The month of April witnessed a range of incidents and advancements in student communities throughout the country, from the murder of a student at BHU to the revokement of the PhD of a Dalit professor at IIT Kanpur to even the recent incident of suicides in Telangana after faulty grading of class XII exams.
With these episodes taking up most of the space on visible mainstream platforms, Campus Watch brings you some news that was buried under the noise.
1) Government Blocks Funding For Delhi University
In a repeat of 2017, the Delhi government has decided to stop funding for the DU colleges that are partially or fully funded by it. This step had come in response to the university’s slow progress on the front of the formation of the institute’s governing bodies. In a letter to DU’s Vice-Chancellor, Manish Sisodia commented, “Delhi University has not constituted the governing bodies in the 28 colleges till date. It is directed that till the governing bodies are formed in these colleges, no funds should be released.”
On the other hand, the Delhi University Teachers’ Association has blamed the government for holding the teaching and working staff at the university ransom in order to resolve “the impasse created between the university and/or the government.” Along with this, the National Democratic Teachers’ Front has alleged that it is the government’s inability for not sending names of around 10-12 members that has delayed the process. In response, the varsity had sent a letter to the government, requesting their approval on the list of 188 names that were sent to them, to which the government requested for an extensive list of names.
2) Mumbai Students Achieve A Paan-Tastic Breakthrough
A team of eight undergraduate students, led by Dr Mayuri Rege, a biologist from Mumbai’s Ramnarain Ruia College, won a gold medal and a special prize for Best Integrated Human Practices in the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition in Boston. Having done her PhD from the US, Dr Rege had joined Ruia college last year. In a conversation with Firstpost, she talks about the practice that was followed by the team initially to train all the participants in the process of performing research appropriately.
After securing a position among the top five teams from India, the team flew to Boston with the help of funding of ₹10 lakh from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). Using various kinds of paan stains and procuring cultured bacteria from the stains, the team was able to predict the kind of proteins that would help to produce similar forms of bacteria. Using the relatively harmless E. coli strains to clone these predicted proteins, the team managed to observe a significant decolouration in the paan stains. Dr Rege conveyed how the team had already been contacted by the railways for their solution into this epidemic of sorts for the industry.
3) Students At Kishtwar’s Government Degree College Hoist The National Flag Despite No Permission
On April 24, students at GDC, Kishtwar, Jammu, chose to unfurl the Indian National Flag as the college administration waited to discuss the issue at length and get back to the student body. In an interview with ANI, college principal, Pawan Kumar Sharma, mentioned that the students had approached the authorities, requesting for permission to do the same.
Following Sharma’s assurance of a discussion with the college faculty, the students gave him an ultimatum of two days and hoisted the flag after the promised time. As the principal confirmed the presence of a few outsiders at the incident, it was accompanied by an adequate deployment of police security, and he guaranteed that the hoisting of the state flag along with the national flag would take place.
4) Allahabad University Reveals The Dark Underbelly Of Illegally Occupied Hostels
As the investigation of the murder of Rohit Shukla at the PCB hostel in Allahabad University progressed, the college authorities soon found themselves vacating and sealing around 500 illegally occupied rooms in 15 hostels across the institute. Shukla, who was himself an outsider, was the victim of a scuffle which ended with six students from the university being named in the FIR that followed.
As the police began searching the PCB hostels, they seized around 25 motorcycles and 4 cars, along with materials for making bombs in a couple of rooms. The situation had worsened to an extent that all 79 rooms in Pant hostel had to be sealed due to their illegal occupancy. The university has decided to lodge FIRs against the students to whom the rooms had been allotted to, and have resulted in sealing of rooms at a massive scale.
5) Teachers Choose To Contest Elections Over Fulfilling Election Duties
About 100 professors from Punjabi University, Patiala sent in applications to the administration to allow them to contest the Lok Sabha elections, polling for which is to be held on May 19 in Punjab. The teaching fraternity had resorted to this step after the university’s decision to mandate the faculty with election duties. According to college guidelines, the teachers cannot be forced to sit for election duty.
Along with a shut-down of the research and academic activities, the professors also sloganeered against the district electoral office for their silence on the issue. Despite such a high number of applications, the administration had allowed only 16 of them to contest elections in the upcoming polls.
6) Mumbai University Struggles With Establishing College-Development Committees
Out of around 700 colleges that are affiliated with Mumbai university, only 97 have managed to set up their college development committees, a panel that the varsity had mandated the colleges to set up. The function of these committees is to plan and set the path that the institute’s workings must follow. In a conversation with Times of India, a varsity member revealed how even of the 97 colleges, only a handful had finally submitted a report to the university administration. Additionally, Mumbai university has faced a range of problems in its past, including the rampant cases of delayed examination results.
7) No Additional Representation At The Central Tribal University
The up-and-coming Central Tribal University, that is set to open in July 2019, has declared that its admission procedure would not provide for any special reservation for tribal students in the institute. This decision has come in the wake of requests by various civil society organizations that had demanded a 50% reservation for tribal students, arguing that a lack of representation of the tribal community would lead to a homogenous crowd and defeat the purpose of a tribal university.
The courses at the institute have been carefully constructed in order to pay attention to features like tribal culture, economy, arts and languages, said Andhra University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor G Nageswara Rao.
Featured image for representative purpose only.
Featured image source: Ujjwalpachori94; Jan Bockaert/Wikimedia Commons; Simon Alexander Jacob/Flickr.
The post In Case You Missed It: 7 Important Developments Across India’s Colleges This April appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.