Lawn cleared of encroachment by trees

Three monsoons ago, a young faculty member, planted 35 trees in the area between Faculty Building and Lecture Hall Complex. He and many others had been asking the Institute for years to share the master plan for the campus and tell the residents what areas will remain green in the long run. But no master plan is ready, even after a decade. So he takes matter into his own hands, and plants several trees in an area where he believes and is reasonably sure, no construction will be done in future.

He is reprimanded by the Institute to plant those trees without permission, but miraculously the trees survive the wrath of the administration. The faculty member continues to take care of them at a significant personal cost. End of flash back.

This week, all those trees have been uprooted, without assigning any reason. (Whether the trees have been given any reason, I don't know. At least, the campus residents have not been kept informed.) This is strange. If the trees were planted at a location which was to be used for future construction, or if trees were planted in a way that it was inconsistent with the landscaping plan of the Institute, then they should have been removed three years ago. If there was no such problem, and the only issue was lack of permission at that time, then this encroachment by trees :-) could have been regularized.

Interesting discussion going on in the Institute. People feel that the death warrants were issued only because the birth certificates were considered illegitimate by the Institute administration.

I have added the two URLs of the photos that Prof. Prabhakar has posted in the comments. They are not clickable there. Hopefully, they are clickable here.

Old Photo: With Tree

New Photo: Without Tree