Prof Yash Pal shares memories with students

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, April 10

Former UGC chairperson, renowned scientist and educationist Prof Yash Pal said he was famous for organising strikes at Panjab University, Lahore, during his student days. He shared these facts with students of the Physics Department while addressing the Prof BM Anand Memorial Lecture on the topic “learning to do physics with Bal Mokand Anand” at Panjab University, here, today.

Telling the students about his old memories of the PU, Lahore, in 1945 when independence talks were going on, Prof Yash Pal said he took the advantage of these talks and used to hold a large number of strikes in the Physics Honours Department.

Referring to the horrible days as a refugee from Lahore to New Delhi, Prof Yash Pal said he along with well-known educationist and researcher professor BM Anand mooted a proposal to set up hostels for refugee students. Reacting to which, the then Deputy Commissioner of Delhi converted Army buildings lying vacant near Delhi university into a hostel.

Funding was always a major problem for setting up a physics laboratory after independence in India. He, along with his professor Anand, started collecting money to start the work for setting up the Physics Department and mooted to establish a university in which science would be the main subject.

Sharing another anecdote, he said to raise funds for the students, one day he, along with his friend, wrote a letter to Liril soap company to provide soaps to the students in the corporative stores set up on the campus and to their surprise, the company sent a pack containing a large number of soaps on the address that they had mentioned.

After supplying soaps to students, the left out material was sold in the market to collect money for the students, he said.

Former PU Vice-Chancellor Padma Bhushan Prof Bambah in his presidential remarks made a case for encouraging students to take up basic science research and made it free from bureaucratic hassles. He bemoaned how the present day administrators were made to take decisions in a straight jacketed manner and how such a situation might hamper the growth of talent and creativity of the university system.

‘Strikes should be for constructive purposes’

Adopting the choice-based credit system in the university should be mandatory to spread the knowledge, which these days is constrained to books, and norms for new curriculum should be designed, said Prof Yash Pal. He said there were a number of faculty members who were working at low level and there was a need for a collective effort for the betterment of students. Reacting to one of the questions, he said strikes at educational institutions should only be for constructive purposes and not for publicity.