India's institutions and scholars today enjoy "significantly less academic freedom than 10 years ago" according to a report titled 바카라Academic Freedom Index Update 2023바카라.
The report was prepared with collaboration from 2,917 country experts worldwide and was co-ordinated by Swedish think tank V-Dem Institute and the Institute of Political Science at the Friedrich Alexander University in Germany.
India is among 22 countries and territories out of 179 in the world that achieved this feat.
The index score used five indicators 바카라 the freedom to research and teach, freedom of academic exchange and dissemination, institutional autonomy of universities, freedom of academic and cultural expression and campus integrity, or the absence of security infringements and surveillance on campus.
Last year, India was given a score of 0.38 in a table of 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest academic freedom.
India's immediate neighbours Nepal (0.86), Pakistan (0.45) and Bhutan (0.46) scored higher whereas Bangladesh (0.25) and Myanmar (0.01) scored lower than India.
The report noted that although India바카라s decline in academic freedom "started from a comparatively high level during India바카라s democratic period,바카라 it is now associated with 바카라rapidly accelerating autocratisation바카라.
Around 2013, all aspects of academic freedom began to decline strongly, reinforced with Narendra Modi바카라s election as prime minister in 2014, it said.
Pressure on institutional autonomy and campus integrity combined with constraints on academics바카라 freedom of expression - is what distinguished India from other countries scored on the index.
바카라The attacks on academic freedom under [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi바카라s Hindu nationalist government were also possible due to the absence of a legal framework to protect academic freedom,바카라 the report added.
The report's authors further called on higher education policymakers, university leaders, and research funders to promote academic freedom in their own academic institutions as well as abroad.
Other countries
Meanwhile, in other countries like the United States, the report noted that four out of five indicators used for determining academic freedom visibly declined in 2021 바카라 the year after President Donald Trump was voted out of office.
Mexico too has experienced a decline in academic freedom since 2017 which has been further exacerbated after the election of Mexico바카라s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, "whose government has undermined university autonomy," the report said.
China's deterioration in academic freedom, accelerated around 2010 with pressure on all aspects. "The university with Chinese characteristics entails a leadership and management system controlled by the university바카라s party committee, even if it includes an academic committee and a faculty representative assembly. This structural condition facilitated deterioration in all dimensions of academic freedom when Xi Jinping assumed office," the report said.
The aforementioned three countries are among the most populous countries where academic freedom has significantly fallen back over the past decade, the report noted.
