Agitating FTII students seem to be in no mood to budge as they are now planning to scale up their protests by approaching other institutions even as the Pune-based institute on Friday asked 30 students who have already completed their course to vacate their hostel rooms.
The 30 students include the 13 who were served notices by the FTII management for overstaying.
FTII director Prashant Pathrabe told reporters in Pune that he has taken "administrative decision" to discontinue services of 82 contract employees, mainly those giving technical support to academic film projects, since classes are not being held at the campus. "Since classes are not being held due to the strike, there is no justification to keep contract staff engaged," he said.
The students, meanwhile, have announced their resolve to continue their 57-day-old strike and their plans to take it nationwide to different student bodies in various campuses across India. The students are currently protesting government appointments to the FTII Society and to the post of chairman, given to Gajendra Chauhan.
Addressing the press in New Delhi a collective of current and former students said that this was no longer an FTII issue but a "national debate", as cultural and educational spaces across the country were being threatened and squeezed. They also said that though they were in Delhi to "open channels of communication" with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, things were at a "stalemate" as of now. following which the Joint Secretary from the Ministry had met the students and said that he would try and raise their concerns with the minister. So far, there has been no meeting with either minister Arun Jaitely or minister of state Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
"Wherever we went, we found similar stories of students worried about people appointed to their institute who were not qualified to lead it," said Sakshi Gulati, a current FTII student, who is in Delhi to organise the protest and to try and open channels of communication with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. "There is a strange sort of censorship that has crept in campuses, where even a play can be banned for being 'anti-government'," she added referring to the crack down on the dramatics society of DU's Khalsa College.
