For over a year, there has been a stand off between the central government and several IITs, NITs and IIMs. Concerned about academic autonomy apart from potentially hurting patent prospects (several officials in these institutions have opined that uploading PhD thesis on the digital repository would seriously affect patent prospects), the institutes have been compelled to give in. The government’s stated aim behind launching Shodhganga project is an aim to build an open access digital resource centre on “new knowledge.” The institutes gave in reported The Telegraph after the Centre tied submission to rankings.

These elite institutions reversed course after the government decided to consider research data uploaded on Shodhganga for granting ranks under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). The top 100 institutions under the NIRF are granted certain exemptions from University Grants Commission regulations, which allows a degree of autonomy.  

The Modi government’s Shodhganga repository is maintained by Inflibnet, a sister concern of the UGC.

Until now individual institutions had, been sending data on students’ strength, faculty strength, research output, number of PhDs granted and facilities offered, among other things, to the NIRF team for rankings.

However, from this year, 2023, the data-capturing system of the NIRF will also collect from Shodhaganga the PhD data of each institution. The institutions have been asked to submit copies of theses of all PhD candidates in a digital format to Shodhganga. The repository will withhold public access to patentable materials for periods of six months to a year, which is much lower than the three years offered by several IITs.

Concerned on these requirements, IIT Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri said the institution had its own repository where theses were displayed for public access. However, the documents are uploaded after the patents are filed when there is a likelihood of patentability of specific work done by graduates.

If we upload the theses before filing patents, it will affect their grant of patents because the material is already in the public domain. It takes time for displaying the thesis. It is a problem for us if we give all our thesis copies for immediate public display to Inflibnet,” Chaudhuri said.

Hence, Chaudhuri said IIT Bombay had decided to share only those theses where there was no patentable material.

“We have asked our faculty members to say if any of their students’ thesis needs to be held back because of patentable material. We will not be able to share those specific theses with Inflibnet,” Chaudhuri said.

Meanwhile an official from the UGC told The Telegraph that Inflibnet had a policy of maintaining the confidentiality of any thesis for a period of six months to one year. However, certain IITs want a three-year embargo period. No decision has been taken so far, the official said.

The UGC’s regulation on the award of PhDs in 2009 wanted all higher educational institutions to send their theses to Inflibnet for open access.

“The purpose was to check duplication of work by researchers and plagiarism. If any scholar  plagiarises, they can be easily caught. Also, open access helps in the spread of knowledge to a wider audience,” the official said.

However, the centrally funded technical institutions (CFTIs) such as IITs, NITs and IIMs did not send their theses to Inflibnet while central universities complied. The UGC does not have any regulatory control over the CFTIs, so it did not take any action.

After the government’s decision to link NIRF ranking to the Inflibnet database, nearly 70 CFTIs including IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta have joined the Shodhganga repository.

Till the end of December 2022, nearly 4.12 lakh theses have been uploaded on Shodhganga. Out of about 1,100 higher educational institutions, nearly 800 have signed agreements with Inflibnet to send their theses. Nearly 150 others are expected to join soon, the UGC official said. The remaining institutions are new ones which may not have produced PhDs, he added.

Related:

IIT Bombay E-Summit 2022 faces flak for inviting Arnab Goswami and Sudhir Chaudhary as speakers

Conference on Left Movement cancelled after ‘call from senior official in Edu (MHRD) ministry: IIT Bombay

Politics in education or politics of education?

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It was in April 2020, following up on a letter written by Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, against a PhD thesis of an Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A) scholar, that the Ministry of Education (MoE) asked the Institute for a copy of the thesis, and also keep it on hold.

According to a report in the Indian Express, Subramanian Swamy had  alleged that the PhD thesis stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were “ethnically constituted” parties. And that the BJP is a “a pro-Hindu upper caste party.”  In his letter, Swamy said the PM was not an upper-caste leader and such depictions were “propagated” by British historians to show India was never “one country” and its society was never united.

