Derecognition and Restructuring of the International & Alumni Relations (I&AR) Students Sphere, Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2025
The SLC meeting on the 17th of March began rife with argumentative discussion on the derecognition of the I&AR Sphere. The incumbent I&AR Secretary began the proceedings stating his case to defend the existence of the sphere by first breaking down what the I&AR Secretary is not meant to do, explaining that the I&AR Secretary was not a middleman in the acquisition of internal and foreign funding for students. He then delved into explaining the roles and functions of the sphere’s teams, along with emphasising the necessity for students to establish relationships with alumni for personal and professional reasons. He asserted that the admin did not focus on this, fundraise, or proactively solve student issues.
This was followed by the report prepared by the Ad-hoc committee put together by SLC that supported the de-recognition. The proposals were as follows – there would be no change in the internal structure of the Alumni Relations Cell, but it would be put under an umbrella body called the Student Alumni Relations Cell (SARC). It included AskIITM’s efforts in promoting IIT Madras’s image to aspirants and the general public, which was backed by more administrative support, which brought into question the need for a “redundant” team. The report described how the World Culture team would function better under the Culturals’ sphere and the issues faced by international students in terms of hostels or messes would be addressed better under the Hostel Affairs Secretary. The media bodies IITMTV and Chennai36 would be integrated with T5E, which would then serve as the official media body for the IIT Madras campus.
In rebuttal, the assembled I&AR members began by stating that their sphere had 150 members, whereas those like the HAS sphere had only 85, and that it was therefore not a valid claim that a Secretary wasn’t needed based on the strength of the sphere. Furthermore, they asserted that it was necessary for a Secretary to be present to carry out an ‘optical’ role to allow the heads and cores to carry out their ideation process without hindrance. In response to a claim regarding the lack of databases, the Secretary defended how yearbooks and the like were compiled by the I&AR student body.
The legislators present, as well as the outgoing executive council, had a few choice points to make in return. To begin with, it was stated that the other spheres, such as CoCas, ISS, and Culturals, were a lot more involved in student-driven activities, and the DoST budget was managed by the respective secretaries. In contrast, the ACR and GE offices manage the money, resources, and contacts for I&AR – not the Secretary. In addition, it was claimed that the student body events conducted by the I&AR sphere were on a much smaller scale than those carried out by the other spheres.
Furthermore, it was claimed that due to heavy administration involvement in the sphere, the Secretary also has a less direct say in what initiatives are put out. When countered with the example of HAS, the legislators argued back about how the HAS has a host of HHS associated with them and that the scale of events was significantly higher. The I&AR Secretary then went forth to describe the events that would be lost to the student body in the absence of the sphere, including Wilkommen and Parent’s Night. However, this was countered by the supporters of the derecognition, stating that Professor Ashwin Mahalingam, the Dean ACR, had confirmed that these events would continue to occur as long as student interest was sufficient, and would not “disappear” in the absence of the Secretary.
In agreement with the committee, the current CoCAS joined in virtually to state his own perspective on the utility of the I&AR sphere. He brought up a past effort to raise an endowment fund in collaboration with the I&AR Secretary which did not pass, and argued that if the I&AR Secretary was unable to assist in acquiring financial support and mentorship from alumni, then there was little left concerning the GSB that the ACR office couldn’t do. Contradictions in the I&AR Secretary’s claims in an earlier discussion about their involvement in the signing of MoUs, and the waiving off of responsibility for the same in the current session sparked more questions from the SLC.
The Speaker re-asserted that the point of the de-recognition was only to annul the position of Secretary, and then there would be no change in how the teams functioned – a major argument from the I&AR side who constantly emphasised the worth of the teams. He then emphasised that the primary reason to derecognise the sphere was the issue of “agency” – of the I&AR Secretary’s capacity to own the events of his sphere. Some legislators’ then began to claim that the Secretary “did no work”, which was quickly rebuffed by the speaker himself, who talked about the efforts made by the Secretary, again circling back to the problem of agency.
The I&AR Secretary jumped in here to explain his recent drive to personally call alumni donors, enlisting volunteers from within his team to identify the contacts of young alumni to reach out to. In response, the legislators pointed out the ability to hold admin accountable through other sources, pulling up a recent example of the Student General Secretary attending and advocating during the African Association Meeting, displaying that accountability could be carried out through other secretaries. The legislators also pointed out that funding could be acquired through alternate sources, such as the CSR summit, where the CoCAS directly spoke to the ACR office and received a sponsorship of 4L.
