Tag Archives: AIIMS

Centre watch, Culture, Debates, Politics, Right watch

Operation Eklavya in Action at Premier Institutes

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India is neglecting caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutions at its own peril.

AIIMS Caste Discrimination

It was exactly 13 years back that the Thorat Committee, constituted in September 2006 to enquire into allegations of differential treatment of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students at the premier medical institute, AIIMS—was released.

The first of its kind in independent India, this three-member committee led by then chairman of the University Grants Commission, Sukhdeo Thorat, had looked deeply into the many shades of discrimination faced by students of non-elite castes in the institute.

What it discovered after talking to students and faculty was, to say the least, shocking. Some 72% of SC/ST students mentioned facing some discrimination during the teaching sessions. Second, caste-based discrimination was prevalent in the hostels, for instance around 88% students reported experiencing of social isolation in various forms. The committee’s report also outlined the discrimination faced by SC/ST professors.

This context frames the alleged suicide attempt of a female doctor a fortnight ago in the same institute. The doctor, who worked at the Dental Research Centre of AIIMS, was allegedly facing sexual harassment and caste discrimination. This is another reminder that there has not been a qualitative change in the institute in the long years since the Thorat Committee report.

( )Read the full article here)

Centre watch, Government

Sufi Doctors and Nehru’s Ailing Centre of Excellence: Kaveri Gill

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Guest post by KAVERI GILL

“AIIMS is like my aging mother, whose clothes are in tatters, and I feel I must hold them together to cover and protect her”. A senior anaesthetist said this the evening before I was due to have a relatively small but complex surgery, and my search for the best surgeon had bought me to the institute’s doorstep. Fifty five years after Nehru’s dream of a medical centre of excellence materialised, with state of the art teaching, world class research and high quality patient care, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi is mostly in the news for all the wrong reasons: fracas over reservation, cheating on entrance exams and charges of  mismanagement.

Continue reading Sufi Doctors and Nehru’s Ailing Centre of Excellence: Kaveri Gill →

Debates, Identities, Politics

Viva ‘Academic Untouchability’ !

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Jantar Mantar, a unique historical place in the capital, which today acts as a ‘sanctioned abode of protest’ under a liberal bourgeois regime, witnessed a protest dharna in the first week of February. Looking at the participation level, one could easily say that, it was indistinguishable from similar protest actions held on the same date. But it is incontestable that the raison detre for the dharna carried very large import which pertained to the entitlements of dalits, tribals or OBCs in higher education. It brought forth the surreptitious manner in which the Congress led UPA government is pushing a bill which would do away with reservation at faculty level in institutions of ‘national importance’.

As expected for the media managers and the pen pushers (or byte takers) employed by them the whole protest action was a non event. Question is why the articulate sections of our society, which yearn for justice, peace and progress, has joined the conspiracy of silence about this particular issue.

The return of ‘academic untouchability’ with due sanction of the parliament and the further legitimisation it would provide to the ‘merit’ versus ‘quota’ debate need to be questioned and challenged uncompromisingly. Continue reading Viva ‘Academic Untouchability’ ! →