Bhopal: Don't need assurances, MANIT PhD scholars' demand trend on Twitter

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The PhD scholars of Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT) on Sunday took to Twitter to make their voices heard.

The PhD scholars had started a protest inside the premises demanding extension of the paper submission dates and release of arrears to continue their research. They postponed protest after Member of Parliament Pragya Thakur intervened and asked management to reconsider their decision.

The students took to Twitter and posted their demands, tagging the MANIT management, ministry of higher education and government of Madhya Pradesh from Sunday morning, making their hashtags trend.

The students have alleged that despite Thakur's intervention, the management has left the matter to sidelines and are doing nothing to fulfill their demands. Scholar Manoj Biswas said, The management did say in front of MP Pragya Thakur that they will reconsider the decision. But they have done nothing. We donít want assurances, we need written orders.

A scholar requesting anonymity said, The scholars from reserved category (SC/ST) should get tuition fee waiver as our counterparts at other NITs get. If the management doesnít pay heed to our demands, we will resume protest.

The administration issued an order in October that students will have to submit their SCOPUS paper (that require lesser experimentation and as such lesser time) as no extension will be provided to them if they have completed three years of their research.

The scholars were to complete three years in December end and were informed about non-extension in October, which resulted in them having little time to complete research papers. MANIT administration had earlier given extension to scholars submitting SCOPUS papers too like those submitting SCI/SCIE in November 2019.