DAVV Convocation: Governor stays back to give degrees to all as students create ruckus

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Governor and Chancellor Mangubhai Patel, on Wednesday, had to make changes to his schedule and stay back at the convocation of Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) to give away academic awards to students after the latter created ruckus upon not getting an opportunity to receive their degrees and medals personally from the former due to his time constraint.

Patel had come to DAVV for attending the convocation. Higher education minister Mohan Yadav, minister for culture Usha Thakur, DAVV vice-chancellor professor Renu Jain and others were present at the event.

The unpleasant situation arose when university registrar Anil Sharma announced that merely 50 Ph.D students and the same number of undergraduate and post-graduate students would receive degrees and medals, respectively, from the Chancellor.

Around 148 research scholars were supposed to get Ph.D degrees and around 120 meritorious students of the U-G and P-G courses were to receive gold and silver medals at the convocation. Outstation students had arrived for the ceremony about four to five days ago and had participated in convocation rehearsals on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, clad in convocation dresses, they came to the university auditorium to receive their academic awards.

However, when the registrar announced that merely 50 Ph.D students would receive degrees from Patel at the convocation and degrees of the remaining were being conferred symbolically, commotion began in the auditorium. The same announcement was repeated for toppers of U-G and P-G courses who were to be granted medals. This led to protests by students whose names did not figure in the list. The teachers tried in vain to pacify the protesting students who threatened to climb onto the dais.

The registrar announced that the Governor had to leave for some other programme, so higher education minister Mohan Yadav, who was present as chief guest, would be giving away degrees and medals to them, but the students continued with their protest.

Eventually, the Governor told the university administration that he would stay back till the last student received his or her degree or medal.

After the announcement was made, the protest ended. In haste, the university, however, called students to the dais and gave away the degrees. The haste was such that many students received degrees with the names of other students. Later, they were seen changing degrees.

Minister Yadav apologises to Governor

§ Minister Yadav apologised to the Governor for the ruckus created by the students during the convocation

§ He said the Governor had given only one hour for the convocation, but he extended the time seeing the students’ disappointment

Ph.D to parents, 5 gold medals to the daughter

In a first, a girl student received five medals and her parents Ph.D degrees during the convocation. Anjali Dembal of Institute of Engineering and Technology received five gold medals. Besides, her father Naresh Dembal who is a faculty at IIPS, an entity of DAVV, got PhD in management discipline. Anjali’s mother Divya Dembal, who is a visiting faculty also got PhD in education stream. This is for the first time that parents and their ward got academic award at the same convocation. Besides, IET student Ankit Raj also got five medals.

‘Sickle cell’ test for 60K tribal students

Governor Mangubhai Patel said that DAVV vice-chancellor professor Renu Jain told her that there were around 60,000 tribal students in the university and its affiliated colleges. ‘I’ve asked her to get all those students tested for sickle cell disorder,’ he said. The Governor said that sickle cell disorder was a common abnormality among tribals

‘There are about 1.7 crore tribals in the state according to government records. Many of them were suffering from sickle cell disorder. The state government has arranged a yellow card for sickle cell patients so that they can easily get treatment at hospitals,’ he said

Mismanagement & mistakes on part of DAVV

§ Students were not told in advance that only 50 of them would get degrees at the convocation and the rest would be conferred the same symbolically as the Governor had to leave early

§ Indira Kala Kendra member-secretary Sanchidanand Joshi’s speech was of more than 15 minutes; should have been of two-three minutes as that of the V-C and ministers

§ Floral welcome and book release ceremony should have been removed from minute-to-minute programme

§ There were not enough volunteers to handle the sticky situation