Talks between the officials of Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and striking students of FTII on Thursday yet again failed to end their 112-day deadlock. The strike is in protest against the appointment of actor and BJP member Gajendra Chauhan as chairperson of the institute. The two sides will again meet here on Tuesday.
The team of the Ministry was represented by Joint Secretary K Sanjay Murthy, Deputy Secretary Deepak Kumar and others. Earlier, a meeting was held on September 29, without success.
According to sources, the Ministry is also planning to change five members from the Governing Council against whom the students have expressed strong objections. Earlier, the Ministry had constituted a three-member committee for examining the grievances of the students. The committee headed by SM Khan, Registrar of Newspapers of India, had also made a similar proposal.
The students, according to sources, however pitched for dissolution of the current FTII society, which will make norms and guidelines for the formation of a new society. Till then, the current society is to be put into a passive state or to be dissolved altogether, the students demanded. However, whether their main issue of removal of Chauhan as Chairman gets addressed by the Ministry is a million dollar question. The striking students expressed hope that the Ministry was at least ready to meet them repeatedly, to thaw out an understanding.
However, it remains to be seen, whether their main demand for removal of Chauhan as FTII Chairman is heard.
The FTII students presented to the Ministry a list of signatories of national and international repute. The list includes Noam Chomsky, eminent US philosopher and political commentator besides prominent academicians as Partha Chatterjee, film journalists like Vijay Prashad along with Bollywood personalities Sanjay leela Bhansali, Vidya Balan and Dibakar Bannerjee.