The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), Dr. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, was on Wednesday cornered by his own faculty at a court meeting over various issues, including the recent suicide of a research scholar.
The meeting was held to approve the university’s financial statements that are to be placed before Parliament. Other than the issue of student suicides, the renewal of an MoU with the Institute of Life Sciences (ILS) located on the campus, and incomplete engineering works, dominated the meeting.
Some senior faculty members questioned the administration’s ‘failure’ to halt student suicides. A member went as far as holding the V-C responsible for the suicide of M. Venkatesh, given that Dr. Ramaswamy was the in-charge Director of the Advanced Centre for Research in High Energy Materials (ACHREM). Venkatesh, a research student at ACHREM, had committed suicide recently after he was not allocated a guide.
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A faculty member revealed that the V-C had failed to ‘satisfactorily’ explain the charges against him on the issue, and also on the incomplete construction works despite the release of funds.
A senior professor argued that the V-C was on the board of the ILS, set up in association with a top pharma company, and had failed to ensure that the ILS honoured the MoU in toto. He alleged that funds supposed to be released to the University as per the MoU were not provided.
Prof. Ramaswamy, however, refuted the charges and said all activities were being taken up as per norms. With regard to funds crunch, he said the Centre had reduced allocations to all institutions.
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Student protests
Earlier, the Executive Council meeting was disrupted by students belonging to various organisations, demanding a fair enquiry into student suicides and implementation of the Prof. Krishna Committee recommendations, apart from ex-gratia to families of students who had committed suicide.