The academic council of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Calcutta, will hold a special meeting on Tuesday to discuss the controversial draft ISI bill, which allegedly seeks to fundamentally alter the institute’s governance structure and dilute its academic autonomy.
The meeting has been convened by the dean of studies, days after a group of teachers wrote to him expressing serious concern over the academic council being “divested of most of its powers” under the proposed legislation.
According to the teachers, the Union ministry of statistics and programme implementation has proposed a structural overhaul of ISI that would strip the academic council of key decision-making authority, including the power to introduce or discontinue academic programmes.
“If this draft bill were to become an Act, the role of the academic council will be purely recommendatory, and its authority will be substantially diminished,” the letter said. “It is therefore imperative that we have a detailed discussion... in the... council. We hope you share our concerns.”
The academic council is a 100-member body comprising ISI faculty.
The agenda for Tuesday’s meeting lists a single item: “Consideration of the proposal for discussion and deliberation on academic implications of the draft ISI Bill 2025.”
In a note circulated to members, the dean’s office said the meeting would be conducted in hybrid mode.
Separately, the institute’s council — its highest administrative body — is scheduled to meet on Saturday, with the draft bill also on its agenda.
Faculty members fear that under the proposed bill, the board of governors, dominated by nominees of the Union ministry, would become the institute’s supreme authority, overriding the academic council.
“This means whatever the academic council decides could be overturned by the board. The council would then be unable to resist the introduction of programmes that border on pseudoscience, especially under the garb of the Indian Knowledge System (IKS),” said an ISI professor.
“We all know what the Union government has done to the IITs on the pretext of introducing the IKS. The academic rigour that ISI has maintained through its council needs to be upheld,” the professor said.
The Telegraph reported on January 19 that several past and present teachers and researchers at ISI view the Centre’s proposed governance changes as an assault on the institute’s autonomy. The move could pave the way for injecting “pseudoscience” into its curriculum and research, and enable control over the institute’s data analysis to generate outcomes favourable to the establishment, they fear.
Many faculty members said that ISI’s internal checks and balances, or “firewalls”, have historically been provided by the academic council, a structure put in place when the institute was founded 94 years ago by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.
“By vesting unbridled powers in the proposed board of governors, without explaining what necessitated such an overhaul, the ministry is attempting to push the bill through,” a teacher said on Monday. “Only after teachers and scientists protested did a consultation process begin.”
Last week, the ministry sought individual opinions from members of the academic council on the bill. During a previous council meeting on September 12, however, ministry representatives had allegedly rejected a proposal to consult the wider faculty.
Asked about Tuesday’s meeting, ISI’s officiating director, Ayandnedranath Basu, said: “You will have to speak to the dean of studies about the meeting, as he has called it.”
Calls and text messages to dean Biswabrata Pradhan went unanswered.