FTII students condemn assessment during strike

FTII students who are on strike, on Monday condemned the facility's administrative officials for its "irrational" decision of assessing incomplete diploma films. The students find it a "political" rather than "academic" activity.

The strike reached Day 60 on Monday in protest of the appointment of actor and BJP member Gajendra Chauhan as chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).

The institute has issued notice to some of its students for over-staying in FTII hostels in spite of the completion of their courses.

According to a statement issued by the FTII students' body, the institute's director Prashant Pathrabe mentioned that there are 50 students in the 2008 batch whose final diplomas are at different stages. Still, the administration wanted to proceed with the assessment on as-is-where-is basis and the students would be asked to vacate the hostel once the assessment is done.

But this, Ranjit Nair, a core committee member of the strike, says is "irrational".

Stressing that this is not an "academic, but a political activity", Nair told IANS over phone from Pune: "What they are trying do is to reduce the number of students as much as they can so that they can reduce the strength of the strike ... on as many grounds they can."

He says the backlog that has happened is not because of the students.

"This has been acknowledged in various academic council meetings of the 2008 batch ... on what basis is the director, through the ministry, doing ad-hoc assessment where even external experts were not called. On what basis will they assess then," Nair added.

He also said that since students work in a team on a film, what the FTII director is instructing is that "when an editor's job is done, he is being forced to leave when the project is actually in sound ... whereas what generally happens is editor and sound go together".