Now, it is simple spoken Sanskrit

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 21. After the controversy over Vedic astrology, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has now come under fire for seeking to recruit teachers for a new course on `simple spoken Sanskrit'.

In an advertisement put out in a recent edition of the Government's Employment News, the agency has sought applications from graduates proficient in spoken Sanskrit for appointment as teachers in the `Simple Sanskrit Speaking Centres' that are to be started by it in various universities and colleges. The centres would conduct certificate courses on a part-time basis to encourage students of any discipline to learn spoken Sanskrit, the advertisement said.

The move has come in for criticism particularly on the ground that recruitment of teachers was not part of the UGC's mandate, as its role was merely that of a funding agency - providing grants to universities.

Mr. Eduardo Faleiro, Congress leader, who made a special mention on the issue in the Rajya Sabha today, said that it was alarming that the UGC was throwing established norms to the wind by inviting applications directly bypassing universities and colleges.

Addressing a press conference, he said the advertisement was silent on the number of teachers to be recruited and it prescribed only graduation as the minimum qualification required.

Charging that it was a clear attempt to help in ``a largescale infiltration of friends of the ruling BJP into academic institutions'', he said that most universities and colleges already had Sanskrit departments and there was absolutely no need for starting the new centres in the present situation of resources crunch.

Mr. Faleiro said several Parliamentarians had come together cutting across party lines to create a forum for education and culture. Its objectives would include efforts to mobilise opinion, both inside and outside Parliament, against moves to misuse education and culture for promoting sectarianism and obscurantism, and to highlight distortions if any in the objectives and functioning of academic and cultural institutions. It would also campaign against moves to privatise higher education.

The forum's activities would include publication of a newsletter and it would maintain a website. It would be inaugurated by the Congress president and Leader of Opposition, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, here tomorrow, he added.

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