The Government of India on 19th January 2010 told the Supreme Court that it has decided to withdraw the “deemed” status to 44 universities in the country alleging these were being run as family fiefdoms rather than on academic considerations. However, to avoid jeopardising the future of nearly two lakhs students enrolled in these universities spread over 13 states, they would be allowed to revert back as affiliated colleges of their original universities, the Centre said in an affidavit.

The affidavit filed by the HRD Ministry said the government has accepted the recommendations made in this regard by the high-powered P N Tandon committee and the Special Task Force set up to suggest measures to tackle the problem. “The Review Committee came across several aberrations in the functioning of some of the institutions deemed to be universities. It found undesirable management architecture where families rather than professional academics controlled the functioning of institutions,” the affidavit said.

According to the Centre, most of the 44 erring deemed universities were offering post-graduate and undergraduate courses that are “fragmented with concocted nomenclatures” and seats “disproportionately” increased beyond the actual intake capacity. The Centre’s affidavit comes in the backdrop of the apex court’s direction on a PIL on action against several so-called deemed universities operating on purely commercial lines and violating all academic standards and norms.

The high-powered committee and the task force had arrived at the findings after evaluating the functioning of 126 deemed universities in the countries. While 44 of them were found unfit to retain the deemed status, 44 others have been given directions to fill up the lacuna in their respective functioning to enable them retain the status. In the case of 38 others, the committee found them to be up to the mark.

“Many institutions which attained deemed university status from being a college increased their intake capacity disproportionately and in some cases, exponentially, in relation to the qualified faculty strength and other academic infrastructure. “The committee found that in several institutions undergraduate and postgraduate programmes had been fragmented with concocted nomenclatures. Several institutions have prescribed fee structures considerably higher than those recommended by the official fee structure committees,” the Centre stated.

According to the Centre, the task force has recommended that the 44 deemed universities which are to be de-recognised “should revert status quo ante as an affiliated college of the state university of jurisdiction so that students would be able to complete their ongoing courses and obtain degree from the affiliating university. The decision applies to all such proposed de-recognised deemed varsities including medical and dental, the government said. A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik adjourned the hearing on the matter for a week to enable the petitioner Viplav Sharma to file his response.

Following are the universities which are to be stripped of their deemed status:

• Christ College, Bangalore
• Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh
• Lingaya’s University, Faridabad
• St.Peter’s Institute of Higher Education and Research,Chennai
• Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kanyakumar
• Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida
• Sohobhit Institute of Engineering and Technology, Meerut
• Sumandeep Vidyapeet, Vadodara, Gujarat
• Sri Devraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Reserch, Kolar, Karnataka
• Yenepoya University, Mangalore
• BLDE University, Bijapur, Karnataka
• Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Satara, Maharashtra
• D Y Patil Medical College, Kolhapur, Maharashtra
• Meenakshi Academy of Higher Education and Research, Chennai.
• Chettinad Academy of Research and Education, Kanchipuram
• HIHT University,Dehrdun
• Santosh University, Ghaziabad
• Maharshi Markandeshwar University, Ambala, Haryana
• Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad
• Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education, Tumkur, Karnataka
• Jain University, Bangalore
• Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, Pune
• Siksha “O” Anusandha, Bhubaneswar
• Janardan Rai Nagar, Udaipur, Rajasthan
• Institute of Advanced Studies in Education of Gandhi Vidya Mandir, Sardarshahr, Rajasthan
• Mody Institute of Technology, Sikar, Rajasthan
• Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute, Chennai
• Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai
• Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Virdhunagar, Tamil Nadu.

Pakistan’s Consul General in Chicago personally knew both David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, nabbed by the FBI for planning to carry out a major terror attack in India at the behest of LeT, the US authorities have claimed.

The FBI in its revised chargesheet filed before a Chicago court said the Consul General of Pakistan in Chicago personally knows both Rana and Headley alias ‘Daood Gilani’, as all three of them are from the same high school.

According to the website of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, Dr Aman Rashid is the Consul General in Chicago. “On or about September 25, 2009, Rana spoke by telephone with the Consul General at the Pakistani Consulate in Chicago in an effort to obtain a five-year visa for Headley to travel to Pakistan.

It is clear from the email traffic unrelated to terrorist plotting that the Consul General knows Rana and Headley personally as all three attended the same high school,” the FBI claimed.

However, the affidavit, a copy of which has been obtained by PTI, does not say anything if the Consul General was aware or had any inclination of the terrorist connection of Rana and Headley.

Rana (48) and Headley (49) are not only residents of Chicago, but were product of same military school in Karachi.

American national Headley, whose assistance was sought by Lashkar-e-Toiba in planning a major terror attack in India, was helped by his Pakistani-Canadian friend Rana to obtain a visa for Pakistan so that he can travel to NWFP for training and meeting the LeT leaders, federal prosecutors have charged.

The chargesheet also indicates that LeT was planning to use Headley for a major terrorist attack in India. The transcripts of the taped conversations, both email and telephone, reveals that LeT was planning to use Headley for attack on a mysterious Indian actor ‘Rahul’ which Indian intelligence agencies say could be a code message.

Headley stated that he intended to travel to Pakistan in early October to meet with an unidentified LeT Individual ‘B’ and (Ilyas) Kashmiri, the FBI told the court. It said Headley had already travelled to Pakistan from late January to early March of 2009, during which he visited FATA.

While it does not mention to which high schools the three were students, the FBI told the court that postings to a Yahoo group of graduates of a military school located in the Pakistani town of Hasan Abdal (a group that refers to itself as ‘abdalians’) reflected that both Headley and Rana have participated in the group and referred to their attendance at that school.

Cadet College Hasan Abdal is located in the Hasan Abdal a historic city in northern Punjab of Pakistan, some 40 km north west of Rawalpindi. The town with a population of 50,000 is famous for Gurdwara Sri Panja Sahib, one of the most sacred places of Sikhism.

The affidavit says the Consul General knows Headley by a different name — Daood Gilani. In seeking a visa for Headley, Rana stated that he wished to obtain the visa for a white American named “Headley” who did not have any Pakistani background at all.

“When the Consul General suggested that Rana send his friend to the consulate, Rana explained that he had sent his friend elsewhere to take care of some unspecified business so that someone else would visit the Consulate,” the FBI says.

“It is clear from the foregoing conversation that Rana was attempting to deceive the Consul General into granting a visa for Headley without the Consul General knowing for whom the visa would be issued,” the FBI told the court.

Rana told the FBI that he was aware that Headley had been affiliated with LeT, he had received training from them and he had met Kashmiri, leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad-Islami.

Rana also said that he was aware that Headley communicated with LeT Individual ‘B’ and ‘A’.

In Rana’s chargesheet, the FBI named two LeT leaders, whose names have not been identified and are referred to as LeT Member ‘A’ and LeT Member ‘B’. The FBI said the identity of both the LeT leaders are known to the Government.

LeT Member ‘A’ is an individual with substantial influence and responsibility within Lashkar-e-Taiba, while Individual ‘B’ is associated with both LeT and Kashmiri.

The FBI alleged that Headley, Rana, Individual ‘B’ and LeT Member ‘A’ have frequently used coded language and changed their methods of communications in order to conceal the nature and content of their communications.

SOURCE: TIMES NOW