Education News

Maharashtra

Twin leakage scam

Once considered among the most prestigious universities in India, boasting illustrious alumni like B.R. Ambedkar and Nani Palkhivala, Bombay University, aka University of Mumbai (est.1857), has witnessed its reputation taking a serious hammering of late. While the past decade has witnessed scandals aplenty reeking of malpractice and financial shenanigans, the university experienced possibly its bleakest moments this year on March 31, when a final year B.Com paper was leaked for the second time in two weeks, outraging 64,000 long suffering commerce students and the entire academic community.

Bombay University: frenzied growth price

Following indignant outcry, a case was registered under s. 380 of the Indian Penal Code and the exam was rescheduled for March 31. However, once again on the eve of the exam, photocopies of the new question paper were being hawked at around 11 p.m for sums ranging between Rs.4,000-7,000. Mumbai’s afternoon daily Mid Day managed to purchase a copy of the question paper at 2.00 a.m, with the result that Mungekar received yet another faxed copy of a leaked question paper, thankfully this time before students had begun to write the exam.

Even as a fresh date for the exam was pending announcement, Mumbai police arrested a student, who identified Prakash Nagariya a lecturer in the city’s Nagrik Shikshan Sanstha’s College of Commerce and Economics (NSS) as the source of the paper leak. Nagariya had been appointed by the college’s principal S.B. Sutar, as chief conductor of examinations at the college. Under interrogation, Nagariya confessed that he had leaked the paper for monetary consideration. He was arrested on April 4 together with his nephew, Suraj alias Achal Pradip Gupta, a second year student of Mithibai College. Principal Sutar was also detained for questioning. "The university authorises only the principal to conduct examinations. It is surprising how the principal delegated the power to conduct examinations," additional commissioner of police S.M. Sayyed told the press.

Meanwhile, the exam was rescheduled for the third time and on April 8 question papers were sent to colleges in sealed trunks escorted by Bombay University security personnel. The trunks were opened just 20 minutes before the exam and the papers distributed amidst tight security. This time the examination was written without interruption by grateful students.

However, the troubles of NSS College are far from over. Apart from the entire management having fallen under suspicion for being involved in the exam scam, the college has been instructed by the university to reimburse the costs incurred by it for conducting the re-examinations. In a press conference held on April 9, Mungekar said: "Due to the repeated paper leaks, the university incurred huge losses for conducting the re-examinations. The college will now have to make good this loss."

But whatever the method of making up the losses might be, the crucial question being asked is not how, but why. Why has institutional decay permeated this hitherto highly respected varsity? Preliminary indications are that the mammoth size of the university, which is adding/ affiliating departments and colleges at a frenzied and unmanageable pace and political interference in management and faculty appointments are to blame. However a deeper analysis and investigation is required to ascertain why the hitherto venerated Bombay University seems to be on a constant collision course with disaster.

Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)

VJTI goes solo

Mumbai’s oldest engineering college, the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI), formerly the Victoria Jubliee Technology Institute, founded in 1887, is all set to go solo with the Maharastra state government having cleared its application to the University Grants Commission (UGC) for autonomous status.

"Autonomy will mean greater accountability and responsibility. The onus will be on us to perform well so that we can continue to attract UGC funding," says Dr. S.D. Varwandkar principal of the institute. The conferment of autonomy will also empower the institute’s management to revise VJTI’s curriculum, governance, fees, funding, faculty, research facilities, role of students and above all, increase its interaction with industry. On the cards is a new curriculum to meet the demands of industry, as well as several corporates setting up research labs on campus.

Varwandkar: greater responsibility

Inevitably tuition fees are also set to double from the current Rs.15,000 per year to Rs.30,000. Comments Varwandkar: "This increase the first in three years, has to be looked at in perspective. Even if the fees are fixed at Rs.30,000, this is only a fraction of the cost we incur per student."

Amit Chandra, managing director of DSP Merrill Lynch and an alumnus of the institute is of the opinion that the institute’s tuition fees must be adjusted for inflation to maintain academic standards. "In premier universities abroad, like Harvard University, tuition fees are raised almost every year. But these varsities still attract the best students, because once they graduate, they are able to pay back study loans very easily. Now education loans are easily available in India as well, so there is no justification for heavy subsidisation of higher education," says Chandra.

