India, Sept. 23 -- India's great Centres of Excellence-from Nalanda and Takshashila to the IITs-were built over generations through exceptional teachers, academic freedom, integrity, rigorous standards, and courageous leadership, not merely through funding, infrastructure, or selective admissions. Yet excellence rarely disappears overnight; it erodes gradually when reputation substitutes for performance, dissent becomes inconvenient, governance turns reactive, and institutions lose the capacity for self-correction and invite police onto campus. Recent developments at some IITs, therefore, invite a larger question: what makes a Centre of Excellence endure-and what happens when the culture that created it begins to weaken? India's tradition...