More reason to cheer for would-be technology students. The Indian government has just approved nine more National Institutes of Technology (NITs) that will become operational from next year onwards either on lease campuses or in older NITs. The campuses themselves will take five more years to come up.

The move comes close on the heels of the HRD ministry’s revolutionary measures to change the way this country has traditionally viewed education.

For starters, these institutes would cost the government close to Rs 2,350 crore and most of them have been planned in the north-eastern states, seemingly to make up for their gross shortage of professional tech schools in the region. So, next year on, if all goes well, we will have NITs in Manipur, Mizoram, Goa , Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Pudducherry, Uttarakhand and Delhi.

These would join the list of 20 NITs already operational in the country.

This brings us back to a question debated on the Nature India forum for long – are more institutes the answer to the problems facing India’s science education. Is quantity the key or quality or none? Where is reform most needed?

Alongside this, the government also approved amendments to the Organs Transplantation Act. Now there would be stringent penalties on persons or hospitals violating the provisions. A relook at the regulations was long due, what with the blatant violations to the act and a thriving human organ trade in India.