The benefits of autonomy have already begun to flow. According to Varwandkar, VJTI has been selected by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) as a lead engineering education institute in Maharashtra and has been sanctioned a special grant of Rs.15 crore. "This is the first phase of the funding. To attract the second phase, we will have to perform satisfactorily," says Varwandkar.

VJTI perspective: autonomy benefit inflow

Apart from impacting students by way of higher tuition fees, conferment of autonomous status will also impact the institute’s 200-strong faculty. Henceforth pay rises will be pegged to teaching and research output and performance. "Not all faculty members are enthused about our autonomous status. They will need to be motivated," says Varwandkar.

The process of preparing for autonomy has already begun. On April 15-16, a national conference ‘Blueprint 2020’ was convened in Mumbai by VJTI students and faculty. This conference discussed ways and means to effect the transformation to autonomous status and was the first such symposium held by an engineering college in India. The galaxy of speakers at the conference included Ms. Chandra Iyengar, principal secretary, higher and technical education, Maharashtra; Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, director general of CSIR; Dr. B.L. Mungekar, vice chancellor of Mumbai University; Ranjit Pandit, managing director of McKinsey India; Ganesh Natarajan, managing director of Zensar Technologies; Dr. Ashok Misra, director of IIT Bombay, and Darlie Koshi, director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, among others.

Among the subjects discussed at the conference were autonomy; curriculum revision; the role of alumni and industry in academia; the new Indian economy; the changing education landscape in India; innovation and experimentation in engineering research; the role of the Indian engineer in the new economy. "VJTI is one of the finest institutes of engineering education in the world, but it is also one of the most under-promoted education brands in the country," observed Ranjit Pandit managing director of McKinsey India.

According to Pandit, India is positioned "to develop solutions for the future of 50 percent of the world’s population" and institutes such as VJTI have a critical role to play in making brand India a respected name in global industry. "It will be institutes such as VJTI that will lead the way," opined Pandit who added that Indian engineers and scientists are as good if not better, than their counterparts in the West.

A century after it was promoted, the conferment of autonomous status offers new challenges to VJTI. But to convert new challenges into opportunities the management of this 117-year-old hitherto low-profile college of engineering will need the support of all stake holders: faculty, students and Indian industry.

Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai)

Karnataka

Confusion confounded

Despite two judgements of the Supreme Court, numerous circulars, press notes and reams of ‘explanatory’ media reports, the process of admission into Karnataka’s 109 engineering, 27 medical and 41 dental colleges is mired in continuous confusion. In this web of confusion are entrapped the usual victims — school leaving (class XII) students.

For over two decades since 1980, Karnataka has been a haven of promoters of professional education (medicine, dentistry and engineering) ‘donation colleges’, where admission could always be obtained for a price. As a result the state currently is home to the highest number of privately promoted professional colleges in the country (23 medical, 40 dental and 106 engineering). The process of conducting Common Entrance Test aka CET was evolved by the state government in 1985 in an effort to regulate admissions into private colleges which were collecting huge amounts of money as capitation fees from anxious — mostly out of state — students.

Under the CET schema the state government conducts the entrance examination and allocates seats to qualifying students. Students were — and continue to be — offered three choices according to their ranking in CET: the most highly ranked are offered a seat in a government-run college where tuition fees are heavily subsidised; the next best ranked are placed in the ‘merit seat’ category in private colleges where fees are marginally higher. Third rung performers are placed in the ‘payment seat’ or non-merit category for which managements could charge an approved (equivalent six-times the fee of the merit seat) annual tuition fee. Apart from this, all privately promoted colleges were given a 10 percent management quota which was usually auctioned by college managements for clandestine payments of upto Rs.20 lakh upfront for hard-to-get medical seats and slightly lesser sums for entry into dental and engineering colleges.

But this elaborate admission process sanctified by the Supreme Court in Unnikrishnan’s Case (1993) changed in October 2002, when a full strength 11-judge bench of the apex court passed a 318-page judgement in TMA Pai Foundation & Ors vs. State of Karnataka & Ors (2002 SOL 599) upholding the right of religious and other minorities to "establish and administer educational institutions of their choice" under Article 30 of the Constitution and expanded this fundamental right to all citizens under Article 19(i)(g) which confers a fundamental right to citizens to "carry on any occupation" including establishment and administration of education institutions.

