DU council to confirm ban on Ramanujan's Ramayana essay

Delhi University’s academic council will meet on Tuesday to confirm the ban on A K Ramanujan’s essay ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas’ which was scrapped from the undergraduate history syllabus in October 2011.

The last council meeting on October 9 last year had voted to drop the essay from the curriculum after agitations by right wing students calling the essay ‘anti-Hindu’.

Many academic council members are against the decision to scrap the controversial essay - and with Oxford University Press deciding to reprint it, they could now make a case for reconsidering the ban.

“The members who were for dropping the essay gave the argument that Oxford University Press has stopped publishing it. The essay therefore would not be available to students and so there was no harm in scrapping it from the curriculum. However, with the reprinting now begun, there will be a division of opinion,” said an academic council member.

The university is also planning to confer an honorary doctorate on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on the recommendation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

DLit to Brazilian President

“A special convocation is planned on March 30. Rousseff will be honoured with a DLit (Doctor of Letters),” said another AC member.

Curriculum related decisions regarding the two shorter part-time MBA courses in Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) will be given a final approval.

“The MBA in healthcare and administration and another part-time MBA will be of two-year duration, instead of three, from the coming academic session,” the member said
In the last meeting, the revised first and second semester syllabus of B.A Economics (Hons) was passed. Approval of the third to sixth semesters will take place tomorrow,” the member added.

After checking on the facilities at Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, academic council members have given a positive response to the idea of allowing two seats for students of medical sciences in its MD in Pediatrics course.

There are about 125 members in the council, including DU officials, principals and teachers. The vice chancellor is the chairman.

The executive council will hold a meeting on March 21, which will discuss the decisions taken at Tuesday’s academic council meeting and may ask for a review if it does not agree with them.