Research scholars threaten nationwide protest if their demand for stipend hike not met

By Bharath Joshi
BENGALURU: Research scholars from the premier Indian Institute of Science, who led a nationwide movement for an increase in research stipends, have written an open letter to prime minister Narendra Modi, demanding that a system be put in place for annual increment in fellowships.

They have even threatened to stage a nationwide protest. Taking a cue from Modi’s speech at the 102nd Indian Science Congress last Saturday, where he underlined the need to pay "attention to the ease of doing research and development in India," the IISc Students’ Council chose to express disappointment over their demand being met only partially.

"For more than a year, we successfully initiated a peaceful nationwide movement to raise our voice. However, I am not sure if we should be proud or disappointed with the way our system works," stated Pankaj Jain, academic affairs secretary of the Students’ Council, who wrote the letter on behalf of all research scholars.

There was a 55% rise in fellowships for JRF, SRF and research associates, thanks to students from IISc and other national institutes forming a pressure to be dissatisfied as the jump effected from October 2014 -- more than four years after the previous one -- was not implemented retrospectively.

"What was even more shocking is that successive notifications delayed the implementation further, with University Grants Commission implementing it from December 2014 and MHRD from January 2015! We are still struggling for a notification from many other departments and there is complete uncertainty about all those fellowships.

This has unfortunately forced us to explore the mysteries of government procedures leaving behind our science," Jain wrote. Major funding agencies such as the CSIR are yet to issue a notification on revised fellowships, he pointed out.

While asking the PM to put in place a formula-based annual fellowship increment system, Jain said research scholars would be forced to stage a nationwide protest in the coming days.

"Such a sad state-of-affairs is one of the major causes for the large outflow of talented minds." Former IISc director Padmanabhan Balaram agreed. Noting that a two-year interval for hikes may not be difficult for the government, he told ET: "There should be a way to index fellowships with inflation, based on a formula. I don’t think it is very difficult to do so, but there seems to be a psychological impediment in the government. Students are there for a relatively short period of time, and if you take so long for hikes, they may not get the benefits at all."