The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Students write to Kalam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 20, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Students write to Kalam

Special Correspondent

They want ban on use of cell phone in university lifted "A ban on revealing outfits is welcome; a ban on universally accepted decent casual wear is not."

CHENNAI: The standoff between students and authorities of Anna University has come out into the open again with a section of students readying to petition President Abdul Kalam, seeking his intervention to end the ban on cell phone and imposition of a dress code.

A copy of a letter, purportedly written by students in the third and fourth semesters of the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), was circulated among reporters on Thursday. The letter, part of a signature campaign by the students, lists a series of harassment meted out by the authorities under the pretext of enforcing the ban and the dress code. It will be sent to the President after collecting more signatures, students say.

The CEG has been in the eye of a storm ever since the ban and the code were imposed last year.

The students say even switched-off phones are being confiscated. The authorities have also issued a diktat that students should be not seen in casual wear even after college hours. They are also resorting to periodic frisking and night raids on hostels.

The students have expressed a deep sense of humiliation over the treatment meted out to them. "The Vice-Chancellor's campaign... is an all-out effort to eradicate cell phones from the campus altogether and even cell phones used in canteens during lunch hours and in the playground after working hours are confiscated without explanation," it says.

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