Hyderabad: The UoH released a circular on Sunday stating that it would function normally from Monday. Interim V-C Dr M. Periasamy said MA and MSc classes will resume from Monday.
He said a meeting with all deans will be conducted in the morning at the administration building, which has been blocked by protesting students since for weeks.
He said he met with the protesting students and teachers and was assured of cooperation to bring in normalcy in the university.
Three teachers from SC ST Teachers Forum — P. Thirumal from the SN School of Communication, K.Y. Ratnam of political science and P. Anupama of computer science — participated in the relay hunger strike.
Two of the suspended dalit research scholars P. Vijay and V. Sunkanna along with another student, Vishal Kumar, are on an indefinite hunger strike.
They said they would continue their hunger strike until all their demands are met, the most important of which is the resignation of Prof. Appa Rao Podile as V-C.
On Sunday the Joint Action Committee for Social Justice submitted their demands to Dr Periasamy which included that the Proctorial Board must be reformulated to remove Chief Proctor Alok Pandey and that students and teachers from dalit community must be included.
Students wanted the UoH to start a Rohith Memorial Lecture, and that a public apology be made for the suspension of five dalit scholars including Rohith Vemula from the hostel.
They wanted Dr Vipin Srivastava to be barred from the EC when these demands are looked into. They said the UoH must not act on the resignations sent in by SC ST faculty.
Varsity looking at ways to meet fulfill demands
University of Hyderabad interim Vice-Chancellor Dr M. Periasamy said on Sunday that he was told by the Union human resource development ministry on Sunday to convey to the executive council to ‘be positive’ to the demands of students.
Dr Periasamy said that, “All demands being made by the students cannot be met but we will work towards it. One of the demands is to provide a job to Rohith Vemula’s kin. The EC will see what position can be created for Rohith’s immediate kin, his brother, in the university based on his qualification and submit the proposal to the ministry.”
On the demand for the resignation of V-C Prof. Appa Rao Podile, Dr Periaswamy said, “it is not in our hands as a judicial committee is looking into it. After it submits its report, a decision will be taken by the MHRD.”
On Rs 50 lakh compensation for Rohith’s family, he said it had come to his knowledge that the TS and AP would provide financial assistance.
The university teachers had decided to contribute, Regarding compensations and jobs to kin of dalits who had committed suicide earlier, the EC would contemplate preparing a report on the demand.
Druyan touched by Rohith’s sad death
Documentary producer Ann Druyan, the wife of astrophysicist and writer the late Carl Sagan, has written a touching condolence letter over the suicide of research scholar Rohith Vemula.
Rohith had mentioned in his suicide note that he wanted to be a science writer like Carl Sagan.
“To read his suicide note and to learn the details of his predicament is to get a vivid inkling of the actual cost of bias to our civilisation,” said Ms Druyan, who produced the science documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.
The letter that Ms Druyan wrote to a Kerala journalist, is trending on social media. The journalist had written to her about Rohith.
“If we could somehow quantify the totality of lost contributions and innovations as a result of prejudice, I believe we would find it staggering,” she stated.
“Is it possible that the attention paid to Rohith’s story will lessen its chronic repetition? I am trying to find something hopeful in an otherwise heartbreaking example of needless suffering and squandered potential,” she said.
Rohith was an ardent fan of Carl Sagan and shared photographs of the science documentary series hosted by Sagan on his Facebook wall. His friends said that he was excited about science and preferred scientific facts over religious myths.
Druyan was married to Sagan for 15 years till his death in 1996.
