The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) organised a protest outside the University Grants Commission (UGC) office here on Friday. The students were agitating against a notification of 2016, which led to a massive reduction in intake for research programmes at JNU for the year 2017-18.
Several students in the final year of their MA programme, who have been directly affected by the new rules, joined the protest. They demanded that UCG chairperson Ved Prakash address their issues.
Traffic blocked at ITO
The students, who did not receive a response from the commission, tried to block traffic at the busy ITO junction, which is where the UGC office is located. Several commuters, who were inconvenienced, started shouting at the students. JNUSU general secretary Satarupa Chakraborty, meanwhile, alleged that the police was trying to instigate commuters to get the students off the road.
Another protest lined up
Mohit Pandey, JNUSU president, said that the students’ body had been talking to universities across the country that have been affected by the UGC notification. They are working towards a consolidated all-India movement that demands that the notification be rolled back, he said.
The JNUSU said that another protest would be organised outside the UGC office on March 28 with students from across Delhi.
The students’ union added that HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had accepted that there were vacant faculty posts in universities, but did not conjoin this fact with the seat cut. Neither did Mr. Javadekar accept the government’s fault about the high student-teacher ratio being a result of its non-seriousness in filling vacant posts, the students said.
The JNUSU also said that students and right to accessibility to higher education should not suffer because of the government being unable to fill faculty posts.
