T.N. Raj Bhavan slams media reports portraying V-C conclave as power struggle with government

Raj Bhavan Tamil Nadu on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) addressed what it called “some misleading media reports” about the forthcoming annual conference of leaders of higher educational institutions, including those from Central, State, and private universities in Tamil Nadu

The Raj Bhavan in Chennai on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) addressed what it called “some misleading media reports” about the forthcoming annual conference of leaders of higher educational institutions, including those from Central, State, and private universities in Tamil Nadu. It stated that these reports falsely portrayed the event as “a power struggle” between the Raj Bhavan and the State government, and said that such reports were “entirely erroneous and mischievous.”

Annual conferences of leaders of higher educational institutions are carefully planned and organised in April every year, since 2022, by the Governor of Tamil Nadu. It sees the participation of eminent leaders of academia and industries, from Tamil Nadu and across the country, and they share their ideas and experiences with leaders of our higher educational institutions, the Raj Bhavan said in a statement.

The participants of the conference deliberate on the emerging challenges and opportunities for our students, as well as the newly unfolding frontiers of science and technology. They devise ways and means to prepare their respective institutions to remain competitive and ahead of the changing curve to the benefit of our State and students. Positive outcomes of these conferences are increasingly visible in measurable parameters, the statement added.

“Earlier, our institutions, specially the State universities, never interacted with each other and functioned largely in their respective silos to the disadvantage of our students, and [this] was detrimental to the growth of our institutions,” the Raj Bhavan said.

Preparations for each year’s conference begin several months in advance, and meetings with the Vice-Chancellors and eminent experts of academia and industries are held to design the structure of the conference. The topics and themes for deliberations are selected, and eminent resource persons, from across the country, are then approached — well in advance — to ensure their participation. This year too, the preparations for the conference began in January. Several meetings were held to make it more productive, it added.

It is unfortunate that some ill-informed media reports have given this well-intentioned academic exercise — with an aim to achieving excellence in teaching, learning, innovation, and enterprise — a political twist, wrongly linking it with the recent Supreme Court judgment and trying to project it as a power struggle between the Raj Bhavan and the State government. These are scandalous and far from the truth, the statement added.