Research scholars protest over delay in increasing scholarship

Over 1.5 lakh research scholars from leading institutions of the country today staged a protest outside the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry over delay in raising of scohlarship amount.
The scholars from IIT Delhi, AIIMS, DRDO, Delhi University, JNU and others have launched an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar here over the central government's "failure" to keep its promise on implementing a 50 per cent hike in research scholarships announced in October last year.
"We are protesting against the delay in increase of the scholarship amount from 16,000 to 25,000 for junior research scholars and from 18,000 to 28,000 for senior research scholars," President of Society of Young Scientists, AIIMS, Anil Kumar said.

"Many of us were detained by police while we held a protest and submmited a memorandum to the Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Smriti Irani," he said.
29-year-old Siva Ranjan Upala, a research scholar from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Mohali is on indefinite hunger strike since February 16. He had undertaken a 7-day padayatra from Mohali to Delhi in December to highlight the issue.
Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum (PMSF) extended its support to the research scholars.
"It is noteworthy that the present agitation has resulted following non-implementation till date of an official order that was released by different funding agencies of the government in October 2014 to the effect of increasing the fellowship amount awarded to research scholars in leading research institutions of the country.

"Despite several representations having been given to the Union Minister for Human Resource Development and to the Ministry of Science and Technology, government has failed to move either on the demands of the research scholars or on its own official order to hike the fellowship amount," PMSF said in a statement.