BENGALURU: Dr Manmohan Singh Bengaluru City University (BCU) has come under lens after it announced the names of people selected for honorary doctorate at their fifth convocation ceremony to be held on Saturday.
Though the Governor’s office selects the final names for doctorate, the initial list of names are sent by the University officials. This year, the university had sent 14 names of which six were selected for the Honoris Causa Degree – cricketer BK Venkatesh Prasad (sports), Arjun Janya (music), TK Narayanappa (education), MLC Dr K Govindaraj (Sports Administration), Dr Mohan Alva (education) and BM Farooq (industries).
When asked about the displeasure among syndicate members opposing the university’s decision to honour people including Govindaraj, Farooq and Narayanappa and some of them having written to the higher education minister that they wouldn’t attend the convocation ceremony, Vice-Chancellor Ramesh B said, “There is no displeasure as such, but we have received suggestions from the Syndicate members to follow a transparent process for the selection of people for honorary doctorate. They have also suggested that we follow certain protocols and we will make sure to implement them from the next academic year.
The names were finalised by a nominee from the governor’s office, two members from the syndicate committee and one subject expert.” He said there was no political pressure from any party or ministers.
Ramesh said, “Last time, during the vice-chancellors meeting held in Bengaluru, the issue of universities giving honorary doctorate to the same people was discussed. Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar as well as Governor
Thaawarchand Gehlot had stated that they would come up with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to be followed by all the universities across the state.”