Guv’s flip-flop hands NU convocation embarrassment
TNN | Dec 19, 2018, 02.47 AM IST
Nagpur: A flip-flop from chancellor CH Vidyasagar Rao’s office led to an embarrassing position for Nagpur University (NU) regarding its chief guest for the convocation scheduled on January 19.
After inviting director of prestigious IIM Ahmedabad Errol D’Souza as the chief guest of the 106 th ceremony, the NU administration suffered an ignominy of writing to him on not being able to accommodate him for the event. NU assured him to invite for some other important function in near future while apologizing him citing “date problem with the governor”.
Admitting to the flip-flop, vice-chancellor SP Kane said that it happened due to delay in communication from Rao’s office. “When IIM director was fixed as the chief guest, the chancellor’s office asked us to advance the date to January 18, which we accepted. However, that date was not suitable for D’Souza. Afterwards, the chancellor’s office again informed me that it would be suitable for Rao to attend the ceremony on January 19. Hence, this (flip-flop) happened,” he told TOI from abroad.
According to NU officials, the governor was supposed to attend some function with Union railway minister Piyush Goyal in Gadchiroli on January 18, which was cancelled. So, the chancellor granted his consent to attend the convocation on same day, which forced NU to advance the date by a day and write to D’Souza to change his schedule.
NU officials also wrote to Goyal on becoming the chief guest for the function, but he denied after keeping NU waiting for a long time. They claimed that it was precisely the reason NU decided to drop D’Souza as the chief guest to accommodate the minister.
Earlier, an official from IIM director’s office also confirmed to TOI that D’Souza was not attending the convocation as Kane himself had emailed to him on “clashing of dates with the governor” and accommodating him during the next function. D’Souza couldn’t be contacted for comments as he was on a vacation at Goa, as per IIM PRO Deepak Bhat.
Officials said that NU was in a quandary on the convocation’s chief guest now. They said both acting VC Murlidhar Chandekar and pro-VC Pramod Yeole met Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari a couple of times at his home for finalizing the chief guest, but no names were finalized till Tuesday. Both avoiding talking to TOI.
On Monday, Kane diverted all queries on the issue to Chandekar and Yeole. However, both remained elusive and refused to respond.
Chandekar, who is at his home turf in Amravati for its convocation on December 20, did not respond to TOI’s calls on Monday and Tuesday. Yeole on other hand, didn’t reply to numerous SMSs by TOI and even kept this scribe waiting outside his office for a long time.
On Monday, Yeole told TOI that he was unaware of any such development and assured to probe into the episode and revert, just to ignore all calls later.
TNN | Dec 19, 2018, 02.47 AM IST
Nagpur: A flip-flop from chancellor CH Vidyasagar Rao’s office led to an embarrassing position for Nagpur University (NU) regarding its chief guest for the convocation scheduled on January 19.
After inviting director of prestigious IIM Ahmedabad Errol D’Souza as the chief guest of the 106 th ceremony, the NU administration suffered an ignominy of writing to him on not being able to accommodate him for the event. NU assured him to invite for some other important function in near future while apologizing him citing “date problem with the governor”.
Admitting to the flip-flop, vice-chancellor SP Kane said that it happened due to delay in communication from Rao’s office. “When IIM director was fixed as the chief guest, the chancellor’s office asked us to advance the date to January 18, which we accepted. However, that date was not suitable for D’Souza. Afterwards, the chancellor’s office again informed me that it would be suitable for Rao to attend the ceremony on January 19. Hence, this (flip-flop) happened,” he told TOI from abroad.
According to NU officials, the governor was supposed to attend some function with Union railway minister Piyush Goyal in Gadchiroli on January 18, which was cancelled. So, the chancellor granted his consent to attend the convocation on same day, which forced NU to advance the date by a day and write to D’Souza to change his schedule.
NU officials also wrote to Goyal on becoming the chief guest for the function, but he denied after keeping NU waiting for a long time. They claimed that it was precisely the reason NU decided to drop D’Souza as the chief guest to accommodate the minister.
Earlier, an official from IIM director’s office also confirmed to TOI that D’Souza was not attending the convocation as Kane himself had emailed to him on “clashing of dates with the governor” and accommodating him during the next function. D’Souza couldn’t be contacted for comments as he was on a vacation at Goa, as per IIM PRO Deepak Bhat.
Officials said that NU was in a quandary on the convocation’s chief guest now. They said both acting VC Murlidhar Chandekar and pro-VC Pramod Yeole met Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari a couple of times at his home for finalizing the chief guest, but no names were finalized till Tuesday. Both avoiding talking to TOI.
On Monday, Kane diverted all queries on the issue to Chandekar and Yeole. However, both remained elusive and refused to respond.
Chandekar, who is at his home turf in Amravati for its convocation on December 20, did not respond to TOI’s calls on Monday and Tuesday. Yeole on other hand, didn’t reply to numerous SMSs by TOI and even kept this scribe waiting outside his office for a long time.
On Monday, Yeole told TOI that he was unaware of any such development and assured to probe into the episode and revert, just to ignore all calls later.
No comments:
Post a Comment