07-10-2006, 02:13 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Why we should oppose Ramadoss </b>
Pioneer.com
Reporter's notebook | Sidharth Mishra
The High Court has intervened and stayed the resolution passed by the Governing Body of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) recommending dismissal of director Dr P Venugopal. For about a week, preceding the extra-ordinary meeting of the AIIMS body, we carried a campaign, which was aimed at nailing the Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss. Detractors of Dr P Venugopal have questioned the real intent of the campaign.
I am sorry if they could not decipher the intent of the campaign. It was purely to put the Minister in the dock. If likes of Anbumani Ramadoss are allowed to have a free run, institutions built over the decades would crumble in days. Anbumani Ramadoss cannot be trusted with the health of the nation. The way he piloted the resolution at the meeting brazenly stifling dissent doesn't augur well for democracy.
<b>I am glad somebody like Professor Deepak Pental, the vice-chancellor of Delhi University, stood his ground and called the Minister's bluff. I am sorry that some others have been able to gather courage only after the High Court order to say that they did not support the resolution. The voting in conference hall of Nirman Bhawan resembled the way resolutions are passed in the meeting of housing societies, where mafia uses muscles to have its way.</b>
<b>To quote Professor Pental, "A man (Venugopal) with so distinguished a career cannot be removed like this, simply because he cannot have gone wrong in a day. If he was selected some years back to run the institute and is summarily removed today, we either made a mistake then or we are making a mistake now. ...It is important for people like Venugopal to be allowed to retain their freedom of expression as he is not strictly a civil servant but an academician who has done good work all these years.
The same set of rules, which apply to the civil servants cannot apply to academicians even when they are in administration. It is important to try and look at new things and create new solutions. An academician cannot be expected to just continue with what is already there."</b>
The crisis in AIIMS has its genesis in the failure of Minister Ramadoss to appreciate the academic abilities of the veteran cardiac surgeon. <b>The way he has gone about forcing his agenda caring to figs for norms and traditions only strengthened our resolve that he must oppose him tooth and nail</b>. Characters like Ramadoss are too concerned about the political harvest they stand to reap from their decisions. Be it banning of smoking on the screen or his virulent attack on the cola companies or meddling in the affairs of the Medical Council of India (MCI),<b> the Minister has exposed himself as a man in hurry in scoring brawny points</b>.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Politicians like Ramadoss must be opposed because they use the vehicle of caste to perpetuate the culture of nepotism.</span> Both the father and the son have been most vehement supporters of 27 per cent reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the canters of higher learning. Both when it came to sharing power, he has not looked beyond his family. Veteran PMK leaders like Dalit Ezhumalai and P Shanmugham to day find themselves in wilderness because they are not related to Ramadoss. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pioneer.com
Reporter's notebook | Sidharth Mishra
The High Court has intervened and stayed the resolution passed by the Governing Body of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) recommending dismissal of director Dr P Venugopal. For about a week, preceding the extra-ordinary meeting of the AIIMS body, we carried a campaign, which was aimed at nailing the Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss. Detractors of Dr P Venugopal have questioned the real intent of the campaign.
I am sorry if they could not decipher the intent of the campaign. It was purely to put the Minister in the dock. If likes of Anbumani Ramadoss are allowed to have a free run, institutions built over the decades would crumble in days. Anbumani Ramadoss cannot be trusted with the health of the nation. The way he piloted the resolution at the meeting brazenly stifling dissent doesn't augur well for democracy.
<b>I am glad somebody like Professor Deepak Pental, the vice-chancellor of Delhi University, stood his ground and called the Minister's bluff. I am sorry that some others have been able to gather courage only after the High Court order to say that they did not support the resolution. The voting in conference hall of Nirman Bhawan resembled the way resolutions are passed in the meeting of housing societies, where mafia uses muscles to have its way.</b>
<b>To quote Professor Pental, "A man (Venugopal) with so distinguished a career cannot be removed like this, simply because he cannot have gone wrong in a day. If he was selected some years back to run the institute and is summarily removed today, we either made a mistake then or we are making a mistake now. ...It is important for people like Venugopal to be allowed to retain their freedom of expression as he is not strictly a civil servant but an academician who has done good work all these years.
The same set of rules, which apply to the civil servants cannot apply to academicians even when they are in administration. It is important to try and look at new things and create new solutions. An academician cannot be expected to just continue with what is already there."</b>
The crisis in AIIMS has its genesis in the failure of Minister Ramadoss to appreciate the academic abilities of the veteran cardiac surgeon. <b>The way he has gone about forcing his agenda caring to figs for norms and traditions only strengthened our resolve that he must oppose him tooth and nail</b>. Characters like Ramadoss are too concerned about the political harvest they stand to reap from their decisions. Be it banning of smoking on the screen or his virulent attack on the cola companies or meddling in the affairs of the Medical Council of India (MCI),<b> the Minister has exposed himself as a man in hurry in scoring brawny points</b>.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Politicians like Ramadoss must be opposed because they use the vehicle of caste to perpetuate the culture of nepotism.</span> Both the father and the son have been most vehement supporters of 27 per cent reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the canters of higher learning. Both when it came to sharing power, he has not looked beyond his family. Veteran PMK leaders like Dalit Ezhumalai and P Shanmugham to day find themselves in wilderness because they are not related to Ramadoss. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->