“‘Our’ Ambedkar University definitely would organise talks and seminars about Ambedkar and will remember Ambedkar but only in English,” read an open letter penned by Rashmi and Garima, Dalit MPhil research scholars studying in Ambedkar University, Delhi.

AUD is witnessing protests from the student body against the imposition of the English language in every sphere of the University. According to some students, even though the problem persists in everyday activities and lectures as well, the issue is coming to the fore as admission season is right around the corner and even the entrance exam papers have been only printed in English. Students from the Progressive and Democratic Student Collective (PDSC) Ambedkar University, and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) are leading these protests. They recently visited the Deputy Chief Minister’s office, New Delhi, to discuss the same. According to a member of KYS, a referendum was organised on the issue wherein out of the 400 students who participated, 92 percent voted in affirmative.

To put across their case, the PDSC has released a booklet with several surveys and accounts of students who have suffered because of the exclusion of Hindi. As per the booklet, AUD uses only English as a medium for intellectual discussions in classes and also mandates students to write all exams and submit their thesis in English. The University in its brochures explicitly states that English will be the sole medium of instruction. On the other hand, the Hindi language is imposed on first-year students pursuing B.A. which often causes inconvenience to students who are used to studying in their regional language or English. Not knowing English or Hindi or both doesn’t just affect their academic performance but is also demoralising at times.

The booklet explains PDSC’s agenda for protesting, “This is not to say that we are opposed to English or any other language, nor are we arguing for Hindi to take over in any way. Our protest is against the tyranny of any one language which forces everyone to think, understand, speak and write in one language and one language alone. We are learning English, we wish to learn other languages as well, but this process will have to begin with the language we are capable of reading, writing and thinking in, at present. It is also important to recognise the politics underlying the primacy of any one language, and that it has historically been used to uphold the regime of dominant groups while crushing the rest.”

A student pursuing an MPhil in History shared her experience in the booklet, “Two or three words in every sentence require me to refer to the dictionary repeatedly. Thus the flow of reading is broken, and I can only comprehend parts of the reading. To make matters worse, the reading is discussed in the classroom solely in one language and that too at such a rapid pace that I cannot keep up with it. Even if I pick up my bottle to drink water for a moment, I lose the thread of the concept being explained in that class.”

Anup, a student of the University, thinks that the Vice Chancellor has been trying to diffuse the matter on language due to the fear of denting the University’s image at an international level. He said, “They want to preserve the perception of people as they see AUD as a liberal, elitist college, where English flows much like water.” The University had decided to establish a language cell to help students out, but there’s no active language cell in the University.

PDSC’s immediate demands are to have an active language cell which can help students learn basic English, dissolving the imposition of Hindi as a foundational language, and giving students a choice to write exams, assignments and presentations in either Hindi and English for starters. Moreover, facilitation of workshops and seminars in regional languages to ensure active participation across boundaries. If these demands are met, it will be a start in creating an inclusive environment. Apart from these, their long-term demand is to encourage multilingual learning, and for notes to be translated into multiple languages so that language isn’t a hindrance to learning.

Dean of Students Sanjay Sharma has acknowledged that the demands are legitimate but hasn’t made any confirmation as to when and how the administration will fulfil these demands. He said, “It’s a state university, but Hindi is not the only state language; there’s also Urdu and Punjabi. So, unless we make adequate arrangements, we will not be able to move in this direction straight away. This demand is legitimate, but we’ll have to see how to make it possible.”

The Progressive and Democratic Student Community’s booklet also states, “The question of language is a matter of social justice, of social equality and freedom of thought and expression.” Universities should undertake a holistic approach to educate and make sure that not knowing a particular, dominant language doesn’t deter the process. If the papers for entrance exams are printed in all regional languages, and a language cell is established to help students out, it will be a huge win for the students of Ambedkar University.

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Image source: Progressive and Democratic Student Community/Facebook Page

The post Ambedkar Uni. Students Protest Against English Being The Sole Medium Of Instruction appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

विद्यार्थियों,

तुम पिछले दो साल से (चार वर्षीय बी.ए./ बी.एड., बी.एस.सी./ बी.एड.) अपनी डिग्री के लिए संघर्ष कर रहे हो। तुम या तुम्हारे अभिभावक सपने में भी नहीं सोचे होंगे कि एक केन्द्रीय विश्वविद्यालय बग़ैर मान्यता के नामांकन ले सकता है। आज तुम्हारे भूख हड़ताल का तीसरा दिन है। तुमने शायद दुष्यंत को नहीं पढ़ा- “मत कहो आकाश में कोहरा घना है, यह किसी की व्यक्तिगत आलोचना है।”

मुझे तुम्हारी नादानी और भोलेपन पर दुःख होता है। तुमने पत्थर पर दूब उगाने का फ़ैसला किया है या फ़िर तुम, पत्थर पर अपना सर पटकने के इरादे से निकले हो। इसमें पत्थर का तो बाल भी बांका नहीं होगा पर तुम्हारा सर चकनाचूर हो जाएगा। डिग्री तो मिलने से रही, सेहत भी चली जाएगी। सुनो, तुम इस ग़लतफ़हमी में हो कि संतान के सामान विद्यार्थियों को भूख हड़ताल पर देख प्रशासकों को चिंता होगी, भूख से तुम्हारी ऐंठी अंतड़ियों और पपड़ी पड़े होंठ देख कर उन्हें अपना निवाला नहीं निगला जाएगा।

वह कुछ और ज़माना था, जहां भूख हड़ताल से विदेशी अंग्रेज़ भी पिघल जाते थे। आज तो तुम्हारे हक़ की मांग को, तुम्हारे शान्तिप्रिय प्रतिरोधात्मक निवेदन को आनन-फ़ानन में राष्ट्रविरोधी करार दे दिया जाएगा। आम जनता के सामने तुम्हें खलनायक बना दिया जाएगा और तब चुटकी बजा कर तुम्हारी मांग को विलोपित कर दिया जाएगा।

तुम कितने भोले हो, कि आज की भाषाई छटा को नहीं समझते। आज दो ही तरह की भाषा चलन में है। एक भाषा वह है जो स्वीकार की है, पादवंदन की है, स्प्रिंगनुमा ग्रीवादोलन की है। दूसरी भाषा, कटार और कृपाण की है, लत्तम-जुत्तम की है। ऐसे भाषाई माहोल में, तुम पठन पाठन की भाषा, गांधी की भाषा, संवाद की भाषा, विमर्श की भाषा में बोलना चाहते हो। तुम छलनी से पानी भरने की ज़िद पर अड़े हो।

तुम कितने अनाड़ी हो, कि MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development या मानव विकास संसाधन मंत्रालय) से आशा लगा बैठे हो कि वह तुम्हारी समस्या का समाधान करेगी। उसके पास तो बड़े-बड़े मसले हैं। उसे तो प्रोजेक्ट्स के द्वारा रामायण, महाभारत को सत्य सिद्ध करवाना है, प्राचीन काल में पुष्पक विमान की सत्यता सिद्ध करनी है, बॉडी पार्ट्स का ट्रांसप्लांटेशन (आदमी के सर पे हाथी का मुंह!) की सत्यता सिद्ध करनी है। और तुम सौ विद्यार्थी हो जो अपनी डिग्री की समस्या ले कर बैठे हो!

