Given the precious decade (through the 1980s) I invested trying to drum some business literacy (as editor of Business India and Businessworld) � with some success I believe � into the then comprehensively business illiterate politicians and captains of Indian industry, and for the past decade attempting to replicate the experience in the education sector, I looked forward to being able to write a major feature combining the knowledge acquired of both sectors. The opportunity presented itself while writing this month�s cover feature on the Delhi (Gurgaon)-based Educomp Solutions Ltd (ESL), India�s most successful and valuable (in terms of market capitalisation) digitised content and education services provider to the K-12 schools segment. ESL is a well-managed business enterprise as well as a contemporary IT (information technologies) and R&D (research and development)-driven education solutions company. On both counts the company�s performance is impressive. Powered by its 400-strong R&D division, ESL has introduced a slew of education products, processes and services which are already helping 1,200 private and 7,300 government primary-secondary schools across the country to improve teacher productivity and student learning outcomes. Perhaps even more impressively, neither Shantanu Prakash, an IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus who abjured the option of being a �well-remunerated bean counter� two decades ago and promoted ESL in 1988, nor the company�s top management is letting the grass grow under their feet. Having established a dominant presence in the K-12 schools segment, the company has recently entered the pre-school segment as also the tertiary education sector, while registering its footprint in high-potential markets abroad. Right now ESL�s flag is fluttering in Singapore, the US and perhaps most significantly, the company is set to roll out its entire suite of products and services in the People�s Republic of China. I believe that within the next decade Prakash will realise his ambition of transforming ESL, whose sales revenue is growing by 100 percent-plus per year, into a heavyweight global provider of education content, products and services. A new awareness I�ve acquired after visiting the hi-tech and smoothly-managed facilities of ESL, is that only modern, for-profit corporations staffed with competent, well-paid professionals can deliver the high quality education products, content and processes at affordable prices, that third world countries urgently require. Of course, government and charitable organisations can play useful contributory roles, but to roll out hi-tech enabling education products and services on a mass scale, governments need to rope in professionally-managed corporates, run according to proven business principles and practices. This sentiment is also expressed on our Expert Comment and International News (Sweden) pages in this issue. Evidence of the havoc caused by government rushing in where it should have treaded very carefully, is liberally available in our special report. It took a long legal battle waged by private school managements against the Karnataka state government to assert the right of parents to choose the medium of instruction for their children�s education. On July 2, they won a famous victory for English medium education, as our indefatigable assistant editor Summiya Yasmeen reports.������������ ""