FTII students hospitalised

He was replaced by Satyajit Pande to maintain the number of students on strike at three, informed FTII Student Association president Kavita Pai. While the third, Madhu N, was still relatively healthy, Unni Vijayan who was in a bad state was later taken to Sassoon Hospital around 5.30 pm, said Pai.

“Chandran was taken to the hospital by the police,” Pai said, adding the institute had not sent a doctor to examine the striking students. Nor had any member of the faculty come to visit them. Attending doctor Rajesh Manvatkar revealed that Chandranwas quite dehydrated and in a serious condition because his urine had started showing ketones as a result of starvation. “We’ll keep him here till the ketones get washed out,” he said. The students had been living on water and electrol for the past week. Pai said she had spoken to Information and Broadcasting Secretary Kamalnath on Sunday after some of the students met Union I&B Minister Jaipal Reddy in Hyderabad where he was campaigning and got an assurance from him that his decision was final. “The minister had said he would meet us on February 23 in Delhi and was shocked to find that his decision had not been ratified,” she said.

Protesting against non-implementation of the revised syllabus and declaration of a zero semester in 1998, the students had met Reddy in Delhi on January 10 in the presence of some Governing Council members, FTII Director Mohan Agashe and former students Jaya Bachchan, Mani Kaul and Kumar Sahani. At the meeting, Reddy promised implementation of the revised syllabus after 18months with the faculty using the time to assess the syllabus. In 1998 it was proposed that the first term of the three-year syllabus would be followed. However, the GC meeting held in the institute recently failed to follow it up and instead decided it wanted a meeting with the minister. A recent visit by former students Saeed Mirza, K K Mahajan, Birendra Sahani and Jabin Merchant to help resolve the crisis had also apparently failed. The striking students are demanding the removal of Mohan Agashe as director and implementation of the promises made by Reddy.