Thanks a lot for your advice.

Actually the frustrating thing is that he keeps changing his mind. He said on friday that he will nurse me through in the lab for the next three months and we set up experimental plan for that period. On saturday he emails me and says that howmuch ever effort i put in during the next 3-6 months, its insurmountable for me to generate phd data, so M.Phil is the only choice. He clearly did not mention that during the meeting on friday.

The only thing i can think of, is that a new student came in and supervisor set up a plan for him. That student asked me to review it, and i found certain flaws in it, which makes it really difficult to finish. So may be he is trying to move me away and give my work to him. I dont know...

My only worry is that if research office takes his position.

I am currently in my second year of Phd. I have suddenly fallen out with my supervisor in the course of two weeks.

In my university, there is an official seminar after one year and i passed mine without any bother. And its been six months since my confirmation now, the data i have been getting is a bit ow, because the techniques which i am using are a bit hard and i have never done before. My supervisor doesn't do much in the lab, all his work is desk job and admin stuff.

Last week, my supervisor called me in and told me that i am not generating enough data and talked about setting up a meeting with second supervisor and said, they will decide on whether i can generate enough data over my next year or so. This meeting was in no way official, as there was nobody from the research office involved.

The second supervisor, was criticizing the data i was presenting (it should be noted that the same data was presented during my confirmation and nobody said a word about it and he was in that seminar as well marking me).

After the meeting the supervisor says to me, that he is putting me on a probationary period for three months and will monitor my progress for PhD. He said he will mail me and i will sign the agreement.

But the mail was a total flip, where he says that even after six more months of work, i can only manage to get a data for M.Phil and its "insurmountable challenge" to do a PhD. Not only that, he goes on saying that my techniques are bad and my handling of the reagents in sample are bad and that i am a clumsy and casual worker. Really harsh words.

I think i have reached a point of no reconcilation with him, in a matter of two weeks and planning to take it up to the research office.

Any help and advice on how to approach this issue with research office is much appreciated.