THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:In a new twist to the controversy over the ‘’missing’’ PhD thesis of Kerala University Vice-Chancellor P K Radhakrishnan, it has come to light that six PhD theses in Chemistry, including that of Radhakrishnan, are ‘’not available’’ in the Kerala University library. The Vice-Chancellor had on Tuesday asked the University Deputy Librarian-in- Charge to furnish an explanation following media reports that the details of his PhD thesis were not available with the University.
‘’We have crosschecked the Gift Register thoroughly which includes details of the PhD theses brought to the Library. The register does not contain details of the said thesis and five others,’’ Deputy Librarian-in-Charge Saraswathy L told ‘Express’. The candidate who submits the thesis is asked to file four copies of the work while submitting it for approval. While three copies are sent to the evaluators, the fourth one will be kept at the University’s Academic Branch. After award of PhD, the thesis is sent to the University Library for reference and the Librarian becomes its custodian.
Meanwhile, Right to Information (RTI) query by Congress-affiliated senate member B S Jyothi Kumar, the University informed that a total of 56 PhDs were awarded in Chemistry between 1981 and 1990. Radhakrishnan was awarded PhD on October 8, 1986 for the topic ‘Studies in Rare Earths Chemistry - Rare Earth Complexes of Some Pyrozol-5 Ones’. The research was carried out under the guidance of Prof Dr C G Ramachandran Nair and Dr P Indrasenan - both from the Department of Chemistry, University of Kerala. The RTI reply further stated that ‘’out of the 56 theses, 50 are available and six are not available in the Library.’’ In addition to Radhakrishnan’s PhD thesis, the other theses which were ‘’not available’’ with the University Library were those of Saramma Thomas (1985), C Mohandas (1988), Luxmi Varma R (1988), Balagopal P (1988) and George Thomas Kakkudiyil (1990).