‘Rock star’ VC scripted success song

The 'rock star' vice-chancellor of Delhi university Dinesh Singh's show of interacting by the students and parents came a cropper on Day 2 with less than 50 parents turning up at the University Stadium on Sunday. Enthused by the large turnout of students on Saturday, the vice-chancellor's team was expecting a similar turnout on Sunday but that did not happen.

Enquiries by Millennium Post revealed that the large crowd of the students which had turned up on Saturday were managed by the principals of various colleges on instructions from the vice-chancellor and his office. Inderjeet Dagar, the principal of the College of Vocational Studies, said, 'We got the instructions from the VC to send 40 students for the interactive session between him and the students. We followed the instructions of the administration.'

There are 90 colleges in the University of Delhi and each college was asked to send at least 40 students for the session. 'No wonder that around 4,000 students were present in the stadium on Saturday,' said the Delhi University Teachers' Association president Amardeo Sharma.

The principle of a prestigious college, who did not wish to be named, said, 'Students were not very keen to participate in the interactive session, so we requested, cajoled and coaxed them into joining the meeting. Since my college is at a walking distance from the stadium, where the interaction was held, 240 students were escorted by the teachers.' 

I S Baksi, the principal of Dayal Singh College [morning], said that he too sent 40 students for the interaction keeping in mind the 'express instructions issued from the Registrar's Office.'  

Sources said that principals, particularly of the off-campus colleges, were made to hire special buses to ferry students from the colleges to the campus where the interaction was held. However, in the absence of 'official sponsorship', the participation of the parents showed less than meagre attendance. Most of the parents who came for the interaction on Sunday requested the vice-chancellor to open the vacant reserved category seats for the general category students. The interaction on Sunday was marred by a scuffle between the deputy dean Dinesh Varshney and a student activist, who protested the ban on rallies on the campus. 

According to vice-chancellor's office, the two-day interaction was held to get first-hand information on grievances of the students and parents.