Indian Science Congress postponed over security issues' in Osmania University

Hyderabad: The Indian Science Congress, which was to be held at Osmania University, has been indefinitely postponed just days before the event was scheduled —  from January 3 to 7.

The decision to postpone the event barely two weeks before it was to commence has come as a rude shock to Osmania University, which is holding its centenary celebrations this year, and the Telangana state government.

The event was postponed due to “security issues” on the Osmania University campus following the suicide of a postgraduate student which led to violent protests by students, who blamed the lack of government jobs for the students’ frustration and suicide.

This is the first time in its 105-year history that the Indian Science Congress (ISC) has been indefinitely postponed.

The ISC is traditionally the first public function the Prime Minister addresses in the new calendar year.

The ISC Association will meet on December 27 to decide on a new venue and date.

The ISC venue is usually decided a year in advance as the logistics are massive, involving coordinating the visits of several Nobel laureates, heads of Indian science academies and thousands of students.

The gap between the TRS government and Osmania University students has widened further with the decision to postpone the event.

Though Osmania University had made all the arrangements to conduct the Congress and wanted the government to shift only the inaugural meet to HICC, the government was averse to this proposal after violence broke out recently over the student's suicide.

OU students, who were the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti’s most staunch supporters during the statehood agitation, are at loggerheads with the TRS government.

What started with the OU students’ protests against Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s  decision to regularise the services of over 70,000 contract staff in July 2014, intensified with the CM proposing to take over some portion of the university's unutilised land for the 2BHK housing scheme for the poor.

Neither Mr Rao nor any of his ministers have entered the campus since then, except when he attended the OU centenary with then Presi-dent Pranab Mukherjee early this year, but left without delivering a speech or visiting the Arts College building.