AISA

Massive Curtailment of the JRF Fellowship and Scuttling of Social Justice by UGC ! More than 400 JRF Scholars NOT to Receive Fellowship !! Massive Anomalies and Non-Transparency in UGC Norms !!!
Several serious problems regarding the UGCs NET exam have emerged: in keeping with the UPAs larger agenda of scuttling social justice and cutting funds in higher education, the UGC this time has introduced several new and highly problematic clauses: Fund Cuts Denying Financial Assistance to 425 ELIGABLE JRF Scholars: A Press Release issued by the UGC states that 3625 students have qualified for the JRF fellowship. However, subsequently, the UGC claims that it has funds only to provide fellowships to 3200 students! What about the remaining 425 students, who have qualified for the JRF fellowship? How can UGC deny them their rights, when they have been deemed eligible by the UGC itself? This is merely the latest in Kapil Sibals assault on higher education and inclusion. Such fund cuts ARE NOT acceptable to the student community, and have to be robustly resisted. Reverse Reservation and Scuttling of Social Justice: A careful look at the documents released by UGC reveals shameful policy of REVERSE RESERVATION! In as many as 21 disciplines, the cut-off for OBC students is HIGHER than for general category students! For example, in Philosophy, the general category cut-off is 74.42, while the OBC cut-off is 75. Clearly, the UGC has blatantly flouted the BASIC rules of reservation and affirmative action. The OBC students who get marks higher than the general category cut-off should be treated as general category students. It is clear that the UGC has NOT done this, and has in fact treated OBC (and probably SC/ST/PH also) as stand-alone social categories thus denying several OBC/SC/ST/PH students the right to claim the JRF fellowship. This higher cut-off for OBC students compared to General Category is openly VISIBLE in 21 disciplines: Philosophy, Social Work, Defence and Strategic Studies, Population Studies, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Chinese, Assamese, Russian, Rajasthani, Arab Culture and Islamic Studies, Buddhist, Jaina, Gandhian and Peace Studies, Criminology, Folk literature, Sanskrit traditional, Geography as well as International and Area Studies. Clearly, this WRONG reservation rule has been followed in ALL disciplines and social categories, and therefore the scuttling of social justice is on a much wider scale than is apparent right now. New Rules, Lack of Transparency: This year, the UGC has announced some NEW criteria for eligibility for NET/JFR. These new rules have been announced in a completely non-transparent manner and that too POST-FACTO, after the NET exams were conducted! This is clearly illegal. Till last year, the UGC had prescribed minimum eligibility criteria for the three papers in the NET exam. This year, a NEW eligibility criteria was introduced, wherein students have to get an certain defined OVERALL aggregate minimum qualifying marks. This rule was not notified before hand, and students suffer from new rules introduced in this high-handed and arbitrary manner. These moves by the UGC have to be strongly opposed. AISA appeals to the student community to strengthen all initiatives in the days to come to oppose the undemocratic UGC rules against scuttling of social justice and fund cuts. An important meeting of the UGC is going to be held on 22nd Oct. We urge JNUSU to organise a Protest Demonstration on this date at UGC on this crucial issue . 14.10.12 Akbar, President, AISA, JNU Ashutosh Kumar, Jt. Secy., AISA , JNU