After a day-long aggression protest on Wednesday, hundreds of students across the four campuses of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences(TISS) continued to boycott classes and examinations on Thursday.
Several students assembled at the main gate of the institute's Mumbai campus on Thursday morning and continued with their protest. Speaking to DNA, one of the students said the protest started at around 8 am and lasted until late evening. "We are not going to stop the agitation until the administration comes up with a concrete solution. There has not been any assurance from the authorities over the last two days" said one of the protesting students. Owing to the protests, the institute has also cancelled exams of the second year Masters programme in Social Work (MSW) which was scheduled to take place on Friday morning.
Close to 1,200 students at the institute, who are eligible for the Government of India Post-Matric Scholarship (GOI-PMS) for SC,ST students, would have to bear the hostel and dining expenses as the institute said in a circular issued in May 2017 stated that it would not be able to support these expenses owing fund crunch. Protesting this decision, the student union of the institute had announced an 'institutional strike' on Tuesday.
Students from all four campuses of the institute- Mumbai, Tuljapur, Hyderabad and Guwahati also joined the protest.
As the strike continued, several alumni of the institute signed a written statement supporting the demands made by the Student union. The administration also stated that it had called a meeting with all the students to discuss the issue and offer possible solutions.
