The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Opposition walked out of the Assembly on Wednesday warning the government that rampant nepotism in university appointments had caused a palpable sense of unrest in the sizeable section of well-educated, but less privileged and unemployed youth in the State.
Congress legislator Roji M. John, who piloted an adjournment motion on the issue, spotlighted the controversial appointment of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s private secretary K.K. Ragesh’s wife Priya Varghese as associate professor in the department of Malayalam, Kannur University, as a case in point.
Mr. John quoted the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom not trade, character not technicalities.”
