Anti Quota stir - Join in and support it - Page 41

Doctors go on mass casual leave to protest Quota Bill
[ 24 Aug, 2006 1027hrs ISTINDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK ]


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NEW DELHI: Thursday is not a not-so-pleasant deja vu for patients at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

More than 700 resident doctors from AIIMS and Maulana Azad Medical College have gone on mass casual leave in protest against the OBC reservation Bill.

Under graduates of AIIMS, Maulana Azad Medical College and UCMS have also go on a 24-hour strike. The situation will be reviewed after a day and the future course of action decided accordingly.

Earlier, authorities at AIIMS have decided to stop OPD registration at 10 am on Thursday instead of the usual 11 am to cope with the mass absenteeism.

The official stand is that emergency and in-patient services will not suffer but with just about 500 faculty members and 300-odd residents expected to be on duty that would be a tough task, admit insiders. On an average day, the patient turnout at AIIMS is about 7,600.

AIIMS spokesperson Dr Shakti Gupta said: "We have a contingency plan ready, one of which is to curtail OPD timings because one doctor can only see about 40-50 patients in a day and once a patient is registered he/she has to be attended to. Anyway not all residents will go on leave, the available work force will be pressed into service and things are expected to be normal."

Resident doctors at the institute sported black ribbons on Wednesday as a mark of protest. Said Dr Vinod Patra, president of the Resident Doctors' Association: "We are appreciative of some of the measures adopted by the government like the staggered implementation and preservation of the number of general category seats. But what was the hurry of placing the Bill for Cabinet approval when it was already sub judice in the Supreme Court? We are still hoping that the Bill will be withdrawn in view of overwhelming public opinion against it."

The mass casual leave is all set to receive support from other student groups as well though medicos elsewhere in the city remained undecided.

Safdarjung RDA will have a general body meeting on Thursday morning to decide the next course of action. Students and resident doctors from AIIMS, Maulana Azad Medical College and UCMS are also planning a human chain from ITO to India Gate on Thursday morning.

Prateek, a student of IIT Delhi said, "We will visit AIIMS tomorrow to show solidarity. There are also plans to have a rally from AIIMS to IIT in a day or two, debates are being organised. It is all going to be peaceful though we can take to the streets if pushed to it."

Doctors go on mass casual leave to protest Quota Bill
[ 24 Aug, 2006 1027hrs ISTINDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK ]


RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates


In the midst of renewed anti-quota fervour, there were a handful of resident doctors in AIIMS who went about their daily work minus the black badges.

"Only about 60% resident doctors are against the Bill. But the faculty is so overwhelmingly in favour of the anti-reservation lobby that we are scared to speak out. We are new, we would need their guidance and there may be negative academic fallouts of open support to reservation," said a resident doctor pleading anonymity.

Faculty association president Dr Binod Khaitan had told TOI on Tuesday that the association would be supporting any anti-quota movement.

Meanwhile the Medicos' Forum for Equal Opportunities has decried the renewed agitations, describing it as a result of "vacillation on the part of UPA" on reservation.

"The ground was prepared by the honourable SC when they ordered payment of wages for the strike period to resident doctors," an MFEO release stated.

'Creamy layer' will stay unanimously: Paswan


NEW DELHI, AUG 22 (PTI)
The Cabinet decision on reservation for backward castes and SCs and STs in elite Central educational institutions and Universities and not to induct the "creamy layer" concept was unanimous, Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said today.

"If somebody says there were differences in the Cabinet on these issues, then he is briefing you wrongly," he told reporters here on the Cabinet's decision last night.

Paswan said accepting the creamy layer concept in the new proposal for reservations would lead to seats in elite institutions like IITs and IIMs not getting filled up because 90 per cent of the admissions from these categories of people now belonged to the economically well-to-do.

He said when the question of creamy layer concept came this point of view was put forward. "Nobody opposed it. There was unanimity on the decision. If somebody says there was difference of opinion then he was briefing you wrongly," he said.

Pro-quota doctors slam govt for diluting reservation policy


NEW DELHI, AUG 22 (PTI)
Pro-quota medicos today attacked the government for "diluting" the provisions of the proposal for reservation for OBCs in elite educational institutions by excluding the creamy layer from the ambit of the policy.

"A deliberate attempt is being made by vested interests to confuse the whole issue of reservations by making out a case that economic backwardness of the reserved categories should be the sole basis for reservations," Medicos Forum for Equal Opportunities said.

