6th September 2024
Hours after spending lavishly on celebrating Teachers Day, the Administration of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University denied entry to two eminent guest speakers invited by the AUD Faculty Association.
Ms. Shomona Khanna, Supreme Court Advocate and gender rights specialist and Abhirami Jotheeswaran, General Secretary of the All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch delivered their lectures on “Social justice, caste and gender in the University” on the road outside the campus. The lectures were attended by faculty, students and non-teaching staff.
The AUDFA office bearers were denied permission to hold the talk on campus despite applying for permission five days ago. This is the second such denial in less than a month, the first being of the eminent mathematician Prof. Nandita Narayan.
AUDFA members deplored the highhanded attitude of the Administration and vowed to continue their vigil against the ongoing administrative harassment of a woman faculty member and a woman non-teaching staff. The university has so far neither revoked their punishment posting, nor initiated inquiry into coompliants of harassment by faculty member, nor asked the Deans accused of caste and gender harassment to step down in the interest of a fair inquiry.
The faculty association condemned the delay in clearing long-pending promotion cases. They also highlighted the regressive ‘permission raj’ under which faculty members are arbitrarily denied leave and No Objection Certificates for academic travel.
The AUDFA had submitted a charter of demands to the Vice Chancellor last month, and had been promised speedy and fair redressal. So far, no action has been taken on any of these demands.
(Press Release)
