Protesting DU teachers 'invoke' Charlie Chaplin

However, power disruptions did not allow them to complete the screening and some of the protesting students and teachers, then decided to spend the night outside Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh's office in protest.

The Delhi University Teachers Association will tomorrow complete a month of a relay hunger strike against the academic reforms being introduced in the University and what they call an absence of democratic functioning.

The protests have been joined in by the non-teaching staff as well as students of the University. Earlier this month, the three groups held a major protest in which they burnt an effigy of the Vice Chancellor.

The DUTA has often labelled Vice Chancellor's way of functioning as "dictatorial". 'The Great Dictator' is a 1940 Charlie Chaplin comedy and the protesters wanted to screen it at their dharna site today.

"When the screening started our power was cut off. It was restored, only to be cut off again after some time, with the result that the screening could not be held," said Jessica, one of the student protesters.

She said the students who were assembled there had decided to spend the night outside the Vice Chancellor's office in protest.

"They are sitting outside in the cold. This is a spontaneous burst of anger among the students and some of the teachers will also sit with them all night," said DUTA Executive member Abha Dev Habib.