Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on Sunday denied a news report that he wanted to start a cricket academy in IIT Delhi, a plan that apparently was pushed by the government and was among reasons for the autonomous institute's director to quit his job.
The newspaper report, published Sunday, said Raghunath K Shevgaonkar quit as the director of IIT Delhi following pressure from the HRD ministry to accede to two demands -- to provide the IIT ground for a cricket academy Tendulkar wanted to open and to pay nearly Rs. 70 lakh to former IIT-D faculty and now a member of BJP, Subramanian Swamy, as his "salary dues" between 1972 and 1991.
The report could not be independently verified. Shevgaonkar did not answer repeated phone calls from Hindustan Times and a senior official at the HRD ministry said it hadn't received any such communication from the IIT director.
Tendulkar was furious, however.
In messages posted on his Facebook and Twitter account, the master blaster said that he was "appalled to read the stories" and wished that "basic facts are checked from me before publishing such fiction using my name".
I have not even planned any academy neither do I want any piece of land for any purpose.
— sachin tendulkar (@sachin_rt) December 28, 2014 HRD minister Smriti Irani retweeted a screeenshot of Sachin's clarification; she won't comment on whether Shevgaonkar had quit.
Outrage and anxiety marked the reaction from former faculty members and alumni of the premier institute.
"IIT needs vibrant Stanford like Startup Ecosystem more than Tendulkar Cricket Academy. Full support to the director for standing his ground. The country needs more such professors to morally guide the society," said IIT-D graduate Sanjeeva Shivesh.
Another IIT-D gradutate, Ankur Lal, had a similar view. "Providing autonomy to IITs is so critical. Both the issues indicate lack of autonomy. Scaling IIT and education is critical in light of faculty and other issues. Government must explicitly support the director to accelerate deciaion making and growth," he told HT.
Shortly after Tendulkar posted his reaction, the newspaper removed all references to him in the online versions of its story.
"Oops. A clarification:-
IIT sources had told TOI that there was pressure on the director to give land for Sachin Tendulkar's cricket academy. However, Tendulkar has strongly denied that this is the case. In fact, he has said he has no plans for a cricket academy. We are sorry to have carried the news on the basis of sources which have been reliable in the past and didn't check with Tendulkar. We are sorry for this. We are also removing all mentions of this from the story."
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