Reforms in Governance & Leadership -- Need of the Hour for Reimagining Indian Universities & Colleges

India desperately needs good governance in colleges and universities so as to create a culture of innovation, and entrepreneurship so as to become and remain competitive in world market. Poor governance and poor leadership is observed to be the root cause for all ills in university education. Indian students and professors are brilliant but unfortunately they have to work today under poor governance. Governance and leadership both at central and state levels are mainly responsible for poor educational standards. It seems like all the governing bodies, namely MHRD, UGC, AICTE, Board of Governors (BOG), executive councils, are not well familiar with the global winds of change. Truly, they are behind time. No wonder, Indian universities in spite of brilliant students and brilliant professors do not stand high in the world list. Thousands of students every year are flying abroad for education. To rectify the ills and to ensure educational quality; India urgently needs to go first on priority for modernising governance systems, make them effective, imaginative and competent. They ought to engage fruitfully with the Vice Chancellors, Principals and especially listen to the voice of students. In globalization, education can best be shaped by adopting role models of only world best universities. National budget allocation to university education which creates vital human capital, which is a driving force for national development, is unfortunately observed to be dwindling. This is a major problem, and a challenge too. So as to build colleges and universities innovative, creative, and qualitative by world standards some suggestions are made in this paper. Strong leadership, distributed leadership and autonomy at the institution level is recommended. What kind of impact a professor makes on society and the profession of his/her specialization is of vital importance to take the nation to greater heights. Are professors competent by global standards? How can they be? Do the systems enable them to be so? Importance of education is outlined by Nobel Laurate Dr. Amartya Sen needs to be borne in mind. He says there is no better way for economic development of India than to educate people well. If India does not provide better education, and instead even if it implements reforms in all other sectors like food, water, electricity, etc. that is not going to matter much.