तुम दिवा-स्वप्न क्यों देखते हो? तुम यह क्यों मान बैठे कि तुम्हारी समस्या से कुलपति से लेकर शिक्षक तक परेशान हो जाएंगे? तुम्हारी चिंता में शिक्षकों-अधिकारियों-कर्मचारियों की नींद हराम हो जायेगी? वे सभी इसके लिए डेलीगेट के रूप में शिक्षा मंत्री और राष्ट्रपति से मिलेंगे, प्रेस कॉन्फ़्रेन्स करेंगे, सांकेतिक हड़ताल करेंगे। तुम्हारी समस्या को अपनी समस्या मानेंगे क्योंकि यह सवाल सिर्फ़ डिग्री का नहीं है, यह सवाल है विश्वविद्यालय की विश्वसनीयता का। विश्वविद्यालय की शाख का।

JNU में चल रहे छात्र आन्दोलन के बाद सरकार एक भी विद्यार्थी का बाल बांका नहीं कर पायी क्योंकि हमारी मीडिया केवल दिल्ली केंद्रित है और तुम्हारी यूनिवर्सिटी तो गया (बिहार) में है। इससे उनकी TRP थोड़े ही बढ़ेगी? इसलिए खतरा है कि कहीं तुम्हारी आवाज़ नक्कारखाने में तूती बन के ना रह जाए।

तुम्हारा हौसला बुलंद है। एक लोकोक्ति के सहारे कहूं, तो यह तुम्हारा ‘तीन फूंके चानी’ है। तुम्हारा यह तीसरा प्रयास तुम्हें ज़रूर सफ़लता दिलाएगा। तुम्हारे जज़्बे को देख कर, फ़िर दुष्यंत याद आते हैं- “होने लगी है जिस्म में जुम्बिश तो देखिये, इस पर कटे परिंदे की कोशिश तो देखिये।”

तुम्हारी लड़ाई के साथ,
कमलानंद.

The post भूख हड़ताल पर बैठे साउथ बिहार सेंट्रल यूनिवर्सिटी के विद्यार्थियों के नाम एक ख़त appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination (WBJEE) is an examination conducted for the purpose of undergraduate admissions in the courses of engineering and technology, pharmacy and architecture, in the various institutions in West Bengal.

Earlier, entrance of the medical colleges of West Bengal were also a part of the WBJEE, but after the Supreme Court verdict in 2016, the admissions will be through the scores of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), instead of the WBJEE in the West Bengal.

Mode Of Exam

The WBJEE examination is an offline examination, i.e, only pen and paper based, for the admission in various courses in the government colleges and universities in West Bengal. An OMR sheet will be provided to the candidate to mark the answers.

Syllabus Of WBJEE

The questions in WBJEE 2017 will be asked from mathematics, physics and one of these subjects: chemistry/ biology/ biotechnology/ computer science/ computer applications. Mathematics needs to be studied thoroughly.

Exam Pattern

There will be two papers in the exam.

Paper 1 – Mathematics

Paper 2 – Physics and chemistry combined.

Scoring Methodology

The questions in the paper are divided into three categories.

Category 1 – In this category, only one answer option is correct and the marks allowed is one per correct answer. For each incorrect answer – 1/4th marks will be deducted.

Category 2- In this category, only one answer option is correct and the marks allotted is two per correct answer. For each incorrect answer – 1/4th marks will be deducted.

Category 3 – In this category, one or more answer options are correct and the marks allotted is two per correct question done. The combination of both answer options marked incorrect or one of the answer options marked incorrect will be allocated zero marks.

Eligibility Criteria

1) The candidate must be a citizen of India.

2) The lower age limit is 17 years, and there is no bar on the upper age limit for most courses.

3) For the Marine Engineering course, the lower age limit is 17 years, and the upper age limit is 25 years.

4) The candidate must qualify 10+2 final exams with atleast 45% in physics, mathematics along with another subject chosen.

5) The candidate’s qualifying 10+2 board must be recognised either by the Central government or the state government.

WBJEE 2017

WBJEE 2017 is scheduled to be conducted on April 23, 2017. The admit card of WBJEE has been released. It can be downloaded from the official website of WBJEE. The tentative date of the WBJEE result is June 5, 2017.

Many colleges in West Bengal accept the score of the WBJEE exam. The candidates can explore more about the colleges accepting WBJEE scores and shortlist the colleges as per their choice and preference.

The post All You Need To Know About WBJEE 2017 appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

While most final year college students around the country were enjoying their last few days in college, students enrolled in B.Sc. B.Ed. and B.A. B.Ed. courses in the Central University of South Bihar were protesting. This is because one year after taking admission in the University, they found out that their degree is invalid since the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), a statutory body that oversees standards, procedures and processes in the system of training teachers, doesn’t recognise it.

In August 2012, a Supreme Court-appointed high-powered commission under former Chief Justice of India J. S. Verma released several recommendations to improve the quality of teacher education in India. One of these recommendations was “revamping existing programmes of teacher education and moving to four-year integrated programmes after 10+2 or two-year programmes after graduation within a stipulated time frame.” The Supreme Court bench of Justices G. S. Singhvi and S. J. Mukhopadhaya passed an order stating that the recommendations “deserve to be accepted.” Hence, the integrated B.Ed. programmes were started in CUSB in 2013.

Since the Ministry of Human Resource Development had ordered various universities to start these courses, the CUSB thought that getting recognition from the NCTE wouldn’t be difficult. A senior faculty member of the University explained why it didn’t get recognition from the University in spite of being a Central University, “As the four-year integrated programme was a new and innovative programme at that time, NCTE didn’t have the norms for it. In 2013, the NCTE’s website, where Universities are to apply for recognition, didn’t have the provision to apply for our programmes which were started on the orders of the MHRD itself. So, all Universities who started this programme had the impression that maybe they don’t need the NCTE’s approval as the MHRD had ordered them.” According to the professor, the University then applied offline and has been in talks with the NCTE ever since. The NCTE was cooperative with the university all along and had agreed to find a solution.

When the NCTE had the norms in place for the course, the University applied for recognition again and hence, the batches that joined from 2015 onwards, their degree is considered legal but the first two batches of the programme, the batches that joined in 2013 and 2014, they still don’t have recognised degrees. According to a student, “The University administration still constantly assured us that things would work out and we believed them but now the batch that joined in 2013 is supposed to pass out in a few days, and no headway has been made. They won’t be able to apply for jobs. So, we had to protest.”

Students had written to the MHRD and the NCTE regarding the matter but didn’t receive any response, so 14 students sat on an indefinite hunger strike from April 17, 2017. The strike was only called off last night on April 21, 2017, as the University gave them written assurance that if the matter goes to court, the University will take responsibility.

The faculty member informed Campus Watch that on April 20, 2017, the Vice Chancellor of the University met with the Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar, who assured him that the ordinance to amend the NCTE Act would be passed as soon as possible. The University is hopeful to see the result in the next 35 days, before the first batch of the course graduates.

The post Why These Students In Bihar Had To Go On A Hunger Strike Right Before Graduation appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

A committee drawn up to reform the JEE Advanced test – the final round of examination for admitting students to Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) – has suggested conducting the test through mobile phones. The suggestion was made by officials while they were deliberating on ways to take the Advanced test online.

According to a Hindustan Times report, the suggestion was tabled at a meeting of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) of the IITs. The board is responsible for admission processes at IITs and looks at things like setting the question paper, evaluation of answer sheets and preparation of the merit list. The proposal will now be sent to the IIT council, the highest decision-making body of the IITs, for further deliberation.

Students seeking admission to the premier engineering colleges are first screened through the JEE Mains test and then examined on the basis of the Advanced test. Of the over 1.3 million who take the Mains test, around two lakh qualify for the next round of examination.

The IITs have already introduced the option of taking the Mains test online. However, currently, less than ten percent students take the exam digitally. In a bid to push the digital option and to introduce it for the Advanced test, officials have now suggested that the second test be conducted through mobile phones. This is because mobile phones have higher penetration in rural areas than computers.