But following widespread protests from the middle class long accustomed to heavily subsidised higher education, nearly a year later in an unprecedented follow-up judgement aimed at "clarifying" the judgement in the TMA Pai Foundation Case, a five-judge constitutional bench of the apex court whittled down the right of self-administration conferred upon private colleges. The apex court’s 24-page order in the Islamic Academy of Education & An vs. State of Karnataka & Ors delivered on August 14, 2003 mandated the creation of two five-member committees — for admission and fees — headed by retired high court judges to monitor the adminis-tration of privately promoted unaided professional colleges. The former would set guidelines and oversee the conduct of entrance tests and student selection, while the latter would fix the tuition fees payable based on ‘fee proposal pro-formas’ submitted by colleges.

Following the Islamic Academic of Education Case two five-member committees were duly constituted in Bangalore to govern admissions and regulate tuition fees chargeable by medical, dental and engineering colleges in Karnataka. The commit-tees are headed by retired high court judges S. Venkataraman and A.M. Murgod respectively. Earlier this year (February) the fees committee despatched a 40-page fee proposal pro-forma to all private professional colleges which was duly completed and returned. The proposals are scheduled to be examined and approved after interviews with college managements on April 29-30. Unlike previously, this year on, the tuition fees payable will vary from college to college depending upon the pro-forma submitted, infrastructure and facilities available to students.

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But for admissions into private colleges, the state government and Comed-K (Consortium of medical, engineering and dental colleges — Karnataka) have locked horns on the issue of seat sharing between government and college mangements. For the academic year beginning July 2003 Comed-K had agreed to a 75:25 interim, without prejudice seat sharing arrangement under CET because of paucity of time to conduct its own admission tests as sanctioned by the Supreme Court judgements. Therefore when this year too the state government issued an order in March, stipulating 75 percent (50 percent in case of minority institutions) of vacancies in private colleges to be filled by CET qualified students, private college managements have baulked.

Comed-K insists upon conducting its own common admission test for candidates across the country and allotting 50 percent of seats in private member colleges to toppers in the Comed-K entrance examination. Its rationale is that access to a larger pool of all-India students will enable member institutions of Comed-K to fill up all available vacancies unlike last July when under CET private colleges had many vacancies. The seat-sharing dispute has arisen over a confusing observation in the apex court’s judgement in the Islamic Academy of Education Case which says state governments should determine seat sharing percentages between government and management in each district depending on the profile of the local population.

Even as the state government and Comed-K have announced the conduct of their entrance tests on May 17-18 and May 14-15 respectively, the admissions committee has further confused the issue by declaring Comed-K’s common entrance exam illegal. According to the committee, the entrance tests of private colleges should be conducted by separate ‘associations’ of medical and engineering colleges while Comed-K is an umbrella association of private medical, dental and engineering colleges clubbed together.

But Comed-K leaders are unimpressed by such legal hair-splitting. "Comed-K is the testing and counselling arm of several associations of private unaided colleges — engineering, medical and dental — in the state. If each association were to conduct separate entrance tests then some students would have to write three separate entrance tests for private colleges as also the state CET. When the state govern-ment can constitute one CET cell to conduct a common entrance exam for medical, dental and engineering students, why can’t Comed-K? It’s curious that the admissions committee has stated that our common entrance test is illegal while the government’s common entrance test is alright. We have submitted this argument to the admissions committee and are awaiting its response. Strangely when we recently conducted a common entrance test for postgrad medical and dental students there was no objection from the admissions committee," says Dr. S. Kumar, executive secretary of Comed-K and registrar of the M.S. Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore.

Meanwhile even as the dates for the entrance exams near, students across the country are keeping their fingers crossed that the admission process into Karnataka’s highly-respected colleges of professional education is sorted out once and for all. But they shouldn’t bank on it because a plethora of arguments and writ petitions on the issue of district seat sharing arrangements and ‘reasonable’ fees are in the offing. Insistence on subsidisation of professional education is quite obviously a difficult and complex proposition.

Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore)

Intensifying pressure

This year, global action week (GAW) observed by the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), a worldwide coalition of NGOs (non-government organisations), civil society organisations and teachers unions in 155 countries was a non-event in India. However in Tamil Nadu the response to GAW (which coincides with UNESCO week) was encouraging. Support programmes on the theme ‘Missing an Education’ were simultaneously organised in Chennai, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore and Dindigul. These programmes were fairly successful in eliciting people’s participation and spreading awareness of children’s rights. Symbolic voting by children for children which not only drew children but also labour and slum dwellers to big ballot boxes, asked them to vote four categories of children most deprived of education: girls, physically-challenged, destitute and child labour. Physically challenged children secured the maximum votes with the girl child following close behind.

GCE, which has been highlighting various important and timely issues on elementary education every year since 2000, once again focussed attention on the global crisis in education deprivation. More than 100 million children across the world, most of them girls, don’t attend school; one third of all children worldwide don’t complete five years of primary school; 44 million of the world’s out-of-school children live in Africa, 32 million in South and West Asia and 14 million in East Asia; and nearly all children who are denied their right to education are poor. Children are deprived of education for reasons ranging from child labour and high cost of schooling, to disability, poor quality and irrelevant syllabuses. "Unless dramatic efforts are made, the world’s poorest countries will miss the 2015 deadline to attain the Education For All goal," says Shobha Naidu, head of communications, Aide et Action, which works in 11 states in India and schools 125,000 children.

Children grading the most deprived: encouraging response

Conscious that the dismal situation can change for the better only by exerting continuous, relentless pressure on politicians and elected representatives, GCE partners around the world staged three different activities during the action week to ensure that children’s voices were heard in national parliaments, state legislatures and village councils. In Tamil Nadu, eight non-government organi-sations — SAVE, Aide et Action, ActionAid, Campaign Against Child labour, Indian Council for Child Welfare, ICWO, ISED and Peace Trust — who have joined forces to work for GAW, led a children’s delegation to the state legislature where they interacted with politicians and demanded to know why children don’t get an education and what they (politicians) intend to do about it. They also mobilised politicians to visit government schools to interact with children and got as many people as possible to sign a charter of demands sent to the President of India

The 19-point charter presented to local political leaders and state representatives as well, demands: honouring the human rights of children as non-negotiable national obligations, registering all births, inverting child survival rates, ensuring food security to families, fulfilling the provisions of UN conventions on the rights of children, raising public expenditure on children’s education to 8 percent of GDP, among others. "As a member of GCE, India is a signatory to the EFA (Education for All) and has to prioritise education. Since there is international scrutiny now, governments are more accountable for their actions and this is a hopeful sign," says Naidu.

Finally NGOs and educationists seem to have discovered the magic formula to realise EFA: pressure and more pressure.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Grim augury

The Khumpui Academy, sited near the headquarters of Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council (TTADC) 30 km east of Agartala, is a unique institution because it is the only English medium school for children of tribal and BPL (below poverty line) households in the state.

The academy was established in Khumlung to impart education to tribal students. In a state where tribal children living in remote areas have no access to schools because secessionist militancy has forced them to down shutters, Khumpui Academy’s track record has been exceptional. It not only provides free education, lodging, school uniforms and food to its students, it has also remained open for business notwithstanding a sea of troubles. But now tribal academics and community leaders warn that unless the state government and the TTADC authorities take urgent steps to rescue it, the academy will become one of the many dysfunctional schools in this north eastern state (pop. 3 million)

Khumpui Academy students: empty assurances

"Everybody deplores high school dropout percentages among tribals. But in reality very few people think in terms of developing tribal society," Koloi says. "There should not be any double-speak on the subject of education of tribals. Funds have to be found for this purpose," he says laying the blame at the door of TTADC.

Muluk Chand Debbarma, an executive member for education in TTADC, blames the state government. "We are facing a funds crunch. The state government should help us," he says. According to Debbarma though the state’s education minister Anil Sarkar visited the school twice, and even chief minister Manik Sarkar is well aware of this show-piece school’s plight, the state government has not moved beyond providing empty assurances.

"The annual approved budget of Khumpui Academy is a mere Rs.8 lakh for 450 students. Quite clearly the academy needs more funds which unfortunately TTADC can’t provide. The state’s Left Front government has to help us in the council by making a special grant for this special school," says Debbarma.

