The author mentions " Many Indians live under a comfortable, though wrong notion, that education is not a 'commercial' service and cannot be regulated as such." I do not think that those who choose Pvt schools live with this wrong notion. Those that send their children do so because they are too poor to afford the expenses of a private school. Regulated or unregulated is another story. The Indian Govt is a strange ccreature. It mouths platitudes aplenty, it prefers to do nothing on the ground, but tries to regulate and control everything in the name of the poor. Anything that the citizen chooses to do in education is to be regulated whether it is legal or illegal. The currency of this regulation is money. Witness the manner in which our higher education is being regulated. More seats, more IITs, More NITs, more IIMs, more Mgmt colleges, and more and more quotas of all kinds followed by more rules, more approvals and what's more; more inspections. The combination is heady. More rent seeking devices and more taxes to support them. The poor get nothing,and no one gets anything genuine. Spurious education and still spurious degrees. People pay either way- all the way. The politicians and the bureaucrats run this industry untrammeled all in the name of the poor of India!!