The rider of creamy layer has every potential of being used as a tool to exclude eligible candidates of reserved categories from availing the benefit of reservation, it said in a statement here.

"Moreover, this concept overlooks the fact that the general category candidates making into the elite institutions of education are overwhelmingly from the creamy layer rather than the poorer sections of the general category," it added.

The medicos said they will accept the creamy layer concept only if preference is given to a candidate from non- creamy layer of the reserved category over a candidate from creamy layer of the same category.

However, if such a candidate is not available the benefit of reservation shall be given to even to creamy layer candidate of reserved category, it added.

The medicos also slammed the agitation by anti-quota doctors and hoped that the Supreme Court will take the responsibility for ensuring smooth functioning of health services.

Police clash with anti-quota students in Capital


NEW DELHI, AUG 22 (PTI)
Hundreds of students and medicos today took to the streets here and clashed with police as they resumed their agitation against the UPA government's decision to provide reservation in government-aided elite educational institutions.

A day after the Union Cabinet decided to introduce a bill in Parliament providing 27 per cent reservation, students from several colleges and medical schools in the national capital joined under the banner of 'Youth for Equality' in flaying the move and demanding its immediate reversal.

In scenes reminiscent of the earlier medical agitation, students converged in large numbers at Jantar Mantar, some 500 metres away from Parliament, chanting anti-Arjun Singh and anti-government slogans, waving the tricolour and singing patriotic songs.

Attacking the government for taking the decision "under political compulsion", the medicos' representatives said they would go to any extreme, including going on a strike, this time round to force the government to reconsider its decision.

"We will continue the agitation with the same intensity. Earlier, we had called off the stir after the Supreme Court intervened. The apex Court should now tell the government as well to reconsider the decision as the matter is subjudice," Anil Sharma, spokesperson of the AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association, said.

He said the medicos were also considering legal experts and indicated that they would move the Supreme Court against the decision to provide reservation for SC/STs and other backward castes in elite central educational institutions, including IITs and IIMs, from next academic year.

"Though we have not decided to go on a strike we are keeping our options open and it would be the last resort," Sharma said, adding students were being mobilised across the country and a national agitation would be launched soon.

The demonstration which began peacefully turned violent when the students insisted on meeting UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and submitting a memorandum to her enlisting their grievances.

A scuffle soon broke out between policemen and students when the protestors tried to break the security cordon and head towards the 10, Janpath residence of the Congress chief.

Police fired water cannons and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the agitators, who also blocked traffic for some time. Several students, including girls, suffered minor injuries in the melee.

Twenty-six students, who managed to cross the police barricade despite repeated warnings, were arrested and taken to the Connaught Place police station. They were later let off.

After the police prevented them from surging forward, the protestors from Indraprastha University, Delhi University, AIIMS, Maulana Azad Medical College, Lady Hardinge Medical college, University College of Medical Sciences and Vardaman Mahavir Medical College sat on the roads for several hours.

They dispersed later after much persuasion from police officials.

Creamy layer issue still open: Moily


NEW DELHI, AUG 22 (PTI)
Veerappa Moily, heading the Oversight Committee tasked with preparing the roadmap for implementing reservation in elite educational institutions, tonight suggested the issue of creamy layer was still an open one, though earlier Ram Vilas Paswan had insisted that it was a unanimous decision of the government that the creamy layer too would continue to get the benefits of reservation.

"....In my interim report, I said the creamy layer is a question that will be deliberated, [is] being deliberated.... And we will come out with a finding on the creamy layer in the final report (of the Committee)," he told NDTV.

"The process is still on and in fact...we're busy consulting everybody on some of these questions. It is a question of design. It did not find place in the bill and it is a question of the design of implementation, which includes the creamy layer, and still can be implemented. I don't think t he doors are closed", he said in reply to a question.

"On August 28 and 29, we have called many groups including eminent persons with regard to the design of implementation", Moily said.

IIT-K students, medicos observe 'black day'


KANPUR, AUG 23 (PTI)
Protesting the bill for quotas in higher educational institutions, engineering and medical students here observed a "black day" today and threatened to go on a hunger strike to press for its withdrawal.

Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur and Ganesh Shanker Vidyarathi Memorial Medical College students were wearing black badges and raising slogans against the Centre's proposal for reservation to OBCs in higher educational institutions, Youth For Equality state representative Chandrashekhar said.

The students were staging demonstrations since the morning and the GSVM medicos created traffic jam near Lala Lajpat Rai hospital.

