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JNU standoff continues- 15-Feb-2017

New Delhi: The standoff between JNU administration and JNUSU continued today with both sides trading charges and the VC Jagdesh Kumar accusing the students occupying the administration block of trying to make the university "dysfunctional" through their "illegal" siege.
 
The protests over UGC notification on PhD/MPhil admissions approved by decision making bodies of JNU, spilled outside the campus as scores of students, teachers and alumni participated in a march from Mandi House to Parliament and held a protest meeting at Jantar Mantar when stopped by police on the way.
 
Parliamentarians D Raja, Ali Anwar and Digvijay Singh, also addressed the meeting along with JNU Teachers Association (JNUTA) leaders, criticising the university administration for present situation on the campus.
 
However, Kumar appealed to the university community to come forward to "save" JNU from detractors and agitators "hellbent" upon making it "dysfunctional".
 
Ever since the evening of February 9, the entire administration building is under "siege" by JNUSU-led students occupying the space inside the building and some other student groups "blocking" entry and exit from outside, he said.
 
"Hundreds of staff and officers, including the Vice Chancellor, are debarred from carrying out their day-to-day work by just a small number of unruly students," he said.
 
JNUSU accused Kumar of not meeting the students and making "arbitrary" decisions and "fundamental" changes in JNU's admission policy and research programmes.
 
"The JNU VC is shockingly announcing arbitrary decisions and fundamental changes in JNU's admission policy and research programmes through press conferences – refusing either to discuss these in JNU's decision-making bodies, or to meet students and teachers representatives," said JNUSU president Mohit Pandey.
 
Replacing JNU's topic-based system of allotting supervisors to students with supervisor allotment based on a specified number of students per faculty, will destroy quality of research in JNU which is India's best central university, he said.
 
The students' union began its hunger strike 15 days ago days against the imposition of the 2016 UGC notification by the JNU administration at the Administration Block.
 
The VC however said that repeated attempts were made by the university officials to convince the students to end their agitation and meet him for discussing their grievances but they did not accept it.
 
"When the VC office gave an appointment to meet the student representatives on February 13, it was rebuffed," he said.

The 2016 UGC gazette notification on MPhil and PhD admissions, the administration has made it "amply" clear that it is mandatory for all universities to follow, he said.  

"The JNU administration appeals to the entire JNU community to engage in efforts towards defusing the current unhealthy and unlawful agitation. If we succeed in doing so, other legal and administrative steps to end the unlawful blockade of the administrative building can be avoided," he
added.
 
Meanwhile, students affiliated to Democratic Students Federation (DSF) unit in JNU have appealed to the President to intervene in the present situation prevailing on campus.  

"We have collected over 4,000 signatures of students and submitted them to the President's office with an appeal for his intervention in the prevailing situation at JNU as Visitor of the university," said Pratim Ghosal, secretary of DSF.