TISS students irked, claim panel neglected them

Forty-one days into the protest, the students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai are relentlessly continuing their agitation. In a statement issued on Monday, the students claimed that the administration did not consult the student representatives in the committee appointed by the UGC to look into the concerns of the institute before sending the draft of its report to the UGC.

"The UGC visited the TISS campus on March 16 following which the institute was supposed to submit a report to the Maharashtra Human Resource Development (MHRD) by March 31. We have just found out that the report has been sent out to the MHRD without intimating us about it. We are finally getting a copy of the same this evening, days after it has been sent already" said Fahad Ahmed, General Secretary of the TISS students'. Ahmed, who is also a member of the committee, added that despite several appeals, the administration was not willing to meet students to hear their grievances. A senior official from the institute said "We had the detailed minutes of the meeting that took place with the UGC officials on the basis of which we have prepared a rough draft. We shared the draft with the UGC representatives around April 27 and we were awaiting a comment. However, as we didn't get any response until March 31, which was the deadline for submission, we sent it to the MHRD. We have shared a copy of the report with the students on Monday. If there are any glaring errors, we are willing to fix them in the final report".

The official said that with several public holidays in the last few days, there was no time to organise a meeting with the students but the administration is open to a discussion with the students.