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State plans shutdown of varsities from Jan 1.

Dec. 18: With the situation in universities once again threatening to turn volatile as the deadline for submission of the Srikrishna Committee report nears, the state government is planning to order a shutdown of all universities from January 1 to 25 in the name of “shortterm vacation”.

Normally, the universities declare only a week’s holidays ahead of Sankranti.

This time, all vice-chancellors will be directed to close down all hostels and messes to ensure that none of the students stay back in the campuses.

The “holidays” seem to be a necessity as the Osmania University, Kakatiya Uni
versity and Telangana University were forced on Saturday to indefinitely postpone the postgraduate semester exams bowing to pressure from students who threatened to boycott and obstruct the exams, demanding the release of OUJAC leaders from the Cherlapally jail and withdrawal of all cases against students who participated in T-agitations.

According to official
sources, the Governor and Chancellor of universities, Mr E. S.L. Narasimhan. has called an emergency meeting of all VCs on December 26 at the Raj Bhavan to discuss the issue and the measures to be taken to curb agitations and violence on campuses after the Srikrishna Committee report is submitted.

Sources said that the OU vice-chancellor, Mr Tirupati Rao, who is set to retire in three months, will be asked to step down as he failed to restore normalcy on campus since December last year. The government is considering appointing the former DGP, Mr Swaranjit Sen, in his place.
The former DGP, Mr Swaranjit Sen, who is tipped to take over as the new Vice-Chancellor of the OU, had earlier dealt with the Maoists in the state with an “iron hand” during his tenure. This would be for the first time in the history of state universities that an IPS officer will be appointed as vice-chancellor.

Interestingly, Mr Tirupati Rao offered to quit on Friday after some students locked him inside the library for nearly two hours demanding the postponement of exams. The government is also planning to appoint an IPS officer as the VC for Kakatiya University, a post which fell vacant three months ago.

“The government has received specific information from intelligence agencies that of the 6,000 students residing in the hostels on the OU campus, nearly 5,600 are willing to appear for the exams. The problem is with only about 400 students who are affiliated to various political parties and Telangana outfits. They are creating all kinds of problems on the campus by resorting to violent incidents and by conducting rallies and demonstrations frequently thereby spoiling the academic atmosphere,” said a senior official of the higher education department.

Last year, the government had announced holidays for 15 days for all colleges and universities in the Telangana region from December 4 to 18 in view of the student unrest following the arrest of TRS chief, Mr K. Chandrashekar Rao.

With the efforts of the government to conduct postgraduate semester exams before the Srikrishna Committee report proving futile following stiff resistance from students, the VCs have been asked to consider holding the exams during March or April next year by combining both the semesters as was done earlier during Prof D.C. Reddy’s tenure as VC of Osmania University.

OU officials informed the government that the students were obstructing the exams anticipating that the government would declare holidays immediately after the exams concluded on December 30 and they would not be able to take up T-agitations on the campus if the the Srikrishna Committee report was not in favour of a T-state.

Source: DC