Manmohan to meet students

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet students agitating on the reservation issue on Friday. The meeting was planned along with the announcement of the decision to implement the reservations for OBCs in higher education yesterday.

However, it was decided at the Left-UPA coodination committee meeting that the issue could not be allowed to wait for resolution for another three days pending the PM's return from Jammu and Kashmir.

Meanwhile, President A P J Abdul Kalam today appealed to the medicos to end their hunger strike over the reservation issue.

One of the main grouses of the agitating students has been that the PM not only ignored their repeated requests for an appointment, but offered to meet them only if they agreed to withdraw the strike.

Besides, they are in a state of confusion as to the implications of the announcement by Defence Minister Pranab Mukherji on reservations being implemented from the next academic year.

"We don't know if it means that the general category seats would remain untouched, as earlier promised by the government," the students say. They are yet to get an official communication from the government and find the news reports too contradictory to rely on.

"If at all the general category is to be left untouched then how is it possible for the government to create a huge infrastructure within one year,'' asked student leaders Sasmit Sarangi and Anmay Sharma at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here.

The minister in his statement yesterday had said that keeping in view the interests of all sections the number of seats would be increased.

The government had said that the plan would take four to five years for implementation, starting from the next academic year.

With no breakthrough in resolving the quota issue, the striking medicos have called for "civil disobedience" by professionals to be observed here tomorrow noon.

"We are asking various groups such as traders, resident welfare associations, bank personnel and members of bar associations not to work tomorrow from 9 am to 12 noon," Dr Vinod Patro, president of AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association, said.

The move is being supported by the Delhi Medical Association and the Indian Medical Association.

The DMA would also organise a "dharna" at AIIMS tomorrow between 11 am and 5 am to support the medicos' agitation. Patro said medicos were planning to organise a "Delhi Chalo" rally on May 28.

In Bangalore, the IIM Students' Council, which met today to discuss the issue, supported the medical students protesting against reservations.

The student representatives of all the six IIMs in the country who met here, announced that the IIM students' council was also against the proposal for increasing the number of seats to resolve the issue.

"We don't feel that increasing the number of seats will resolve the issue of reservation," IIM students' council statement said. "Increasing the seats is contingent on the availability of infrastructure and human capital, which is getting dearer day-by-day," it added.

"We believe the empowerment should start at the lowest level and as we progress towards higher education, let merit be the sole criteria," the statement said.