Protest against JNU seat cut turns ugly

Things turned ugly outside the University Grant Commission's (UGC) building on Tuesday when scores of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students and teachers reached there, demanding a rollback of the UGC May 2016 notification that led to a massive seat cut in MPhil and PhD courses in the varsity.

The police allegedly manhandled the students when they tried to remove the barricades and enter the building. "Delhi Police thrashed some students brutally. We were just asking for our right to higher education. We are asking our seats back," JNU Students' Union President Mohit Pandey said.

Nine students, including Pandey, were detained by the police. They were released within an hour. "The police lathi-charged our peaceful protest. Many students were hurt," he said.

The varsity prospectus released last week had left everyone in a fix after it stated that only 194 seats were available for both integrated MPhil-PhD and direct PhD courses. Last year, this figure was 1,174. In fact, several centres at the varsity have not offered even a single seat.

Giving reasons for this seat cut, the varsity stated: "The number of seats has been announced on the basis of the UGC 2016 regulation that puts a cap on the number of students a teacher can supervise at a time."

According to the notification, a professor cannot guide more than three MPhil and eight PhD scholars at a time.

An associate professor, as research supervisor, can guide up to a maximum of two MPhil and six PhD scholars, and an assistant professor can guide up to a maximum of one MPhil and four PhD scholars.

Later in the day, a panel of JNU students, along with teachers, went to meet UGC Chairperson and submitted a memorandum to him. "We want to draw his attention towards what harm the UGC notification can cause to our universities. UGC should roll back the notification immediately," Pandey said.