People's Democracy

Students Call Off Stir Following

HRD Minister’s Assurances

FOLLOWING concrete assurances from the union human resources development minister, Arjun Singh, to the demands of the students, the SFI, AISB and AIPSU decided to  suspend  their 48-hour hunger strike agitation on December 2.

In a statement, the organisations however warned that if the UPA government fails to honour its commitments and promises made to the students they will be again forced to take the path of struggles.  They thanked all the students who had come from all corners of the country to take part in the agitation and all the Left parties for their ardent support for the genuine issues of the students.

The ‘March to the Parliament’ and the 48-hour  hunger strike were organised by SFI, AISB, and AIPSU on a range of demands (see previous issue of PD). A delegation of student leaders comprising Kallol Roy, K K Ragesh, Arun Kumar (SFI), Aritra Chatterjee (AISB) and Rajeev Banerjee (AIPSU) met the HRD minister on December 2. They raised the demand for the enactment of a central legislation empowering the state governments to control the unaided self-financing institutes. The minister stated that he will call for a meeting of the higher education ministers of all states on January10-11, 2005 and will try to build a consensus on the issue as most state governments were already willing. He also promised that by the next budget session he would try to enact the central legislation that will be in place before the beginning of the next academic session.

On the issue of the control on deemed universities, the minister said that even this issue will be discussed in the education ministers’ conference and steps will be taken to plug the loopholes in the UGC Act to ensure that no sub-standard deemed universities exist. He also said that he will increase free-ships and scholarships to ensure that students are not denied access to higher education. (INN)