IIT ex-faculty member writes to Pradhan

Vipin P. Veetil resigned last month, alleging discrimination

The head of the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, should step down to ensure fair investigation on his complaint of caste-based discrimination, a former faculty of the institute, has said. Vipin P. Veetil, 36, who was an assistant professor of Economics, resigned on July 1, citing discrimination on the basis of caste. In a five-page letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on the ongoing investigation based on his complaint, he said the institute had formed a three-member committee to investigate the issue that he had reported to the grievance committee. However, head of the department Jyotirmaya Tripathy, who he accused, “is liaising between the investigating committee and the faculty members of the department,” he said in his letter.