FACEBOOK, HIKE RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPIn an attempt to get the pay raise they were promised, at least half a dozen Indian graduate students last week initiated a hunger strike, with thousands more taking to the streets in a nationwide protest, ScienceInsider reported. In response to protests last July, India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) announced in October that graduate student monthly wages in the first two years of a five-year program would be raised from $257 (16,000 rupees) to $401, and from $289 to $482 for the last three years, Nature reported. In December, the University Grants Commission, which also supports graduate students, announced a similar increase in salary. But for many, those pay raises never came. Moreover, many students get paid with as much as a half year’s delay, or not until the end of the financial year.
“We are still struggling for a notification from many other departments and there is complete uncertainty about all those fellowships,” Pankaj Jain, secretary of academic affairs of the students’ council at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, wrote in a letter to India’s Prime Minister in January, on behalf of the graduate students. “This has unfortunately forced us to explore the mysteries of government procedures, rather than exploring the mysteries of science.”
The hunger strike was initiated on February 16 by 29-year-old biomolecular imaging PhD student SivaRanjan Uppala, who is currently studying at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali. At Jantar Mantar, an ancient astronomical observatory near New Delhi, Uppala set up camp, refusing to eat. Soon, other frustrated graduate students—from ...
