Editor,
My name is John Xavier from Kerala presently employed in Saudi Arabia. Keralites are educated but we don’t have enough educational institutions for higher education. After higher secondary education, I sent my only child, Justin John to Amity University, Noida for Aerospace and avionics (Dual degree engineering course). He was enrolled in hostel on 3rd August, 2009. After 30 days, on 3rd September, we received a heart rending wake up call, saying, “Your son died due to a cardiac arrest while swimming.” 17 year old Justin was active in swimming and basket ball with a height of 184 cms. He drowned for 15 seconds only in less than 5 ft of water. He is a gold medalist in water polo. Amity refused to show video footage. A fake post mortem was conducted in Noida under the supervision of Amity management. Later a re- autopsy in Kerala proved that Justin suffered deep head injury and kidney injury with a blunt object and he became unconscious. In that state he was dropped into the swimming pool. Kerala High Court ordered CBI investigation. CBI again took all forensic samples from Kerala to Delhi. Now they are saying all reports from Kerala are baseless. Reports prepared by three senior most forensic experts from Kerala became fake! CBI submitted a closure report in Gaziabad Court. Addl.S.P Mr AGL Kaul from Delhi CBI investigated the case. He is the same officer who submitted closure report in Aarushi murder case in the same court. But I will continue the fight till my last breath.
Last month, a student named Prashant Veer was stabbed to death in Amity’s Jaipur campus in the presence of security guards. An hour’s delay to take him to nearby hospital resulted in his death. Ragging, murder and suicide continue in Amity. Several suicide incidents happened. Amity administration is smart to cover-up every incident. The owner of this University, Ashok Kumar Chauhan is a wanted criminal by German Interpol. The German Government issued arrest warrants against him. This issue was raised in Parliament. Unfortunately, our political leadership is protecting this man. Kindly visit the media page of my website for more details. I have a 9000 member Facebook page. The news published by The Shillong Times is already posted in my group. Also I am happy to call and share all details with you.
Please visit the links:
http://www.justinjohn. com/ page17
Yours etc.,
John Xavier,
Via email
Good institutes require the best teachers
Editor,
We as residents of Meghalaya collectively mourn the untimely and unnatural death of Ms Dana, the niece of Dr Mukul Sangma. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has visited the Amity Campus and we are sure that truth surrounding her suicide will emerge.
We are however deeply saddened by the press statement of Dr Mukul Sangma, the Chief Minister, following her death. As a responsible person, he ought not to have given it the colour of a perceived discrimination and divide between the plains people and the tribals of the North East. His appeal to have centers of Academic Excellence within the State is welcome but to achieve such a feat the entire academic community of such institutes has to be drawn on the basis of merit rather than reservation on the principle of the ‘Sons of the Soil’. The US draws the best brains from across the world, largely from India, and that is why they are the only super power. It is common to find Jews, Christians, Muslims from various countries such as India, China etc freely interact and give it the best the Institute has to offer to the students. We in Meghalaya are paranoid about domination and the basic agenda of the political class of ethnic cleansing to rid the state of the so called outsiders has remained the same since 1972.The consequence is that our state has lost its multi cultural and multi dimensional identity. To enrich ourselves it is time to absorb different cultures, talents without bickering.
Dr Mukul Sangma has now realized the consequences of discrimination and we all hope that during his tenure as the Chief Minister he will not allow non indigenous people to be targeted unfairly. Elections in Meghalaya must be fought on governance issues rather than on emotive issues like ‘outsiders’ which is a tool used by politicians to justify the lack of opportunities and thus governance failures. It is high time the general public call the bluff and stand up to it resolutely and actively.
Yours etc.,
Kumar Mazumdar
Chennai
Need to ponder awhile
Editor,
The death of Dana Silva M Sangma has raised many eye brows but failed to open our eyes. I am very touched by the loss of such a young life and pray that her soul rests in peace and my condolences to the bereaved family. An emotional response is obvious as a first reaction to such news but can we ponder for a while and think how we can avoid hearing such news in future. The chief minister proposed that the state should have good institutes so that students need not go outside Meghalaya to pursue higher education. It is a good thing for the state to have good institutes but is that a solution to the problem? Let us assume for a moment that Meghalaya has a premier management institute owned by the state government. Now where would you place these students after they become managers? Does the state have enough industries? Secondly why would the students want to confine themselves to the state when the entire nation is their very own country?
To say that the students from north east region are discriminated is not correct. The truth is that students from this region are being brought up in a different culture. I was associated with a management institute for a long time and I can say the problem lies elsewhere. From my experience I can say that the students from this region are the most well behaved, compared to students in the rest of India. They are taught how to behave with elders and grow up with certain value systems. But they are also timid and sensitive. They can hardly speak out in class. You scold a student in front of their friends and they start crying. They believe that cross questioning a teacher to clear their doubts is showing disrespect to them. While I appreciate our students for their value system, they have to change with time, because their counter parts in the rest of the country are growing up differently. Every day they are learning to take criticism and humiliation with a pinch of salt. They are aggressive in their approach. To survive and compete with others in today’s world the young will have to be less emotional and more pragmatic.
I would like to request the government to have a counseling center where students can be psychologically tuned to survive the cultural shock they experience when they go the bigger cities. The problems faced by the students of North East region are also faced by students from other smaller cities of the country and therefore we cannot term it as discrimination. The very fact that Dana committed suicide clearly indicates that she was wrongly framed and she could not bear the humiliation. Her death is the biggest evidence against the invigilator and he should be immediately arrested and appropriate action should be taken against the authorities of the university. No other investigation is required.
I would also request the parents to do a thorough research of an institute before admitting their children. The best method would be meeting few ex-student of that institute and finding out where the students are actually placed after completion of the course. Students may go into depression if they do not get a good placement. I strongly discourage referring to websites and visiting edufests. I know about a lot of bogus institutes that participate in such programmes.
Hope our students will be strong enough to face these challenges in future.
Yours etc.,
Partha Protim Roy
Kolkata-84