A senior official told Hindustan Times that a suggestion to form a panel for development and testing of the online platform for the Advanced test was also floated by the members of the committee. “There are many issues that have to be looked into before implementing it,” the official, who is a member of the committee, told the paper.

The issues with online examination identified include lack of computer awareness, especially among examinees from poor households. The committee also recommended developing computer-adaptive tests, which change the difficulty level of the test on the basis of the student’s ability.

The post Students May Soon Be Able To Take The JEE Advanced Test On Their Cellphones appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Editor’s Note: In 2016, only 8% of the students who took admissions in different Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country were women. This figure is alarming, as it not only depicts the wide gender gap in these institutions but also reaffirms the patriarchal myth of women being inherently incapable of pursuing sciences. To rectify this imbalance, on April 15, the Joint Admission Board (JAB) declared that up to 20% supernumerary seats, i.e., extra seats, will be created for girls out of the total number of seats in IITs from the 2018 academic session.

When a panel set up by the JAB first recommended this solution in January 2017, an anonymous person sought opinions about it on Quora. Most popular answers on the thread argue against the recommendation, citing reasons that range from ‘reservations do more harm than good’ to ‘women are just as privileged as men’.

However, Samiksha Sarwari, a student of IIT Roorkee, in her answer, elaborates how many women are still discouraged from pursuing academics and smashes the belief that a student who takes admission under the reserved category isn’t capable. Read her opinion here –

Image source: Rasmus Lerdorf/Flickr

The post Reservation For Women In IITs: How This Girl Smashed Patriarchy With Her Answer On Quora appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

I’m sure that you all have witnessed the slurry of jokes after the recent inclusion of one of the works of ‘India’s best-known novelist’ in the Delhi University syllabus, under the Popular Fiction paper. Maybe you have also heard the words, “Disgusted, can’t believe this”, in the midst of all this.

Now, let’s stop with the blind social-media tagging and dispel some myths instead. First of all, you should know what it is that we do during a Honours course in English literature.

I study in the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, and will soon graduate. If my words justify my experience, it is mainly due to this course which has allowed me to question several things that are considered normative.

For instance, understanding a movement demanding greater autonomy for women would have been beyond me and my self-enclosed, privileged bubble of an existence. However, when you arm somebody with the correct tools to examine the context of their cultural and social existences, you lay the cornerstone for lighting up their political consciences.

Reading one such text led to a significant transition in my life, after which I became a full-time social activist by rejecting a blue-collar job. This book was Nadine Gordimer’s “My Son’s Story”. That was when I realized that the personal, the mental, the sexual and the most private aspects of our lives were a burgeoning offshoot of the political climate that we live in. And this is exactly how an education in literature changes us.

Sometime during the first year of my graduation, one of my professors spoke the following words which I’ll remember forever: “One day, religion might fail us, dogma might fail us, but experiences won’t. And it is these experiences that come to us through literature.”

After all, this is what we do in a literature class. We dissect or ‘cut open’ a text for its ‘ballistic blind spots’. We place them in synchronic or diachronic settings. We analyse their sardonic political commentaries. Most importantly, we absorb lessons from these texts – and thereby, ‘grow up’, in the process.

Moving back to the topic of debate:

Mr Bhagat,

I first picked up your book when I was in the seventh standard. Honestly speaking, apart from knowing about the male anatomy, your books did not help me at all. I was the same, socially-awkward girl at the end as I was before I’d read your book. The book did not move me, at all. Sure, I learnt a lot about sex – but nothing else!

However, let me congratulate you on the inclusion of one of your works in a university syllabus. After all, this marks your entry into the ‘serious club’.

However, you also need to realise that more than you or your ire at those opposing this decision, this issue concerns ‘us’ and my generation.

This is about 20-year-olds who are going to consume your work as a part of ‘popular fiction’ and analyse what made it popular. I’m afraid that the reasons they’ll discover will not be pleasing.

In your books (and regarding what made them popular), they’ll find a complete dishevelling of the system of thought and a general lassitude concerning anything related to ‘thinking processes’ and ‘deeper probing’. Sadly, they’ll also face their worst nightmares – intrepid netizens who have exhausted all scope for ‘quality discussions’.

All we thrive on is, well, bullshit. Scatology is all we understand because it is simple. We’re so inured to our safe refuge of nonsense that any work of ‘quality literature’ (for example, by Arundhati Roy) will barely have a tenth of the readership of your books.

But as students of social sciences, it always helps to keep an open mind while analysing the systemic processes that shape our consumption of any form of ‘cultural capital’. It’ll help us know how we ended up on this end of the ‘too crass to be called literature’ spectrum. It will also help us uncover how this joke of a book managed to sell a million copies.

After all this, we may finally learn certain things about ourselves regarding how we’ve adapted to a ‘lazy consumption’ of texts – texts which have no political or social leanings, whatsoever, and do not force us to think and question!

PS: Count in the sadistic pleasure one can derive from critiquing bad texts. I really feel sorry for our generation!

The post ‘I Really Feel Sorry For Our Generation’: A Student On Chetan Bhagat In DU Syllabus appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Following a spate of student suicides at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) in recent months, the premiere engineering colleges are expected to take a series of measures to curb the trend. Student-suicides were included in the IIT Council’s meeting agenda after an IIT Kharagpur student was found hanging in his hostel room last week, according to a report in The Indian Express. The IIT Council is the highest decision-making body of the institutes.

There have been four cases of alleged suicide this year at the IITs, three of which took place at IIT Kharagpur. A 19-year-old IIT Delhi student, who was reportedly depressed, also attempted suicide in March by jumping from the terrace of his hostel.

Sources told The Indian Express that the directors of the 23 IITs will be asked to undertake initiatives apart from those already existing at their respective institutes to curb the trend. These are likely to include measures such as compulsory induction programmes that will teach students ways to cope with stress.

Other measures that the IITs will be urged to take include early identification of vulnerable and academically weak students for referring them to counsellors on campus and sensitisation of teachers to the needs of students with different learning abilities. Directors are also likely to be told to encourage students to pursue extra-curricular activities.

In addition, the IIT administration will be asked to house students from different departments as roommates in hostels to promote healthier peer group interaction.

After a series of suicides and suicide attempts were reported from the IITs in 2010 and 2011, a task force was constituted in September 2011 to suggest remedial measures after studying the causes of those suicides. A sophisticated counselling structure at every institute, faculty-sensitisation and a session for new students focused on teaching them social, communication, and interpersonal skills were some of the initiatives that were recommended by the task force.

The IIT Council officially accepted the recommendations in January 2013. However, 4 years after the decision was taken, the four-level action plan remains ineffective.

The issue has been put on the agenda for the council meeting on Friday after the latest case of an alleged suicide at IIT Kharagpur. On April 21, a fourth-year aerospace engineering student was found hanging in his hostel room. “Let me sleep,” the suicide note written by the deceased Nidhin N had said.

Congress MP KC Venugopal had also written to the HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar seeking his intervention in the matter of suicides at IITs after the death of the student.

The MP told reporters last week that he had been assured by ministry officials that suicide will be probed. “The official assured me that a team headed by a director of the ministry will be appointed to probe the cases of alleged suicides happening in IIT-Kharagpur,” he said.

The post After 6 Years, IITs Finally Wake Up To The Rising Student Suicides appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Parents of a rape survivor have alleged that a private school in Delhi, where their child was studying, asked them not to send her to school because it would bring a ‘bad name’ to the institution.

The matter came to light when the parents approached the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) with their problem. The DCW has now issued a notice to the education department, based on the parents’ complaint.

In their accusation, the parents said the school has laid a condition that the survivor will be admitted to class XI only if she stops coming to school.

The parents of the student have said that some men allegedly kidnapped, raped, and threw the student out of a moving car a few months ago.

