Replacement row: JNUTA begins three-day hunger strike

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers' Association on Monday began a three-day hunger strike against the Vice Chancellor's decision of replacing seven Chairpersons and a Dean on March 15.

"The aim of this protest is to expose the lies being generated by the administration in order to cover up its repeated violations of decision-making procedures," said Sudhir Kumar Suthar, the Secretary of Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers' Association (JNUTA).

"Almost 150 teachers from different centres visited professors who are on a hunger strike. Everyone in the university has shown their solidarity towards the satragraha movement we launched on Saturday against this illegal decision," he said.

Three professors - Vikas Rawal of Economic Studies, Pradeep Shinde from Centre for Comparative Politics and Jyoti Bhosle of Informal Sector and Labour studies - will continue the hunger strike for three consecutive days.

"A total of 100 people will remain on a hunger strike in three days. We have divided the protest into two parts - 10 professors will continue protests for three consecutive days while 90 others will be remain on roster," said Sathar.

JNUTA President Sonajharia Minz noted that all attempts to resolve matters through discussions and dialogue seem closed which "forced teachers to take this recourse because of an unresponsive administration".

"JNUTA will lead a march to the parliament and launch a public awareness campaign to reach out to the people to disabuse them of the falsehoods that are being deliberately created to malign the reputation of this great university," she said.

Minz however added that JNUTA is committed to ensure that the admissions process are not disrupted. "It would only worse the situation resulting from the arbitrary seat cut that was imposed in the last academic year," she said.

--IANS

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