The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) cancelled the last day of its lecture series ‘Democracy and Social Justice: Access and Equality’ on Friday in the wake of student protests near the Administrative Block.
The JNUTA, however, said that the release of the book ‘What the Nation Really Needs to Know: JNU Nationalism Lectures’, which is a compilation of the lecture series held after the February 9 incident on campus, would go ahead as per schedule at 4 p.m. near the Nehru Statue.
The JNUTA also replied to a notice served to it for going on a day-long strike. The Association has written to the Registrar highlighting their constitutional rights and freedom under Article 19 (1-A) and 19 (1-C). They also asked him to “desist from issuing any notice that was seemingly unconstitutional as this might contribute to vitiating the academic environment on campus.”
Concern for Dileep
The teachers expressed concern over the health of Dileep Yadav, the student who went on hunger strike and was later taken to hospital. According to the JNUTA, it was clear that the V-C and the current administration were responsible for the deteriorating conditions on campus since last year.
They lamented that the campus, which was one of the most academically productive in India, had witnessed growing insecurity as well as intimidation of faculty and students by the administration.
In a statement, the JNUTA said that it believed the university could and should defend its own admission policy that includes deprivation points, differentiation in qualifying marks on the basis of social background, adding both written and viva-voce marks and deprivation points for final admission.
