JNU students call off hunger strike

New Delhi: After almost tenth day of the dehydration, hunger and with the plummeting blood sugar level the eleven Jawaharlal Nehru University students, who had commenced a hunger strike on March 18 to get the Vice-Chancellor of JNU to listen to their demands over the arbitrary changes in the University's admission policy, have called off their strike.

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president N Sai Balaji made a statement among the large gathering of the students and J Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA), " We called off the hunger strike now, on the condition that all the students will support us in getting rid

of this V-C and any other Mamidalas in other universities and this government that is enabling them,"

However, JNUSU said that they intended to launch a stiff anti-BJP campaign ahead of the Lok Sabha poll in upcoming month to ensure that the existed government would be voted out of power. "We will march to Parliament and start a movement to defeat this government," he added.

He further added that the decision to call off the strike came after a concerted request on the part of the JNUTA's Atul Sood who read out a declaration – a charter of demands made by the forum of the people of India and the government- ending with a call to end the strike. The decision had been mulled over for two days not, ever since worsening health parameters of the eleven students coincided with a stubbornness on the part of the VC to meet with them or pay heed to their demands.

Moreover, JNUTA in a reading of the Sabarmati declaration (Adopted by the JNUTA National Convention of

Universities — 'Shiksha, Samajik Nyay, aur Sangharsh' on 27 March 2018), Professor

Atul Sood placed the following points; "Public education must be publicly funded. Academic institutions are in a state of

collapse. He added that we reject all these schemes and policies and at least 1.5 out of 6 pc of the GDP spent on education.