1300 Students, Faculty Ask IISc to Cancel Israel-India Summit, Call It ‘Unconscionable'

New Delhi: More than 1,300 people from various universities across India and overseas have written to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru asking it to cancel an Israel-India summit scheduled to be held on Monday (September 23).

‘The India-Israel Business Summit’ is being organised by Think India, the Indian Chamber of International Business and the Mysore Lancers Heritage Foundation.

Calling IISc’s participation in the event as ‘unconscionable’, the letter says the event would “amount to direct support for Israel’s genocide in Palestine and its aggressive actions against its neighbours”.

The letter highlighted the scale of violence unleashed by Israel in the months since the October 7 Hamas attack last year. “…Israel has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, most of whom are women and children. A report in the Lancet suggested that the true casualties might be four times higher, which would amount to about 10% of Gaza’s total population. Israel has destroyed every University in Gaza. It has also destroyed healthcare facilities, leading to the resurgence of diseases such as polio,” it said, adding that Israel was also responsible for several civilian deaths in Lebanon in the deadly pager explosions.

“We request you to stop the ‘India Israel Business Summit’ event on 23rd September and not allow the use of the Indian Institute of Science as a platform to legitimise genocide and colonialism,” the letter addressed to IISc director Govindan Rangarajan read.

According to social media posts from the organisers, the summit “aims to bring together business leaders, entrepreneurs, and policymakers from both countries to discuss and explore potential areas of cooperation, foster partnerships, explore synergies, and drive innovation.”

It added that discussions will be held on bilateral trade and investments between India and Israel, defence and cybersecurity, startup and venture capital, sustainable technology and water technology.

“We are especially concerned that one of the planned tracks of discussion is in defence and cybersecurity,” the letter said.

The letter also pointed to the July ruling of the International Court of Justice, which said Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian territories violates international law and must end “as rapidly as possible”.

It added that students and faculty members across the globe have expressed solidarity with Palestine and called for divesting from Israel. In this context, the signatories asked IISc to stop the event and “not allow the use of the Indian Institute of Science as a platform to legitimise genocide and colonialism”.

The names of the first few signatories are published below.

