The Hindu : New Delhi News : Reader's Mail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 16, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Reader's Mail

No, Sir....

In her eulogy, "From Sir, with love", published in your highly regarded newspaper dated May 5, Lakshmi B. Ghosh rightly calls Prof. Deepak Nayyar "the man behind DU perestroika" as he leaves Delhi University in a shambles -- something which Mr. Gorbachev of the original perestroika fame did to the mighty USSR.

Prof. Nayyar's prime activities have been cited as "the biggest construction and restoration drives" in the University and turning its academic ambience into a multinational "plaza" look. He has brought in Nirula's and tried to bring in McDonald's to the Campus replacing low-priced common student-oriented cooperative canteens.

His construction and restoration drives have been at the cost of the academic infrastructure in the form of libraries and laboratories. The private banks and their ATMs with all the "plaza" stuff have failed to provide a decent cyber-cafe, discussion rooms or coffee houses to the academic fraternity of DU. His restoration drives have resulted in a massive waste of the taxpayer's money on cosmetic changes in the University. In these drives the sub-text reveals not only an un-academic flow of money but also a blatant disregard for the history of modern India as he is solely responsible for the desecration of Nehru Vatika in the name of restoration of the Viceregal Lodge, perhaps to please his masters abroad.

In the name of restructuring the much maligned "50-year-old courses" also, he has not taken the academic community into confidence, with the result that the so-called "new look" courses have seen old syllabi being repeated under a new name of "BA Programme" in the first year, and the course material for many second and third year papers is still to see the light of day.

Prof. Nayyar seems to have been in a self-biodata building hurry and disregarded academic norms, statutes and ordinances in implementing "the changes" without academic consultation and discussion in the Academic Council where he has failed to convene requisitioned meetings and declared the agenda "passed" without any deliberation. As far as his claim to "internal assessment" is concerned, it has been the result of DUTA's longstanding work-outs on teachers' accountability, students' seriousness along with the accountability of the Principals, Deans, PVC and VC. Here, too, Prof. Nayyar has bungled in overhauling the system by leaving the authorities outside the ambit of accountability.

Besides the construction spree, if Prof. Nayyar has excelled anywhere it is in the appointment spree, with "310 appointments" in faculties and, "as many as 22 principals" in colleges. In these appointments not merely professors but even readers and lecturers were appointed in absentia. Surprisingly, this appointment spree continued till almost the last days of his tenure in blatant disregard of the HRD Ministry's directive to all V-Cs to desist from appointments in the last three months of their tenure.

Prof. Nayyar also indulged in political and personal vendetta in denying re-employment to meritorious teachers with academic gold medals, international publications and Ph.Ds.

Now he cannot profess any "love" as DUTA (a body of 8,000 teachers) has unanimously taken out a "White Paper" against his acts of omission and commission and demanded a Visitorial inquiry against him from no less a person than the President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who is the Visitor for the University of Delhi.

Dr. S.K. Mishra,

Department of English,

Satyawati College (M),

University of Delhi,

Delhi - 110 007.

Yes, but....

Delhi University is planning introduction of concurrent courses in the B.A. Honours programme from July this year. While we welcome, in principle, the idea of concurrent courses, we are dismayed by the shoddy and half-baked manner in which these are being introduced. Contrary to the Vice-Chancellor's claim that this has "strengthened the teaching and learning process", ( The Hindu , May 5), we feel that it is precisely this process which has been undermined in the whole exercise.

Traditionally in DU new courses are formulated through a process of sustained discussion among teachers. Drafts of courses are discussed at length and at various levels in each department so that they can be thoroughly vetted before being implemented. These safeguards, we feel, are crucial in maintaining the high academic standards that our university is known for.

Unfortunately this time, in a hurry to introduce new courses, the authorities have given a go-by to this time-tested practice. The new courses have been created by a few arbitrarily selected teachers in a matter of weeks. There has been no time or opportunity for the larger body of teachers to engage with these courses or their implication. As a result, several lacunae and problems remain unaddressed. Many of us have great misgivings about their academic soundness or teachability.

Full details about these courses are still not available to the college teachers. The textbooks are not ready and there seems little likelihood of teaching material being available in college libraries by July. Several of these courses are of an interdisciplinary nature and teachers need orientation courses to be able to do justice to the subjects.

Given this state of unpreparedness, how this "great reform" will work at the ground level is anyone's guess! We strongly feel that this whole exercise needs to be undertaken with a great sense of responsibility and not pushed through arbitrarily with such haste, especially in view of the fact that these marks will now count towards students' final grades. Several teachers had requested the university authorities to defer introduction of these courses for an year to allow us time to review and adequately prepare for them but for reasons best known to them the proposal was turned down.

Sanjay Kumar,

Hansraj College,

Ira Singh,

Miranda House,

Anuradha Marwah,

Zakir Husain College,

Sanjay Sharma,

Zakir Husain College,

Pragati Mahapatra,

Indraprastha College,

Neeraj Malik,

Indraprastha College,

A-1 Staff Flats, Indraprastha College,

Shamnath Marg,

Delhi-110 054.

Postal pangs

The Central Government has virtually banned new recruitment for the Postal Department. Under the guidelines on the subject, one-third of the vacant posts in Groups C and D would be filled up with the approval of the Screening Committee appointed for the purpose. The remaining two-third posts are to be abolished straightaway. About 38,000 posts of Group C and D cadres have been abolished during the last three years.

The ban, surprisingly enough, is not applicable to Groups B and A of the officer cadre. Not even a single post of the officer cadre has been abolished so far.

As a consequence, the post offices are facing an acute shortage of staff. Deterioration of postal services is inevitable under these circumstances. The mindless non-recruitment policy will prove fatal for the people-friendly department if not suitably modified at once.

H.S. Guleria,

Officiating General Secretary, All-India Postal Employees' Union Group C,

Dada Ghosh Bhavan,

2151/1, New Patel Nagar,

New Delhi - 110 008.

Why indeed?

The Hindu Right must have put many crores of rupees and a great deal of its soldiers' time into fielding the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidates during the general elections last year. What was the point of it all really, seeing that those who were elected to Parliament now spend all their time away from it?

Do sensible people pay through their nose for sumptuous meals just so they can throw away the food?

Mukul Dube,

D-504 Purvasha,

Mayur Vihar 1,

Delhi - 110 091.

(Letters for this column may be sent by e-mail to wsins@thehindu.co.in. They must carry the full postal address of the writer and should be marked "Reader's Mail".)

Department of English,

Satyawati College (M),

University of Delhi,

Delhi - 110 007.

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