The first woman to be appointed Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Dr Shantishree Dhulipadi Pandit, finds herself embroiled in controversies from the day her appointment became public. People dug into her Twitter account and made several offensive tweets about students, anti-CAA protestors, Christians and farmers by the account public. She has tried to wriggle out by claiming first that she was not on Twitter and thereafter that her account was hacked by ‘insiders’ in JNU, the controversy refuses to die down. If she was not on Twitter, why would anyone want to hack it, the critics asked. They also pointed out that the unverified Twitter account, now deleted, had been posting even personal photographs with her mother in her younger days to which only she could have had access. Dr Pandit, however, insists that she is being unfairly targeted for being a woman and that a section within the JNU wanted to stall her appointment because she hailed ‘from a marginalized section of Tamil Nadu’. She may however find it more difficult to deny an earlier inquiry report that people in Pune are talking about. Sources in Pune University claim that she was held guilty of showing undue favour to Non-Resident Indians (NRI) and Persons of Indian Origin. An inquiry report dated July 17, 2009, submitted by a committee headed by a former judge indicted Dr Pandit, who was the Director of the International Students Centre in the Pune University. She was held guilty of allowing admission of undeserving students between 2002 and 2007 when she was holding the additional charge as Director, ISC.
Source link
