Tharoor plays safe, lets VC face bouncers

NEW DELHI: ShashiTharoor, minister of state for human resource development, attended the first VidyarthiPanchayat held at Delhi University. Meant as a platform for students and parents to express their grievances and have them addressed by authorities, the meet threw up few questions that Tharoor could answer.
Re-emphasizing his position on the autonomy of universities by saying, “Details of how universities function should be left to the universities,” he left most of the talking to the vice-chancellor of Delhi University, Dinesh Singh.
Apart from Tharoor, the university was represented by Singh, J M Khurana (dean, students’ welfare) and the proctor, Satwanti Kapoor. Most queries, however, had to do with DU’S internal matters. A student from the law faculty wanted to know why some students were misinformed about the final practical exams. Singh said that students are often unaware of the rules of the university and guaranteed it would change soon. The ‘panchayat’, held at the conference centre in North Campus, was attended by about 300.
Another student, Saurabh, spoke about how the election campaigns are very “disappointing” and have become more about contestants “throwing pamphlets out of their BMW’s” and offering free food to buy votes. Tharoor agreed this was an “outrageous way of campaigning.” “When I campaigned, I had no budget,” he said.
Tharoor also refused to answer a question on students from the northeast being made to study Hindi, saying, “These questions are regarding university level policies” and “the ministry should not interfere in academic prerogatives.” Singh, said that there is an additional course called Indian Literature which can be taken in place of Hindi and that it might have “passed her by”.
In fact, Tharoor seemed to have little to say about most of the issues. After the end of the session he said, “This is not the right place for the ministry to poke its nose, but I am happy to hear your problems”.