Gita in TN university curriculum sparks row
CHENNAI: Anna University in Chennai has courted controversy over its decision to make the learning of Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and Sanskrit compulsory for B.tech and postgraduate engineering students, as per the “Model Curriculum” prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
Coming close on the heels of the controversy over Union home minister Amit Shah’s remark about Hindi being a unifier, the development has provided a handle for the opposition to target the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government.
The Opposition, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), the Left parties and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam criticised the move, calling it yet another instance of saffronisation of education. Educationists too have joined the chorus against the new course regulations. Though AICTE, the technical education regulator , released the “Model Curriculum” in 2018, it was to be implemented from this year. It was on Tuesday that students of information science and technology department of Anna University learnt about the move to implement the AICTE curriculum, triggering a huge backlash. The department had made Sanskrit mandatory.
Among the 32 courses prescribed by AICTE, Anna University chose 12. “Students are free to opt any three of the 12 electives offered in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Management Courses. As the subjects were mandated by AICTE, we could not remove them,” said Anna University vice chancellor, Dr MK Surappa.
“Though the AICTE has recommended 32 subjects, ranging from film appreciation to Sanskrit, we have taken only 12. And the decision was left to individual departments. Only Information Science and Technology department had offered Philosophy. It is left to the choice of the students,” he added. Meanwhile, DMK president MK Stalin demanded the intervention of Governor Banwarilal Purohit, who is the chancellor of the varsity, in the matter. “It is condemnable to attempt imposition of Sanskrit by making philosophy a compulsory paper in the syllabus of Anna University’s CEG (College of Engineering Guindy),” tweeted Stalin. BHOPAL: An IT engineer, his wife and their son and daughter, both twins, were found dead in a resort’s room at the outskirts of Indore, 188 kilometres south west of Bhopal, on Thursday evening, said police.
The deceased were identified as Abhishek Saxena, 45, his wife Preeti Saxena, 42, their son Advit, 14, and daughter Ananya,14. Advit and Ananya were twins. Their dead bodies were found in a water park in Khudel area of Indore rural. They lived in Apolo DB City in Indore, said a police officer. As nails of the deceased turned blue and there was froth in the deceased’s mouths besides presence of some chemical in a bottle found in the room, police prima facie believe that it’s a case of suicide by the couple after killing both their children. However, it’s only post-mortem report which can establish the cause of death, said the police officer.
The family checked in the resort on Wednesday. When they didn’t come out of their room till Thursday evening the resort staff got suspicious and they used a master key to open the room and found the dead bodies.