New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) will not celebrate New Year as a tribute to the 23-year-old rape victim who died Saturday, and instead hold a candle-light march, a varsity statement said Monday.
“IGNOU has cancelled its New Year celebration tomorrow (Tuesday) in remembrance of the recent grave tragedy of the death of the victimized girl in the Delhi gang rape case. Instead, the university shall hold a candle procession tomorrow starting from the academic complex inside till the statue of Indira Gandhi at the main gate,” the statement said.
The university said it had its own IGNOU Committee Against Sexual Harassment (ICASH) in the national capital and 64 other regional centres across the country.
“In compliance with the Supreme Court guidelines, IGNOU through ICASH has adopted a policy that aims to prevent, prohibit, and punish sexual harassment of women at the workplace. Both academic and non-academic staff of the university come under this purview.”
Apart from this, the university said that the School of Gender and Development Studies (SOGDS) carries out gender mapping of IGNOU, looking at the university’s multiple modes of teaching and reaching out to learners from varied contexts, analyzing the gender sensitivity components.
IGNOU is the world’s largest open university system with pan-India and international reach, having flexible entry qualifications and wide range of academic programmes at affordable cost.