Going further, Swamy had also urged the Union government that IIM-A should be directed to “re-examine” the thesis by independent professors and that the PhD be kept on hold until then. According to the news report, when asked to share a copy of the thesis, Institute’s director, Erol D’Souza wrote to the MoE saying that the Ministry “is not an arbiter of complaints regarding a thesis.” The report added that he is learned to have also stated that the “Thesis Advisory and Examination Committee of the Institute had read the thesis, and parts of it were presented to a select academic community at the viva, and anyone having a complaint should have raised at these forums.”

However, the response of the MoE is yet another indicator, an official one at that, of the government’s attempts at more control over the IIMs last year. The dissertation at the centre of this controversy is reportedly one with three essays on electoral democracy, and had been “approved for the award of PhD degree at a seminar chaired by D’Souza in March 2020.”

According to The Indian Express, D’Souza is said to have sent another “reminder” regarding the ministry’s request to which “his response has not been received.” According to the news report, D’Souza’s refusal to share the thesis was cited in the “government’s justification for seeking powers to initiate an inquiry against the Board of Governors (BoG) of an IIM, if it’s ostensibly found to be acting, what the government thinks, is in contravention of the IIM Act.”

However, that proposal was shelved after the Law Ministry rejected the idea on the ground that “it’s inconsistent with the provisions of the IIM Act, which gives unprecedented autonomy to the 20 business schools. And that any provision permitting the government to take punitive action against the institute can only be introduced through an amendment in the law.”

Meanwhile, the debate on the IIMs’ institutional autonomy and accountability continues, and the latest controversy reported comes from IIM-Calcutta. Here, according to IE, the “Board of Governors and a significant section of the faculty have objected to the Director”. Reportedly, the Board clipped her “powers of appointment last week even though the rules of the IIM Act have no such provision” stated the news report.

Related:

BJP Vs BJP: From Savarkar to Swamy over flyovers, and onto Twitter

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We, as part of the IIM Ahmedabad community in our individual capacities are very concerned at the prosecution of Professor Anand Teltumbde, our alumnus and one of India’s foremost public intellectuals. Prof. Teltumbde has always promoted the struggle for empowerment of India’s Dalit communities, rights which are granted in the constitution of India.

On March 16, 2020, the Supreme Court of India rejected the anticipatory bail application of Dr Teltumbde and ordered his ‘surrender’ by the 6th of April, 2020. We strongly urge the Chief Justice of India and the Supreme Court to take cognizance of the dangers posed by the pandemic COVID19 to the health and life of Dr Teltumbde, a senior citizen with pre-existing health conditions and at a high risk of infection, if imprisoned. Incarceration at such a time will most definitely endanger his life. Professor Teltumbde has been fully cooperating with the investigating authorities and poses no flight risk. At the very least, we urge the judicial authorities to amend the arrest order to a date post the subsiding of the global health crisis, so that there is no danger to his life.

This letter from his daughters speaks volumes about his predicament: https://caravanmagazine.in/crime/anand-teltumbde-daughters-letter-as-we-look-parents-eyes-only-pain

Professor Teltumbde has been charged under a draconian law- the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967, which does not require a trial or conviction. A comment on the Act may be found here: https://indiacivilwatch.org/uapa/

The charges against him are framed through the ‘Bhima Koregaon’ case, which has been stated in a report as full of irregularities and violating the human rights of those charged under that case. (Refer American Bar Association’s report documenting irregularities and violations of the freedom of expression and association in this case: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/human_rights/JD/Asia/preliminary-report-india-bhima-koregaon.pdf and a more recent investigation pointing to the fabricated nature of the evidence). Another report by the Office of the Commissioner of Human Rights may be found here: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23686&LangID

Professor Teltumbde is a distinguished scholar and a civil rights activist with a long history of speaking against repressive practices affecting vulnerable sections of the population such as Dalits, working classes, and society’s entrenched regressive cultural institutions such as caste. Admired by many as an organic intellectual, Dr Teltumbde’s writings have contributed immensely to critical debates on democracy, globalization and social justice.

