New Delhi: Some students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has claimed that the administration has imposed thousands of rupees fines on them for participating in protests and “banned” them from registering for the next semester.

The amount of fine varies from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, the students claimed and accused the administration of “harassment”.

However, JNU chief proctor Rajnish Kumar Mishra has denied the allegations, saying the actions are taken after following due procedure.

Among the students, who have got notices, are student activists — former JNU Sudents Union (JNUSU) vice president and PhD scholar Simone Zoya Khan and Kaushik Raj.

Kaushik has been served notice for the 2018 protest in which, he claims, he did not even present.

As per the notice dated August 29, Kaushik has been directed to submit Rs 10,000 by September 5 “in any case”.

“…He is therefore directed to deposit the amount of Rs 10,000. Otherwise, he may not be allowed to register during the coming semester until he gets clearance from the office,” the notice signed by the chief proctor read.

Speaking to PTI, Kaushik, who is in his final year of PhD, alleged that the fine imposed on him is erroneous as he was not present during the protest in 2018 where several students gathered in a seminar room against compulsory attendance.

Kaushik fears that he will not be allowed registration for the new semester and all his hard work will go waste. 

“I was not present during the protest. Even during the proctorial enquiry, I made the oral and written deposition that I was not present. Still I am being fined. I know five-six more students who have received a similar notice,” Kaushik said.

Simone Zoya Khan, who is also in the last year of her PhD, said that the university is targeting student activists for organising demonstrations.

Simone has also been served notice for the same 2018 protest. She was then JNUSU vice president.

Simone said she could not take the risk and arranged the fine money as she has to submit her thesis this year.

“It is not fair. The university is targeting the students. Dozens of false and unfounded complaints are brought against students. The yearly fee at the varsity is Rs 200-300 and they are levying a fine of Rs 15,000. How is this fair?” Simone asked.

In a statement, All India Students’ Association said that the action by the JNU proctor office is politically motivated. The student organisation has accused the administration of targeting students from marginalised backgrounds with heavy fines.

Chief proctor Mishra said that the imposition of fine is not a new thing and all the actions are taken after following due procedure.

“We are not stopping students from taking admission. This is a regular procedure based on several proctorial enquiries. It is not a new thing,” Mishra told PTI over phone.

Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF) also said that proctorial enquiry has been levied against several students over the protest for offline classes at School of International Studies on June 20.

“It is to bring to the notice of all of you that two of our fellow classmates, Poshal Gyamba and Sakshi Sinha have had a proctorial enquiry levied against them with respect to the ‘protest demonstration for offline classes’ at SIS-1 on 20th of June. The report also mentions fellow students Harshit Raj Chaudhary and Raghav Gill, although they haven’t been summoned yet,” the DSF said.

Courtesy: Newsclick

The post Delhi: JNU Imposing Fines of up to Rs 15,000 Over Earlier Protests: Students appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 

The #StudentsChaloDilli March has started from the Ramleela Maidan with students declaring halla bol (an attack) on the Modi government and its anti-student policies.

Today, thousands of students under the united banner of Chalo Dilli are set to flood the streets of the national capital in a march to Parliament against the continuous systemic attacks by Modi government on higher education and its anti-student policies.

Several student organisations including the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), All India Democratic Students Organisation (AIDSO), Progressive Students’ Union (PSU), All India Students Bloc (AISB), and All India Students Federation (AISF) have extended the call for the protest march, with the slogan “Save Education, Save Democracy, Save Nation”.

As the students are set to begin their march from the Ramleela Maidan at 11 am today, we will be bringing live updates from the march and  the students on the ground. Keep following our live blog for further updates on the students’ march to Parliament.

The main demands of the students include allocation of 10% of central budget for education, guaranteed employment for all, free Common Education System, implementation of reservation, etc.

Students have been one of the worst affected sections in the recent past, under the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime. There have been a series of attacks on the education system and institutions, sabotaging the very idea of education and the role it plays in the society. These attacks range from reduction of seats in higher education and complete dismantling of the reservation system to drastic reduction of funds for public-funded educational institutions.

For Live blog visit https://www.newsclick.in/dillichalo-parliament-march-students-bjp-modi-government

Courtesy: Newsclick.in
 

The post #StudentsChaloDilli: Students Begin March to Parliament Against Modi Government appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
New Delhi: The student collective that was protesting the sudden change in UGC admission guidelines have organised a joint meeting on August 8, 2018 at Indian Coffee House from 5 pm to discuss the various facets of the ongoing violations and the assault on public universities.
 
“Delhi University has arbitrarily and post-facto enacted archaic rules which has led to a reduction of students admitted in the Mphil/PhD programmes. In complete violation of due process, admission norms and the Constitution, Delhi University has decided to implement the 2016 UGC Gazette notification for Mphil/PhD interviews,” Sabrang India had reported in July.
 
According to this notification, a minimum qualification of 50% in the entrance test is mandatory for all students. This notification, however, is not binding and Delhi University as a central university has the right to its own selection process.
 
