The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDUCATION

MD varsity teachers’ appeal to end carnage
in Gujarat
Our Correspondent

Rohtak, March 6
The Maharshi Dayanand University Teachers’ Association (MDUTA) has appealed to the President to take immediate measures to check the communal holocaust in Gujarat after gruesome killings of kar sevaks at Godhra.

In a letter written to the President on Tuesday, Mr Vazir Nehra and Mr Himmat Singh Ratnoo, president and secretary, respectively, of the association, said that the hideous killing of people in Gujarat and elsewhere in the country had sent shock waves among the masses throughout the nation. The sensitivities of the people were being attacked through continuous communal and divisive propaganda and brutal assaults on humanity, they added.

The MDUTA leaders said that the compatriots, particularly the vulnerable sections like the minorities, women, children and old as well as other deprived sections of the society were suffering from all types of indignities, torments and agony.

They sought a thorough and comprehensive inquiry by a team of sitting judges of the Supreme Court into the background of the current communal carnage in Gujarat and other parts of the country. They demanded justice to the victims and relief to the survivors and timely measures to check the brutal incidents against humanity.

Meanwhile, the state unit of the Haryana Gyan Vigyan Samiti demanded adequate compensation to the victims of the communal riots in different parts of the country and a high-level probe into the riots.

Expressing concern over the present scenario, Prof Baldev Singh, president of the samiti, said, “The rising communal incidents might endanger the integrity and sovereignty of the nation.”

CAMPUS
Teachers march against privatisation of
higher studies
Gaurav Choudhury

The Federation of Central Universities’ Teachers Associations (FEDUCTA) and the All India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisations (AIFUCTO) organised a march to Parliament as part of the effort to build a “countrywide struggle against the government’s refusal to honour its commitments and its policy of privatisation and commercialisation of higher education”.

In a joint statement last Thursday, the teachers association said that despite repeated appeals and protests over the past few years, the government has remained impervious and shown no readiness to open serious negotiations on the teachers’ demands.

“It is evident that only a countrywide resistance can generate the kind of pressure necessary to make this government retract from pursuing its disastrous policy on higher education,” the statement said.

The teachers associations said that while the government cynically refuses to honour its commitments to minimally improve teachers’ service conditions, universities and colleges across the country have witnessed the rapid degradation of teachers’ service conditions.

Even as the government makes repeated declarations about the need to improve the quality of education in the country, its actions do not address the issue of the flight of talent from the teaching profession.

“Cuts in grants, bans or restrictions on recruitment and increasing resort to contracts to employ teachers have already cast dark shadow over the universities and colleges. Shrinking resources have ravaged the infrastructural facilities, not only denuding the libraries and laboratories, but also depriving the class-rooms in many institutions of black-boards and chalks, the minimal implements necessary for the teaching-learning process. There are reports from some parts of the country that teachers have to buy chalk themselves,” the statement said.

The federations also criticised the growing “commodification of higher education and of its central functionary”. Viewed alongside the massive switch to private and self-financing courses that impart short-term marketable skills solely for those who are willing to pay for it, such contractual and causal forms of employing teachers mean nothing less than the complete commodification of the teaching-learning process.

“By denigrating and humiliating the teacher materially and mentally, they destroy his/her ability to carry out the basic task of higher education, the inculcation of independent and critical thinking. Such a policy, thus, grievously undermines the role of higher education in preserving independence and democracy and in addressing the social and economic problems of the country,” the teachers’ federations said in the statement.

The teachers also said the ban or restrictions on recruitment do not merely entail a freeze on the existing teaching positions, but also a significant reduction, as vacancies are not allowed to be filled up. “This has given birth on an increasingly large and significant scale to contractual forms of employment- ad hoc, guest and part-time teachers, teachers who work more for less pay and are easy victims of harassment and exploitation,” it was pointed out.

Blood donation

Good results reflects efforts of teachers and students, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said while inaugurating a blood donation camp on the occasion of the Fifth Annual Day Function of Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Sciences (BCAS) at Veer Savarkar Complex at Pusa here in the Capital.

Appreciating the effort made by the students and the college management, the Chief Minister said that in spite of many constraints and lack of facilities, the students of this college had shown excellent results.

