The Hindu : New Delhi News : Artistes against deemed university status to National School of Drama

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Artistes against deemed university status to National School of Drama

By Anita Joshua

NEW DELHI, FEB. 22. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has cleared a proposal to recommend deemed university status to the National School of Drama (NSD) even as artistes associated with language theatres are mobilising opinion against such a move. They, in turn, are demanding that theatres in various languages be developed as ``national theatre'', freeing Indian theatre from its Delhi-centric image.

The decision to grant `deemed-to-be university' status to NSD under Section 3 of the UGC Act was taken by the Commission earlier this month after a committee of experts found that the School fulfilled the eligibility criteria.

Old proposal

The proposal to make NSD a deemed university is as old as the institution itself. Apparently, there was a move to make it a deemed university when NSD was separated from the Sangeet Natak Akademi and set up as a separate autonomous institution. The founder-director, Ibrahim Alkazi, had then fought a move to make it an affiliate of Jawaharlal Nehru University or a deemed university.

Apprehensive that NSD had resurrected the old proposal to scuttle their demand for developing language theatres as ``national theatre'' — articulated to the Government recently in a memorandum — like-minded artistes have formed Abhivyakti Abhiyan to generate a debate on the subject. Given the state of theatre training within the university system — wherein only a handful of departments across the country are functioning properly — their contention is that the ``UGC track record in running drama departments is abysmally poor''.

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