Delhi College of Arts and Commerce (DCAC) has allegedly declined funds for the publication of its student newspaper,Critique.The student newspaper was to be launched at Scoop-The Annual Journalism Department Fest of DCAC on 9th March 2017.
BJP MP Subramanyam Swamy was to attend the event along with Journalist Hartosh Bal,the event was later cancelled by the college authorities.This came as a surprise since the college was in news last week as it postponed Youth Conclave where a number of Non-BJP leaning leaders were expected to attend the event. Yogendra Yadav called out DCAC publicly on Twitter for cancelling the event.
According to a report published in DNA,members of the organizing committee said that the event had been cancelled because “authorities did not find the atmosphere to be appropriate for conducting such an event”.
A student told¬†The Wire “that the newspaper was slated to go in spite of the event being cancelled until the principal, Rajiv Chopra, wanted a particular article removed from the newspaper. The student said that the principal had a problem with the article as it had references to Ramjas College, RSS-BJP backed student organisation ABVP and CPI(M-L) backed AISA.”
The student said “that the principal asked them to publish the¬†newspaper under two conditions:¬†either the contentious article was to be removed or all references to the college and its faculty was to be taken out of the newspaper. In response to this,DCAC‚Äôs journalism students have decided to publish it unofficially, with a few copies distributed among students. Students said that they decided on this after their repeated requests to the principal went unheeded and the¬†paucity of funds to print more copies.”
Rajiv Chopra,Principal of DCAC told The Wire¬†”that he was given the newspaper for review on Wednesday morning and needs more time to vet its contents.” On being asked about the contentious article,he stated¬†that ‚Äúhe did not have an issue with any article‚Äù.
