on ongoing churn in global politics, the importance of institutions, and what the present chaos means for the world at large and India. Edited excerpts.

You head one of the best social sciences universities in the world. Most of the good universities are still in the West, which is now in demographic decline. The demographically dynamic countries, India included, have a lot of students but not many good universities. What do you think we can do about this asymmetry?

I suppose two things. One is you can send more of your students to LSE. We have a long-standing relationship with India, right back to the very beginning of the school. We love getting Indian students. We're like an export industry. We give them an education and export them back to their home country.

In India itself, it is just a question of building. Obviously, the talent is here, so it is a question of developing the universities. I do think it makes sense for government policy to develop strong partnerships with universities from outside India that are longer and more well-established. I would be as interested in working with Indian universities directly to help strengthen them as setting up an alternative.

In India, one of the biggest challenges in the economy is employability despite higher education enrolment rising continuously. India's New Education Policy is trying to promote the idea of interdisciplinary learning. Do you think it can work? As dean of Stanford Law School, you are known to have pushed for interdisciplinary approach to legal education.