The University of Delhi conducted entrance exams for MPhil/PhD courses across various disciplines, and on the basis of the result, several departments released an initial interview list with a graded internal cut-off set at the discretion of the departments as is the norm.

 
However, an urgent notification dated July 23, 2018, two days prior to the commencement of the interview process, amendments to Article VI stated that the qualifying marks in the entrance examination for all the candidates (reserved and unreserved) was increased to a standard 50% across all categories with no precedent or notice, overnight.
 
In accordance with this regulation, a revised interview list was released on July 23, 2018, which had minimal students qualifying through the entrance test with the heavy majority qualifying through UGC-NET/JRF. “The arbitrary implementation of the Article VI of the UGC Gazette—May 05, 2016, goes against the clauses mentioned in the Gazette and is an attempt by the university administration to curtail the autonomy of the departments as well as to cripple the University as a whole,” an autonomous student collective from Delhi University stated.
 
“This notification has affected students from every single Post-Graduate department with thousands losing their seats. The University and the UGC must be held accountable for being party to the destruction of public universities to make way for privatization. This is a continuation of the unabated and relentless attack on public universities to cripple their research output and to make way for privatization. The Gazette is also in clear violation of National/State-level reservation policy, thereby also being a clear attempt to go against the tenets of social justice. This is an attempt to make higher education inaccessible to the majority of the students, access is granted to those who can afford it and to make education into a profit-generating industry,” the collective said.
 
“We have been struggling against the University administration since 24th July, since then we have submitted numerous petitions to the VC, Dean of Students Welfare, H.O. Ds, have protested outside of the interviews being conducted and most recently have also sat on hunger strike on 1st August. We have also taken legal recourse wherein our next hearing is on the 28th of August. We have managed to build and maintain pressure on the authorities from our activities and have been met with the success of the cancellation of University-wide interviews until further notice,” they said.

 
“However, since DU isn’t the first nor the only institution that is facing this attack, we appeal to organizations and individuals that they extend their solidarity to us. This is not a fight for one University but rather a collective one. It is in this context that we invite you to join us on August 8th, 2018 at Indian Coffee House from 5 pm onwards to discuss the various facets of the ongoing violations and the assault on public universities, to formulate a collective strategy on how to progress from here; and extend solidarity to the students and faculty struggling to protect these spaces of learning and dissent against the diktats of the UGC and the administration of DU who are in cahoots with each other. Students who have been a part of the struggle so far will be participating in the meeting,” the collective said.
 
Their facebook page, ‘Protest Unconstitutional Mphil/Phd Interviews In DU’ issued statements against the arbitrary rules and have continued to document their protest through pictures and videos.

Image Courtesy: Name: Forum to Save Higher Education 

Read Also:
The Attack on Higher Education Continues
Another blow by MHRD to Higher Education in India

The post DU students to protest arbitrary UGC admission rules appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Image Courtesy: Ara Vind / Facebook Page

Students started protesting after two youth were killed and nine others injured in a road accident last week. A bus rammed into a group of students waiting for transport on Airport Road of Dhaka on July 29 in which the two students were killed on the spot.

A Facebook group with the name Private University Student Alliance (formed three years ago during a student movement for the cancellation of VAT on private universities) urged all the students of the city’s educational institutions to make ‘peaceful protests’ in front of their respective schools, colleges and universities the next day.

Protests intensified after what were perceived to be insensitive remarks from Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan who said, “A road crash has claimed 33 lives in India’s Maharashtra; but do they talk about it the way we do?”

Students took to streets in order to check for licenses of all the vehicles passing by. Teens as young as 13 were seen checking for licences of vehicles passing by.

However, the Dhaka police has reportedly shown high handedness in trying to quell the protests. They have fired rubber bullets, tear gas and there are reports of large scale violence by police and supporters of ruling Awami league party. There are also reports of sexual abuse of girls and their subsequent disposal in nearby areas.

During the protests, as per reports, more than 100 people were injured in Bangladesh on July 4 as police fired rubber bullets at student protesters in what appears to be a major standoff between the government and demonstrators.

As per ground reports, 4 school boys were shot dead at Jhigatola, 4 girls abducted, allegedly raped, the killed with hammer blows and thrown in Dhanmodi lake.

The AFP news agency cited Abdus Shabbir, the emergency ward doctor who said, 

“A few of them were in very bad condition.” Several students have been admitted at Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Popular Hospital in Dhaka.

Not only students, but several journalists have also been reported to be injured during the protests due to the chaos that ensued.

Road safety issues have been plaguing the country since a while. The transport sector in Bangladesh has come to be seen as corrupt, unregulated and dangerous and as the news of the two teenage students’ deaths spread across social media like wildfire, the outrage poured on the streets. It was also reported over the week end that the government blocked mobile internet access. Earlier, the transport workers too had staged protests even as the government urged the students to get back to classrooms.

Pro government ‘activists’ from Bangladesh Chhatra League (is a students’ political organisation linked to Bangladesh Awami League Party) also attacked student protesters who were protesting peacefully.