The parents say that the child had been studying in the school until class X. When the student sought admission to the same school in class XI, the school allegedly said that the survivor would bring a “bad name” to it.

The parents also alleged that the school administration has been harassing the girl so that she quits on her own, and claimed that the principal is not allowing the survivor’s friends to sit next to her.

“They have reported that the principal said they should remove their daughter from the school and enrol her in a new one, saying the girl is bringing a bad name to the school,” the DCW officials said.

“The school has told the parents that the administration would not take responsibility for the safety of the girl and she will not be able to use the school bus like earlier if she accepts the condition and takes admission,” Swati Maliwal, the DCW chief, said.

“The girl is being punished for no fault of hers. This is a very embarrassing and unacceptable matter in today’s world,” she added.

The DCW has sought a reply from the education department within 5 days.

Featured image for representation only.

The post Delhi School Bars Rape Survivor From Attending Classes, Says Will Bring ‘Bad Name’ appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this piece had the title: How Mumbai’s Govt. Law College Is Making Money By Wrongly Failing Its Students. This title was incorrect and it has now been rectified to reflect the content of the post accurately. 

“May the Lord protect you from the vagaries of Mumbai University” were the words of Justice D.Y. Chandrachud of the Supreme Court of India, while delivering a lecture in the halls of Government Law College, Mumbai. While he hit the nail on the coffin by pointing out the absurdity of the situation with his snappy wisecrack, the audience cheered aloud as each one in the room could adequately relate to his words. The crowd consisted of generations of law students who grinned at this jest, remembering how they were victimised by the arbitrariness of the same old Mumbai University.

A majority of law colleges in Mumbai are affiliated to Mumbai University, also known as MU, one of the first state universities of India and the oldest in Maharashtra. For students of the five-year law course, the first two years of examinations (referred to as pre-law exams) are conducted internally by the college, while the remaining three years i.e. Bachelors of Law (LLB) examinations are conducted by MU.

The prevailing trend is that students adept in academics do very well in pre-law exams, while the average and below average students also fare relatively proportionate to their aptitudes. The results are usually fair and acceptable to most students, leaving room for minimum complaints.

However, once the LLB examinations commence, erratic grade fluctuations start happening. There are several instances of students doing phenomenally well in most subjects but failing in one, resulting in a drop in average and an overall failed result. Students who had topped before end up scoring abysmally low marks, and the phenomena of marks being proportionate to the length of the paper than to the content and quality, and discrepancies in the allotment of marks in different centres are additional issues.

Revaluation – A Problem On Its Own

The immediate solution to rectifying poor grades is considered to be revaluation. Revaluation, a financially exploitative process where you’re charged ₹500 for each paper reassessed, usually resulting in a complete turn of grades with no refund to avail. While the examination fee for four subjects is ₹460, the fee for revaluation is an all-time rip-off (4.5 times) in comparison.

There is data in abundance to substantiate this uncanny turn of events. Reports show that about 73,000 students have been wrongly failed in examinations conducted by the University of Mumbai between 2014 and 2016. An RTI query filed by activist Vihar Durve revealed that during the first half of 2016, of 44,441 who applied for revaluation, 16,934 cleared the exam. Another well-known fact is that of the huge amounts of revenue generated by Mumbai University through the process of revaluation. The RTI query further revealed that MU made ₹7.52 crore in fees to re-evaluate answer sheets, and ₹41 lakh in making photocopies of answer sheets in the past three years.

To add to the ever-growing student woes, the process of revaluation is replete with arbitrariness, lack of transparency and uncertainty. There are multiple instances of lack of timeliness and inefficiency on the part of MU in this regard, as most times the revaluation results are declared post the ATKT exams (a supplementary exam which is required to be given by a student who fails in a particular subject/s).

Students Speak

A final year law student of Government Law College who had once been a top ranker in this very institution and suffered at the hands of the MU’s failing spree, remarks, “Somewhere deep down I was convinced that I couldn’t have written such a bad paper and that I would come through in the revaluation process. The fact that 20 of us in one single row had been failed in that subject made it even more suspicious. Nonetheless, I decided that I would send papers of all the subjects for revaluation. Another step that I took was to join the representation made by a batch junior to mine who had suffered a similar, but more harmful impact of the university’s marking system. We would go to the University office and try meeting the Vice Chancellor. When we did meet him, after few cancelled meetings and having waited for hours outside his office, he almost negated my credentials while hearing my individual case.

In fact, he went to the extent of saying that he, himself was a victim given he had failed his LLB exams and didn’t have the time to redress it. If he thought that was an anecdotal evidence to show the University’s ‘fairness’, it was just the most unfortunate form of justification. We requested that the process of revaluation be fast tracked to ensure they don’t come after the KT exams end. We said we didn’t wish to incur an expense for an exam which we know we don’t need to give if the result came out. Unsurprisingly, of the kids who made a representation, almost all were cleared in the papers in which they had been originally failed. However, the University, as always, took its own sweet time to release the revaluation results and naturally given how they cleared me in one and failed in the other three, indicated either their penchant for arbitrariness or sheer vindictiveness.”

Legal examinations conducted by MU are predominantly objective than subjective, which is another unfortunate travesty of the education system. Despite being objective, students in MU are helpless because there is no uniform marking criteria. There is no provision of a model answer paper being made available to students, no guidelines on what is expected of them or how an answer should be presented. Trends have usually been that those who manage to reproduce the textbook and immaculately quote sections tend to do well. But in several instances, adopting these age-old hacks and conforming to the ideal paper-writing norms have failed as well.

Aparna Menon, a third-year law student of Government Law College, said, “The criteria for marking should ideally be the correctness and quality of answers. However, MU has seemingly marked papers on vague parameters such as a student’s handwriting or their ability to fill maximum number of pages. Sadly, even after adhering to these shallow parameters, you fail. As a student who has been scoring consistently well since secondary school, such scores can be highly demotivating and makes you seriously reconsider your abilities. This is especially problematic because a lot of students are unable to return from this self-introspection cycle resulting in a total loss of self-confidence.”

Do Marks Really Matter?

Keeping aside the financial fleecing and intellectual disintegration of students’ part, there are wider repercussions which prevail. MU tends to overlook the fact that they are severely jeopardising careers. As much as we’d like to believe in the higher intellectual ideals of “marks don’t matter”, the reality is that they matter more than we’d like them to. Your marks determine your job prospects, your chances of securing admission into a good master’s program and are often a reflection of your intellectual abilities to outsiders. Speaking out of personal experience, in my recent law examinations, I did well enough in most subjects but secured a very poor grade in Contract Law (which is still awaiting redemption at the mercy of MU’s revaluation racket). While I was surprised at the outcome, and I personally know that I’m well-versed with the subject, an outsider’s impression of me would be that of a law student who doesn’t know the most fundamental subject of legal studies.

Opponents may argue that students rant for nothing and must take accountability for their failures. But, in this case, I (and a majority of the MU student body) can affirmatively vouch for the fact that the problem is not personal incompetence but a lackadaisical system. Despite best efforts and long hours of studying, there never seems to be any quid pro quo. The state of the students of MU is a cry for help. A stroke of luck is what dictates the upshot of these examinations. The way forward would be a completely transparent process, formally laying down an objective criterion for marking, and maybe even showing some concern and empathy.

