Chandigarh
18 December 2021
DIVYA AZAD
The hunger strike by teachers working in the Colleges and universities of Punjab & Chandigarh entered its thirteenth day today with Prof (Retd.) Anil Sarwal, Dr. IPS Sidhu, Dr. Neeru Malik, Dr. Sandeep kaur, Dr. Sutapa Saryal, Dr. Ashish Kapoor and Dr. Navneet Kumar Pruthi sitting for the hunder strike from 9 am to 5 pm, and Prof. kapil Gandhar, Prof. Suraj Narayan, Dr. Sandeep Bisht & Prof. Uday Bhan Singh continuing the strike from 5pm today to 9 am tomorrow.
A sit-in protest was also held today at MCM DAV College for Women, Chandigarh by the from 11 am to 1 pm under PFUCTO and PCCTU demanding the implementation of 7th Central Pay Commission and revocation of the government’s highly controversial move to delink the Higher Educational Institutes (HEI) of the State from the University Grants Commission (UGC). The teachers are bitterly criticizing the move to delink the HEI from the UGC which, the academic experts believe, will lead to creation of a financial emergency in the higher education sector & severely hamper the teaching and research activities. The teachers who had gathered in huge numbers flayed the State Government for their callous attitude towards them, who have been on a state-wide complete education bandh and chain hunger strike since 1st December, 2021. The protests have already led to the postponement of the semester end examinations of Punjab University that were scheduled to be held from 17th December, 2021.
Despite the use of excessive force against the protesting teachers yesterday, the unrelenting teachers marched in a silent protest to Madhya Marg in continuation of their efforts to invite attention of Chief Minister Sardar Chanranjit Singh Channi and his cabinet towards their just demands.
