YFE Pamphlet 28.10.2007: Foreign Students Issues

“Jawaharlal Nehru University is not a foreign student friendly campus and survival is purely on the mercy of god” said a Middle East Student while talking about her experience as a foreign student in JNU.

‘I was not born for one corner. The whole world is my native land.’ So said Seneca, the philosopher. India and Indians never shy of foreigners! They have always treated them with kindness. The philosophy ‘Atithi Devo Bhavah’ has never been an out of context phrase. Kings, Emperors, Sultans and national governments arranged foreign alike situation whenever there was an important foreign dignitary. King Harsh Vardhana himself presented all the Chinese comfort to Huen Tsang. These are the ingredients which attract foreigners to come to India and get imbibed with the civilization. The adverse climatic condition and over population has never been deterrence for the foreigners. Then what is the deterrence – if any? The answer is very strange and full of shame! Administrative apathy and insensitive civil society are the stuff to defame India through the plight of foreign students in JNU. The student union as well as student bodies are equally responsible for this.
Imagine – * there is no eatery, literally, for foreign student to eat inside the campus. There is total absence of food for these brand ambassadors. How can they survive? Does it mean they must live without fooding inside the campus to study? The Indian food in the hostel mess is really a tough option for them. Worse is outside eateries inside the campus. The results are – amoebiasis, stomach ache and digestive disorder which leads to may other related disease. The first few months of the foreign students is normally meant for spoiling their health and then correcting it. This is the way of JNU welcomes its scholars and students.

Why don’t we provide an intercontinental fooding stall for our foreign student friends??

• No information is provided on behalf of the University for the Foreign Student to follow the Do’s and Don’ts. Jaundice, Malaria, Dengue and other dust-related diseases are foreign to these foreign students in their own country. In the absence of any information regarding these diseases the foreign students are vulnerable to these diseases as they do not take any precaution. Why the JNU administrations not giving any information leaflet to the foreign student mentioning regarding these deadly disease and how it can be avoided??
• Indian system of publishing result is very notorious. Students across the country have to wait for months and years to know their result. JNU is following some strict regulation to publish result but not before waiting for at least a couple of months and here lays the problem. Indian student can wait not the foreigners! Their Visa expired immediately after the completion of their course! Their engagement in their home country is very much time bound and cannot wait for months. Their next academic engagement in their home country is suffering because of this delay. Cannot JNU issue provisional certificate immediately after the completion of the course to the foreign students?? Worse there is no information or initiative on the part of the University to extend the Visa. Foreign students have to travel from pillar to post to locate Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO), Home Ministry and Hospital to extend their Visa just to wait for the result!
• Many foreign students are coming from poor countries and they are like very much the Indian students and not funded by rich sponsoring agencies. To help them out, the university has instituted a Fee Waiver Committee. But facing this committee on the part of any foreign student is a nightmare! The attitude and behavior of this committee is very much arrogant and they issue racial comments to the foreign students to discourage them to apply. The committees trademark suggestion and opinion is ‘why are you here when you cannot fund your education??’ Foreign Students prefer hardship to face this committee. JNU must be sensitized to this issue without any delay.
• JNU signed seventy one (71) Memoranda Of Understanding with this much of foreign university. But the unwritten maxim for those students coming from these universities and from others is ‘while in JNU you are at your own’.
  

Who will take care of these unfortunate foreign students? Why they have been disowned by the very university which is recruiting them? This is the reason the international rank of JNU is controversial. Youth For Equality is committed to the valid concerns of foreign students. Let’s work together to make JNU a better place for everybody including the foreigners.

CENTRAL PANEL
BABITA SHARMA – PRESIDENT SUJEET KUMAR – VICE PRESIDENT
SWASTI RAO - GENERAL SECRETARY KUMAR ABHIJEET – JT. SECRETARY

PUBLIC MEETING TONIGHT
SPEAKERS
1 – DR. BHURE LAL, MEMBER, UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION (ALSO FORMER SECRETARY TO TWO FORMER PRIME MINISTERS OF INDIA)
2 – DR. (MS.) SUNITA NARAYAN, DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT
VENUE: Godavari Mess, TIME: 9.30 PM

Hemant Kumar Neda Mirsamadi
Chief Campaign Coordinator YFE Representative