The post How Mumbai University Is Making Money By Wrongly Failing Students appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

बीते 4 मई को माननीय सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने बीएचयू के 24×7 लाइब्रेरी आन्दोलन में निलंबित हुए छात्रों का निलंबन निरस्त कर दिया। न्यायमूर्ति दीपक मिश्रा की अध्यक्षता वाली तीन सदस्यीय पीठ ने विकास सिंह व अन्य बनाम यूनियन ऑफ़ इंडिया व अन्य (सिविल) रीट संख्या – 306/2017 की सुनवाई करते हुए ऐतिहासिक फैसला सुनाया। इस फैसले में सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने बीएचयू प्रशासन को इन सभी छात्रों की बची हुई परीक्षाएं जून-जुलाई महीनों में कराये जाने, शोध छात्र विकास सिंह की रोकी गयी फ़ेलोशिप को 14 दिनों के अंदर रिलीज़ करने व छात्रों के खिलाफ दर्ज सभी फर्जी मुकदमें रोकने सम्बन्धी आदेश भी दिए।

सुनवाई की अगली तिथि 28 अगस्त 2017 मुकर्रर करते हुए कोर्ट ने छात्रों से यह भी कहा कि अगली बार कोर्ट में सफेद शर्ट और वेल मेंटेंड होकर आएं। छात्रों की तरफ से वरिष्ठ अधिवक्ता प्रशांत भूषण और अधिवक्ता निधि ने उनका पक्ष रखा।

अक्सर सुप्रीम कोर्ट या हाई कोर्ट के फैसलों के आगे एक शब्द लगा दिया जाता है ‘ऐतिहासिक’। लेकिन 4 मई 2017 को सुप्रीम कोर्ट के कोर्ट नम्बर-दो में जो कुछ हुआ सच में ऐतिहासिक ही था, शायद इस तरह की सुनवाई पहले कभी न हुई हो। हम लोंगो का केस 54 नम्बर पर लगा था, पर न्यायमूर्ति दीपक मिश्रा ने कहा यह केस एंड ऑफ़ कोर्ट सुनेंगे। इस तरह सारे मुकदमे खत्म होने के बाद हम लोंगो के केस की सुनवाई शुरू हुई। जज साहब ने दोनों पक्षो के वकीलों को चुपचाप बैठा दिया, फिर शुरू हुई हम लोगों की ‘सुप्रीम क्लास’ और ‘सुप्रीम एग्जाम’।

अपने विषय राजनीति विज्ञान से लेकर दर्शन शास्त्र तक के ढेर सारे सवालों से हम मुखातिब हुए। सवाल-जवाब का सिलसिला शुरू हुआ तो एकबारगी हम भूल ही गये थे कि हम सुप्रीम कोर्ट में खड़े हैं या किसी क्लासरूम में! न्यायमूर्ति दीपक मिश्रा की यह टिप्पणी थी “वाकई ये छात्र पढ़ने वाले है और  इन्हें परीक्षा देने का अवसर मिलना चाहिए।” इस एक साल में छात्रों के अथक और अंतहीन संघर्ष के आखिरी में यह बात हम छात्रों को सुकून देने वाली है कि हमें न्याय मिला और हां जज साहब अगली डेट पर हम वाइट शर्ट ज़रुर पहनकर आएंगे।

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On behalf of the final year students of the faculty of engineering and technology, Agra College, Agra (Affiliated to Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow), I am writing this to let everyone know about the injustice that happened to us.

It all started in April 2016, when it was time for our annual college function, KALRAV. The college cultural committee (which comprises of faculty members) ordered a mandatory contribution of ₹350 for the function. Only those who paid up would be able to attend the function. As the majority of students were not ready to contribute to the function (lack of placements, the poor state of the laboratories, poor academic environment, and unjust behaviour of the college administration being just some of the reasons), the cultural committee members began forcing the students to pay up. They stated, “If you don’t (pay), we will deduct 10 marks from the subject ‘General Proficiency’.”

During this time, the principal of the college was Dr Manoj Kumar Rawat, whose appointment was cancelled by the Supreme Court of India on July 15, 2016.

It was around July 20, 2016, that our semester results were out, and to our shock, we found that our marks had actually been deducted. About 120 out of the 265 students enrolled in the current B-Tech course had their marks deducted because they hadn’t paid for the function. The ones who had paid received marks between 45 to 50 on average, but the ones who did only received marks between 30 to 35 (out of 50). This deduction resulted in a variation of 2-3% on the overall result of each student affected by it.

Meanwhile, the newly appointed principal, Narendra Singh Yadav, constituted a committee which found that half of the engineering faculty staff had no appointment letters. No advertisement had been released for appointments.

On September 14, 2016, the principal was made aware of the marks deduction issue through an application duly signed by the 120 students affected by this. He constituted a committee to probe into the matter and assured us that suitable action would be taken within 15 days

A month passed, and all we got was just this one reply, “Committee is examining the issue, will let you know.”

On October 27, 2016, we presented our grievance, through letters, to the divisional commissioner and the district magistrate of Agra, as they were the president and vice-president respectively of the board of trustees. But we got no reply from them as well.

On November 11, 2016, after a telephone conversation with the district magistrate of Agra, we submitted the same list at his camp office at his demand. He assured us that he would take some action. But nothing changed.

On November 27, 2016, we met the district magistrate in person at his office, where he called the principal and ordered him to resolve the issue as early as possible. This grievance was then registered on the Jan Sunwai Portal (Integrated Grievance Redressal System, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh ). Again, nothing changed – the status of our grievance changed to ‘resolved’ in 10 days – without any actual action being taken on the ground.

On March 21, 2017, Narendra Singh Yadav was removed as the principal of Agra College, as he was found to be unfit for the post, and Dr A K Gupta became the new principal of our college. Once again, we made our new principal aware about the state of our grievance, but he was not interested in looking into this issue. He told us, “I don’t know the procedures to be followed to bring your marks back. If you know, then tell me. I can’t spend so much effort in pursuing this issue. You are free to pursue it to any level you want.”

On April 25, 2017, we told the additional divisional commissioner (administration) of Agra about the issue. He passed an order to the present principal – to submit a report on the actions taken regarding this issue at the commissioner’s office within 7 days. Yet, no such report has been submitted till date.

It has been more than 8 months now since we started pursuing this. Absolutely no move has been made to resolve it till date. The college administration is just waiting for the issue to blow over, and wasting our time in the process.

Our final semester exams are round the corner, starting from May 12, 2017. Once our marks are finalised by the university for the last time, it will be much more difficult to correct them.

We demand strict and immediate action on this issue. No more assurances and misdirections! They have played with our future, just for the sake of some currency notes. Few things can be darker than this.

When will we be getting our marks back?

The post You Can Buy 15 Marks For ₹350 In This College In Agra, Students Claim appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

The official website of the President of Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, recently broke the news that the President will receive an honorary doctorate in literature from Lovely Professional University (LPU) in India. While this notice could not be found on the official university website and there was no response from the university office confirming or denying the event, The Maldivian President’s office says, “the university decided to confer the award in appreciation of continued and outstanding efforts by the President towards the nation; acknowledging the transformational changes being achieved during his tenure.”

It is common for universities to bestow honorary degrees on celebrities and world leaders. Their choice of the recipient may stem from various motivations that may not always be linked to high ideals. The existing students and alumni of the university may truly believe that the President embodies the values of their institution. They may believe that the management actually followed President Yameen’s political career in choosing to honour his accomplishments. However, students may still find it worth their time to know the highlights of President Yameen’s achievements independently of their university’s position, considering that he may soon be conferred the same honour that was bestowed on the Dalai Lama in 2015 by the same university. A good look at some of the transformational changes on record that have taken place in the Maldives on President Abdulla Yameen’s watch is warranted.

