No registration for next sem without 75% attendance: JNU

New Delhi: The students' union observed a total university strike on Friday against the coercive measures taken by the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration after it issued the circular that students who refuse to comply with the attendance will not be allowed to register for the next semester.

Reacting over the circular, the varsity witnessed a complete lock-down, as student assemble at 7.30 am in front of the respective school or building to ensure that no person enters the building. "This is a do or die situation for the university. Students united cannot be defeated," read the message circulated among the students by the union.

In a note issued by the varsity on Thursday evening, students were told that requests for fellowships/scholarships will be processed only if the concerned students have achieved the minimum attendance (75 per cent). The circular further reads that all fellowship/scholarship (means-cum-merit, non-NET etc.) holders are required to meet the minimum attendance criterion, and if they fail to do so, they "will not be provided with any university facilities such as hostel, medical etc" and will not be able to register for next semester.

Geeta Kumari, JNUSU president said that it was another threatening circular from the JNU administration. "When they could not break us through the pressure from their favourite teachers and also their 7-8 circulars did not affect our movement. Now, they go this low to sabotage the whole united movement," Geeta Kumari added. She also said that we won't give any legitimacy to this administration and its 'farmans'.

Another student rues that the administration has broken all norms of decency by threatening to cut fellowships if students do not fulfill the draconian attendance criteria. Moreover, JNUSU has warned the administration of not testing the patience of the students and behave like a bully. The union alleged that administration is continuously trying to destroy JNU by the seat cut in research, scrapping deprivation points, scrapping GSCASH and countless arbitrary measures but the student community has refused to surrender to their whims and fancies.

The administration and students have been at loggerheads since the university last month reversed the age-old tradition of no attendance policy of JNU and imposed compulsory attendance system. Students and teachers in many centres of the varsity have refused to comply with the compulsory attendance system.