However, the Road transport minister Obaidul Quader rejected any allegations of involvement of party cadres from ruling Awami League Party in perpetuatinhg violence over the protesters.

Protesters have said, “We won’t leave the roads until our demands are met. We want safe roads and safe drivers.”

The post Bangladesh Govt unleashes Violence on Youth demanding Road Safety appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Video (Sent on Whatsapp)

This is not a random video. The video is testimony to more than 50 days old protests and discontent building up in Manipur University.

A pamphlet issued by Manipur Students’ Association Delhi (MSAD) informed that a military battalion was stationed inside the campus which the students claim is “one of its kind in the whole world.” The reaction from the Centre has been to call in more armed forces within the campus. This is reminiscent of Sardar Patel’s statement made in 1949 in which he asked, “Isn’t there a brigadier in Shillong?”

The Manipur University Students’ Union (MUSU) gave a call for a general strike on July 17 and on the first day of the strike, ‘normal life’ seemed to have been “paralysed”

At the heart of the strike and protests is the demand for the removal of Manipur University’s Vice Chancellor, Adya Prasad Pandey from his current position. Students launched the protests to oust the VC from May 30, alleging “administrative failure” as the main reason for such a demand.

Students allege that the VC has not stepped inside the University campus since the time protests started. Instead, it appears he is busy hobnobbing with the Centre and made a trip to Delhi even amid an atmosphere of huge crisis. Simultaneously, in a booklet released by the MUSU, it has been alleged that the VC has a “bizarre habit of remaining away from the campus for very long periods” and most of these tours are “unofficial.” He has also been accused of violating the Manipur University (MU) Act, 2005 and failed to adhere to procedures related to financial assessments and planning. No convocation was held in the university since April 2014. Another serious issue flagged in the booklet is that a “large amount of unaccounted money is being donated to several politically motivated organisation with the ulterior motive” leading to “misuse.” The booklet also sheds light on the “notorious manner” in which the money from the university is being transferred to one Lucknow based firm. The VC has also been accused of failure to start much awaited courses such as LLM, MA fine Arts, M.Ed. Apart from that, there has been an apparent delay and disruption of academic calendar. And students also allege “psychological” harassment in the name of frequent frisking by guards.

Responding to the call for strike, all government and private institutions remained shut and all forms of transportation stayed off the road except for some private vehicles seen plying on the roads.
The MSAD also gave a call for protest in New Delhi, with key demands such as:
1) The ruining of Manipur University affecting the entire student community by the presence of VC, A.P Pandey.
2) Arbitrary eviction by the BJP government.
3) The border conflict between Manipur and Myanmar.

It is noteworthy that as many as 60-70 Undergraduate colleges fall in the ambit of the Manipur University. Students allege that the current crisis has impacted all of their functioning. Students also seem to believe that this is a systematic disruption of the University space in Manipur.

A joint statement released by the community of protesters said a joint meeting of the executive members of Manipur Teachers’ Association (MUTA), Manipur University Students’ Union and Manipur University Staffs’ Association was held on July 18 at MUTA office. And the bodies there resolved to reiterate that the removal of VC Pandey was non-negotiable before one could proceed towards any intervention to resolve the present crisis in the varsity.

The meeting also took serious note of the brutal force used against the students who were “democratically agitating” and strongly condemned the actions of the state police stating the “manner will even put the animal kingdom to shame.”

Also, another important and controversial issue is that of the “arbitrary eviction” at Khetri Bengoon, Imphal East, which, as per the MSAD statement, poses an existential threat to “the territoriality of Manipur” and “it seems that the policy is an appeasement foxship from the part of Delhi to Myanmar, considering the China factor” The alleged eviction drive wiped out an entire village without any rehabilitation plan, violating an MoU signed between CSOs and government.

There is a strong sentiment that interests and sentiments of Manipuri people are not reflected in the decisions that are being made at the Centre.

The post Manipur Police unleashes brutal force on MU students demanding removal of VC appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The March was called against the recent decision of the UGC and MHRD of giving autonomy to educational institutions. May have alleged that this is a move towards further privatisation of public education and make it unaffordable for large sections of people.

The March began from Mandi House and moved towards the Parliament. It was attended by students from Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia MIllia Islamia and other educational institutions.

Apart from student activists, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, Manish Sisodia too joined the march supporting the protests. RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav expressed support on twitter.

The former JNU Vice President Shehla Rashid tweeted, “In developed countries such as the US, there’s a college or university in every nook and corner. That’s the strength of the US system. Free education till college and scholarships in higher education. Ministers’ children study in that system. Why not us?”

Another faculty member from JNU, Gazala Jameel said, “Central Delhi reverberating with slogans by Students, Teachers and University karamcharis as they unitedly #March4Education.”