During the tenure of President Yameen, the Maldives has faced:

• International condemnation on issues of human rights,
• Unprecedented religious radicalisation of the country’s youth,
• Unchecked rise in the number of extremist fighters being recruited from the country by the Islamic State,
• Implementation of an oppressive defamation law that severely restricts free speech under the guise of protecting Islamic beliefs,
• Blatant exploitation of a subservient police force and judiciary that often seem to collude in order to persecute the regime’s political opponents,
• The unsolved disappearance, forced exile, and in some cases the horrific murders of journalists, social activists, bloggers and liberal politicians.

These are just a few feathers in Yameen’s cap that may make the university proud.

In 2016, under the leadership of President Yameen, the Maldives chose to withdraw from the Commonwealth of Nations into isolation. This happened after it was confronted with suspension from the group for failing to take substantive steps to fight the threats to its fragile democracy. The regime reportedly misused its power to introduce politically biased legislation and detain political opponents, followed by flawed trials and even cases of vandalism and arson at independent media offices. Following this, the Commonwealth expressed its deep disappointment at the lack of progress in achieving a conducive climate for the advancement of democratic goals in the country.

In further damage to President Yameen’s political credibility, the details of an investigation by Al-Jazeera reporters last year shed light on how Maldivian government officials in high positions colluded with foreign businessmen to launder money from the sale of the state-owned Maldivian islands. The investigative team secretly filmed confessions of men who bragged about delivering heavy bags filled with stolen cash to the President himself.

Based on what they read or listen to, students at LPU will find ample grounds to wonder whether the transformational changes that the President has brought about in the Maldives are worthy of the honour that their university is bestowing, or the international censure that the leader has continued to receive. The irrefutable facts in the public domain documenting the details of President Yameen’s sinister style of governance in the Maldives should be enough for the university to reconsider any honour, however ornamental. It is unclear what literary merit the university sees in a president going about his daily job, even if it could be blindly assumed that it was a job well done.

The management of the LPU may be blind to the larger consequences of honouring such a leader. But it still has a responsibility towards its students to not prop up dubious role models (like despotic foreign leaders) to emulate in their lives. The university should reconsider its decision to confer any kind of honour to a leader who should be held accountable for so much oppression and suffering in his country. Students of LPU may find there is no pleasant, poetic solace to be had in the grim realities of Maldivian politics with President Yameen at its helm. Even if he may soon hold a doctorate in literature.

If you think the University should recall this honour, sign this petition.

The post Why Is Lovely Professional University Honouring A Maldivian Autocrat? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

In an incident of road rage in Aligarh on Monday, May 8, class 5 student Anam Aslam, who is 13-years-old, was shot in the head by a pair of goons. The bullet was aimed at the van driver when it missed its target and hit the student.

The assault is said to have taken place because of a petty traffic issue when two men on their motorbike got into a fight with the driver of the car and pulled out their firearms. That is when one stray bullet hit Anam above the eyebrow. She was rushed to JNMC (Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, AMU). According to the SSP of Aligarh, “it appears to be an incident of road rage”. However, the investigation is still going on. Although the matter isn’t clear yet and the evidence and facts have not been released by the concerned officials, this is currently the most widely believed account of the dreadful incident.

Anam Aslam was a student of class 5 of Girls High School, Aligarh Muslim University. Going back on Monday afternoon from her school to her home in Upper Court, Aligarh, was when the incident took place. She was immediately rushed to the hospital where she was put on a ventilator.

On May 9, she was referred to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where her condition was declared critical as the bullet is said to have stuck in her brain. A sum of ₹1.15 lakh has been collected and donated for her treatment by the Aligarh fraternity, and students went to the hospital to donate blood and support her family.

Similar incidents, where firearms were pulled out and used for petty issues have taken place in Aligarh before this. In late 2015, Alamgir, a bachelor student of social work was shot in the middle of the campus on a busy day.

Although there is no information about the goons who shot Anam, the matter needs to be looked at as a critical one and dealt with as a part of the university’s loopholes. The gun problem in and around the campus has to be dealt with strictly and seriously by the University administration to prevent such incidents from happening again. Firearms attained illegally and armed goons in and around the university pose a serious problem to the university’s peace and we, the student fraternity and as a strong campus need to start working towards complete disarmament.

The post 13-Year-Old From Aligarh Muslim Uni. Shot In An Incident Of Road Rage appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

If you haven’t been following the recent and disturbing changes happening in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), 22-year-old Rahul Rajkhowa has you covered. It took him all of 3 minutes to break down the current situation in a rap song uploaded to his YouTube channel. In it, he speaks about how JNU’s Vice-Chancellor Jagadesh Kumar has managed to ‘wipe out MPhil’ in various disciplines, including those in Rajhkhowa’s own school – the School of International Studies (SIS). Of the 13 centres offering MPhil programmes at SIS, the oldest school on campus, there are now only three.

Overall intake in JNU has dropped from 1,048 in 2016 to just 130 this year, and MPhil and PhD research in many departments has completely vanished. Naturally, the move is going to affect both students and staff, but it is expected to be a massive setback for women, Dalit and other minority students. However, as the video suggests, the administration has been callous about all of this.

Rajkhowa, an MA student hailing from Assam, addresses how difficult it has become for many like him to pursue their studies, even as society continues to pile its expectations onto students. But that’s not all. He pulled no stops in the video, also rapping about the ham-handed way in which JNU’s administration handled things when in October 2016, MSc student Najeeb Ahmad went missing after an altercation with members of the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad on campus. Rajkhowa also raps about the tense and unreasonable period in February 2016 when the whole campus had been labelled as ‘anti-national’.

Given that rap music’s origins are rooted in social and political resistance, it’s only fitting that this young rapper from JNU is ‘standing up to The Man’ this way.

The post JNU Student Takes On Vice-Chancellor In This Powerful Rap appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

On Tuesday, May 9, Kerala-based author and freelance journalist Sree Parvathy, took to Facebook to announce the sudden change of venue for the release of her upcoming book ‘Meenukal Chumbikkunnu’.

‘Meenukal Chumbikkunnu’, which means fishes are kissing, is an upcoming book centred around the theme of two lesbian lovers and how they hide their love from the society in which they live.

The book was scheduled to be released on May 14, 2017, in St Teresa’s College in Kochi. The author’s friend, Mohan Das, who had arranged for the college’s auditorium as the venue, said: “It’s a book written by a woman about two girls. All the guests for the book release event are women. We thought that it would be wonderful if we could release it in a women’s college.”

In her Facebook post, Sree Parvathy said: “Lots of people have supported me through messages and phone calls. For all those who asked, here is the reply: St Teresa’s College was the first venue decided for the book launch, they had agreed to it. In accordance with the same, we printed the brochures and invitations. But today morning, upon enquiry, the officials informed me that since the topic of the book is love between girls, an all-girls college cannot permit for such a book launch. I cannot officially blame the authorities because a private institute has a right to refuse.”

While it is true that the institute has the right to refuse, the question being raised by the author is why would the institute revoke the permission, which had been granted earlier. She raises this question in her post as well – “But why do they fear such a topic? I believe that love is the greatest feeling, irrespective of the gender. What gender difference do souls have? What gender difference exists once we lose our bodies? It’s all nice to talk on a different level. A state like Kerala even today is not ready to talk about lesbianism out loud. If a college like St Teresa’s which has progressive thinking students, thinks in such a manner, the state of a common man can be imagined.”

Different explanations have reportedly come from the authorities of the college. The principal, Sajimol Augustine M, told the Deccan Herald that the permission for the event was denied, but she was not aware of the reasons for the same. At the same time, the head accountant Sister Magi, however, told The News Minute that “Permission had been denied as maintenance work was being done in the auditorium.”

