Ashoka University: Row over disbanding data centre

At Ashoka Univ., Sonepat, controversy erupts over disbanding of Trivedi Centre for Political Data & removal of founding director Gilles Verniers. Members of Centre's Scientific Board allege Univ. didn't consult them & breached academic norms. Univ. refutes charges, says Verniers didn't clear tenure process.

A new controversy has erupted at the Ashoka University, Sonepat over the ‘disbanding’ of the Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD), and the removal of scholar and founding director of the centre Gilles Verniers.

The Centre’s Scientific Board, consisting of eminent academics and intellectuals such as Christophe Jaffrelot and former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Qureshi has sent an open letter alleging that the University disbanded the TCPD and its founding director Gilles Verniers was “forced to leave” the institution.

The members said that an empirical study of democracy and elections requires evidence and the TCPD provided quality open-access data in real time along with “cutting edge analysis” of India’s elections.

“We now write to state our regret that the Trivedi Centre’s founder and director was forced to leave, and that the university did not inform the scientific board about decisions that affect not only the leadership of the centre but also its future as an institution,” the letter said.

They said in its seven years of operation, scholars at TCPD have produced 16 groundbreaking datasets, led 20 research projects, organised 80 research seminars, published 20 research papers and book chapters, and organised two major conferences on computational social sciences.

“The team has also published more than 300 analytical articles in the Indian press and built high-quality academic partnerships. In 2017, it was awarded the label of ‘International Research Partner’ from the Centre for National Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, in association with CERI-SciencesPo,” the members said in the letter.