The Hindu : National : M.S. varsity students to suspend stir

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 14, 2007
ePaper

National

National

M.S. varsity students to suspend stir

Manas Dasgupta

VADODARA: Students of the Fine Arts Faculty of the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara have decided to “suspend” for three weeks their two-month-old agitation pending the report of the fact-finding committee appointed by the Gujarat Governor and “Visitor Chancellor” of the university, Nawal Kishore Sharma.

The three-member committee to be headed by the former Union Minister and Chairman of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), Y.K. Alagh, which was appointed on Thursday, has been asked to submit its report “at the earliest,” preferably within three weeks.

A spokesman of the students said here on Friday that they had decided to suspend the “aggressive” agitation, including dharna and hunger strike, for three weeks when the fact-finding committee would be engaged in finding the facts surrounding the incident of May 9 and the conduct of various university authorities in handling the situation.

The students, however, would not enter classrooms but attend classes “in the open.” They would keep the option open to resume the agitation if necessary, he said.

The students, supported by the teachers, have been agitating against the “unauthorised entry” by Sangh Parivar activists and the ransacking of the premises in protest against alleged “obscene” portrayal of some Hindu gods and goddesses by a final-year student of the faculty.

The then acting Dean, Shivaji Panikkar, who stood by the students saying that the alleged objectionable paintings were not for public display but presented for internal assessment for the examinations, was suspended by Vice-Chancellor Manoj Soni.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National