Students protest St Stephens college for Christian quota!

New Delhi: Five student activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of Bharatiya Janata Party, were released on Friday evening after being detained by police earlier in the day for protesting outside St Stephen’s College over its increased quota for Christian students.

Around 100 ABVP students had Friday staged a demonstration outside the college main gate against its decision to increase quota for Christian students from 30 percent to 40 percent earlier this week. The supreme council of the college, a minority institution, decided to incorporate 10 percent reservation for Dalit Christian students for the upcoming academic session.

Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) vice president Vikas Dahiya and ABVP leader Kapil Garg, who led the protest, were detained by the police after they tried to meet Stephen’s principal Valson Thampu without his permission.

Five student activists were detained but were released in the evening after they gave a written apology.
"The protestors wanted to give a memorandum to the principal over the quota issue. We had to detain them when they started shouting slogans against the college administration," Deputy Commissioner of Police Devesh Srivastva said.

Source: http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14473196

[pagebreak title=’New Admission Policy’]
India’s Top College Prefers Only Christians; Ignores The Rest
One of Delhi’s premier institution for higher education – Saint Stephen’s College today announced its  new admission policy which reserves a whopping 40% of seats on the basis of religion!

Here is what their new policy looks like
40% of the seats are reserved for Christians, 25% of which are for Dalit Christians. Another 20% reserved for other categories and quota’s while having only 40% for the general category.

Quoting the ‘CIA Factbook’, Christians make up only 2.3% of the Indian Society. While this figure maybe subject to debate, no one could honestly argue that the percentage of Christians in India goes overall beyond 3%. Nor does any of the usual reservation rhetoric hold as the group termed neither "backward" nor "oppressed".

Then what is the reasoning that justifies 2-3% of society to be able to avail "super benefits" with respect to Higher Education? The honest answer would be – None.

However, some would argue that the institution is a "minority institution" and thus would be entitled to religious reservations. But what sense does that make? India used to be a "hindu nation" which has now opened up to secularism, hasn’t it? Then what gives minority institutions the right to practice their variant of religious apartheid while demanding the rest of Indian Society to grant equal rights to all?

Secularism is a two way street where not just Hindus but also Christians, Sikhs and Moslems are to do their part in building an all inclusive Indian Society. Furthermore it is our allegiance to the Indian Constitution which requires us to have no discrimination on the basis of religion in Education.

Religious reservation not only go totally against all the virtues of the Indian Constitution but also continue to feed the flame of divide within Indian society. All Indians, Christians and otherwise, should unite to bring an end to all religious reservations.

Source: http://newspostindia.com/report-3573

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