Indian institute of science education and research Pune (IISER) and council of scientific and industrial research - national chemical laboratory (CSIR-NCL) are witnessing its research scholars take part in the agitation by scholars from prominent science and technology institutes and centres of the country demanding need for hike in fellowship grant. Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan, principal scientific advisor under the government of India finally responded on Wednesday stating that the department of science and technology is taking the matter seriously.
The protests which ensued in several parts of the country recently saw a large demonstration in Delhi, with 1,000 PhD scholars coming together to demand a hike in fellowship. The agitation has been against the governments “ignorance” towards research scholars with respect to their monthly stipend which has remained stagnant since the past four years.In order to seek remedy for the same, research scholars from various institutes, sent a letter to the office of department of science and technology (DST) on October 30.
Via a tweet he said , “ IndiaDST (Department of Science and Technology) is working on this, it involves multiple steps with multiple agencies. Everyone is working together: ramping up the temperature neither helps nor hurts the process. Pl schedule a meeting with @IndiaDST who will be happy to explain steps.”
Sachin Kumar Singh,a PhD student from IISER Pune said, “After we sent out the letter to the DST post the protest, we received a positive response to hold a meeting on November 6. We are hopeful that this meeting will reap positive results in favour of the scholars. Also Shekhar Mande, the director general of CSIR ,showed his support to our cause via social media. We hope the matter to reach a substantial point after Diwali.”
{{/usCountry}}Sachin Kumar Singh,a PhD student from IISER Pune said, “After we sent out the letter to the DST post the protest, we received a positive response to hold a meeting on November 6. We are hopeful that this meeting will reap positive results in favour of the scholars. Also Shekhar Mande, the director general of CSIR ,showed his support to our cause via social media. We hope the matter to reach a substantial point after Diwali.”
{{/usCountry}}As per the letter issued by the PhD students, every four years, the government has raised the stipend amount for the scholars by 60 per cent. In 2014, after a similar strike the government has hiked the stipend from ₹16,000 to ₹25,000, and the students expect a similar rise in 2018.