HRD tells V-C: Talk more to students, professors

New Delhi: The human resources development ministry has urged JNU vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, who is under fire and whose resignation has been demanded by angry students and faculty members after Sunday’s attacks, to restore normality in the campus at the earliest, and also become “more communicative” with the students, take the faculty into confidence and facilitate the semester registration process.

Senior minister officials told him that normality should be restored at the earliest. Mr Kumar, who has been facing huge criticism from students and faculty members for not doing enough when they were brutally attacked by a masked mob on the campus on Sunday evening, told the ministry officials that efforts were being made to facilitate the semester registration process for “willing” students.

“Higher education secretary Amit Khare and G.C. Hosur had a meeting with JNU V-C at the ministry today about the efforts being made to restore normalcy on campus. He informed the officials about efforts being made for facilitating semester registration for willing students and a conducive environment for their academic pursuits,” a source said.

Meanwhile, with some BJP leaders asking people to boycott Deepika Padukone’s new movie Chhapaak after her visit to the campus on Tuesday to express solidarity with the students, information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javdekar said on Wednesday that “not just artistes, even a common man can go anywhere to express their opinion in a democracy like India”. This is being seen as part of the BJP’s damage-control effort.

The JNU vice-chancellor has, meanwhile, said that the university has not made any suggestions to temporarily shut JNU and efforts are being made to restore normality. Ministry officials also said no such proposal has been received and denied the reports appearing in a section of the media on such a move. “We have not made any such suggestion,” Mr Kumar said, following reports that the JNU administration suggested to the ministry that the campus could be shut temporarily following the mob violence on Sunday. “There is no move to do so. Efforts are on to facilitate a conducive environment for students,” he added.

At least 35 people, including JNU Students’ Union president Aishe Ghosh, were injured in the violence.  The Left-controlled JNUSU and the ABVP have blamed each other for the violence that continued for two hours.