Rajasthan University’s Centre for Mass Communication to stay open, releases new prospectus

The Centre for Mass Communication of University of Rajasthan will not shut and will admit students to two-year postgraduate course for the 2019-2021 session, according to the university’s prospectus uploaded on its site this week.

Earlier, the university administration announced that the CMC will shut for the lack of faculty. Reports in local newspapers indicated that the faculty of CMC will shift to the Haridev Joshi University of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The Haridev Joshi journalism university was set up in 2012 by the then Ashok Gehlot government. In 2017, the then BJP government shut it. Students and faculty of the journalism university were merged with the CMC at University of Rajasthan. After Gehlot was voted to power again, he set up the university once again.

The university prospectus doesn’t mention names of the faculty in the section describing the Centre for Mass Communication on page No. 101, indicating that the faculty may return to its original employer.

Reports about the centre’s closure led to protests by its alumni and students and Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members for two days. The ABVP members burnt the effigy of vice chancellor Prof RK Kothari on Wednesday to protest the proposed closure.

The protest was called off after assurance from the vice chancellor that the centre will continue to run with the help of guest faculty.

“Many other departments in the university are running with the help of guest faculty,” said Dr Akhil Shukla, a member of university’s senate and an alumnus of the centre. “The university administration said it will consult the state government about hiring a former faculty or guest faculty to run the department,” he added.

The centre began in April 1991 in PG School of Commerce building to offer a one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism course. It got the status of a department in 2000 and began the Master’s course from 2002-2002.

According to the university prospectus for 2019-2020, the centre will admit students to the two-year Master’s degree course on 30 seats.