A consummate polymath hailing from very humble beginnings as a member of the Dalit community (India’s long-oppressed ‘Untouchable’ castes), Dr.Teltumbde graduated from India’s leading institutions of higher education with high scholarly achievements. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM – Ahmedabad), has had a long and illustrious career in the corporate sector in top management positions in the state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, and Petronet India Ltd (a private company promoted by the Government of India). e He has also been Professor of Business Management at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Kharagpur) and is currently a senior professor and chair of Big Data Analytics at Goa Institute of Management.

His astute analysis on the dynamics of caste and class and on the relevance of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar for contemporary society are essential references for scholars and are required reading at many universities around the world. He is frequently an invited speaker at international conferences, demonstrating the respect his work commands all over the globe.

Dr Teltumbde has actively built civil society organisations such as the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights (CPDR) of which he is the general secretary, and the All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE) of which he is a presidium member. None of the organizations he is associated with are banned organizations in India.

Under the same charges is Gautam Navlakha – a highly respected well-known democracy and human rights activist and a journalist. He has been a longstanding member of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi. He has served as an editorial consultant of India’s leading social science journal – Economic and Political Weekly and has been a convener of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir. His book Days and Nights: In the Heartland of Rebellion (Penguin, 2012) is one of the most serious interventions in understanding the Maoist movement in Chhattisgarh.

The Central government transferred the cases of Teltumbde and Navlakha from the Maharashtra government to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Ministry of Home Affairs recently post the change in power in Maharashtra. Prof. Teltumbde and Mr. Navlakha’s methods of struggle for justice have always been within the provisions and freedoms provided by the Constitution. Neither of them has anything remotely to do with organising or the subsequent events that occurred around the Bhima Koregaon episode.

In targeting Dr. Teltumbde – a person of exceptional antecedents as a corporate leader, high calibre scholar, a celebrated public intellectual and also coming from one of the founding families of Indian democracy – of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar – the state is sending a message to the entire country that it could go to any extent to repress the voice of people if they dare to dissent.

A century before the UAPA amendments were passed in 2019, the colonial British government passed the Rowlatt Acts for India, that much like the UAPA amendments, snatched powers of due process of law, jury and trial. Mahatma Gandhi started his first major nationwide Satyagrahas against that Act. What followed was the unfortunate incident of the Jalianwala Bagh and nationwide protests by public figures and ordinary citizens alike – forcing the imperial government to withdraw the Act. Surely, after a century, a free and democratic republic of India cannot let such a provision meant for an entirely different context be used to incarcerate India’s noted public figures.

We stand in solidarity with and with unequivocal support to Dr Teltumbde and Mr Navlakha and all the others who are falsely implicated in the Bhima-Koregaon case, and support the petitions that request his acquittal, and specifically appeal to the honourable President of India to intervene and have all charges dropped against the accused.

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दरअसल, केंद्र सरकार ने मंशा जाहिर की थी कि आईआईएम एससी, एसटी और ओबीसी के लिए नियुक्तियों में आरक्षण लागू करके अपने संवैधानिक दायित्व पूरा करें। सरकारी सूत्रों के मुताबिक, मानव संसाधन विकास मंत्री प्रकाश जावड़ेकर ने इस तरह के इरादे जाहिर किए थे।

मानव संसाधन विकास मंत्रालय के एक वरिष्ठ अधिकारी के अनुसार, “आरक्षण का प्रावधान संविधान के अनुसार ही है और संविधान से ऊपर कुछ भी नहीं है। जिन संस्थानों को आरक्षण लागू करने से छूट दी गई है, उनकी सूची में आईआईएम का नाम नहीं है।”

उल्लेखनीय है कि आरक्षण को उच्चतम न्यायालय ने स्वतंत्रता के बाद कई मामलों की सुनवाई करते हुए संविधान सम्मत करार दिया था। इंदिरा साहनी बनाम भारत सरकार (एआईआर 1983 एससी 477) में ओबीसी के लिए आरक्षण को मंजूरी दी गई थी। बाद में अशोक कुमार ठाकुर बनाम भारत सरकार (एआईआर2008 (6) एससीसी) में पदोन्नतियों में भी आरक्षण को वैध ठहराया गया था।

