Articles by Bharat Dogra

than responsible statesmanship. The preceding three days had seriously upset the normal tenor of life in Calcutta and its suburbs

marginal farmers and labourers for their cattle. The irrigated farmers owe this to the drought-affected people. Similarly free-cattle camps should be opened by each of the sugar factories, as was done in the Sangli district during the last drought.

even killed by the repressive forces. Josefa Padcayan was last seen on November 16, 1989 in the custody of members of the 17th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. After that there has been nothing known of her whereabouts or well-being. In El Salvador, two health promoters, Julia Ponce and Angel Flores, working for the federation of Salvadorian agricultural co-operatives, were abducted on December 31, 1989, tortured and killed. Their bullet-ridden bodies were found on January 11, 1990. It appears that this was done by'the military and the National Police of El Salvador No investigation has been initiated and no one has been charged with the killings.

where the affluent have their commercial offices, hotels and residences. But there is no alternative plan to re-employ and re-accommodate that textile workers who will be rendered jobless as well as homeless.

and six students (as recommended by the vice chancellor) were also nominated. The element of election was totally done away with. The role of the chancellor was assumed by the government. Surprisingly let alone the teachers, even the chancellor (governor of the state) accepted the undemocratic set-up without any compunction. Now the proposed set-up of the AS is a superb administrative fiat. While accommodating the 'elected' element under the Class IV category, the new act has subverted academic freedom and autonomy in a most sophisticated manner. While Class I category consists of ex-officio members, Class II quota is limited to life members. Class III is called 'members to be nominated by the government'. They number a staggering 80. Of this 46 are professors and principals of colleges. Now Class IV category (elected members) total 30 with 20 teachers elected from among the teaching community and 10 MLAs elected from the state assembly. Now in the AS out of a total of nearly 160 members (excluding life members) the elected teachers will be too small a group to successfully affect any significant changes on academic matters. Thus the injection of 'democratic element' in the proposed form appears to be mere tokenism.