The North East Space Application Centre (NESAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has agreed in principle to introduce joint courses in the areas of Atmospheric Physics and Satellite Communication with Gauhati University (GU). The ISRO centre has also proposed to collaborate with GU for design of sensor relevant for monitoring natural resources of the NE region via satellite. GU Vice Chancellor Prof Amarjyoti Choudhury made these information public here today. He was inaugurating the Gauhati University Teachers' Association (GUTA) annual seminar on emerging Indian middle class. However, he maintained that the exact specification for design of the sensor and launching of the courses would be finalised after more in-depth interaction. Prof Choudhury also described the Indian middle class as an economic class with predictable behaviour. Middle class is important for the development of democratic polity and academically also, studies in the middle class help predicting the future of the country, he said. Presenting the keynote address on the economic power of the Indian middle class in the function, Prof Bikash Sinha, a former Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute and a member of the National Statistical Commission, said that while the deprived class in the country was shrinking, the upper class was rising faster. Prof Sinha was referring to the Market Information Survey of Households (MISH) conducted by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCEAR) in 2001-02. The survey covered 666 towns and 858 villages of the country. The rural households covered by it numbered 8,580, while the number of urban households it covered was 31,000, he said. The survey projected the number of middle class population in the country in 2009-10 to be 153 million and it defined the middle class as seekers and strivers of the eight income categories listed chronologically as deprived, aspirers, seekers, strivers, near rich, clear rich, sheer rich and crorepati or super rich. It also said that during 2001-02, there were 15,000 crorepati families in the 10 of the richest Indian cities, he said. Former Principal of Cotton College Prof Udayaditya Bharali said while presenting a paper on the Indian middle class and higher education, that during the unipolar regime after the fall of Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia, higher education was thrown to the basket of the profit mongers. The forces of colonialism are now pressurising countries like India to adopt education policies that serve the service sectors with an eye on employability. Even the students now neglect foundation courses and this will create a serious crisis in the education sector of the underdeveloped countries, he warned. The function was presided over by GUTA president Prof NR Das.