Shillong, Dec 20: As there is seemingly no end in sight to the crisis plaguing North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), student and teacher groups have essentially taken it upon themselves to appoint someone to run the place.
With the under-fire Vice-Chancellor PS Shukla absent for more than a year and no Acting VC or Pro-VC of the Shillong campus, there is a complete absence of authority at the helm of affairs.
Student and teacher associations, which recently pressured the Shillong campus Pro-VC to resign, requested the senior-most professor, SK Barik of the Botany Department to assume the position of VC. They justified this based on sections of the NEHU statute “in the larger interest of the university” until Shukla returns.
Barik has informed the Union Ministry of Education for “necessary directives” in this regard.
