From
Dr. G.S. Gill
Professor of Geology,
Panjab University, Chandigarh
—————————————————————————————————————–
Secretary,
PUTA,
P.U. Chandigarh
Subject: Brain Drain from Geology Department
Sir,
This is to seek your help to stop a calculated & concerted effort to
deprive one of the most reputed institutes of its talent and hard
earned best resources. In last few years, the Geology department,
which has been elevated as Centre of Advanced Study in Geology since
1965 and nurtured by the stalwarts like Late M.R. Sahni & I.C. Pande,
suffered the blows of losing the distinguished experts in Structural
geology, Palaeontology partly due to retirement but more painfully due
to arbitrary decisions of University high ups to transfer/shift the
experts to other centers without the consent of Chairman/faculty. Dr.
[WINDOWS-1252?]Patnaik’s shift,a reader-cum- Museum Curator, is recent example.
Now when the Geology faculty which is reduced to 1/3rd of its
sanctioned strength of 24, is somehow justifying its teaching and
research duties, another catastrophe is going to strike the
department. Prof. Naval Kishore has applied for the post of DCDC for
which interview is going to be held very shortly. As per talk of the
corridor and his qualifications, he stands very good chances to be
selected thus depriving the department another internationally
renowned expert of Groundwater one of our thrust area in CAS. It will
be pertinent to mention that Dr. Naval, who had some brushes with
structural geology during his Ph.D. under renowned Structural
Geologist Prof. R.C. Kanwar, is presently guiding a score of students
on Hydrogeology and has a no. of research projects with him. Apart
from that, he has gained a world level reputation for his work on
glaciers, climatology and petroleum Geology. No institute can afford
to lose such an asset to its academic excellence.
Though I will make all efforts as a friend & colleague through request
& persuasion, to ask Prof. Naval to drop the idea to get a non
teaching-non research post and to continue contributing towards
geosciences and adoring the department by his virtues,
I request all the well wishers to:
o Personally request/advise Dr. Naval to withdraw his application for
DCDC in the larger interest of the students, geosciences and
University.
o Request the Hon,able VC to take the larger interests of PU in view
before making any recommendation for non teaching posts
o See that the department faculties are not bypassed while
shifting/transferring teachers and entertaining the application for
non teaching posts.
Hoping for a best future for PU
Sincerely,
(G.S. Gill)