Chandrashekhar said the medical and engineering students would go on hunger strike in IIT campus from this evening and claimed that the teaching staff of the institute would join them.

Some traders' and social organisations were also supporting the students' agitation against quotas, he said.

Medicos observe black day, to demonstrate outside SC


NEW DELHI, AUG 23 (PTI)
After resuming their anti-quota agitation in a violent way, medicos today observed a black day to register their protest and decided to step up the stir by going on mass casual leave and staging a demonstration outside Supreme Court.

Faculty members, resident doctors and medical students wore black badges to work as a mark of protest against the UPA government's move to introduce a bill in Parliament proposing 27 per cent reservations in government-aided elite educational institutions.

Resident doctors of several medical colleges will go on a mass casual leave tomorrow, said representatives of 'Youth for Equality', a broad platform of anti-quota students and medicos which is spearheading the agitation.

They, however, claimed that functioning of hospitals will not be affected as faculty members and senior consultants will run OPD and emergency services.

AIIMS spokesperson Shakti Gupta said the institute has drawn up contingeny plans to deal with any emergency situation. "All facilities and services at the hospital would be unaffected," he added.

Medicos and students will stage a sit-in demonstration and form a human chain outside the Supreme Court demanding its intervention to stop the government from going ahead with tabling of the bill.

"We had called off the stir earlier after the Supreme Court intervened. The apex Court should now tell the government as well to reconsider the decision as the matter is subjudice," Anil Sharma, spokesperson of the AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association, said.

Mandal II: Protesting doctors, police clash at SC
Rustam Roy
[ 24 Aug, 2006 1324hrs IST INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

NEW DELHI: Five junior doctors, including two women, were injured when police sprayed anti-quota protesters with water cannons and shelled them with tear gas outside the Supreme Court on Thursday. Resolute Resident Doctors said it only firmed their resolve.

The doctors have joined other students to protest against the Centre's decision to introduce reservation in government-aided educational institutions needs to be taken to another level. On Wednesday they observed a black day and on Thursday about 850 junior doctors have gone on mass casual leave.

The run-in with the police happened when doctors broke a police barricade and the police, ready for trouble, began to use water cannons. The police had two water tankers on the ready.

Earlier, inside the Resident Doctors' Hostel Block No. 7 at AIIMS, junior doctors sat huddled around TV sets. Most were on casual leave. Some had been reporting for duty. Many compatriots were staging the sit-in outside the Supreme Court.

The doctors said by evening they would know whether this round of protest would be taken to another level. The attempt is to stress that they are not doing anything "against the patients". Thus, some of them have been in and out of the hospital looking at some patients before returning to the hostels.

"The first priority is not to strike work, hence the mass casual leave today. We will decide on the next course of action following what happens at the scene of protest", an AIIMS junior doctor said. The resident doctors will meet at 8 p.m. on Thursday to decide the next course of action. "If pushed to the wall, we'll react then."

The AIIMS Resident Doctors on casual leave have been joined by their compatriots from Maulana Azad Medical College and Hindurao Hospital in the sit-in demonstration staged outside the Supreme Court, organised by medical students and university students' unions.

They planned to form a human chain outside the court demanding that it intervenes to stop the government from tabling the quota Bill. The doctors pointed out that it was at the intervention of the Supreme Court that they had earlier called off their stir.

Back at the premier medical institute of India, officials say healthcare services have not been affected, with the OPDs and casualty and emergency wards functioning. But the Resident Doctors said there were few patients coming in save either those from other towns who had long-pending appointments or then emergency cases.

Quota bill in LS on Friday

August 24, 2006 18:13 IST
Last Updated: August 24, 2006 18:17 IST

The bill providing for 27 per cent reservation of seats for backward classes students in Centrally-aided elite educational institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management is to be tabled in Lok Sabha on Friday, the last day of the monsoon session.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi gave this information to reporters on Thursday. The bill, which was cleared by the Cabinet on Monday, is expected to be taken up for consideration only in the next session of Parliament during winter.

The legislation, which is an enabling law arising out of passage of the Constitution 93rd amendment bill in 2005, is not expected not to induct the creamy-layer concept by which children of the affluent belonging to the depressed classes will also be entitled to reservation.

Against the demand of important United Progressive Alliance constituents DMK and UPA, the measure is expected to provide for only staggered implementation of the reservation proposal over a period of three years starting from the next academic session in 2006-07.