Ms Dikshit further added that the Delhi Government was committed to making Delhi a Cyber City by 2003 and bring e-governance for a transparent and corruption-free government.

Principal of the college, Mr G. R. Chopra, said that Ms Dikshit is determined to make New Delhi a major city of the world and the government had taken various steps to make Delhi, a pollution-free, cleaner and greener city. Expressing the determination of the college towards this goal, Mr Chopra assured the Chief Minister that the students of BCAS were committed to making Delhi a pollution-free city through the Bhagidari programme of the Delhi Government.

The Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University, Prof Deepak Nayyar, Dean of Colleges of Delhi University, Dr Kiran Datar, Director of Higher Education, Mr S. P. Marwah, Chairman of the Governing Body of the college, Mr Tom A. Vadakkan and Treasurer of the Governing Body, Mr Jagdish Yadav were also present on the occasion.

GGS symposium

Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce of the University of Delhi organised a symposium on ‘Media and Corporate Communication’ last Friday. Eminent journalist and member of Parliament, Mr Kuldeep Nayar, was the guest of honour on the occasion.

Former Director of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Prof J. S. Yadava delivered the keynote address. The other speakers were Prof Avinash Singh, Dr Md. Firoz, and Dr K. K. Sony.

DUTA’s SOS

The Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) has sought an urgent intervention of the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University and Chief Minister of Delhi for the release of salary to the teachers of Laxmibai College (for a period of 45 days, 01-03-98). The salary for the period has been withheld on account of their being on strike in protest against “glaring violations of rules by the college principal, Dr Sunita Puri, and for having joined the DUTA strike against the dishonouring of the UGC recommendations by the government”.

The salaries were initially disbursed and subsequently, deducted despite the teachers having compensated for the loss of teaching time, the DUTA said. “The deduction was clearly an unauthorised action by the principal through intrigues with the UGC and in pursuance of a vendetta against the legitimate and democratic agitation by the teachers. Moreover, it has serious implication for the entire teaching community. The singling out of one group of teachers for such an anti-democratic measure, is an attempt to set a precedent to crush our collective rights to protest and agitate,” the teachers association said.

Creative talk

Prof Pradip N. Khandwalla of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, delivered a talk on “Creativity in Our Times” here on Wednesday. The talk is part of an ongoing series to introduce different aspects of design to the public. Prof Khandwalla has won many awards including the Ford Foundation Doctoral Fellowship and the Seagram Research Award.

Jamia students keeping their fingers crossed

The communal frenzy in the aftermath of the Godhra train violence, has not only left its scary imprint on the affected families and individuals but has also spread its spiteful impact on the life in Jamia.

“The incident is a well-designed plan to disturb communal harmony that prevails all over the country. Why not follow the policy of live and let live,” says Jyoti Malhotra, a research scholar at Jamia.

“I have wonderful friends here, but of late, I have realised that the post-Godhra incidents have scarred many a mind here. When my friends watch television showing clippings of an MP and his family killed, there is a silent but visible tension creeping between us. I just wish and pray that the incident does not practically strain our relationship,” worries Vikas Mittal, a final year student.

However, the members of the teaching faculty are confident that the communal violence in Gujarat will have little impact on the Jamia campus. In these trying circumstances, the teachers are confident that they could depend on their pupils and vice versa.

“This institution is one of the best examples of national integration. My students have always condemned any move that has the potential to disturb the communal balance in the nation, be it Taliban’s atrocities on their womenfolk, Ayodhaya or the Godhra incident. This time also, they presented a rare show of solidarity by just ignoring everything that could pervert their minds and enthusiastically participating in the department’s ongoing literary and cultural programmes,” says a beaming Prof Faizaan Ahmad, Dean of Students’ Welfare.

Senior scholars of the institution also echo the same opinion. “There have been several such incidents in our country that could have created a wedge between the students of various communities studying here. But I have never witnessed anything that could affect them. In fact, they openly discuss such developing issues and always stand for the right cause,” says Sheeraz Haider Naqvi, a former engineering student of the institution, who is still a regular visitor here.

Now, isn’t it a reason to feel cool?

Rana A Siddiqui