Additionally, Mohan Das also told The News Minute that “…it was not possible for them to provide the auditorium as they can’t accept the theme of the book. The nuns, who are handling the college administration told me that their superiors had denied permission. One of the nuns asked why we had not informed them about the story and that the Bishop was unhappy with them”. The author is also of the opinion that the permission was revoked after the authorities read the brochures circulated by them describing the content of her work. While the new venue for the release has been finalised as Children’s Theatre (opposite St Teresa’s College), the question of why did the college revoke its permission remains to be speculated.

Translation of the Facebook Post by Dhanya Mallar, Student of Law, Symbiosis Law School.

The post Why Did This College In Kochi Stop The Release Of A Book About Lesbian Love? appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

साल 1992, दसवीं क्लास का बोर्ड इम्तिहान। एक सुनहरे भविष्य की उम्मीद में मैं इम्तिहान दे रहा था। घर से जाने से पहले अपना एग्जाम स्लिप और हर वह कागज़ात निगरानी से अपने पास रखता था की बिना इनकी मौजूदगी के मुझे कोई परीक्षा देने से रोके ना, किसी भी कारण अगर कोई मुझे परीक्षा देने से रोक देता तो ? शायद ये सकरात्मक जज्बात, कुछ और ही रूप ले लेते, लेकिन इसका ज़िम्मेदार कौन होता, क्या नियम कानून, जिंदगी से ज्यादा बेशकीमती हैं ?

हरप्रीत सिंह, बठिंडा जिले के ग्रामीण इलाके से ताल्लुक रखता था, छोटे मद्यम्वर्गिय किसान का बेटा। मैं इस इलाके से ही हूं, जहां उच्च शिक्षा के लिये कोई संस्थान नही है। अगर कोई बच्चा पढ़ाई में होशियार है तो उसे आगे की पढ़ाई के लिये चंडीगढ़, अमृतसर या लुधियाना के किसी कॉलेज में दाखिला लेना होता है। लेकिन गावँ के बच्चों के लिये ये रास्ता और भी कठिन है। हरप्रीत सिंह, हर तथ्य को झूठा करार देकर, अपनी मेहनत से सपनो की उड़ान भर रहा था, हरप्रीत को बतैर स्कॉलर, अमृतसर के खालसा कॉलेज में BSc. एग्रीकल्चर में एडमिशन मिल गया और रहने के लिये कॉलेज के हॉस्टल का एक कमरा। पंजाब में नामी कॉलेज में, वह भी एग्रीकल्चर में एडमिशन मिलना, शायद हरप्रीत की उम्मीद सच हो रही थी और एक उज्जवल भविष्य की नींव रखी जा चुकी थी।

साल महीने गुजरें, अब हरप्रीत अपने अंतिम सेमेस्टर में था। इसके बाद MSc में एडमिशन लेना चाहता था वो। हरप्रीत इसी के लिये प्राइवेट कोचिंग भी ले रहा था, लेकिन इसी बीच ये भी तथ्य सामने आये की हरप्रीत का पहले आँख का उपचार हुआ था और बाद में चिकनगुनिया के चलते नियम अनुसार उसकी क्लास में उपस्थति कम थी। इसी के चलते हरप्रीत को प्रैक्टिकल एग्जाम के लिये रोल नंबर नही दिया जा रहा था, एक तरह से उसे इम्तिहान में बैठने से रोक दिया गया। इसी सिलसिले में हरप्रीत ने पहले कॉलेज के प्रिंसपल और फिर रजिस्ट्रार के पास भी अपनी गुहार लगाई, परंतु हर जगह उसे मायूसी ही हाथ लग रही थी। ऐसे और भी विद्यार्थी थे जिनकी उपस्थति कम थी परंतु उन्हें फाइन देकर  इम्तिहान में बैठने दिया गया लेकिन हरप्रीत सिंह को नहीं।

हताश और निराश हरप्रीत ने वह कदम उठा लिया जिसका किसी को अंदेशा भी नहीं था, जिन आँखों में जिंदगी की चमक थी, सुनहरे भविष्य की नयी उम्मीद थी, अचानक से हरप्रीत ने तारीख 27-अप्रैल-2017 को अपने ही कॉलेज के कमरे में ख़ुदकुशी कर ली। कारण यही था कि इस होनहार विद्यार्थी को इम्तिहान में बैठने की आज्ञा नहीं मिली थी। इसके बाद गुस्साए विद्यार्थियों ने सड़कजाम कर दिया, पिता द्वारा पुलिस शिकायत भी दर्ज करवाई गयी, जहाँ मुख्य दोषियों में कॉलेज प्रशासन, प्रिंसपल और डिपार्टमेंट हेड को दोषी बनाया गया है।
वहीं कॉलेज के अध्यापकों द्वारा अपने सहयोगियों पर लगाये जा रहे आरोपों के खिलाफ एकजुट होने का प्रमाण दिया गया और कॉलेज की पढ़ाई ठप कर दी गयी। कॉलेज में हो रहे इम्तिहानों को रोक दिया गया। लेकिन सवाल वही है क्या किसी शिक्षा संस्थान के नियम किसी ज़िंदगी से ज्यादा महत्वपूर्ण हो सकते हैं ? आखिर क्यों बाकी विद्यार्थियों को जुर्माना लगा कर इम्तिहान में बैठने दिया जाता है लेकिन हरप्रीत को रोक दिया जाता है?

पिछले कई सालों से, अलग-अलग कॉलेज कैंपस में विद्यार्थियों द्वारा की जा रही ख़ुदकुशी, इसका एक लड़ीवार सिलसिला चल रहा है जहाँ एक मात्र कारण प्रशासन और छात्रों के बीच बढ़ती दूरी नज़र आता है। और उसके बाद विरोध का एक सिलसिला चलता है, लेकिन ये भी सच है कि आज भी कॉलेज कैंपस में रोहित या हरप्रीत की जाने जा रही हैं, जिसका सटीक कोई हल नज़र नहीं आ रहा। इसका एक कारण क़ानूनी प्रक्रिया में बरती जा रही ढिलई भी है, जहां लगता है कि कानून और प्रशासन को एक ही तरह की भाषा बोलने की आदत सी हो गयी है। लेकिन ख़ुदकुशी के भी कारण होते हैं अगर इनके कारणों की ईमानदारी से तलाश की जाये तो ये एक हत्या नज़र आती है जहां समाज, व्यवस्था, कानून, प्रशासन कातिलों की लिस्ट में नज़र आते हैं।

फोटो आभार फेसबुक पेज Justice For Harpreet

The post खालसा कॉलेज के हरप्रीत की खुदकुशी हर कॉलेज स्टूडेंट को डराने वाली है appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Model United Nations (MUN) was the answer to all my social interests, when I was in class 7. The events I took part in provided a wonderful platform for learning public-speaking skills, increasing awareness on social issues and helping young students network with a diverse range of peers. They continue to do so, even today. However, these benefits come at a cost. After all, exorbitant fees are charged for attending such events.

For the longest time, I didn’t realise my privilege in being able to attend these events. These MUNs, conferences and seminars look great on one’s list of extra-curricular activities. They also help build ‘power circles’ – only amongst those who can attend these events.

The restriction of access on economic grounds also creates a vicious cycle that reflects in the later opportunities that the attendees receive. This is similar to the discrimination that ‘unpaid internships’ create for young people, worldwide.

These are events meant to engage with creating social change and developing future leaders to address the world’s pressing issues. Ironically, these events do not allow a majority of the population to even be a part of this dialogue. The restrictions come not only in the form of fees but also in the forms of the strict dress code one needs to adhere to, the need for personal digital access and several other incidental costs.

While asking the students (who can attend such events) to no longer participate in such events may not be feasible, there are many things that young students and organisers can do to ensure more inclusivity at such events. So, how do we fix this?

