Online protests rage against govt censorship

New Delhi, Feb. 20 -- In an Arindam Chaudhuri Facebook post on February 9, 2013, there's a picture of the man, shining smile et al, with the caption: "The highest followed management guru and teacher on earth (sic) has two million fans," followed by two exclamation marks. It has, till this report was filed, 124,057 likes. On February 15, the government had ordered, following a Gwalior court directive, blocking of sites critical to the IIPM that Chaudhuri runs.

Among the content blocked included a University Grants Commission (UGC) notice against the private B-school. It reads, "IIPM is not a university within the meaning of Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956. It does not have the right of conferring or granting degrees as specified by the UGC under Section 22(3) of the UGC Act. It is clarified for information that IIPM is neither entitled to award MBA/BBA/BCA degree nor it is recognised by UGC."

Public ire against the censorship forced the government to lift the censorship. Along with the content that went off the internet included articles which gave details of IIPM's questionable tie-ups with institutes abroad, even when it did not have AICTE/UGC approval.

An education magazine had a few years ago revealed that IIPM had been advertising an agreement offering with IMI Belgium - an institute not recognised by the regulatory authority in Belgium, similar to UGC.

There was also a tie-up claim with the University of Buckingham, which was subsequently denied by the UK university, the magazine reported.

Published by HT Syndication with permission from Hindustan Times.

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Online protests rage against govt censorship