Meanwhile even as TTADC and the state government bicker and fault find, the future of the Khumpui Academy seems bleak. An ambitious venture to educate and mainstream tribal children in this insurgency racked state seems to be headed for ruin.

Syed Sajjad Ali (Agartala)

Supply-side blindspot

Well before the predicted favourable monsoon clouds have gathered over the national capital, Delhi is experiencing a downpour — of leaked examination question papers.

In what is now becoming a routine occurrence, test papers of the All-India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) conducted by the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) were leaked three days before the exam, scheduled to be conducted on April 11 in 424 exam centres in 31 cities across the country. The "systemic malfunction", as CBSE euphemistically described the leak which resulted in the cancellation of the examination of 250,000 students follows in the wake of similar leaks of the Common Admission Test (CAT) exam of the IIMs, Bombay University exams and English and Sanskrit papers in Delhi’s 960 government schools, all within a span of three months.

And even as CBSE, the favoured exam board of the Union ministry of HRD, restaged the pre-medical exam on April 17, police raids on a dilapidated house in east Delhi led to the arrest of two culprits who were caught in the act of tutoring 13 Delhi-based students "solve" the AIPMT papers. The police was tipped off by a local tea vendor who had noticed some children scribbling in their notebooks with the help of two men. Interestingly, when the police swooped down on the house, they spotted cars with registration numbers of various states, raising suspicion that a national mafia has made the leakage of exam papers its business.

Parallel investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seem to indicate that the succession of exam paper leaks are indeed the handiwork of a national crime syndicate, headed by Ranjit Verma, an alumnus of Government Medical College, Nagpur who is the prime accused in the CAT paper scam of March. A commerce student in school, Verma who is being held in Tihar jail shocked his peers by getting admission into medical college for which a science background is mandatory. Verma and his brother Satinder, a class XII student (who was scheduled to write the AIPMT exam), together with a cousin Rakesh, commandeered the mafia’s north India operations while a broker, Bani Gautam, negotiated the sale of leaked question papers on their behalf.

Typically, gautam would ask for a ‘fee’ of Rs 7-10 lakh to help a student top the medical entrance exam. The racketeer’s modus operandi was consistent; he would ferry his clients to low grade hotels and help them crack the question papers the night before the exam was to be written. During this period the students were held incommunicado and denied even phone calls. They were required to stay the night at the designated address and were transported in separate vehicles, directly to the exam centre the next day.

Fortunately, relentless pressure from the CBI on Verma’s parents had a happy denouement. Both Ranjit and Satinder surrendered to the police on April 19 giving tip-offs which have led to further arrests across the country. Though for now things seem to be under control with the re-scheduled AIPMT exams going off without a glitch, the HRD ministry’s centralised examination system has come under the scanner. Increasingly educationists are querying the need for centralised all-India mega exams.

Comments Prof. V.S. Bharadwaj of Delhi University: "In this day and age what is the point of persisting with an ossified system? For a huge country like ours, the exam system should be simplified through decentralisation." The Union HRD ministry and particularly its pro-centralisation minister Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi who severely castigated the IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) for the CAT exam paper leakage now has egg all over its face, and is mooting the idea of zonal exams, with each zone receiving a different set of question papers. The idea is to localise and isolate leaks when they occur. Another idea is to e-mail question papers to exam centres the morning the tests are held.

Meanwhile even as the sanctity of standardised all-India exams is being questioned, repeated paper and exam scam reports have caused widespread disillusionment. Says Armita Punj, whose daughter was to write the AIPMT: "When there’s so much wheeling-dealing going on in education, how can I tell my daughter to study sincerely and work hard? Clearly merit doesn’t count any more."

Repeated exam paper leaks have also cast a shadow on the quality of higher education in India which is advertised as being of international standard. Yet there is little introspection about the root cause of the malaise — the widening supply-demand gap in higher education. With the general standard of education in colleges and universities plummeting and competition to enter the few surviving institutions offering quality education (at highly subsidised prices) intensifying, it’s hardly surprising that a growing number of students and parents constitute a ready market for leaked exam papers.

Quite clearly there’s an urgent need to address the supply side of higher education. But with education outlays (as a percentage of GDP) stagnant for decades, that’s a blindspot of politicians — and the electorate.