Sl. No.	Name	Institution	Position
1	Anurag Chittawar	Indian Institute of Science	Student
2	Faizan Bhat	Indian Institute of Science Bangalore	Student
3	Shairik Sengupta	IISc	Student
4	Bhavtosh Bansal	IISER Kolkata	Faculty
5	Ronak M Soni	Chennai Mathematical Institute	Faculty
6	Madhusudhan Raman	University of Delhi	Faculty
7	Varun Sahni	IUCAA	Other
8	Jinia Ghosh	Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar	Student
9	Saptarshi Paul	IIT Kanpur	Student
10	aylam	Syracuse University	Faculty
11	Sumithra	Not affiliated with any at the moment.	Other
12	Nazia hussain	Indian institute of science	Student
13	Dr Bindu T Desai	NA	Other
14	Raj Sahai	The Institute for Critical Study of Society	Other
15	Anirban Roy	New York University	Postdoctoral fellow
16	Rohit Varman	University of Birmingham	Faculty
17	Mubeena Shaikh	IISER-Pune	Postdoctoral fellow
18	Ritabrata Bhattacharya	Utah State University	Postdoctoral fellow
19	M. V. Ramana	University of British Columbia	Faculty
20	Anantharaman S V	Ashoka University	Student
21	Dr Sylvia Karpagam	Public health	Other
22	Padmini Baruah	National Law School of India University, Bangalore	Faculty
23	Shivani	UC Berkeley	Postdoctoral fellow
24	R. Shankar	IMSc, Chennai	Other
25	Anwesha Saha	Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, CeNT, University of Warsaw	Student
26	Bharath Sambasivam	Virginia Tech	Postdoctoral fellow
27	Sarbajaya Kundu	University of Notre Dame	Postdoctoral fellow
28	Shrey Prakash	IISc	Student
29	Dibyajyoti Chakravarti	University of L’Aquila, Italy	Postdoctoral fellow
30	Sayid Mondal	National Taiwan Normal University	Postdoctoral fellow
31	Ahmadullah Zahed	ICTP	Student
32	Arul Shankar	University of Toronto	Faculty
33	Syed Yusuf Mian	Harvard University	Postdoctoral fellow
34	Vidya T N C	JNCASR	Faculty
35	Pramod Yadava	JNU (superannuated)	Faculty
36	Muthusamy Rajaguru	Lehigh University	Student
37	Rupam Karmakar	ISI, Kolkata	Postdoctoral fellow
38	Prarit Agarwal	Amazon	Other
39	Karim	Ruhr University, Bochum	Postdoctoral fellow
40	Ranga Krishnan	MIT	Other
41	Ananyo Maitra	LPTM, CY Cergy Paris University and CNRS	Faculty
42	Ankita Srivastava	New York University	Student
43	Soumangsu Chakraborty	Ohio State University	Postdoctoral fellow
44	Dr. Jyotsna Jha	Centre for Budget and Policy Studies	Other
45	Aryaman Patel	University of Toulouse III	Postdoctoral fellow
46	Halima	Iit Kharagpur	Student
47	Suvrat Raju	International Centre for Theoretical Sciences	Faculty
48	JUAN MANUEL PEREZ PARDO	Universidad Carlos III de Madrid	Faculty
49	Parameswaran Sankaran	Chennai Mathematical Institute	Other
50	Indra Balachandran	Retired Professor	Faculty
51	M Prashant Krishnan	IISER Pune	Student
52	S. Aslah Faizi	Chennai Mathematical Institute	Other
53	Shantanu Namdi	ICHO PAN	Postdoctoral fellow
54	Sankalp Choudhuri	Technical University of Munich (TUM)	Student
55	A Oommen	Independent Researcher	Other
56	Jyoti punwani	Freelance journalist	Other
57	Jaikumar Radhakrishnan	International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR)	Faculty
58	Vandana s	IISc	Student
59	Anupam Gorai	Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences	Student
60	Alok Laddha	Chennai Mathematical Institute	Faculty
61	Jayasree Subramanian	NA	Faculty
62	Debrup Chakraborty	Indian Statistical Institute	Faculty
63	Aritra Chatterjee	Stony Brook University	Student
64	K Subramaniam	Retired	Faculty
65	Saumya Chakrabarti	Visva-Bharati Santiniketan	Faculty
66	Syamal Dana	Indian Institute of Chemical Biology Kolkata	Other
67	Narjis Fatima	IISc	Student
68	Rajat Tandon	Retired Professor of University of Hyderabad	Other
69	Mohammad Imtiyaj Khan	Gauhati University	Faculty
70	Ramesh Sreekantan	Indian Statistical Institute	Faculty
71	Sagari R Ramdas	Food Sovereignty Alliance	Other
72	Saurabh Prakash	Lawyer	Other
73	Sumilan Banerjee	Indian Institute of Science	Faculty
74	Ajit Menon	Madras Institute of Development Students	Faculty
75	Sandeep Pandey	Socialist Party (India)	Other
76	Arnab Rai Choudhuri	Indian Institute of Science	Faculty
77	Vivek Kr. Mehta	Tezpur University, Assam	Faculty
78	Pamela Philipose	Independent journalist	Other
79	Anuj Menon	JNCASR	Student
80	Palash Baran Pal	Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science	Other
81	Ali Jawad	Kannur University	Other
82	Sudeepan Datta	Indian Institute of Science	Student
83	Sibasish Ghosh	The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai	Faculty
84	Arun	VIRASAM	Other
85	Jean Dreze	Department of Economics, Ranchi University	Other
86	Ashik H	ICTS	Student
87	Govindarajan	IMSC	Other
88	Shiva Shankar	Professor (retired), IITB and CMI	Other
89	Vidyanand Nanjundiah	Centre for Human Genetics	Faculty
90	Sumati Surya	RRI	Faculty
91	Simona Sawhney	IIT-Delhi	Faculty
92	Mary John	retired	Other
93	Supranta Sarma Boruah	University of Pennsylvania	Postdoctoral fellow
94	S.P. Rajaguru	Indian Institute of Astrophysics	Faculty
95	Alok Laddha	Chennai Mathematical Institute	Faculty
96	Cynthia Stephen	Independent researcher	Other
97	Godwin Martin	International Centre for Theoretical Sciences	Student
98	Koel Das	IISER Kolkata	Faculty
99	Nikhil S	IIT Madras (Graduated 2020)	Other
100	Prabhu Nott	Indian Institute of Science	Faculty
101	Abhishek Dhar	ICTS-TIFR	Faculty
102	Amit Singh	IIT Bombay	Faculty
103	Cedric Prakash	PRASHANT initiative for Human Rights & Peace	Faculty
104	Prajval Shastri	astrophysicist	Faculty
105	Panchami jose	Indian institute of science	Other
106	Tanmay Deshpande	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research	Faculty
107	Kalyani Menon Sen	Independent researcher	Other
108	Menhadi Hasan	IISc Bangalore	Other
109	Shashaank. G	Indian Institute of Science	Student
110	Purnima Tripathi	Indian Institute of Science	Student
111	K. G. Arun	Chennai Mathematical Institute	Faculty
112	Zakiyya K	Madras Institute of Development Studies	Student
113	Ashwin Subramanian	Harvard University	Student
114	Zoya Hasan	Professor Emerita, Jawaharlal Nehru University	Faculty
115	Tanmai	Indian Institute of Science	Student
116	MAIDUL ISLAM	CSSSC	Faculty
117	sharmila	IIT Bombay	Faculty
118	Sukla Sen	Independent Researcher	Other
119	Arijit Chakrabarty	ISI Kolkata	Faculty
120	Sachendra Pratap Yadav	Socialist Students’ Union	Student

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