I think many people dont know what is TENURE. For an academic to be tenure, he/she need to have PUBLICATIONS , in particular JOURNAL publications in TOP Journals.
No doubt that Cherian is a good teacher, but that doesnt warrant a TENURE! Otherwise why is there a TEACHING TRACK and TENURE TRACK in the universities.
So now this incident also link and blame PAP. again WTF...
Books are easy to publish and do not carry much weight compared to peer reviewed journals. do a search on google scholar and you will see why NTU did not grant tenure to him.