Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh, May 24: The Congress today lambasted Union Human Resources Development Minister Ms Smriti Irani for playing with the future of the country while overzealously trying to implement the divisive agenda of saffronisation handed over to her by her party’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.
Addressing a news conference here today, party’s national spokesperson Ms Priyanka Chaturvedi said, “Intentionally induced institutional paralysis and diffusion of education through myopic, malicious and myriad controversies have been the hallmarks of the Narendra Modi Government’s one year in power.”
She said the situation had come to such a pass that the future of even the University Grants Commission was shrouded in uncertainty.
She alleged rather than solidifying the well-established educational structure the country Ms Irani had spent more time in igniting fires, demolishing institutions of prestige, downsizing highly motivated educationists and dictating incomprehensible directives bordering on complete illiteracy.
She referred to the exodus of very senior persons from some of the most prestigious institutions questioning the functioning of Ms Irani and cited the resignations of Mr Anil Kakodar, Chairman, IIT Mumbai and an eminent nuclear scientist, Mr Raghunath K Shevgaonkar, Director, IIT Delhi and several others.
She said Mr M M Ansari, one of the members of the UGC, had had slammed Ms Irani for her “excessive interference” in the functioning of the commission and for taking “arbitrary and abrupt” decisions, while depending entirely on a “well-planted bureaucracy” and the RSS for running the ministry. The committee headed by Dr. Hari Gautam submitted its report to Secretary Higher Education recommending that UGC had failed to fulfil its responsibilities and should be scrapped. Though HRD Ministry said it was not accepting the report, it also said that office was yet to examine it.
She said Ms Irani and BJP’s disdain for Delhi University Vice-Chancellor, Mr Dinesh Singh wass well known. However, HRD ministry faced embarrassment when President of India did not accept its report against Mr Singh. This clearly shows how the government was reprimanded by the President for trying to level false charges against noted academicians to create vacancies for Sangh Parivar loyalists.
Ms Chaturvedi also took up the ouster of NCERT Director, Ms Parvein Sinclair two years before her term ended. This development came at a time when NCERT was in the midst of reviewing its widely used school curriculum, also known as the National Curriculum Framework , 2005. Reports stated that when Ms Sinclair refused to toe RSS line on the NCF and other issues, she was charged, not allowed to defend herself fully and finally asked to resign. It was alarming to think about the extent this government could go in order to ensure its mission of colouring the education system with partisan ideology.
She said academic appointments were being made from under-qualified Sangh Parivar loyalists as heads of premier institutions of excellence. Mr Baldev Sharma, former Editor of RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya, was appointed as Chairman of National Book Trust. Mr Vishram Ramchandra Jamdar, a professed RSS Swayam Sevak, was appointed as head of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, although he was not among the four short-listed candidates for the post. Prof. Inder Mohan Kapahi, a long-time member of RSS and author of various articles Organiser, was appointed as a Member of University Grants Commission. Prof. Y. Sudarshan Rao, Head of Andhra Pradesh Chapter of Akhil Bhartiya Itihas Sankhalan Yojna – a subsidiary of RSS to rewrite History (ABISY), was appointed as Chairperson of Indian Council for Historical Research. He, in turn, had appointed various office bearers of ABISY as Members of ICHR. Mr Jafar Sareshwala, a known Modi acolyte and backroom boy from Gujarat, was appointed as Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. Similar is the fate of many appointments made to Banaras Hindu University, IIAS – Shimla, Aligarh Muslim University Court besides awarding highly prestigious ‘National Research Professorship’ to three under-qualified RSS sympathizers.
Others who were present alongwith Priyanka Chaturvedi were S. Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa General Secretary PPCC, Sh. Ram Pal Dhaipie General Secretary PPCC, Sh. Raj Pal Singh Executive Member PPCC, Sh. Kanwarjit Singh Lally Ex MLA, Sh. Inder Pal Singh Dhanna Chairman Legal Department & Sh. Amit Bawa Secretary PPCC.
