Attendees:

Arnab Rai Chaudhuri, V. Venkataraman, J. Haritsa, T. Shankar, Debasis Sengupta, Sriram Ramaswamy, Vasant Natarajan, G. Narayana Naik, A. Suyumbu, K.V.S. Hari, Prabhu Nott

The next general body meeting was decided to be held on Tuesday August 5th. The venue will be Choksi Hall, subject to availability. The major agenda items for the GBM are (i) presentation of the audited statement of accounts for the previous financial year (ii) Pass the resolution to reconstitute the EC as presented by Dr. Shivaprakash and discussed in the previous GBM (iii) Report the decision to implement the award scheme as proposed by Dr. Haritsa (iv) Discuss the problem of increments not received by scientific staff when promoted from scientific officer to senior scientific officer. This issue was brought to the attention of the EC by Dr. Naik

Dr. Shankar pointed out that calls to cellphones from the institute phones has been disabled and this is causing a lot of hardship for people trying to get in touch with vendors, service engineers etc. Prof. Ramaswamy also said that other facilities such as voice mail etc which were promised when the new exchange was installed have also not been implemented. The secretary replied that he was trying to get in touch with the security officer Mr. Chandrasekhar who is now in charge of telephones and will speak to him about this matter. It was also pointed out that internet connectivity to the campus is being handled by two departments viz ECE and SERC, and this causing a lot of confusion.

The President, Prof. Arnab Rai Chaudhuri, brought to the notice of the EC, a petition submitted by one of the FA members. In the petition, the member complained that he was denied promotion despite having a good record and favourable recommendations. He wanted the FA to seek justice on his behalf. The President pointed out that the institute has set up a grievance committee to look into these matters and, according to the rules, any FA member can submit his grievance to this committee. The role of the FA at this stage was to nominate two members to this committee. Prof. Ramsesha of SSCU has agreed to be one of the nominees while the other was still to be decided. In this connection the EC members expressed the opinion that more transparency is needed in the institute's promotion policy and procedures. For example, the format of the recommendation forms (confidential matter vs comments to be disclosed to the candidate etc), covering letters etc should be known to the faculty. It was felt that many letters from the institute administration are worded badly and need to be re-written. The EC members urged the President to write to the Director on these issues.

Prof. Prabhu Nott and Prof. Hari informed the members that the FA request for all itemized deductions to be shown on the salary slip has been implemented only partly. Three items out of the six proposed by Prof. H.S. Mukunda, namely, Item.No, Description and Net Payment have been shown. The other three viz. Tax deducted, Mode of Payment and Date are missing. The members felt that the FA should insist on having all information through a letter to the Director with a copy to the Financial Controller, Registrar and Prof. Mukunda.

Dr. Suyumbu pointed out that an item concerning the eligibility of Scientific Assistants with Rs.8000-13500 basic salary for D-type quarters, which was discussed in the last GBM, was inadvertently missing from the minutes. The secretary promised to rectify this omission. The question of using e-mail correspondence in preference to hard-copies for all FA activities including newsletters was discussed. Since the bye-laws insist on hard-copies at present, the members felt that this issue can be discussed in the GBM and the bye-laws changed if needed.