India, April 5 -- What's the best way to acquire skills? Learning on the job? Or attending a formal course? I guess it depends on the nature of the skills. If you want to be a doctor or an engineer, then there is no real alternative to a formal education in the subject. Also read | The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: Best meals I ate outside India

But there are many fields where it is not so clear-cut. Take fine art, for example. MF Hussain went briefly to art school but dropped out. And it made no difference to his career. Same with Pablo Picasso, who dropped out of art school in his native Spain, saying that it was a waste of time.

Or journalism. Bob Woodward, who may be America's most famous journalist, never studied journalism. Neither did ou...