Mohit Pandey highlighted the problem of privatisation of education in very simple words, “एकस्कूलमेंपढ़ानेकेलिएफ़ीस– कमसेकम1000

कालेज के लिए– 50000
Professional डिग्री– लाखों में
University- लाखों में!
कहाँ पढ़ेगा ग़रीब और आम इंसान!
#March4Education”

AISA leader, Kawalpreet Kaur said, “Autonomy will lead to fee hike and exclude thousands of students from marginalized communities out of accessing education. #March4Education today and stand in defence with DUTA!”

JNUSU President Geeta Kumari@GeetaJnu in solidarity with DUTA &FEDCUTA said, “students, teachers and youth of this country are the opposition to Modi government and we will unitedly defeat this anti-poor and anti-marginalised community Modi government.” #March4Education

It is estimated that as many as 10000 students came on the streets today. The march also raised issues of sexual harassment on campuses, fulfilling constitutionally mandated reservations and ending corruption in academic institutions.
 

The post March4Education sweeps across Delhi as thousands march to save public education appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The militancy on display and the support garnered is largely due to the justness of the issues being raised by the students – issues affecting the most marginalised sections of the students – the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Caste (SC, ST and OBC) students and those from poorer backgrounds who are unable to afford the constantly rising fees of this elite institution. (Another article in this issue in Print by Ajmal Khan details the policies and practices of the Central and State governments and the TISS administration that have led to the demands of the present agitation)

 
Demands of the Students
The demands of the strike placed before the TISS administration in a letter of TISS-Students Union (TISS-SU) dated 25^th February 2018 are:

1. Immediate retraction of the notification of the administration that all GOI-PMS (Government of India – Post Matric Scholarship) 2016-18 and 2017-19 should pay Fees (Tuition, Dining Hall and Hostel fees)
2. Immediate rollback of the notification for payment of fees by GOI-PMS 2018-20 batch students from the website
3. Scholarship/Waiver applicable to GOI-PMS SC and GOI-PMS ST students should be applied to GOI-PMS OBC students also
4. Deal with the concerns of students with disability
5. Exemption of Dining Hall and Hostel fees for students of the BA MA integrated programme of the Off Campuses from 2015 onwards
6. Symbolic representation of the Office of Dean SPO (Student Protection Office) from SC ST OBC category
7. No punitive action be taken against students, individually or collectively

During the course of the strike, a memorandum from the TISS-SU was presented on 28^th February 2018 to Thawar Chand Gehlot, the Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, which raised the following demands:

1. Increase the amount of the GOI-PMS Scholarship to the SC/ST and OBC NC ( for B.A./M.A./M.Phil and Ph.D.) as per the expenses made by institute on each student and disburse it in advance
2. Write a letter to the head of the institute, TISS Mumbai requesting to continue the support to all GOI-PMS students and support the institute across all campuses (Mumbai, Tuljapur, Hyderabad and Guwahati) for all the courses with reference to the students from SC/ST and OBC NC ( B.A./M.A./M.Phil and PhD).
3. Issue guidelines to all the universities including TISS to set up an SC, ST, and OBC Cell/Student Protection Office with the appointment of licensing officer/Dean who must belong to SC/ST/OBC category to prevent discrimination against SC/ST or OBC students at the University/Institute.
4. Uniform income ceiling should be implemented throughout the states for the scholarship, as the prescribed Rs. 2.5 Lakhs ceiling by Union Government is not followed by every state.
5. All the OBC NC students get 100% scholarship.
6. Special attention of the ministry to the lives of the students particularly belonging to the SC/ST and OBC.
7. Fellowship notifications for the RJNF (SC/ST/OBC) and Maulana Azad fellowships for the M.Phil and PhD students from SC/ST/OBC and Minorities should be issued on time and  the fellowships should be disbursed on time.
8.  

Students’ Unity and Struggle
As is amply clear from the above demands, the focus of the demands concerned the rights of the most marginalised student sections. However all the students spread over all four campuses came out in united action. What was initially a call by the TISS Students Union (SU) for a one day University Strike Across TISS campuses on 21^st February, 2018 swiftly built up into an indefinite struggle for the implementation of the above demands.
These demands had been under discussion over some years with various committees of the SU, but were merely dragging on without any solution in sight. Once the call for agitation was given, the mass of students quickly swung into action with the determination not to retreat unless the demands were conceded.

Tactics of TISS Administration
In the face of such determination from the students, the TISS administration started using several means direct, as well as devious, to derail the students movement. The former Director, S. Parasuraman, came out on the first night itself to address the students with the sole intent of forcing them into submission. Without making the slightest attempt at dialogue with the students, he announced that a favour had been done to them for the last fourteen years. He warned of ‘serious trouble’ and threatened the students with withholding of degrees and denial of jobs. His efforts bore no fruit and only earned him the jeers and boos of the students.

Meanwhile a systematic misinformation campaign was kept up by the administration. The genuine problems of the students were presented as baseless claims. The spontaneous upsurge of the student body was attempted to be shown to be the creation of a motivated elements with ulterior political ambitions. These tactics too proved of no consequence before the unity of the students.

