The main protest site of the Occupy UGC movement, the UGC Headquarters in New Delhi, over non-NET fellowship is nowadays almost deserted.
The main protest site of the Occupy UGC movement, the UGC Headquarters in New Delhi, over non-NET fellowship is nowadays almost deserted. The reason — leaders of the left-wing students’ groups are spread across India to visit various varsities in West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad etc. to intensify the agitation.
They have been telling students about the perils of privatisation of education, WTO-GATS (Gener-al Agreement in Trade Se-rvices) ministerial meeting in Nairobi and a re-view committee on non-NET fellowship set up by the Union ministry of human resources development.
Claiming a resounding response from the students, the left-wing students’ leaders contend that various universities are ready to participate in their protest.
“The response from the students has been good and these students are willing to joint the movement,” Shehla Rashid told this newspaper.
The outreach strategy, Ms Rashid said, will mobilise students across India. The students from all groups will hold a rally from ITO to Union ministry of human resources development office on Wednesday at 1 pm. They had met Union HRD minister Smriri Irani on November 5. The meeting, however, failed to break deadlock on the non-NET fellowship demands.
Over 25 days, the protes-ters at the UGC Headquarters have been demanding the dissolution of the review committee, expansion and enhancement of the fellowship. They are also clamouring that the Central government sho-uld not sigh “anti-student WTO GATS agreement.”
Some teachers’ unions, former AAP leader Yogender Yadav and hundreds of academicians have vowed solidarity with the ongoing protest as support is also pouring in from South Africa and Britain.
