Chandigarh, October 25
Eminent economist and Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prof B.B. Bhattacharya, today said politics should be kept away from institutions of higher learning.

Prof Bhattacharya was in the city to deliver a talk to bankers at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) here.

Stating that the need of the hour was to produce high quality professionals, Prof Bhattacharya pointed out that this was the only way in which India could maintain its edge in the fields of medicine, bio-technology, information technology, pharmaceuticals etc.

Depoliticisation of universities was needed for their growth specially in an environment which demanded immediate updating of courses and keeping in tune with the times, felt Prof Bhattacharya who has heralded a series of changes in the university since he took over as the Vice-Chancellor in June last year.

“University is a place for students to study, not a place for politicians to fight their political battles,” said Prof Bhattacharya adding that the university was gearing up for student elections which were round the corner. Senior political leaders like Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechuri were now addressing students in the JNU hostels and the concentration of students with strong leftist bias within the campus had also made the situation on the campus already tense.

“It’s not true that all our students are staunchly leftist. But no doubt there is a group of students who have their political biases and since this group is also vocal the impression that goes out through the media is that JNU students are leftist. The media should also focus on the hundreds of students and teachers who are quietly and labourously working towards achieving excellence.” said Prof Bhattacharya.

JNU was the only university from India which had made it to the top two hundred universities of the world. “It is a matter of pride and the focus is on improvement of infrastructure to match the state of the art infrastructure offered by foreign universities; creation of a system of continuous upgradation of courses and attracting quality faculty. We are battling with the University Grants Commission to allow us the flexibility of recruiting faculty on our own and starting new courses. But it might take time,” he said.

Prof Bhattacharya also came up with a unique way to solve the problem of water shortage in the campus. “We took it up as a project and with help from geo mapping discovered our own water,” he explained.

Prof Bhattacharya holds a doctorate in economics from the Delhi School of Economics and remained the Director of Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi. “I have always maintained that government should increase its budget for education and managed to convince the Prime Minister to do so. For the first time there has been a genuine increase in the Budget allocation for higher education,” he said, admitting, however, that he had more difficulty in convincing the university students that government grants were being allotted without any strings attached.

Author of a number of articles and books dealing with macro economics, money and finance, public finance, international economics, development economics and political economy of development, Prof Bhattacharya is now waiting for his next work on macro-economics which will be in print next week.

Chandigarh, October 25
As part of the ongoing silver jubilee celebrations, the Dev Samaj College of Education yesterday played host to a team of 11 teachers from Rotherham County, Yorkshire, UK, under the Teachers International Professional Development Programme. This project is collaborative effort of the Department of Education and Skills UK and Art and Education Institute, Mohali, to explore and understand each other’s country. The team is headed by Mr Mick Connell, School Improvement Adviser, Rotherham, UK and was accompanied by Prof. Rajpal, Director, Heritage Institute for Art, Culture and Education.

The team visited the classrooms and observed simulated teaching done by pupil teachers of the college. The sessions were followed by interaction between the visitors and the prospective teachers.

Chandigarh, October 25
As the Congress failed to fulfil its promise of all Congress MLAs declaring their assets to the general public, a local court today gave last opportunity to five Punjab MLAs to file their reply by November 3, 2006.

The five MLAs — Kewal Krishan, Jagjit Chaudhary, JS Randhawa, Satokh Chaudhary and Sardul Singh — were scheduled to file their reply before the court today.

The court has already initiated ex-parte proceedings against 64 MLAs of the Congress in Punjab for not appearing before the court in a civil suit filed by SAD leader, Mr Gurmeet Singh Matharoo.

Mr N.S. Minhas, an Akali leader, said through the suit, the complainant had sought a direction from the court to the Congress to fulfil its election promise. A statement issued by Capt Amarinder Singh that the assets are to be declared to the Congress President, Ms Sonia Gandhi, was in contravention to the election manifesto.

Chandigarh, October 25
The “nostalgia” bug has bitten producer, director, writer and theatre personality Raman Kumar. As this prolific man gets ready to come back “home” to Punjab, ‘Punjabiyat’ is about to get another boost.

In the city on a whirlwind day-long trip, Kumar was on a two-pronged mission. One, to finalise the script of his film ‘Sarhad Paar’ (starring Sanjay Dutt as a ‘Sardar’ prisoner of war) being written by Vijay Tandon and to meet representatives of Punjab TV to look into doing a serial in Punjabi.

And this is where his “roots” come in. Born and brought up in Amritsar, Raman Kumar has spent most of his life amidst the rigours of the Hindi film and television industry. But this time round the thing that has brought him back is a poem that he read in a city-based poet Govardhan Gabbi’s book of verses, ‘Ateet de Sirnave’ (Addresses of the Past) .

“The poem talks of how in one’s childhood when one wanted to come home it was there waiting, but later when one looks back wishing for it, it just does not exist. I never want a situation like that,” Raman smiles.

And in the process of “creating a home” his numerous assignments continue unabated, an English film with Kabir Bedi, ‘Maya Mirage’, a small-budget experimental film, ‘Dus Saal’ and a comedy for Star Plus.