Neeta Lal (Delhi)

Faculty outrage in IIM-C

In a dramatic new twist to the IIM fees imbroglio, the faculty council of the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) took a unanimous decision on April 26 even as we go to press, to move the Calcutta high court to challenge the legitimacy of the March 26 governing board meeting which had authorised IIM-C chairman Y.C. Deveshwar to draft a resolution on the fee reduction issue. The spokesman of the IIM-C faculty council Prof. Ashish Bhattacharya, dean of planning and administration, says the Union HRD ministry’s act of sending handpicked representatives to the meeting was "not in compliance with the articles of association of the institute".

The fallout of the adversarial position of the IIM-C faculty vis-à-vis the HRD ministry is that it will disregard the ministry’s February 5 order directing all the six IIMs to reduce their tuition fees to a standard Rs.30,000 per year, and will continue to levy the tuition fee of Rs.1.25 lakh per year on students admitted next month. If, however, things change either subsequent to a dialogue with the ministry or the Supreme Court’s ruling in pending litigation on this issue, the excess amount will be refunded to the students with interest at SBI rates. The faculty council has also constituted a three-member committee consisting of an alumnus and two faculty members for initiating a new dialogue with the ministry. Moreover, it has resolved not to use the Rs.6 crore granted by the ministry recently until the fees issue is resolved.

Deveshwar: line of fire

"I am challenging his (Deveshwar’s) very premise for framing the resolution. In the very first line, he says the government order is binding upon the institute. Had that been so, we wouldn’t have been a society but just another government department," says Kashyap. "Why couldn’t Deveshwar wait for a Supreme Court order? Since the issue is pending in court, we should have let the court show us the way."

Kashyap’s fellow board member Krishan Kalra, incumbent additional secretary general of FICCI charges Deveshwar with "drafting a resolution that does not reflect the opinion of board members". During the meeting, Deveshwar had ‘‘brushed aside’’ the arguments of industry under "the umbrella argument of following a conciliatory approach and not getting into a confrontation with the government," says Kalra who adds that two crucial points raised at the meeting regarding the constitutional validity of the government unilaterally forcing a fee cut and the broader issue of IIM-C losing its freedom and autonomy in exchange for a mere Rs.6 crore grant from the government, were not allowed to be discussed. In a letter to Deveshwar dated April 19, Kalra says: "May I urge you to urgently issue a clear-cut statement to the press stating that IIM-C has not agreed to the fee cut and that the matter is still under consideration of the board." Unless this is done, Kalra warns, "I must take a principled stand and most reluctantly resign from the board of this great institution." Deveshwar has issued no such statement as yet.

The historical background to the turmoil on IIM-C’s 135 acre campus in Kolkata is that on March 26, after a stormy four-hour meeting, the IIM-C governing board left it to Deveshwar to draft a resolution "reflecting the concerns of all the stakeholders". On April 6, disregarding the faculty’s position paper on the subject which warned that the fee cut directive would erode the institute’s autonomy, Deveshwar faxed a resolution accepting the revised tuition fee of Rs.30,000 per year to all board members. The resolution drafted by Deveshwar stated: "...government order (for a fee cut) may be implemented in the belief that it is binding on the institute and that it is in the domain of the ministry of human resource development to frame policies related to subsidy in education...". And he drafted this resolution two days after IIM-Ahmedabad declined to reduce its tuition fee and said that it would talk to the HRD ministry while awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision. Several members including Kashyap and the faculty council are incensed about the use of the word "binding". "We are deeply anguished," says Bhattacharya.

The legal position is that Deveshwar’s resolution has been accepted by IIM-C’s board of governors because Deveshwar has numbers on his side. Earlier, in an astute preparatory gambit, the ministry had quickly nominated its nominees to fill up five vacancies on the board. Some of these nominations were overtly political. For instance, industrialist P.D. Chitlangia, one of the ministry’s nominees, is the incumbent vice-president of BJP’s West Bengal unit. The faculty council’s writ filed in the Calcutta high court questions the very legitimacy of the March 26 board meeting. If the meeting is held invalid, Deveshwar’s resolution will die a natural death.

That’s a denouement devoutly wished on the IIM-C campus, even if not by its governing board chock-a-block with industry leaders and bureaucrats long accustomed to bending the knee before government.

Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)