A month after TISS PSF ban, students demand review status, say ‘hundreds affected’

NEW DELHI: The Progressive Students’ Forum (PSF), a student body of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), has written to the vice-chancellor and officiating registrar regarding the current status of the review concerning the ban on the student organization and urged the administration to consider the issue with the “seriousness it deserves”. The order for immediate ban on TISS PSF was imposed on August 19, nearly a month ago.

The PSF TISS has been actively working on campus for the last 12 years and engaging with the students community by hosting programmes to help in the academic and admission process. However, on August 19, the officiating registrar Anil Sutar in an order “arbitrarily” and “undemocratically” banned the students’ forum. The decision was not received well and was condemned by several students’ group as well as TISS Teachers’ Associations.

“It shows that this act was totally against the interest of students. Following the representation by PSF to the Chancellor of TISS, Prof. DP Singh, we learned via a public notice dated 24th August 2024 issued by the current officiating registrar Narendra Mishra that this decision is under review,” the forum wrote on a social media post.

The letter read: “With respect to representation dated 23rd August, 2024 addressed to the TISS authorities by Progressive Student’s Forum, it is to state that competent authority has taken considered view and suggested to review the order of ban imposed on PSF, in the larger interest of the student bodies and the institute. The said issue is under review and Institute will come back with the decision in due course of time.”

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Student support activities halted

Further, PSF said that it has not received any update yet from the administration regarding the review on ban; neither directly nor public. “The current semester started in June and now we have almost reached the end of the semester. Due to the ban, the student support activities by PSF had been halted already,” the students said.

TISS PSF has been organising activities to support the end semester evaluation through academic writing workshops or podcasts for Foundation Courses, helping with English language skills, etc. “If these activities are not undertaken timely, it will adversely affect hundreds of students,” it added.

It urged the administration to consider this issue with the “seriousness it deserves and hope that the final decision will reflect the core values of our Institute, supporting the student community in a fair and just manner”.