Quota: Govt pledges to please all

Ads by Google

ibnlive.com is on mobile now. Read news, watch videos
be a Citizen Journalist. Log on to m.ibnlive.com NOW!

Related Stories

• SC upholds OBC quota, keeps creamy layer out

• CNN-IBN exclusive: MBBS merit seats on sale

• AIIMS docs barge into SC to protest against quota

Photogallery

Find us on Facebook | Join IBNLive community

Stay ahead with G-Talk Buddy | Click now!

  

New Delhi: Medical students' agitation against the government's quota proposal continued across the country on Monday as the Health Ministry issued a general notice to all medical faculties to stop the strike and re-join work.

The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) held a meeting to decide on measures to tackle the situation.

There were indications that Government was mulling an increase in the number of seats in institutes of higher learning like IITs and IIMs.

However, no specific official announcement was made in this regard.

Following the meeting Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, "CCPA met and reviewed the full situation including the agitation. We will ensure a mechanism which would keep the interests of all students of the society. Full details are being worked out and will be announced shortly."

Medical students boycotted classes and government and private doctors struck work in hospitals in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi and cities in Gujarat and Punjab in support of the Indian Medical Association's (IMA) call for a strike.

Doctors of several private hospitals are on a daylong strike in Delhi and students of five government medical colleges continued their hunger strike for the second day.

Routine and emergency services at several private hospitals in Delhi were affected. Services at five government medical colleges in the city, where the agitation was first began, is already suffering since Saturday.

At least 150 students of five medical colleges, who have formed the Youth For Equality group, held a hunger strike for a second day at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and demanded an immediate rollback of the proposal. A Lady Hardinge Medical College student fainted during the protest.

Several private hospitals in Delhi closed OPD services in support of the IMA's strike call.

Doctors from across the Capital will hold a demonstration at Rajghat to press for a rollback of the proposal and action against police officials who lathicharged medical students in Mumbai on Saturday.

"We demand a total roll back of the proposal to give 27 per cent reservation to OBCs and a review of the present reservation policy," said Amitasha Sinha, a student of Lady Hardinge College Medical students said the hunger strike would continue till the government takes back the reservation proposal, announces a review of the reservation policy and orders stringent action against Mumbai police officials.