Firstly, each and every person should recognise their privilege. You should realise that you have opportunities that others don’t, and also acknowledge the benefits arising out of these opportunities. Then, steps need to be taken systematically to ensure that more people can benefit from these opportunities by reducing the entry-level barriers. These are some steps that one can take:

If You Are An Organiser:

1. Have a clear financial-aid policy for all such events which should be made known to all applicants. Corporate sponsors will be more than willing to take on the cost of helping more students (of diverse backgrounds) attend such events.

2. Take steps to provide free MUN training for students of lower income backgrounds at various educational institutions, so that awareness of such events and the know-how required to participate is available to more people.

3. Advocate for a more relaxed dress code. Not everyone can afford formal clothes – just providing free entry won’t reduce the barrier of being able to attend, if the attire itself clearly demarcates social groups and identities.

If You Are An Attendee/Participant:

1. Don’t attend events that do not provide financial aid to participants who cannot afford the fees.

2. Train students at your own college/school or other institutes who probably cannot afford personal digital access at home for research, or don’t have access to peer circles that can provide mentoring.

3. If you can, take on the personal cost of sponsoring the attendance of someone else.

The MUN events are meant to allow people to learn how to be improve the world they live in. However, you cannot do this when only a fraction of the people are represented in this dialogue. You cannot build agents of change and social leaders from only the upper echelons of society.

The appropriation of the voices of people who need change the most is the worst thing that we can teach younger generations. What we need to do, instead, is to teach them to create a platform that allows for voices of all persons to be heard, without the need to pay fees.

After all, “When you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence.”

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Image used for representative purposes only.

Image Source : Ministry of Finance, Government of India/Facebook

The post It Took Me A Long Time To Notice How Privilege Works At Model United Nations appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

I don’t know what it is. Is it because of the influence of people around me that I am in a different situation than others? It was all a bed of roses until now. I have given my ‘boards’, and here I am, worried about what career path I will choose.

I was a ‘focused’ student, unlike many around me. I spent nearly ten years of my school life studying harder than others, striving for the best grades. Competitive, most of the times, and a wee bit jealous too for a mark or two (and this is my first time admitting it). If I had realised what I was missing out on all these years, I would never have had the same history. Right now, as I am speaking to you, I’m also telling this to my younger self – I missed out on a lot. I missed out on people, on nature, on exploration, on eating, on thinking more, but most of all, I missed out on reading.

I remember what the libraries in all the three schools I went to looked like. There were huge stacks of books, librarians too, chairs, tables, windows, everything. What was missing in the picture was what was crucially needed – readers. This was the situation throughout the year, but it would change a month before the semester exams. The library would be jam-packed, like a gym is, after a New Year’s Eve. But nobody would take out books from the stacks; they came with their own to study — books that would get them grades. It is saddening to admit it now that I was one of them. Only if I had known about the treasure that lay between those covers, sometimes home to squashed dead spiders, lots of dust and treasure-hunt game slips that were hidden one day and lost forever.

Things changed one day when on one of my daily trips to the library (to read newspapers), I found that they had ordered some new books. I couldn’t help but gaze at those colourful and artistic covers. “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” – first of the seven books of “The Chronicles of Narnia” series. I immediately borrowed the book and tried my best to read through it but I couldn’t, for I was totally out of habit. I’m thankful for at least having picked it up. Years later the enthusiasm would return.

I started reading again in mid-2016. From slowly moving from one paragraph to another, I was reading day and night, totally drowning in the books. It was surprising, even to me, that I could actually immerse myself in something as ‘boring’ as non-fiction literature. History and political science which were once a cause of sleeping-while-sitting in the classroom became my favourite subjects. I immediately knew I had found my path, if not my goal (yet).

Books don’t impose themselves on you. They don’t ask you to be a doctor, an engineer or a civil servant. They will let you explore avenues that you might not be able to do through another medium or place. You can have a taste of everything and then look back and decide what you loved the most.

Explore all you want. Never let those who surround you, influence you in a negative manner. You decide who you want to be. I had, until now, made the mistake of not doing so. I let others make the most important decisions of my life, and I cannot be more regretful.

For me, it isn’t that late now. I’m in class 12, and I still have to decide what I want to be, a doctor, continue with the ‘family occupation’ or become a journalist, which I want to. Against all odds, I think now, why wouldn’t I choose the latter?

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Featured image source: Lee Summers/Flickr

The post After 10 Years Of Chasing Marks, What Happened When I Started Reading Books Again appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Kashmir. A state plagued by terrorism, mass uprising, violence, bureaucracy, politics of the worst kind and any other thing you can associate with chaos. As the chaos deepens, rational thought, reason and logic, seem to have abandoned one and all. One bad decision after another has turned the already volatile environment of the state into a full-blown catastrophe. One cannot, at this point know, what will happen next. A student is no longer protected and safe in their school.

On April 12, 2017, as per accounts and reports by various news agencies, an army Casspir vehicle from the 55 Rashtriya Rifles entered the Degree College in Pulwama, when most students were in classes. Shortly afterwards, students protested against the presence of military personnel on campus. This incident was followed by massive protests in the following week where neither of the parties backed down. Many students, including women, were injured. As per eyewitness accounts, the principal of the college, threw himself in front of the personnel, asking them not to hit the students but to take his life instead. He was sacked later.

A day or two after this incident, students from different colleges across the main city of Srinagar protested in massive numbers. The situation got even worse as forces took riot control means to disperse protesters. The situation deteriorated further, and students started pelting stones. Many female students were injured as well. In other districts, the situation followed a similar pattern – students were out on the streets pelting stones, getting injured by tear gas shells and other means of riot control. Every day a protest was reported in one area or another.

When I take a step back and think, several points flash in neon. The biggest neon flash is how will anyone justify violence of such nature on students. The paramilitary forces gate-crashing into an educational institution, in the first place, doesn’t seem to be a very well thought out move. If paramilitary forces were present earlier for any reason in the college, it could have been conveyed earlier. In a state where wounds of last year’s uprising have not healed yet, was it advisable for forces to just barge into a college? The level of savagery and insensitivity that we, as humans, have reached, baffles, and at the same time horrifies me.

Having said that, how is stone pelting a solution to anything? What are the results? Have we achieved anything by pelting stones? Violence begets violence. Only injuries and deaths have taken place. No solution. No progress.

The burning question here is, what gives anyone the license to kill and hit students, and that too in the world’s largest democracy? What makes 14-15-year-old kids take part in riots? And I present this argument on the premise that children are children, whether in India, USA, China, or any other place. There is a certain manner in which children have to be dealt, not by attacking them with pellets and tear gas shells.

In a state where resentment towards the government, and alienation, is already at its peak, how do these decisions play out? Don’t these decisions just worsen the already terrible situation? And now, the government, in what I believe it thinks is a masterstroke has banned social media to stop the transmission of sensitive content. Being the largest democracy, isn’t it just plain embarrassing for the government to make such a move? Also, won’t news spread even if social media is banned? If you are to stop transmission of news you have to ban all forms of media – print and electronic as well. Again where’s the reason and logic behind these decisions? Won’t it just further alienate the youth and the people? Won’t it just spark more hatred?

The biggest misconception about Kashmir today is that the youth wants just geographical and physical freedom. What we fail to understand is freedom isn’t geographical or physical anymore, it is also psychological. It is freedom from the politics that is being played in the name of azadi. It won’t be long before this chaos descends into anarchy and all talent, youth and resources are lost.

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Image source: Waseem Andrabi, Hindustan Times/Getty Images

The post Protests In Kashmir: ‘Can’t Deal With Students With Pellets And Tear Gas Shells’ appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz, an award-winning online platform that serves as the hub of thoughtful opinions and reportage on the world's most pressing issues, as witnessed by the current generation. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.