With the demand for the postponement of NEET and JEE examinations, seven chief ministers of non-BJP ruled states, decided to jointly move the Supreme Court on the issue, on Wednesday.
How Did This Happen?
Despite Covid-19 concerns, chief ministers of seven states have agreed to move a petition in the Supreme Court in hope to challenge the Centre’s decision to hold the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) and the National ligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG).
Prior to this, Centre decided to hold NEET and JEE amid the coronavirus pandemic and also release centers and hall tickets information on their website.
In response to this, the Congress party has decided to hold nationwide protests against the government’s move in solidarity with the applicants who have expressed concern about lack of transportation and inevitable crowding during the exam.
Basically, the move followed a meeting chaired by Congress interim chief Sonia Gandhi with chief ministers of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Punjab among others in attendance.
During the meeting they urged the states to approach the Supreme Court against conducting exams during a pandemic.
Mamata Banerjee said, “The government has announced exam dates during such uncertainties. Rail is not working, air transport is not smooth. The decision will harm students during the pandemic,”.
“I don’t know how they will sit for exams,” she added.
Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray agreed on the same and said “if the conditions were not conducive to conduct exams in June then how can it be conducive now when the coronavirus has spread even further”.
What Does Center Respond?
So far, over 150 academicians from various universities in India and abroad have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to them, further delaying the medical and engineering entrance exams — JEE-Mains and NEET – means compromising the future of students.
Further academicians said, “Some are trying to play with the future of students to propel their own political agenda”.
“Youths and students are the future of the nation but in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, clouds of uncertainty have gathered over their careers too. There are a lot of apprehensions about admission and classes which need to be resolved at the earliest,” they said.
According to them, “further delay in conducting the exams will result in waste of precious year for students. The dreams and future of our youth and students cannot be compromised at any cost. However, some are trying to play with the future of our students simply to propel their own political agenda and oppose the government”.
It seems that this issues has taken a political undertones on Wednesday when opposition leaders started attacking the Central government.
Initially, JEE-Main was supposed to be held from April 7-11, but then postponed to July 18-23.
While, NEET-UG was originally scheduled for May 3, then pushed to July 26.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.