National award winners sign petition on FTII isue, send it to Prez

The logjam in FTII Pune looks a long way from resolution. Three months into the protest against the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as the institute's director, students are frustrated and disilluiioned.
���And they have enough reasons to feel so, says director Indranil Roychowdhury .Thus, the stalwarts of Indian cinema has taken it upon them elves to intervene and directly approach the president for a solu ion, through a signed petition..Said Indranil, ���Three weeks ago, the I&B ministry had sent a committee to FTII in order to communicate with the students and announce a clear way forward.Even though the committee prom sed to come up with a solution within two days, three weeks have passed since then without any formal announcement from their side. nstead, individual students have been approached by them in a surreptitious manner and there have been efforts of cornering, nfluencing and harassing them. Several of hem have been called up by the cops and ntimidated. The government is behaving like an underground organization, trying to pester the students into giving in by engaging in divide and rule policy .���
The petition, signed by more than 170 eminent film personalities from mainstream, regional and docu cinema communities, including National Award winners, is aimed at convincing the president to intervene personally. While the students have gone on hunger strike demanding trans parency in the appointment proce dure of the council, more and more signatories are joining in to lend their support. ���In fact, even Rajkumar Hirani has declined to take on the role of FTII chief in an act of defiance. It is also significant to note that Vidya Balan, who was made a part of the FTII council by the ministry , has come on board and signed the petition to the pres ident,��� informed Indranil.
Other signatories include names like Mani Ratnam, Santosh Sivan, Revathi, Aparna Sen, Dibakar Bannerjee, Jahnu Barua, Arun Khopkar, Anand Patwardhan, Shaji Karun, Saeed Mirza, Kundan Shah, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, TV Chandran, Girish Kasarvalli, Resul Pookutty and Adoor Gopalakrishnan.