DU teachers, students go on hunger strike

• Oppose pleas for granting autonomy to colleges
• Want ad hoc teachers to be made permanent

New Delhi: Scores of teachers from the Delhi University observed a hunger strike here on Wednesday demanding ad hoc teachers be made permanent ones and protesting the move to grant autonomy to varsity colleges.

The protest, initiated by the Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA), saw many students from the radical left-wing All India Students' Association also participating along with the teachers.

"Our demands are that ad hoc teachers who have been working in the university for several years should be absorbed as permanent teachers and colleges should not be privatised in the name of autonomy," said DUTA Secretary Vivek Chaudhary.

Several teachers and students have been protesting the long-standing issue of absorption of ad hoc teachers and lately they have been agitating against the colleges which have applied for 'autonomy' with the University Grants Commission - a proposition which a section of teachers has translated as a ruse for privatisation and increasing course fees.

So far, two colleges from the university -- St. Stephen's College and Hindu College -- are in talks with the UGC and the Ministry of Human Resource Development to go autonomous.