With the International Film Festival of India due to open in Goa on November 20, the ongoing strike by students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) is giving anxious moments to Information and Broadcasting Ministry officials.
The students are demanding the removal of FTII chairperson Gajendra Chauhan and four other members for their affiliation with the RSS.
Two meetings with Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sunil Arora failed to break the deadlock last week and the student’s representative, Vikas Urs, has said the core issues raised by them have not been addressed.
“The Secretary heard us patiently on problems facing the institute, but we were told that issues arising out of the appointment of the chairperson and other society members have to be discussed with Minister of State for I&B Rajyavardhan Rathore,” he said.
The students are likely to meet Mr. Rathore in the coming days as they wait for an official communication from the Ministry.
“We can only hope that the students can see that we are trying to address institutional issues like lack of equipment or why a batch of students has not completed its course,” a senior official said.
It is learnt that preparations are on to rope in a leading Bollywood actor as the chief guest for the festival being organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in collaboration with the Goa government. The festival is the most important event in the Ministry’s calendar, which explains the urgency by its officials to end the strike by the students.
As official twitter handle @iffi2015 gives accounts of the international festival and the Press Information Bureau is instructed to popularise the event on the official @pib_india twitter handle and @NFAI official, which is the twitter handle of the National Film Archives of India, posts nostalgia, the ongoing stir is turning out to be an embarrassment for the government. Both the Ministry officials and the students have accused the other of sabotaging talks.
At the meeting between the I&B Secretary and the students held on October 7, a committee was set up under Films Division chief Mukesh Sharma to look into the systemic problems with the institute and come out with a proposal to look into infrastructure issues. These have already been examined recently by another committee under S.M. Khan, Director-General of the Registrar of Newspapers for India.
