[mpisgplanner] Re: [in-enaction] SPA Scandal: School of Planning and Architecture (Angst)

> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/833039.cms
> SPA students protest 'misreporting'


The SPA "scandal" or "story" based on an exaggerated account of an
incident of ragging provided to a lady reporter by its Dean of Studies is
not being allowed to die. MoHRD ordered an inquiry and then repeat inquiry
into the incident and SPA issued a statement and some faculty persons
called (as SPA Alumni) a separate press conference and students have
staged a public protest against media reports.

Recall, please, that last year MoHRD had instituted an "inquiry" in to SPA
and found serious problems. The same reporter that "broke" the ragging
story was then breaking exclusive "stories" that even SPA community was
unaware of, though at the time her "source" was not known, and the same
group of faculty persons / SPA Alumni went to court over "autonomy",
though they rejected the suggestion for getting the inquiry report through
their petition, dismissing the inquiry committee as "kangaroo court". To
date SPA community is unaware of who all were implicated in the inquiry by
MoHRD and if they included, say, the Dean, the group that took SPA to
court, etc. No steps appear to have been taken to sort out problems in
SPA. And SPA continues to sporadically make bad press (with the same
"sources" each time).

SPA has played in the past a watchdog role in at least urban development
issues. Although urban renewal features among seven priority areas
identified by PM out of NCMP and NCMP makes promises for professional
education on which hinge at least a few globalization aspirations, MoHRD's
response to the latest SPA "crisis" is purely inertial, in a drift headed
(with other urban development watchdog institutions like HUDCO's research
and training wing, NIUA, etc, also dissipating) to anarchical urban
development inasmuch as that erosion of institutions of urban planning has
implications not only for professional practice but also for pursuit of
equitable and efficient development, on which planning law and profession
in India have thus far been focused and on which PM has emphasized in his
addresses to the nation.

It may be true that SPA has already atrophied, but it may equally be true
that it is being strangulated by a corrupt few still at large in it. It
must also be appreciated that the spate of scams exposed in urban
institutions in 2003 may well be inter-connected through a few
professionals. That MoHRD should see it fit to "respond" symptomatically
to an obviously mis-reported ragging incident with directions for
inquiries and Ministerial statements on television but not to obvious and
pressing imperatives arising from its own inquiry of SPA is unfortunate.
That SPA itself should respond to serial "crises" one at a time with no
attempt to sort out the issues raised by the inquiry in 2003 is even more
unfortunate.

Gita Dewan Verma, Planner



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