The Lazy Third Eye: 2024-25 Annual Report edition

The Annual Report for the year 2024-25 of the Student Parliament was released by the Student Parliament today over email, marking a return to the normal state of Parliamentary affairs. However, on the slightest of scrutiny, we find the report for the year 2024-25 to be a serious regression in terms of quality. Ping! was provided access to the final draft of the Annual Report before its release, allowing us enough time to pick it apart (keen readers may note that there isn’t much to pick apart in a threadbare report). The report has not changed in any significant way from the version in the final draft.

For starters, the effort put into the report (or the lack thereof) is clearly visible, and must not become a precedent. Previous annual reports included greater context regarding the status of any issue, detailing the actions taken by the Parliament (including any meetings that were held between the various stakeholders), also noting future work planned to be undertaken. Most of this context is absent in the final draft of the 2024-25 report. A Parliament member familiar with the procedure of drafting the report mentioned that the idea was to summarize the various meeting minutes, and that meeting minutes were intended to be the canonical source of information. However, there remain several items in the report that are not present in meeting minutes made public. Some examples have been mentioned below, however, we reiterate that this is not an exhaustive list:

1. The Hostel Council has not released any public MoMs for a lot of the decisions mentioned within the report. (It is very likely that there was no meeting in which these were deliberated, rather a series of impromptu discussions).
2. The Academic Council had a meeting with the dean for which no concrete outcome is mentioned within the report, and no MoM released.
3. Only one of the Health Council’s meetings had an MoM released.

We also call into question the parliament’s rationale for this decision regarding the current report. As such, the entire point of a report is to summarize the workings of the Student Parliament, not to serve as a launchpad to other documents. The report is meant to assist the student body in holding the Parliament accountable. A lack of detailed information anywhere, both within and outside the report, prevents that. There are no outcomes detailed of meetings said to be held within the reports, and no proper documentation to supplement most of these meetings. Any documentation from the Parliament also sets a precedent for future Parliaments, the work they have to carry on, and in the case of any issues repeating, a set procedure existing. The report that was released today falls short in this regard. The PR issue the Parliament suffers from is only doubled with the release of a report like this, but would it matter?

The Parliament is comprised of elected student representatives; when batches elect indifferent MPs, or they don’t elect at all, they inherently suggest that they are indifferent to the system as well. A good example from last year would be how three secretaries were UG1s, as compared to 2022 and 2023, when secretaries were mainly UG3s and UG4s. We must start demanding more accountability from members that are elected to represent us, and this goes throughout their tenure, not just during periods of crisis (when they might be overworked). At the same time, the Student Parliament must also realise that they owe their voters meaningful information, not just morsels dropped through emails.

Addendum

An inexhaustive list of all comments we had while reading the report, in order of page numbers. Given that most of the report is a Oneshot-like version of what a report should be, assume the following questions are appended to every issue, and strike out whatever is answered:

1. Why was the issue raised?
2. What discussions took place between the stakeholders involved?
3. (If it mentions “clarifications”/”explainations”) What clarifications were issued?
4. What was the final outcome? What were the considerations made while taking the decision?

Introduction

1. “…this report highlights the main concerns raised, the actions taken, and, where relevant, the outcomes achieved…notes ongoing issues and their planned follow-up…”: I hope by the end of this section, these myths are dispelled.
2. “All chapters and supplementary documents will be archived for record-keeping”: We will believe it when we see it.

Academic 

1. “Addressed annual changes in overloading rules which are communicated via email to UG3 and UG4 students.”: No new overloading rules have been communicated with UG3 or UG4 students. Not sure what is meant by addressing.
2. “Explained related restrictions on course registration and participation in academic activities.”:  What are the restrictions? IIIT wants to know!
3. “Requested extensions for feedback form deadlines, encouraged in-class completion, and sent reminders to improve student participation and response rates.”: How much did this intervention improve the number of people filling the form by? What were the numbers earlier? Was this helpful? What did the Parliament learn from this?

Mess

1. Food Poisoning Crisis – June 24: What was the source for this? Was the root cause for this addressed? How many people (in the record of the Student Parliament) fell sick?
2. Menu Updation: What suggestions were given by the Mess Council? What was accepted and what was not?
3. Fire in Kadamb Kitchen: There is no mention of any root cause for the fire, actions taken after that, and how long did it take to return to normalcy.
4. Mess Portal: Just an observation: It is the second longest paragraph in the entire report. I wonder why. Also, what does “and much more” mean?
5. North Trial Vendor and Mess Rate Hike: The plate rate hike and closure of messes in the summer months is omitted. The now-permanent closure of the South Mess is also not mentioned anywhere, and also no mention of the delayed start of renovations of messes, something that is still not started. Also, the very detailed email that the Student Parliament sent regarding the rate hike is also missing.

Stall

1. Menu Expansion and Food Variety: What new items were brought to the canteens?
2. Very little mention of the movement of the canteens from the guest house area to behind the Amphitheater.

Health

1. “Identifying optimal locations for medical waste bins across campus to enhance waste management”:  Medical waste bins are not placed anywhere on campus, as of writing. Now, if the Parliament had mentioned that they had discussed this with CHMC, maybe we could have brought it up earlier.
2. Met with CHMC to Revisit Institute MoUs with Various Hospitals: There is no mention of hospitals that were added (Arete Hospital). All questions from earlier apply, as usual.
3. Met with CHMC to Revise Care MoU and Collected Feedback from Students: Meeting with Care POC never seems to have happened, only preparations for that took place.
4. Controlled the Chicken Pox Outbreak on Campus: How many students were infected?

Hostel

1. Washing machines: No mention of the new washing machines brought in Parijat Nivas Block B. No mention of the 2 additional LG washing machines in Bakul Nivas. No mention of the removal of free washing machines in Palash Nivas (Block D), leaving only 5 paid ones in its place. No mention of reduction in the number of washing machines in Palash Nivas (Block E) from 10 (8 free and 2 paid) to 5 (3 free and 2 paid).
2. Kitchen Appliances: Unfortunately, for all the gloating done in the report, the salt on the induction cooker has reported been on it “for a while”.
3. Room and resident support: No explanation as to why “healthy” is highlighted in the report, and there is no clear reason why it should be highlighted.
4. No mention of the newly added Parijat Gym.
5. No mention of updates from the previous report, including fans in drying areas in Bakul Nivas and WiFi routers in Palash Nivas.

Sports Council

1. Badminton Availability: This was always open to all. Maybe what they wanted to say is that it was allowed as a choice for Sports credits for both genders.
2. Gym Timings: What were the old timings? What are the new timings?

Research Council

1. “We held discussions with PG Cell, Prof. PK, and others regarding…Graduation requirements; Updates to the PG Manual”: What changes were made? What updates were made? This is a new low even by the standards of the entire report.
2. ToDos: Much appreciated, but they do not have enough information to be useful for anything.

Auxiliary Internal Council

1. Parliament Website: What happened to the older website?
2. Parliament (Instagram) Page: In the past year, there have been exactly 4 posts. Even Jagruti engaged more students over the last year. As for timely updates, the only update the page has given students is the half-baked winter report. (No summer report for this year as well) (P.S. No treats for spotting grammatical or spelling errors in this section :D)

Our sincere thanks to the Student Parliament for sharing the final draft of the report.

There are some questions that will be answered in Part 3, so stay tuned for that! Please contact us at [email protected]/[email protected] if we have missed anything! (we likely have, we just don’t know about it)