18 PU teachers promoted

PATNA: Patna University (PU) Syndicate on Wednesday promoted as many as 18 teachers to the post of readers and senior lecturers on the recommendation of the University Selection Committee.
The decision to promote these teachers was taken at a meeting of the Syndicate held under the chairmanship of vice-chancellor Shyam Lal. Even though higher education director J P Singh initially objected to these promotions on the ground that vigilance clearance has not been taken before granting these promotions, other members of the Syndicate, including Rajiv Ranjan Prasad and Arvind Kumar Sinha of Patna Medical College, voted in favour of promotions as the cases have been cleared by the committee consisting of the nominees of the state government and chancellor.
Those who were given promotions included Atul Aditya Pandey and Ram Bali Singh of geology, S B Lal of commerce, Anuradha Sahay of geography and Ram Nandan Prasad of chemistry.
However, at the outset, representatives of different student organizations created a noisy scene at the venue of the meeting and prevented the members from entering the Syndicate room. Later, the police arrested these students and took them to Pirbahore police station. Students were demanding direct elections to the university students' unions. In view of the stiff opposition of students, the Syndicate meeting was held at the residence of the vice-chancellor.