By Sidharth Mishra

Last week a sad news emerged from the Delhi University. A scholar who had been teaching at the prestigious Hindu College for almost six years committed suicide. He took the step allegedly after being rejected by interview panel which had assembled for making permanent appointments.

Identified as Samarveer, the deceased DU teacher came from a village in Rajasthan's Baran district. Though no suicide note was found, according to a cousin, with whom Samarveer shared a room, he was under depression after he lost the job as an ad hoc lecturer in the Hindu College in February.

This unfortunate incident has been followed by the teachers and students alleging that a sizable number of long-serving ad-hoc teachers, who otherwise fill all the eligibility criteria for teaching posts advertised by DU colleges, and have worked in particular institutions, were being displaced in the interviews being held for making regular appointments.

This has been contested by the Delhi University officially. Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh recently presented a report before the Delhi University Court, the highest policy making body of the university, where he claimed that the rate of displacement was meagre and in single digit.

This is not agreed by the various teachers groups who say that the ad hoc teachers losing jobs was much larger. The truth lies somewhere in between but the fact is that getting an ad hoc job in a college cannot be a guarantee for a permanent appointment.

By Sidharth Mishra

In the last phase of ‘achche din’ (good times) of Delhi Congress, the local party unit had two camps. The one led by then chief minister Sheila Dikshit and the other by then Union Minister Ajay Maken. Dikshit camp was much stronger and the role of the Maken camp was largely of spoil sport.

From an outsider in 1998 to a three-term chief minister, Dikshit had risen in stature both as a political leader and a fine administrator. This saw dwarfing of old-timers like Har Kishan Lal Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar as several from their camps came to join the Dikshit rank. Her detractors in the party high-command like Ahmed Patel, Ghulam Nabi Azad, P Chidambaram, Kamal Nath and several others resented this.

They tried propping dissidence in the party through Subhash Chopra, Chowdhary Prem Singh and Rambabu Sharma but none were successful. Dikshit-baiters finally found their wager in Ajay Maken, who had moved away from his erstwhile mentor and maintaining distance from the Dikshit camp. Maken possessed similar cultural and political finesse as Dikshit, which others lacked, thus he could measure up to her.

By Sidharth Mishra

The high-powered committee appointed to look into an incident of harassment at the prestigious Indraprastha College for Women (ICFW) was expected to do a better job than making mere mundane suggestions. It has been alleged that some men scaled the college walls during a cultural festival in the last week of March and harassed several students.

Following initial lukewarm response in the matter, several rounds of protests were held by the students led by various groups but predominantly by those aligned to the Left. At the centre of their demand was resignation of college Principal Professor Poonam Kumaria. Incidentally Kumaria had joined as college principal just a week ahead of the festival and would not have been solely responsible for organisation of the event.

Given the ideological dye of the protesting student leaders, it can be believed that demanding Kumaria’s resignation had more to do with her right-wing alignment than much of her role in the incident. Nevertheless, good that the protests brought the unsavoury incident into public domain and finally DU was made to set-up a panel to look into the matter.

By Sidharth Mishra

Last weekend many a newspapers carried the news that the Centre was planning to bring a policy to facilitate release of poor prisoners. Christened as ‘Support for Poor Prisoners’, the scheme envisages the provision of required financial support to poor persons who are in prisons and unable to afford the penalty or the bail amount.

While there is no denying the good intent of Home Minister Amit Shah, who is said to be personally mentoring the scheme, this move can cause many a social and personal ripples. The world of the jail has much more it than just the incarcerated politicians, famous gang lords and often corrupt officials. There also is a huge population for whom nobody is seeking out.

Last week a lawyer friend had called to inform that he had managed acquittal of the relative of a support staff from my old organisation. When this information was conveyed to this staff, he didn’t sound very happy about the outcome of the case in the form of an acquittal.

By Sidharth Mishra

About two decades ago, this writer first came to know Manish Sisodia, one of the two jailed erstwhile ministers of Arvind Kejriwal government. There was a seminar at Miranda House on Right to Information in which Kejriwal was participating. Sheila Dikshit government had just brought the Right to Information (RTI) Act, in which Kejriwal had played an important role.

Then an activist, Kejriwal had convinced Dikshit about the need to have such an act for better functioning of the government. This act was later dovetailed into the central act, which was brought by Manmohan Singh government a few years later.

During the course of conversation post the seminar, Kejriwal had mentioned about a young journalist who was dedicatedly working with him for the cause of Right to Information. This journalist went by the name of Manish Sisodia. No wonder Sisodia has remained most trusted lieutenant of Kejriwal as their relationship goes to the days when Kejriwal was hardly known. In fact, Kejriwal himself was introduced to Dikshit by the veteran people’s rights activist Aruna Roy.

By Sidharth Mishra

Have faced defeat in the municipal polls, BJP leadership has since been proactively trying to revive its unit in the national Capital. Soon after the defeat in the polls, it replaced its president Adesh Kumar Gupta and gave temporary charge to vice president Virendra Sachdeva.

After a few months of probation, Sachdeva has now been given a full term and would be leading the party’s Delhi unit during the Lok Sabha polls in 2024. Sachdeva’s appointment has a message for the Punjabi community in the national Capital that the saffron party continues to trust them for support.

By Sidharth Mishra

Ever since his senior colleague Manish Sisodia was sent to the jail, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has got active in the city. For once he is giving time to his duties as the head of the city government rather than spending all his time on his functioning as the leader of Aam Aadmi Partyu (AAP).

This has brought him into a direct bout with the Lieutenant Governor, VK Saxena vis-à-vis discharge of their respective responsibilities for the national Capital. In the earlier arrangement, Sisodia routinely berated the Lieutenant Governor for his initiatives saying this meant trespass into the dominion of the elected government.

By Sidharth Mishra

Last week, soon after the arrest of second in command of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Manish Sisodia, party leader Arvind Kejriwal said, “The AAP is a storm. No wall, no mountain in the world is strong enough to stop this storm. No one can stop the idea whose time has come. AAP’s time has come.”

Delhi chief minister has travelled thus far in politics on building perceptions. These perceptions are fabricated largely on letting loose a narrative with the right choice of phrases and words. He is a fine communicator and so one must look at him in awe when he compares the cases of corruption heaped on his party leaders with the racial discrimination against the Blacks in the United States.

The words – Our time has come – were first famously used by Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, an American political activist and Baptist minister, who was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988. The context of his speech was that the time had come for Black population of the United States to claim their rightful place in American society and politics.