उच्च शिक्षण संस्थानों में आरक्षण का मामला 2008 में तब चर्चा में आया था जब सरकार ने आईआईएम, आईआईटी समेत केंद्रीय धन से चलने वाले सभी संस्थानों और अन्य केंद्र से वित्तपोषित विश्वविद्यालयों से शैक्षणिक पदों पर एससी, एसटी और ओबीसी को आरक्षण देने को कहा था।

आईआईएम दाखिले में तो आरक्षण देने लगे लेकिन प्राध्यापकों के पदों पर आरक्षण लागू करने की उनकी मंशा कभी नहीं दिखी। आईआईएम अहमदाबाद, बंगलौर और कोलकाता ने तो सरकार के इस फैसले का विरोध भी किया। हालाँकि, आईआईटी और अन्य केंद्र सरकार से वित्तपोषित विश्वविद्यालयों ने इसका पालन शुरू कर दिया है।

मानव संसाधन विकास मंत्रालय ने आईआईएम संस्थानों को 2013 के बाद से आरक्षण के बारे में तीन एडवाइज़री जारी की हैं।

आईआईएम अहमदाबाद के डायरेक्टर आशीष नंदा सरकार के नोटिस को केवल सुझाव बताते हुए कहते हैं कि मानव संसाधन विकास मंत्रालय ने कोई आदेश नहीं दिया है और मात्र ये कहा है कि हमें समाज के हर तबके, खासकर कमजोर तबके के लोगों को शामिल करने का प्रयास करना चाहिए। नंदा कहते हैं कि उन्होंने सरकार से कह दिया है कि वो पहले से ही ऐसा करते रहे हैं और अब अपने प्रयासों की रफ्तार दोगुनी कर देंगे।

दोनों पक्षों के दावों से अलग, सच्चाई यही है कि आईआईएम ही नहीं, सभी उच्च शिक्षा संस्थानों और विश्वविद्यालयों में आरक्षण से बचने की लगातार कोशिश की जाती है। सरकार की ओर से कोई कड़ाई न बरते जाने के कारण यही स्थिति लगातार बनी हुई है।

The post प्रबंधन संस्थानों में कोटा पूरा करने का निर्देश नहीं दिया सरकार ने appeared first on SabrangIndia.

September, 2016: Teesta Setalvad, civil rights activist and journalist, urged young people to contribute towards building an inclusive and equal society.

As one of the speakers at Vista 2016, the annual business fest organized by the FII Club at IIM Bangalore, she remarked that India and the south Asian region had gained a lot in importance in the present world. “India has so much to offer in terms of multiplicity and plurality — that is the essence of Indian-ness. This idea of India was sought to be enshrined in our Constitution. The basis of the Preamble of the Constitution is the vision that every citizen of India — regardless of case, creed, community, etc. – has the right to equality before the law, and a non-discriminatory framework,” she said.

“We need to look within and see, are we able to expand our notion of equality to encompass all around us? Are we consciously or unconsciously ‘othering’ people?” she asked.

In this context, she also mentioned that media often did a disservice to causes as they “engaged in shouting matches rather than in fruitful and constructive exchange of opinions with diverse kinds of people”.

She went on to observe, “History has shown us that community memories dominate, tend to have a trickle-down effect on modern day politics as we resonate with our old prejudices, old pains. ‘Othering’ can be extremely dangerous for the country,” she said.

“Communalism, caste, untouchability, gender inequality… this is the dark underbelly of Indian society, and we need to confront this,” she said, adding that if one believed in democracy, then one had to pay heed to even the last dissenting voice.

(First Published: http://www.iimb.ernet.in/node/15354
We must expand our notion of equality to encompass all around us: Teesta Setalvad, IIMB Website)

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