The anti-UGC agitation has entered the 16th day

As the ‘Occupy UGC’ movement entered the 16th day on Wednesday, protesters held a rally at Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia University.
More than 100 students from Jamia marched from the Fine Arts Faculty till the Engineering Faculty on Wednesday. According to the students, the Proctor tried to stop the march but the students defied him and continued.
One of the protesters said: “It is really unfortunate that the Proctor tried to stop the rally. But we still went ahead, which shows that students from Jamia are determined to participate in the ‘Occupy UGC’ and carry it forward.”
Another protester, Sucheta De, said: “Tomorrow we are expecting students from all over the country to converge at the ‘Occupy UGC’ site and march to the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD). We will demand an answer regarding the farcical mandate they have given to the committee and tell them that we will not accept any pre-conditions on the criteria for awarding non-NET fellowships to future researchers.”
On Tuesday, the students had burnt the effigy of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee in the wake of the action taken against students protesting the UGC decision in Kolkata on Monday.
More and more teachers and activists have been joining the protest and expressing solidarity with the students. Professor Chaman Lal, formerly associated with JNU and among the writers who returned their Sahitya Akademi Award in protest against policies of the Modi government, also extended support to the movement.
“The RSS Mouthpiece has brought out that JNU is an anti-national place. We condemn this statement. JNU for years has upheld democracy and rights of people either during the Emergency or during the anti-Sikh riots. JNU students have played a major role in the anti-fund cut movement,” Professor Chaman Lal said.
Former UGC member and ex-AAP member Yogendra Yadav, senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, MP Dharamveer Gandhi also met the protesters on Tuesday.