Student leaders who don't attend classes out in the cold

CHANDIGARH, Nov 3 (Agencies): Student leaders - projected politicians of the future - are finding it hard to accept new guidelines on students' council polls in the Panjab University (PU) that seek to ensure that aspiring leaders will be busy attending classes.

Top student leaders of the Panjab University and its affiliated colleges were rendered 'ineligible' for the Nov 5 poll by the new rules, because they have not attended at least 75 percent of their classes, as they were supposed to.

Posts of even the president of college students' council have gone abegging this year as all nominations were rejected for non-compliance of the guidelines.

Former chief election commissioner J.M.

Lyngdoh drew up the new guidelines for student elections.

The implementation of the guidelines this year by the Panjab University for its campus polls in affiliated colleges located in Chandigarh saw all top leaders from various student groups being ruled out even before the first vote has been polled.

The main reason is that most student leaders fail to fulfil the requirement of 75 percent attendance.

Though there are other strict guidelines like name of the contestant not being involved in any police case or conviction, contestant not having any academic arrears and no re-election for a post contested earlier, it is the attendance criterion that has taken the maximum toll.

'It is a major concern for student leaders.

Most of our leaders have been dropped because of the stiff condition of attendance.

We had to file more than three nominations for each seat,' student leader Harpreet Singh Multani of the Students Organization of Panjab University (SOPU) said.

Multani, who was being projected as SOPU's presidential candidate for the students' council, was forced to get out of the fray due to the police case condition.

College here, the authorities rejected nominations of all presidential seat contestants after they failed to meet the attendance criterion.

In other colleges, the situation was no different with either no one or just one person contesting for some of the posts.

Teachers and authorities are quite happy that from now on student leaders will be seen in classes more often.

'The attendance requirement is for every student.

It cannot be exempted for leaders,' said Sanjiv Tiwari, the university's public relations director.

'Student leaders have the habit of not attending classes themselves and even come with recommendations for getting attendance for others.

This will stop now,' a science professor in D.A.V.

The nomination of Deepak Hooda for the post of campus general secretary from the Panjab University Students Union (PUSU) and the Indian National Students Organization (INSO) alliance was rejected for not meeting the attendance criterion.

His rival, Ankit Malik of SOPU, also bowed out of the race for the same reason.

'The condition on attendance is harsh and impractical.

If student leaders attend classes when will they work for the students? This is as good as saying that a minister should attend office 75 percent of the days instead of visiting the state and his own constituency,' a former PU students' council president told IANS on condition of anonymity.

He added that in the future, student organizations would have to take into account students' attendance instead of their leadership qualities to make them leaders.

Student leaders claim that the 75 percent attendance requirement, which is also mandatory under the University Grants Commission's (UGC's) academic requirement, is usually met only on paper.

'The Lyngdoh committee's recommendations are harsh.

They have created a problem in selecting candidates.

Till the last minute we did not know who would be contesting.

This is not good,' National Students Union of India (NSUI) president Nitin Goyal pointed out.

The attendance of the student leaders till Oct 31 was made the criterion for their eligibility under the Lyngdoh committee recommendations.

The academic session in PU starts early July.

The students' elections this time, which should have been held in August, have been delayed because of a court case.

Giving, accepting bribe equally unlawful: Allahabad High Court LUCKNOW, Nov 3 (Agencies): While hearing a petition against the greasing of palms for securing a government job, the Allahabad High Court said that giving and accepting bribe are equally illegal.

'Succumbing to the demand for bribe is as unlawful as the demand itself.

Those who give bribe in exchange of some favour were as much responsible for the committing of crime as those who accept bribes,' Justice A.P.

Sahi observed while hearing the bail petition of an accused in a bribery case Friday.

The judge directed the principal home secretary as well as the director general of police to issue necessary instructions to all concerned police officers to also take bribe givers into the ambit of their investigations.

In a joint petition, four people alleged that they had paid Rs.90,000 each to one Tapas Kumar Chakravarty and his wife Gopa who had promised to get them government jobs.

However, the petitioners - Pradeep Kumar Yadav, Jitendra Singh, Shailendra Singh and Kuldeep Singh - said they neither got the jobs nor was the money returned to them.

Sahi directed the police to take action against the petitioners in the same manner as they had done against the accused.

'People who gave bribe to get a job clearly motivated others to adopt the same means as those who took the bribe.

This disease needs to be checked or else it would play havoc with the lives of helpless unemployed youth as well as their families,' he said.

Protestors with historic grievance greet vice president in Mizoram AIZWAL, Nov 3 (Agencies): Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari arrived here on a two-day visit to Mizoram amid protests over a 40-year-old bombardment of insurgent bases in the state by the Indian Air Force.

Mizoram is the only territory in independent India to have been strafed by IAF warplanes.

The IAF's 1966 action was controversial at the time but was thought to have been forgiven and forgotten, as Mizo leaders and New Delhi successfully negotiated a peaceful end to the state's decades-old insurgency.

However, members of the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP), an influential students' group, put up posters all over state capital Aizawl to coincide with the vice president's visit and carried placards seeking an apology from New Delhi over the alleged killing of a number of civilians during the bombardment aimed at destroying bases of the Mizo National Front (MNF).

The MNF, then a rebel group, was waging a violent insurgency in Mizoram seeking an independent homeland.

But MNF rebels surrendered en masse in 1986 following the signing of the historic Mizo Accord with the Indian government.

The two sides were led by former MNF leader and current Chief Minister Zoramthanga and the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi respectively.

'The vice president saw our placards and he then asked his security personnel to collect some of them,' said MZP president Lalhmachhuana.

'We have already sent an ultimatum to the prime minister and to the president of India over the issue.

We want no compensation, what we want is an apology.' Ansari and his wife Salma Ansari, daughter Nuriya, and a family member Rashid Ansari, were earlier received at the airport by state Governor Lt.

On Friday night, Ansari met representatives from the Mizoram Committee for Democracy in Burma who submitted a petition seeking India's active involvement in restoring democracy in the neighbouring country.