Opportunism and Betrayal by a section of Student Union leadership

The next move was to create a division among the students by co-opting an opportunist section of the SU leadership. It appears as if some of the union office bearers had, from the start of the agitation, maintained a covert alliance with the administration, with the aim of keeping the doors open for some kind of compromise. This was resisted by the General Body of the students, who refused to accept closed door negotiations with a select few, and demanded that the administration state their position before the General Body.

When the administration was unable to convince the General Body in any way, they started overtly using other channels (read agents) in the student body to spread confusion and divisions and breakdown the students resistance. The betrayers even went to the extent of signing an ‘agreement’, which was used by the administration to declare that the strike had been ‘called off’ by them.

These betrayers landed themselves in the unenviable position of being rejected outright, not only by the students of TISS-Mumbai, but also by those of the other campuses. The extent of their pure arrogance and opportunism could be seen in the fact that they had attempted to ‘sign’ away the strike without consulting either the students they were supposed to be representing or the representatives of the other campuses whom they had called on strike in the first place.

Fig leaf of Social Justice phraseology

“Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Student’s Union 2017-18
 Mumbai ·
Dear all,
This is regarding the mass circulation of a post titled “CHALO TISS” proposed to be taking place on 5th March 2018 at TISS Main Campus Gate. We, the Students’ Union 2017-18, want to *clarify that this message is in no way endorsed by the union*. A highly politicized narrative of TISS Strike has been circulated by some people to mislead the issues of demands. It’s our humble request to anyone concerned to not attend the said event. In case of any conflict, TISS Students’ Union will not be responsible for the same. We as Students’ Union 2017-18, condemn the event and the act. It must be further noted that we are happy to see the kind of support the Students’ body has given and also, appreciate and acknowledge, the historic win achieved during the protest.
– TISS Students’Union 2017-18”

 This step has been strongly condemned in sharp words by different ideological factions on the campus upholding left and Ambedkarite politics (especially students who emphasised that they weren’t associated with ASA) and by students belonging to different sections such as SCs, STs, OBCs, Religious, Ethnic and other minorities belonging to various oppressed classes.

 While the students of all campuses are determined to march ahead to achieving their demands, the fifth columnists in their ranks are plotting to break the back of the movement. Movements are our own road to self discovery and emancipation, movements bring people together, movements suggest a way into the future. The success of a movement is not easy to judge, it is not a cricket match.

What matters is the willingness of the people to take it through to the end. And this time, the students have clearly said, “The Fight is not Over until it’s Over!”

This article was first published on Aaghaaz
 

The post The Fight isn’t Over: TISS strike enters 14th day despite Admin apathy and manipulations appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
The main reason behind the TISS students’ strike has been a squeeze in the funds for educational aid for socially deprived students, and a disproportionate rise in the institute’s fees. Both of these are a result of the policy of privatisation and social exclusion pursued by successive regimes at the centre.

Protests started when the TISS administration informed the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students receiving the Government of India – Post Matriculation Scholarship (GoI-PMS henceforth) to pay the entire fees upfront starting from the 2017-18 academic year. This include students pursuing courses ranging from BA, MA, MPhil and PhD.

The GoI-PMS is a 100 per cent Centrally Sponsored Scheme allocated by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment to students belonging to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Classes (Non-Creamy layer). Before 2015, the amount was disbursed by the respective state governments to the institutions. After the introduction of the Direct Benefit System, the scholarship was transferred to the students’ account. The ministry states that the scheme is intended to increase the number of students receiving scholarship during their post matric education and enhance their graduation rates.

However, in recent years the scheme has been losing sight of its purpose. There has been a rise in arrears, as the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is yet to receive the amount from the Finance Ministry in order to facilitate the scholarship schemes. Till 2016-17, the arrears of the GoI-PMS scheme for SC students were to the tune of Rs 8000 crores. The Secretary of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment deposing in front of the Parliamentary Standing Committee last year mentioned how the GoI-PMS scheme benefitted 50 lakh SC students; however, due to the huge arrears the scheme was suffering from a resource crunch and as a result it was becoming increasingly difficult to continue the flagship programme. The scheme was started as early as 1944, and has since been seen as a great leveller for SC students to attain greater mobility through easing their path to higher education. The fall in the budget allocations of the GoI-PMS for SC students in the recent budget from Rs 3347.99 crores in 2017-18 to Rs 3000 crores in 2018-19 will further increase the distress of the SC students.

Similarly, the GoI-PMS scheme for the OBC-NC students has seen huge cuts. As a result of the arrears, the state governments have been unable to transfer scholarship funds to the OBC students. Stating the non-receipt of the fellowship amount as the reason, the TISS administration in 2015 asked the OBC-NC students who were availing the GoI-PMS scholarship to pay the entire fees upfront. Earlier, all the GoI-PMS students were provided relaxation to allow them to pay their fees after receiving the amount from their respective state governments. Data gathered through RTI shows that a direct outcome of the upfront fee payment was a fall in the proportion of OBC students enrolling in the Institute – from 22 per cent in 2014-15 to 20 per cent in 2015-16 and further to 18 per cent in 2016-17.

