Stuff Our Government Says: Global University Rankings Edition

A lot of hue and cry is raised about our higher education institutes not figuring in global ranking. The reason is not lack of high quality research work but the fact that in India, a large section of research work is done in vernacular languages, whereas global rankings only consider research in English
-- HRD Minister Smriti Irani [Source: The Indian Express]

L'Affaire Bimal Roy: An Update

Wire.in has published An Open Letter to Arun Shourie on the Sacking of the ISI Director by the alumni of the Indian Statistical Institute. Needless to add, it has some rather uncomfortable questions. For example:

Did the ISI Council, at the meeting on April 23, 2015, move and pass a resolution accepting the recommendation of the Selection Committee to appoint Prof Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay as the Director of ISI with effect from August 1, 2015, as required under the bye-laws of ISI, which clearly states that “The appointment of the Director shall be made by the Council (emphasis added) on the recommendation made by a Selection Committee?”

We ask this because, to the best of our knowledge, earlier, at the same Council meeting on April 23, when an objection was raised relating to the appointment of an ISI Centre Head, you, as the Chairman, adopted the admirably correct democratic practice of seeking a majority vote in the Council to resolve the dilemma and validate the appointment.

If the answer to the above question is YES, would you please tell us how many Council members were in attendance during the meeting, how many voted in favor of or against the motion and how many abstained from voting?

If, however, the answer to the above question is NO, and yet the minutes of the meeting asserted otherwise, would you not agree that the purported “minutes” were factually incorrect and Prof Roy did no wrong in refusing to authenticate these minutes, as has been widely reported in the media?

Irrespective of the answer to the above question, would you please review the provisions of the ISI Act quoted in the order for us and assure us that by invoking its emergency provisions to divest Prof Roy of his powers and duties without enlightening him of the charges against him and giving him the opportunity to respond to these charges, the MOSPI violated neither the letter nor the spirit of the law?

Fired: ISI Director Bimal Roy

Update: I'm adding more information and links at the end. See also the comments.

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The firing of Prof. Bimal Roy from the post of the Director of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, seems unusual because (a) a new Director is to take charge in less than two months (b) the said new-Director has also been identified, and (c) Bimal Roy is among the recipients of the 2015 Padma Awards. To top it all, the official order says the man is being fired "to prevent indiscipline and mischief, and to prevent the eventualities of administrative malfeasance."

Here's an excerpt from the order from MoSPI, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation:

... A number of general and specific matters of financial and administrative irregularities which show the direct or supervisory responsibilities for acts of omission and commission on the part of present Director, Prof. B.B. Roy, are available in the Ministry in the various files on the different subjects.

There is justified and reasonable apprehension that the present Director, Prof Bimal Roy may indulge in propagation of indiscipline and mischief, including acts of administrative and financial impropriety in the interregnum up to 31st July, 2015 (before the new Director, Prof S Bandyopadhyay takes charge on 1st August 2015)

After this news became public, the Chair of ISI Council, Dr. Arun Shourie, has defended the order from MoSPI, saying that the Government had no option.

Given the unusual combination of a blunt verdict and vague allegations about possible future crimes, it is surprising that no news organization has chosen to dig deeper. The silence of The Telegraph, in whose backyard all this stuff is happening, is not just surprising, but also deeply puzzling!

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Update 1 (20 June 2015):

1. The Wire has a story (thanks to commenter Pulsereed) with some additional details culled from a petition seeking Justice for ISI, and from this Reddit thread.

2. Outlook also has a story with original reporting by Dola Mitra: Portal Of Unease ("The ISI director is ruthlessly sacked as curtains are drawn shut in secrecy").

   Thanks to a comment (by "counterfeiter", an ISI alum), we now know of this Facebook page ("Justice for ISI") which features messages of support for Prof. Roy, and messages of protest against the Ministry; it also features video messages from ISI alums who are now academics in the US.

3. The petition (which I have signed) gives some background information, and concludes with the following demands:

   1. Proper independent public investigation must be done regarding the Ministry's allegations against Prof. Roy, the charges against Prof. Roy must be presented to the council, and a proper hearing must be conducted by the Council, before deciding upon the next course of action.

   2. The audio recording of the Director selection meeting along with its transcript should be released immediately and investigated by independent authority.

   3. Till these investigations are over and the Council decides otherwise, citing valid proof, Prof Bimal Kumar Roy should be immediately reinstated at the position of interim Director.

Tragic Consequences of Writing to the Prime Minister

If you ever visit the website of the Prime Minister, there's this link that beckons you: Interact with PM. Don't click the link!

If you do, you'll find on this page a couple of other links: To share ideas, insights and thoughts, and To write to the Prime Minister. Don't click on them!

A DAE scientist did click on them, and succumbed to the lure of giving some suggestions to the Prime Minister, and what followed is ... .

Well, read it all in this report and cry: Nuclear scientist lands in trouble with DAE for sending suggestions to PM Narendra Modi.

Here's a statement from a DAE official who really knows his Kafka:

As an organisation, we will follow the process.

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Hat tip to Ankur Kulkarni for the comment-alert.

There was an Open Page essay in The Hindu about a month ago that described the author's experience of writing to the PM through his website, only to see his hopes (of conversing directly with the PM) dashed by a missive from the PMO informing him that his letter has been forwarded to some ministry or the other. The essay, which I am not able to locate, was dripping with mild sarcasm that made me chuckle here and there. At some level, this news item would also be funny if only the consequences for the DAE scientist were not so tragic.

Stuff Indian Government Says - 2

Amitabh Sinha reports in The Indian Express that Dr. T. Ramasami has expressed his desire to bring to an end his 7-year tenure as Secretary, Department of Science and Technology. A committee has recommended a set of people to succeed him, but two of The Chosen "have expressed their unwillingness for the job."

At this point, it's all mildly interesting, but the blog-worthy awesomeness lies in the Groucho-Marx^*-in-reverse quality of what comes next:

One member of the committee, however, said that the reluctance of scientists to join the ministry was understandable. "We would be slightly worried if candidates are too eager to take the post. Most of the scientists like to keep doing their scientific work," he said. [Bold emphasis added]

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^*Just in case the Groucho Marx's quip didn't spring to mind immediately, here it is: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member."

Stuff Indian Government Says

No time to start a Tumblr blog, so I'm just going to go with a new label for this. Interpreting 'government' quite broadly (to include official pronouncements of all kinds), here are two recent examples:

1. "Family matters should be argued only by married people, not spinsters. You [an unmarried lawyer] should only watch. Bachelors and spinsters watching family court proceedings will start thinking if there is any need to marry at all. Marriage is not like a public transport system. You better get married and you will get very good experience to argue such cases."
   -- Justice K. Bhaktavatsala, Judge, Karnataka High Court. [Source: Kafila: Petition to Chief Justice of India – Remove Justice Bhaktavatsala of Karnataka High Court

2. "Indian tradition doesn't permit a lady to smoke."
   -- V. Shekhar, Senior Advocate for the Ministry of Health, during oral arguments in a lawsuit about smoking movie characters. [Link via Indian Homemaker.]