Academic Collaborations

Collaborating with academics globally because there is an authentic sharing of interests and a desire to work together on problems that are globally relevant is one thing and I respect such efforts.

But collaborating / liasoning / etc. etc. because one believes that that is a quick way to "get in the limelight", "move ahead in rankings (generated by organizations based in the US or UK :))", etc. etc. points at a basic lack of self respect. This I can never respect :).

The minute we adopt such a mindset, we have automatically ruled out the possibility of being leaders. And this ruling out is axiomatic, because you see, we would have just *defined* ourselves to be *someone in need of someone else* :).

It doesn't work this way.

If we want to really make our presence felt on the world stage, then first things first :) : We need to have the self confidence and conviction that we can hold our own. And with this self confidence and conviction, we need to work on problems, fundamental or applied, that *we* want to work on, that are of interest to *us*, that are relevant to *us*. (Understand very very clearly that this is exactly how the west has established itself in a position of leadership : they just don't care what others think of them, whether one follows them or not, they just go about doing what they want to do :).)

Do you see what I'm saying?