Home Ministry officials have suggested that slapping of the serious charge of sedition against Kumar could be an act of "over enthusiasm" on the part of some Delhi Police officers.
The signatories to a letter sent to NCERT Director Dinesh Saklani include Kanti Prasad Bajpai, a former Jawaharlal Nehru University professor who currently serves as the vice dean at the National University, Singapore, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a former vice-chancellor of the Ashoka University, Rajeev Bhargava, a former director of CSDS, Niraja Gopal Jayal, a former JNU professor, Nivedita Menon, a JNU professor, Vipul Mudgal, the head of civil society watchdog Common Cause, K C Suri, a former professor at the University of Hyderabad who is now associated with the Gitam University, and Peter Ronald deSouza, a former director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies.
Indications of a stormy start to the Budget session emerged at an all-party meeting with opposition accusing the government of "setting the agenda for disruption".
The alliance also emerged victorious on 30 out of 31 seats for councillors. The ABVP won only one councillor seat from Department of Sanskrit.
The JNU VC said the "status of shudras given to women in Manusmriti" makes it extraordinarily regressive.
Concerned over continued disappearance of a Jawaharlal Nehru University student for nearly two months, Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the police to "scan" the entire campus, including hostels, classrooms and rooftops, of the varsity by using sniffer dogs.
The appellate authority which heard the appeals of the 21 Jawaharlal Nehru University students who were penalised in connection with the controversial February 9 event has found all of them guilty of indiscipline even as the financial penalty imposed on some of them has been reduced.
Most of the shops, business establishments, petrol pumps and offices were shut in and around the Lal Chowk city centre and in many areas elsewhere in the city, while government offices witnessed thin attendance, officials said.
A 23-year-old student of Jawaharlal Nehru University attacked a woman friend inside a classroom with an axe, leaving her severely injured before taking his own life by consuming poison and slitting his throat on Monday.
The court told the police to ask the authorities concerned to expedite the sanctions.
The Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday asked the Union, state governments and Jawaharlal Nehru University not to allow pork and beef during a festival at the varsity later in September. "If beef is served by a group of students in the premises of JNU on September 28, then the consequences would be serious," Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta said in a statement.
Anant Prakash, one of the five students accused in the Jawaharlal Nehru University controversy, on Monday demanded University Vice-Chancellor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar take a 'courageous stand' and ensure that all charges against them are dropped.
The home minister assured the family all kind of assistance, the sources said.
Taking a dig at ruling the BJP over its stand on the Jawaharlal Nehru University row, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said that nationalism is now decided by whether one can say 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' or not.
Why are Dalits protesting against hangings in Hyderabad? Why is the focus on Muslims in JNU? Why are the students insisting on representation from marginalised communities when they are being judged by a committee? The fact is that India reserves the death penalty mostly for Dalits and Muslims, says Aakar Patel.
The magisterial probe, ordered by the Delhi government, had found that out of seven videos sent to a Hydrabad-based forensic lab, three were doctored, including one clipping of a news channel.
The chief minister said Najeeb, who has been missing for over two weeks now, will come back only when Prime Minister Narendra Modi could be made to realise that he is losing votes over the issue.
Defiant Jawaharlal Nehru Univeristy students who have been punished in connection with a controversial event on campus on Tuesday asserted they will not pay fine and vacate hostels.
Thousands of students from universities and colleges across Delhi staged a massive protest in New Delhi on Thursday.
Five Jawaharlal Nehru University students, including Umar Khalid, who the police have been looking for in connection with a sedition case, surfaced on campus on Sunday, saying they did not do anything wrong but were "framed" using "doctored video".
The JNU panel had in 2016 recommended rustication of Khalid and two other students and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on Kumar.
Jawaharlal Nehru University students union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on Friday in connection with a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy over holding of an event at the prestigious institute against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
Celebrations erupted on the JNU campus after JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was granted interim bail in the sedition case, with supporters awaiting his release from jail.
While Khalid was rusticated for one semester and slapped with a fine of Rs 20,000, Bhattacharya was rusticated till July 15 and after July 23 he was barred from the university campus for five years.
The high court had on rapped the police over the manner of its probe into the disappearance of Ahmad.
Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya along with other students started the hunger strike at night and said they reject the findings and recommendations of the high-level inquiry committee that probed the incident.
A Delhi court on Monday allowed the custodial interrogation of two Jawaharlal Nehru University students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, arrested in a sedition case, by one more day.
The AISA, SFI, DSF and AISF have come together to form the 'United Left' alliance.
The charges against JNU PhD scholar Umar Khalid are shrouded in a lot of "fabrications and lies" and the episode has "taken away" all sense of normalcy and sanity from the lives of his family members, his sister said on Friday calling him a "true son" of India.
In his letter, the Delhi CM wrote that it was completely wrong to brand the varisty as a "centre of terrorists" and demanded immediate release of "innocents" arrested in the case.
Najeeb, 27, a student of School of Biotechnology and a native of Badaun in Uttar Pradesh, went missing on October 15 following an on-campus scuffle allegedly with the members of ABVP.
JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, whose arrest on charges of sedition three weeks back had triggered a massive outcry, was on Thursday released from Tihar jail amid celebrations by his supporters.
The varsity, however, clarified that it does not signify a "clean chit" to the students and that the final decision in this regard will be taken after examination of the report by the vice chancellor.
The rally from Raj Ghat to Jantar Mantar saw marchers fervently waving the tricolour and raising slogans like 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' with some of them saying that nothing is above 'nationalism'.
The government said it is open to debating the JNU row in Parliament during the upcoming budget session starting February 23 with Modi saying that it will address the concerns raised by the opposition.
The JNU student leader said, "There is an atmosphere of fear in the country and anybody who speaks against the government is threatened."
Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar on Wednesday alleged the government flared up the issue of JNU to divert people's attention from the Rohit Vemula's suicide issue and subsequent developments.
Members in the Rajya Sabha had sought the government's intervention in resolving the protests by JNU students by advising the university authorities to reconsider its decision to severely penalise some of them.
Students resolved to change their "method" of protest and resort to peaceful agitation till missing student Najeeb Ahmed is traced.
Students, who are agitating over the alleged inaction of university in the case of missing student Najeeb Ahmed, have not allowed the vice chancellor and about 12 other officials to come out of the building since Wednesday afternoon.
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