To conclude the meeting, the Speaker explained the process by which the SLC committee had come to table the derecognition motion in the interests of transparency. The Speaker stated that the aforementioned committee had an executive and legislative chair, operating in full discretion, and with no involvement from the Speaker. The Speaker reiterated that the upcoming year would provide opportunities for the newly elected IAR Secretary to work with the committee established via the motion; thus, the fate of the IAR sphere and its current jurisdiction would be reframed under the Secretary’s vision and the committee’s recommendations. While stating that the outgoing Secretary had done commendable work and that the teams currently under the purview of the IAR sphere are indeed important for the student body, the Speaker contended that restructuring was the way ahead.
In response to the discussion regarding the motion, the incumbent Secretary made his final remarks before voting commenced. He agreed that the scope of the activities taken up in the IAR sphere could be expanded, and also stated that he was open to the idea of the committee recommending the derecognition of the IAR Secretary to address current issues that plague the sphere. Moreover, he expressed hope that the committee would also consider the option of retaining the Secretary while also suggesting solutions to solve the multifold issues at hand.
In response to these remarks, the Speaker assured the SLC and the Secretary that the committee shall possess the ambit and the onus to empower student governance by suggesting changes to the existing structure, or by handing over certain roles to the administration. Moreover, he re-established that the I&AR Secretary, sphere, and rulebook shall continue to be valid for the upcoming academic year, with the motion at hand only proposing a derecognition of the troika from the 2026-27 academic year. He also stated that the SLC was empowered with the powers to ensure that its decisions would stand constitutional scrutiny, providing the recent changes regarding the bifurcation of the Co-Curricular Affairs sphere and the unification of the two Cultural Secretaries.
It was at this juncture that the incumbent Cultural Secretary (Arts) strode in to agree with the Speaker’s comments, stating that SLC should enact changes that further the cause of student empowerment and good governance, and ended his brief speech by encouraging the legislators to not rely on sympathy while casting their votes.
Before the commencement of the voting, attempts made by ex-cores from the IAR sphere to make further remarks were quelled, with one of them stating that even as the current and previous secretaries and core team members graduate, the fate of student governance, and, in particular, the IAR sphere, rests on the shoulders of the students.
As the motion was put to vote, 43 legislators cast their votes, with 2 of them, who were not present during the meeting, voting in an online fashion on approval from the I&AR Secretary. The Speaker contended that he would announce the results only after consulting with the Deans.
The results of the vote were as follows:
Total Votes polled: 43
For: 37 (86%)
Against: 3 (7%)
Abstain: 3 (7%)
With this, the motion stands passed.
SGAO Eligibility, Ratification and De-ratification procedure (Amendment) Bill 2025
This bill was taken up by taking cognizance of the fact that the ratification of several core team members had not taken place according to procedure during the 2024-25 academic year due to delays from the administration in providing the requisite data to NARC, but also due to secretaries not submitting the lists of respective core team members; this, in turn, undermined the SLC’s authority, and, according to the Speaker, the principle of carrying out ratification to ensure academic integrity is maintained. Since all elected representatives must pass the same scrutiny, it was deemed necessary that the selected core team members be held to the same standards.
Meanwhile, concerns were also raised regarding secretaries purposely withholding information from NARC while being aware that the selected core team members would not pass the aforementioned scrutiny. Moreover, it was also noted that some individuals take up PoRs only to mention them on their resumes for the Internship drive, and drop them later. Therefore, the bill was considered necessary to address these issues, along with delays from the administration that may add to the slowing down of the ratification process.
After an intense discussion on the rules pertaining to the number of P grades that would prevent an individual from running for an election or taking up a core team member PoR, it was concluded that an individual would be allowed as long as they have not been granted more than one P grade in the preceding two semesters. While some legislators raised concerns about the exploitation of certain loopholes in this framework, the Speaker decreed that it was not the SLC’s responsibility to micromanage student-led teams; the fact that certain loopholes can be used to flout the framework was, however, mentioned in the official Minutes of the Meeting even as the legislators decided not to deliberate on this further.
The bill also sought to introduce a uniform process of de-ratification and removal of those individuals who failed to pass the NARC-regulated ratification process. It was proposed that a Standing Committee would be set up in response to a complaint that can be reported either to the members of the Executive Council, the SLC Speaker, the SEC Chief, or the T5E Executive Editors to avoid abuse of power by the concerned Secretary under whose sphere the issue may have arisen. The accused would have to face a formal investigation and hearing, whereby a report would be submitted to the DoSt office, the Secretary of the concerned sphere, and the NARC by the Standing Committee. Moreover, the accused would be allowed to appeal to the SECC within 7 days of the submission of the report, which would be mandated to furnish a final report within 21 days of the appeal.
As the discussion regarding this bill came to an end, it was put to vote, and the prolonged SLC meeting came to a conclusion.
Results of the vote:
For: 36
Against: 1
Abstain: 0
Nullified: 6
Absent: 14
Motion passed.
