chennai professor ashok jhunjhunwala one of the accomplished faculty members of the indian institute of technology iit madras and padma shri awardee has struck the first open dissenting note over the ongoing protests by members of the all india iit faculty federation over the disputed pay and service conditions i am certainly not proud of this hunger fast this is not what iits should be known for today iit faculty members are reduced to the level of others who with their unions will go on fast and strike it brings down the stature of iits and iit faculty something that i at least would not be proud of professor jhunjhunwala said in an open letter addressed to the aiiff president m thenmozhi on thursdayjhunjhunwala who heads the telecommunications and computer networking tenet group which has incubated technology companies countered the five major demands of the faculty members and said he did not see strong reasons for resorting to protestsreferring to the opposition to the human resources development hrd ministrys proposal to recruit 10 of the faculty as assistant professor on contractual basis he asked is this constraining our administration in hiring faculty at regular positions if so let the administration say so and resolve it they are perfectly capable of taking it with the hrd ministry or the iit council if it becomes a constraint why should we faculty interpret and misinterpret such thingsthe electrical engineering professor also did not see merit in the argument that the ministry should not restrict the provision of enhancing the academic grade pay of professors to just 40 of the faculty based on excellence are you saying that any number of people should be able to get that position he askedaccording to him the aiifas demand for promotion during academic career was a retrograde step since it would obliterate the role of the selection committee in judging candidates i fail to see any rationale for your class action and consider these as frivolous reason to take the steps which bring down our prestige he concludedhowever jhunjhunwalas stand has not gone down well among a crosssection of the faculty members of the iit madras he is apathetic to the common cause and appears to be bothered by the prominence given to the faculty protests in the media while his tenet groups achievements have not been given the due quipped a senior professorsureshkumar3timesgroupcom