In a disturbing development, the Telegraph reported that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has sent a letter to all higher educational institutions (HEIs) “requesting” them to identify a faculty/non-faculty member who will be responsible for “connect[ing] all the students’ Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts with the HEI’s Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts, as well as the MHRD’s Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts”. Several academics have expressed their fear that this information will be used to profile students on the basis of their perceived ideological leanings, and filter them out during faculty interviews, the report said. The letter (available on The Quint’s website here) was sent on July 3, 2019 by the Secretary of the Department of Higher Education, R Subrahmanyam. This instruction is expected to cover around 900 universities and 40,000 colleges in the country, per the Telegraph report. The directive concerns all HEIs, both government and private, Subrahmanyam told MediaNama. What does the letter say? The letter states that this move aims to “connect all the higher educational institutions with each other, and with MHRD, so as to share their achievements using the social media platforms”. To that end, HEIs have to identify a faculty/non-faculty member as the institute’s "Social Media Champion” (SMC) by July 31. This SMC will: Communicate with all other HEIs and MHRD the “good work done by the institution and their students from time to time” Open, if required, and operate Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts of the HEI Connect them to Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts of other HEIs, and those of the MHRD Connect all students’…