In this context, the decision of the TISS administration to extend upfront fee payment for GoI-PMS students belonging to the SC and ST categories as well has further irked students. The institute has also witnessed massive fee hikes in the last three years. The cumulative semester fee for hostel and dining hall facilities has increased from Rs 18,000 in 2013-14 to Rs 31,000 in 2016-17, which is a rise of more than 150 per cent within a period of three years. This amount is evidently much higher than that paid by students of central universities and even other deemed universities. For instance, hostel fees (including mess bill) per semester for students in JNU and HCU are about Rs. 14,400 and Rs.12,900 respectively. It is clear that the fee at TISS has been rising at a much steeper rate than the scholarship amounts received by the SC, ST and OBC students. The increase in fees has heightened the financial pressure on all students, and is even more detrimental to the interests of students from marginalised sections.

The earlier policy of the Institute to offer relaxation of upfront fee payment to GoI-PMS students acted as a cushion to protect them from the rising cost of higher education. TISS administration’s new policy pushes the entire financial burden of stagnant or falling budgetary allocations for scholarships on to the students. This policy is a direct threat to the very survival of students from marginalised backgrounds in TISS, an institute which has always identified social justice as one of its core beliefs. The present policy is seen as undoing the positive gains achieved through affirmative action to make higher education more accessible for students from marginalised sections.

The SC-ST students who were eligible for GoI-PMS took admission for the academic years 2016-18 and 2017-19 with no information about the upfront fee payment being provided either through the prospectus or at the time of admission. However, mid-way into the course the students are being asked to pay the lump sum amount for dining hall and hostel facilities. According to UGC guidelines, all deemed universities are liable to charge the fees mentioned in the prospectus. Therefore, the demand of the students is to roll back the upfront fee payment clause for the students of the 2016-18 and 2017-19 batches. The demand is also to reverse the upfront fees policy for the GoI-PMS students belonging to the OBC- NC category.

The ongoing students’ strike in TISS is a struggle to uphold social justice and to ensure that our campuses do not become exclusive spaces of socially privileged sections. It is a struggle to be waged within the Institute as well as to build larger solidarities to make higher education affordable for all. It is a fight both against the policy of social exclusion and also against the rising threat of privatisation of higher education. The TISS struggle has to be seen in the larger context of movements for social justice in different campuses in the recent past, which ushered in a new consciousness and unity among students about making higher education in the country more diverse and equal. 

First published in Newsclick.

The post TISS Students’ Strike: A Question of Protecting Diversity appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Student poster displaying a clear understanding of Foucault and surveillance. Compulsory attendance is really not needed at JNU!

Professor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar has, since his taking over in January 2016:
 

• openly flouted every statute and regulation of the university
• shut down admissions almost entirely for the 2017 academic year
• violated the law of the land, that is, constitutional provision for reservations
• failed to implement JNU’s Deprivation Point system that attempts to bring about representation for students from a diversity of class, regional and caste backgrounds
• shut down the country’s oldest functioning Committee on Sexual Harassment (GSCASH)
• brazenly cooked up and manipulated Minutes of meeting after meeting of the Academic Council and
• treated faculty and students of JNU as his enemies to be defeated by the naked use of authoritarian power.

He has lost all moral authority to continue as the Vice Chancellor of a university that has consistently been ranked highly by reports of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council – see here  and here, as well as by reports of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), carried out by the government of India in 2017 and 2016.  (All this before this VC taking over, and without compulsory attendance.)

Students gathered at Freedom Square

It would be a mistake therefore, to see the current unrest at JNU as resulting from a protest at compulsory attendance alone. Even this protest is not about the ‘right not to attend classes’, as it was put in a newspaper editorial.  A number of articles by students and teachers of JNU have argued that classes are taken and attended routinely; most students have way over the 75% compulsory attendance that is sought to be implemented; and even through the massive protests we see today, apart from two days of strike called by the JNU Students’ Union, classes are going on.  In protest, these classes are being held outdoors and research proposals are being presented to faculty seated on the grass. However, speakers from outside invited to speak at JNU are finding seminar rooms packed as always, with interested students and faculty.

Ph.D synopsis presentation in the open air before faculty and rest of the class. Other classes can be seen going on in the background.

As Rajat Datta, professor at Centre for Historical Studies, put it:
 

The crucial point is that a form of compulsory attendance is already in place in JNU, albeit minus the coerciveness, because attendance is linked to evaluation and not to registering an individual’s presence in class as a matter of fact. This is the pedagogical aspect of attendance, where a student’s academic performance is judged through her participation in a series of interactive sessions with her teacher and her peer group. Such interactions are carefully prepared and calibrated: prescribed readings must be done, papers written and submitted on time, and arguments presented and defended.

Other faculty have written on different aspects of why compulsory attendance is neither necessary nor desirable; and in the case of research scholars, utterly infeasible. See Kavita Singh in Wire and Scroll; G Arunima in Indian Express; Kamal Chenoy in Daily O; Ayesha Kidwai in Indian Express; Avijit Pathak in Wire.

