DU economises on students for talk

Attending Hillary Clinton’s talk at Delhi University (DU) on Monday, it turns out, will be the prerogative of a select few students, of economics and management studies. Ritika Chopra reports.

Attending Hillary Clinton’s talk at Delhi University (DU) on Monday, it turns out, will be the prerogative of a select few students, of economics and management studies.

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Close to half of the 800-strong audience, which the US Secretary of State is to address at the North Campus’ Convention Hall, will be students. And this half, too, will only be from the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) and Delhi School of Economics (DSE).

“The academic session of both FMS and DSE, unlike other departments, has already started. So it made sense to have their students attend the talk,” Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental said.

Students from affiliated colleges were not invited due to time constraint, and they were not sure on how the other institutes would chose students for the event, he said.

“Students will be allowed to interact with her briefly. She’ll probably answer questions asked by them, but we’ll restrict the session to just four-five questions,” said Gurmeet Singh, Proctor, DU.

Clinton, who is expected to spend 75 minutes on the campus, is the second high-profile visitor to the university in the less than two years.

An honorary doctorate was conferred on UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he visited the university in January last.

Apart from the Delhi students, eight students of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, too, will attend the talk. “We’ve been invited by the American embassy. Our team includes those involved in designing a nano-satellite to be launched by Isro this year….” said Prof S.G. Dhande, director, IIT-Kanpur.

A team of close to 200 policemen will stand guard at North Campus on Monday.