University of Hyderabad issues new regulations on posters; SFI fumes

Student unions are allowed to paste posters only in the earmarked notice or display boards. In this matter, written permission from the chief warden, DCW or warden of hostel concern has been made mandatory. The UoH management also decided to frame guidelines on acceptable content for posters and banners.

Hyderabad: The University of Hyderabad (UoH) administration has barred the student community from pasting any posters and other materials on the hostels’ walls, doors, rooms and corridors.

Student unions are allowed to paste posters only in the earmarked notice or display boards. In this matter, written permission from the chief warden, DCW or warden of hostel concern has been made mandatory. The UoH management also decided to frame guidelines on acceptable content for posters and banners.

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To this effect, the UoH recently issued an order, detailing new measures on pasting posters in view of the recent incident where posters of prominent national leaders were pasted in the urinals of a Men’s hostel on the campus.

The university decided to provide separate notice boards for students’ activities at various places on the campus, especially in hostels to avoid posters and graffiti on walls and other places. It also decided to remove existing posters and graffiti on hostels’ walls and other places and repaint them.

As per the order, non-compliance of the regulations will be treated as indiscipline and matter will be referred to the proctorial board for necessary disciplinary action as per the university rules.

The new measures did not go down well with the student community that staunchly criticised and opposed the order.

In a statement, SFI UoH unit said the order, disguised as a step towards “cleanliness”, appears to be a masterstroke in sanitizing the campus dissent while “keeping communal favouritism spotless”. The new regulations are yet another tool in the administration’s agenda of silencing dissent, it said.

The students’ organisation sought to know from the university administration the report of the committee that was constituted to probe into violence on students on April 17. The SFI UoH unit also questioned the university administration’s silence on Dr. BR Ambedkar portraits vandalism.