Students have written too – Chepal Sherpa points out that JNU’s ‘vibrant political activism has so far prevented the privatization of JNU, kept education affordable and inclusive and ensured social and gender justice‘ while the JNUSU President Geeta Kumari wrote against compulsory attendance citing John Holt, who termed compulsory learning
 

‘a tyranny and a crime against the human spirit.’ Such fiats stem from distrusting the student and overlooking the various life circumstances of the learner. They obstruct rather than facilitate student participation in learning.

In a meticulously documented Public Inquiry against the Vice Chancellor held late last year, the JNU Teachers’ Association documented some of the illegal actions of the VC as follows:
 

• The 2017-18 M.Phil./PhD admissions to JNU have seen an overall 83% cut from the previous year. Actual admissions are reported to be less than 100 out of this 194 seats. Intake for 2018-19 is projected to be just a little more than 50% of the 2016 values. None of these decisions about intake and admission policy have been deliberated upon by the Academic Council, the only forum with the authority to do so by the JNU Act.
• National reservation policy has been violated with impunity, with confirmed admissions of only 3 SCs, 2 STs, and 13 OBCs for the 2017-18 admissions. The JNU innovation of awarding deprivation points for regional, economic and gender backwardness has been dispensed with entirely for research admissions.
• Hailed as a landmark example of how to address sexual harassment in universities by the late Justice Verma Commission of Inquiry Report, and presented as a model for other universities by the UGC‘s Saksham Guidelines, JNU‘s Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment has been abruptly wound up and replaced by a committee in which all the faculty members are nominated by the Vice-Chancellor. Today the replacement Committee is busy organising self defence classes in collaboration with the Delhi Police but has not a word to say about the fact that JNU women students are being harassed and defamed in the name of hostel security checks.
• The full effects of the Vice-Chancellor‘s arrogating to himself the power (which the UGC or the JNU Act does not give him) to determine who is an expert in every field taught and researched in JNU, and to call only those he has so named to Selection Committee meetings are being felt in full now. The last two months have seen Selection Committee after Selection Committee stacked with ̳experts‘ whom the Vice-Chancellor has picked. Academic considerations are being subordinated in the selections made, with an alarming frequency. The names of these so-called experts and the Minutes of these Selection Committees are not even being shown to the Executive Council. Any protest at these violations by the ex-officio members in Selection Committees, such as heads of departments or Deans, is met with a swift reprisal and disciplinary action. With about 280 appointments and scores of promotions in the offing, the academic future of the university looks bleak.
• JNU is a residential university and the hostel wardens play a very important role in maintaining order, good humour, freedom from violence, and democracy in hostel functioning. Further, hostel wardenship is the means by which younger colleagues can avail of university accommodation. Over the past six months or so, more than 20 wardens have been summarily informed that they are to be relieved of wardenship within the next six months, without any explanation.
• All norms that have ensured democracy of functioning have been given the complete go-by. The appointments of Heads of departments and Deans of faculties is no longer one by the principle of seniority by rotation. In the School of International Studies, the third senior-most Professor was designated Dean and in the School of Social Sciences, the appointed Dean is sixth on the seniority list.
• Disciplinary action and vindictive punishment has become the norm, without even the cursory gesture towards due process. Just in the last week 15 students have been issued show-cause notices for a range of very severe punishments, faculty have been removed from their positions as chairs for daring to disagree with the Vice-Chancellor. A ever-growing round the clock surveillance, whose only aim is to retro-fit every opinion and act into the language of misdemeanour, has pinned all democratic discussion and dissent under the gaze of a ruthless panopticon. Even while there may be humour to be found in a JNU administration that surround itself with barricades at the sight of a poster by some young women resolving to read the works of Audre Lorde near his office, this cannot override the overwhelming sense of despair that for this Vice-Chancellor, the university has to become a bootcamp in which the message has to be delivered through a tank rather than through reflection, consultation, and mutual respect.

See Ayesha Kidwai’s JNU community Vs. the JNU VC  for detailed figures such as the one below on how research admissions to JNU have been destroyed by the VC.

The Public Inquiry also looked into the manner of handling of the disappearance of Najeeb, a JNU student attacked by ABVP activists on campus, and concluded that the alacrity with which fines and punishments were dealt out to other students for peaceful, non-violent protests was not shown in this case. The VC’s ‘inaction’ in Najeeb’s case (he is still missing) was patent and appears motivated.

The Public Hearing concluded that the Vice Chancellor is guilty of each of the charges laid out against him and also guilty of
 

leading a process that can be unambiguously described as having disastrous consequences for the future of this premier institution as a centre of academic excellence in the widest possible sense of the term

and concluded therefore, that Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar is unfit to be the Vice-Chancellor of JNU. The members of the jury also suggested that a class action litigation or an appeal for a Visitor’s inquiry could be the route to follow in case Professor Jagadesh Kumar does not step down on his own, as a self-respecting Vice-Chancellor should under these circumstances.

