NEW DELHI, May 19: Indian officials promised more university places for all on Friday as a medical strike against a new affirmative action plan entered its second week with fresh clashes between police and students.
A week after police beat medical students with batons in Mumbai, television stations broadcast images of khaki-clad officers whacking crouching students in white coats in Bihar.
Unlike the students in Mumbai, the Bihar students were for more places for disadvantaged students.
As many as 35 were injured in the clashes, including 20 protesters and four journalists. Violence started when police turned on the students after they vandalised cars and accused local media of failing to cover the rally.
But anti-quota protesters continued to demand the government scrap plans to reserve more places for the disadvantaged in top universities, even as Indian officials said they will hike the total number of university places.
“Some figures we are working out — (to) increase the number of seats in the existing institutions and also create new institutions,” Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters Friday.
But adding new faculty and physical infrastructure could take years in bureaucratic India, Mr Mukherjee said.
“It might take one semester, it might take four as well,” said Mukherjee.
But interns and junior doctors in state-run hospitals across India vowed to keep up the protests — including hunger strikes — against the controversial proposal, demanding a full rollback.
“It’s impossible to increase the number of seats as it also needs infrastructure,” said Subroto Mandal, a strike leader in New Delhi. “Unless the number of seats are increased there should not be an increase in the quota.”
Students like Mandal are angry at plans to set aside 49.5 per cent of places in top medical, engineering and management colleges and universities for disadvantaged students.
At present, 22.5 per cent of places in leading private and state-owned educational establishments are reserved for low-caste Hindus and students from ethnic minorities. Opponents say the move will hurt professional standards.
In the eastern metropolis of Kolkata, student doctors joined their colleagues in New Delhi on a indefinite fast to protest quotas, although other medical personnel returned to work.
“Twenty students and doctors of nine medical colleges of the state are participating,” Ajitesh Roy, an intern of R.G. Kar Medical College said.—AFP
NEW DELHI, May 19: Indian officials promised more university places for all on Friday as a medical strike against a new affirmative action plan entered its second week with fresh clashes between police and students.
