Most of these people would love to teach at government universities. That was their natural home until government universities were systematically defunded and destroyed by the current government. And its because government universities have been destroyed that youre paying 10 lakh a year for a law degree that you should have gotten for less than a fifth of that. Yall act like youre the prize. The delusion is insane. I truly dont know one professor at JGLS who has any sense at all who is thrilled to work there, for most of them the sense is "well its not great but i can live with this." Why do you think you have any leverage to exhort people into leaving when theres clearly discontent among the faculty themselves. Do you know how many people JGLS hires every year? do you think theyre doing that because theyre benevolent job givers? its because theyre desperate to find anyone at all who will work there for a while given conditions. Because their attrition rate is so pathetic they cannot keep the illusion going without constantly hiring newly qualified llms.

If the faculty you seem to think should leave do leave - so you think the law school would retain the dwindling reputation it already has ? Who will get you your scholarships ? and who will get you your publications ? and who will get you international collaborations ? Who will remain who can make a call to their friends in policy/ industry and get you an internship ? The folks who cannot get a job of their own anywhere other than JGLS ?

I do often spend more than three hours at the university. The fact that you want to personalise this is odd to me. Most professors would be teaching two hours at the university a day at least. That’s not the problem. The problem is when the expectation becomes to rot in your office from 9-5. That’s not accountability. That’s hole-watching.

That’s putting HR above what researchers and scholars require to actually be good at their jobs and be an asset to the university .

If JGLS doesn’t want faculty who want to research and write, they should let them know at the point of hiring that they want warm bodies who spend hours on campus pushing paper around.

If they cannot obtain or hold on to people who do good research - they should consider why instead of hiring huge numbers of sub par barely graduates academics and offering them no support or mentorship.

What's stopping you from clocking 3 hours at the university through the biometric and then going back home to do all your great research? Such a bad logic! Accountability is what you're seeking to avoid. As for teaching and research, everyone knows how 'great' Jindal faculty are in those parameters.

Do you think they wouldn't all love to go work at NLS in a heart beat if they could? How deluded are JGLS folks to think that theyre some sought after commodity. You do realise the JGLS interview to be a faculty person lasts all of two minutes ? (Literally, because I gave one and was offered a job). They barely ask you anything except- will you teach what youre asked to? will you leave after you join?

NLS on the other hand makes you do multiple interviews for a permanent position.

Why do you think that is? JGLS wants to hire more professors than they have- because they have continuous attrition cause no one good wants to stick around. And NLS wants to be very selective about who they hire, because there are too many good candidates and they only have a few spots. Any number of JGLS faculty apply to NLS jobs every term that theyre advertised and do not even make the cut to interview.

You're absolutely delusional telling people to go away to NLUs as if they are some inferior option.

This isn’t a left / right issue. This is a people who want to demonstrate their value by attendance v people who want to demonstrate their value by teaching and research. If attendance is what you demand attendance is what you’ll get.

Academics are not like other professionals, anyone who has done PhDs or even masters degrees with a thesis component knows that research requires a lot of time alone and I disturbed. Not colleagues dropping into your office to gossip or shoot the shit. That stuff only breeds petty office politics.

The folks that want biometric in and out timings know they cannot actually research and publish. The capability is just not in them to do good research. So you try and change the criterion you’re evaluated on. Make it about who spends the most time in office in Sonipat.

Honestly any university like Jindal which is placed in the middle of nowhere should be valuing faculty time. And making them waste in when they could be more productive writing at home or collaborating with people in delhi is just inefficient.

Confirmed from faculty sources that a big dispute is taking place, some starting a WhatsApp and email campaign.

TLDR:

- VC instituting a biometric attendance for faculty. Will allow monitoring of how much time professors are spending on campus.

- One faction is protesting this. They say colleges abroad don't have it and most in India don't have it. A university professor is not like a 9-to-5 Jindal Steel employee. All that matters is taking classes regularly, meeting students who want private appointments and publishing papers. Research can also be done from home. Pay cannot be linked to time physically spent on campus. Also, attendance can be checked through non-biometric systems.

- Another faction is pledging loyalty to Naveen Jindal and the VC. They support the introduction of corporate practices in academia. They agree that corporate concepts like efficiency and productivity, pay linked to time on campus etc should be introduced in academia. They agree that WFH is not productive. Biometric attendance is more accurate and reliable than other types of attendance.

- The split in faculty in broadly along ideological lines. Left-wing profs are against it, right-wing profs favour it. Most of the left-wing profs were hired when Naveen Jindal was part of the Congress and the university had a left-wing tilt. Whereas most of the right-wing profs are recent hires, after Naveen Jindal joined the BJP and the VC has taken a full pro-BJP tilt.

- The LW faction is apprehensive about whether they will be targeted through this system.