(The full report of the Public Enquiry is available here).

Since then several reports on the ‘Appointments Scam’ in JNU have emerged in the media, showing the extent to which the Vice Chancellor has single handedly controlled every faculty appointment made in the last few months, flouting even the semblance of legality or rule-bound functioning. See Vandana in The Week , Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta in The Wire and Aranya Shankar in The Indian Express.

A little over a year ago, in December 2016, here on Kafila, the statement by 20 faculty members of the 142nd Academic Council meeting (about half the members present), was published along with a report on the shockingly illegal conduct of that AC meeting.  The statement said in part:
 

The minutes of the previous (141^st) Academic Council meeting that had been circulated contained many errors, misrepresentations, and falsities. Several of these had been pointed out by many members of the Academic Council, including in written representations to the Registrar.
The Registrar misled the Academic Council that no written submissions had been received and retracted only when copies of such responses were provided to him. The repeated tampering of minutes has become a serious problem that is affecting the functioning of the university and is against all procedural norms.

Every single AC meeting conducted under this Vice Chancellor since then has seen the continued falsification of Minutes and protests are termed as disruptions.

What is significant today is that yesterday, one of the new external (non-JNU) members of the AC inducted by the current VC, Madhu Kishwar, who is not known for her sympathies to the Left, publicly declared that the decision on compulsory attendance was not taken in the AC meeting, as the VC has publicly claimed. To Republic TV for example, the VC said:
 

Vice-chancellor cannot take any decision. It is the statutory bodies that decide the rules, regulations and formulae. As a single member of the academic council, a VC can’t along (sic) (alone?) bring any rule.

Well, he is lying. While his ‘team’ in the administration and those AC members who derive benefits from his administration go along with his lies, Madhu Kishwar, whatever her ideological or political leanings, has had the decency to disassociate herself from the procedural violation involved in claiming a decision as backed by the body of which she is a member, when she knows full well that it was not.

Below is the series of tweets in which she makes her own position clear on compulsory attendance. But the key point she makes is that whatever her views, this issue was not even on the agenda, and came up accidentally in the course of another discussion.

The point is that this VC and his administration lie without compunction. They lie when they claim university property was damaged by the latest protest in which students reclaimed Freedom Square. What happened was that the flower pots that the administration placed on the iconic steps to prevent students from sitting there, were removed to the side; some of them broke, but the plants were re-potted by the students themselves!

Students perform at Freedom Square

They lie when they claim that the main road to the university was ‘blocked’, causing ‘enormous hardship for the elderly, sick, school children and the visitors to the campus’. One way in was blocked, but all vehicles could continue along many other paths to their destination.

They lie when they claim that compulsory attendance is meant to improve academic standards. It is meant to establish a surveillance regime to further continue what Kishwar terms a ‘civil war’ that the VC has unleashed on campus.  Every single step taken by this administration has been meant to destroy a vibrant academic and intellectual culture, self-critical and democratic, a culture that is anathema to the dispensation ruling the country today.

The VC has consistently refused to meet either office bearers of JNUTA or JNUSU. When the students declared that they would continue the agitation until the next Academic Council meeting, scheduled for the 23rd of February, the VC postponed the AC meeting indefinitely. This decision alone shows the complete moral defeat of this VC and his administration.

A top ranking university, using public funding to make higher education available to heterogeneous publics in India, is being sought to be tamed, silenced and brought into line with an authoritarian, violent regime.

So no, the struggle in JNU is not about the right not to attend classes. It is about reclaiming the right to education, and our students are leading the way.

Courtesy: kafila.online

The post The Vice Chancellor of JNU has lost all moral authority: A dossier of misdeeds appeared first on SabrangIndia.

These students raised black flags and shouted slogans against Adityanath while he was on his way to Lucknow University campus to take part into a function.

As soon the Yogi’s fleet reached Hanuman Setu, which is few blocks away from the campus, more than a dozen students raised black flags and shouted slogans and allegedly blocked the route of the fleet.

The road was cleared by force and the students were beaten by the Police. But in the FIR filed, Police has alleged that the students had beaten up the police personnel for stopping them. However, the injured students were taken into Balrampur hospital for their medical test.

Police has booked Ankit Singh Babu, Mahendra Yadav, Anil Yadav, Madhurya Singh Mathur, Vineet Kumar Kushwaha, Satwat Singh, Ashok Kumar Prabhat, Rakesh Sanmajwadi, Nitin Rajputra, Apoorva Verma and Pooja Shukla under IPC sections 147, 353, 504, 506, 332, 341, 120B and CrPC 7.

All these students are believed to have links with the Samajwadi Party, although that is not established.

The FIR filed by the Police does not mention the contact details and the full address of the complainant. When we tried to reach Police department for comment, they refused to answer our queries.

Courtesy: Two Circles

The post FIR filed against 11 students of Lucknow university for protesting against Yogi Adityanath appeared first on SabrangIndia.