ABVP's Manifesto for DUSU Election-2008

Friends,
ABVP started soon after independence in 1948 with the objective of channelising students' energies in the task of National Reconstruction by a group of students and teachers.

The uniqueness of Parishad lies in the fact that it has emerged as a stable organisation of floating population of students. Another unique feature of the organization is that though it is a student organisation in every respect, the teachers also take an active part in its functioning. Ever since its inception teachers have been deeply involved in building up, the organisation and they comprise the permanent component of the membership. ABVP has now attained the status of not only an All India Student Organisation, but also the largest and most vibrant student organisation in the world, through a process of organic growth. It is working in 4000 colleges and 490 districts all over India and has a membership of more than sixteen lakh students, out of which 42% are girls.

The history of its growth proves that it is a live organisation with organic development, growth within the environment and growth without it. The ABVP played a historic role in the 1973 “Nav-Nirman Andolan” which began as an opposition to the hostel fee-hike in an engineering College in Gujarat, and slowly grew into a state wide movement against price rise, corruption and Congress misrule. This very successful movement ended with the resignation of the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Chairman Bhai Patel. The historic JP Movement of 70s took shape drawing ideological inspiration from the same Nav-Nirman Andolan. JP Movement played a key role in overthrowing the dictatorial regime of Indira Gandhi and re-establishing the democratic credentials of the country.

So far as ABVP's contribution in the national life is concerned it can be said with pride that apart from organizing a lot of constructive and meaningful activities and helping to solve the problems related to student and educational field, the Parishad has played an important role in highlighting and solving larger problems of the country. The ABVP today has a cadre of socially committed workers who are capable of undertaking any challenging task. Even after 61 years of independence education continues to be a neglected sector with the forces of status-quoism, commercialization and corruption controlling the apparatus. It has posed a challenge to national unity as forces of secessionism, and the politics of minorityism, violence, social inequality and strife, economic bankruptcy, etc. are haunting the scene. ABVP is struggling on all fronts for all these issues of education.

The ABVP has been active on various campuses, sensitizing the student community on the various threats posed to our national unity and also by organizing them towards the goals of National Reconstruction through agitation, constructive and representative modes. As nationalism has become the centre of debate on the campus, the bankrupt ideological positions of the Congress have receded to the background. The ABVP considers DU to be one of the most important centers of Students’ activities. The ABVP reiterates its position of not compromising the national, international and student’s interest at any cost and to serve the aspirations of the student community. At a time when opportunistic and totalitarian forces at the centre are conspiring to destabilize and jeopardize the national integrity and democratic ethos of India, the role of ABVP becomes extremely crucial to thwart their ulterior designs.

DU elections 2008-09 is taking place amidst acute national crisis, which is ideological as well as systemic. While a time has come wherein the concept of systemic change broached by ABVP needs to be discussed in the public space, the ideological perversions set in motion by the political parties in power needs to be arrested. In such a critical situation when various groups are hankering for their share in the pie and are ready to sacrifice the national interests, the student community of DU would strengthen the nationalist spirit by voting for the ABVP that represents selfless dedication to nationalism and unity and integrity of India.

NATIONAL ISSUES
ABVP is deeply concerned over the issues of acute Agricultural crisis, Suicides of farmers, Minority Appeasement, Vote-Bank politics, External and Defence affairs at the cost of national interest, Criminalization of politics, Soaring prices due to the inflation and many other issues related to national interest. During the UPA’s tenure, in the name of SEZ thousands of acres of land is being sold to industrial houses forcefully. ABVP demands from the government that it should refrain from taking farmers invaluable land by way of force. Prime-Minister’s sympathy towards people from a particular religious background clearly shows the minority appeasement policy and reasons behind this nothing but dirty vote-bank politics.

Commercialization of education is being done in the name of promoting privatization in the field of education. ABVP demands that by way of making a unitary law for whole country, the commercialization of education should be stopped. ABVP condemns in the strongest possible words on the issue of growing rate of violence in the country especially on the women and demands that strong measures should be taken to stop female foeticide.

The way UPA government in the Centre has been dealing with various issues viz. Amarnath Shrine Board Land Issue, Terrorism, Bangladeshi Infiltration, SIMI, Ramsethu, the question over the existence of Lord Shri Ram etc. is very condemnable. The policies of this government in dealing with these issues are spreading the communal disharmony and giving clear message to the enemies of the country that in this country they can easily achieve their mischievous goals. At this crucial juncture, it is needed that the youth of the nation should come forward and decide their as well as country’s fate together. ABVP call upon the youth of this country to support us in our movement of National Reconstruction.

Campus Issues
Delhi University is one of the premier educational hubs of this country therefore student union election is considered very important. For the past few years DUSU is dominated by the NSUI and it has not fulfilled the promises it has done during the past few years. Not to think of fulfilling them they did not even try to think over it. Because of incapability of NSUI led student union there are various student related issues and problems remains and the solution of which has become necessary such as --
•Lack of hostel facilities on the campus, students who belong to outside Delhi have been facing lots of problems.
•Students are also facing problems due to anomalies in University’s Internal Assessment Scheme.
•The cases of sexual harassment have also increased in the campus.
•Students of Delhi University are yet to get Metro Rail Concession and due to this they have to spend vast amount of money in conveyance only.

Friends, when NSUI’s masters (Congress) at the centre and state themselves are corrupt, how can we expect from NSUI led DUSU to work properly and uncorrupted. ABVP takes this as a challenge and vows to destroy the Congress’ attempt to corrupt the country’s one of the best institution’s student union. In this context DUSU election becomes very significant for us. ABVP has almost thirty years of glorious and successful history of its presence on this campus and so believes that once again students of this campus will give their mandate to the candidates of ABVP so that they can find a good and honest representation of their voices. If elected, we believe that our candidates would live up to the expectations of student community of this campus and solve their problems.

Following are the areas on which we would like to work upon:-

1)Fee Structure
•Various aspects of the fee structure of the university will be analyzed so that we can take an effort to make it more equitable and logical.

2)Reforms in Admission Process
ABVP led student union would do its best to make the admission process centralized and make sure that in this process priority of students be taken care of in matters of colleges and syllabus.
•We would also demand from the authorities to make sports, cultural and other quota admissions more transparent.
•We would also demand to give concessions in admission to the students who belong to rural background.
•We would also try to get the vacant OBC/SC/ST/PH seats in various colleges filled.

3)Teaching and Examination Reforms
•A demand will be placed to make an academic calendar of the whole year.
•In order to make sure the transparency, we would try to come up with the arrangement of making the answer sheets available to the students on their request.
•It would be tried to make the best answer sheet available in the library.

4) Internal Assessment
•We would try to do away with the anomalies in the University’s Internal Assessment Scheme. (The act of discrimination in the name of Moderation in Internal Assessment Scheme is really condemnable. It is also completely condemnable to change the marks sent by the colleges in the name of a particular college’s prestige,)

5)Transportation
•We would fight for getting concessions and student’s pass in Delhi Metro.
•We would continue our struggle to increase the services of DTC’s U-Special buses.
•We would also struggle to provide student’s pass in STA sponsored Blue Line buses and acknowledge student’s pass in all the public transportations in NCR.
•We would try to provide the shuttle buses between North and South Campuses.

6)Educational Issues
•We would try to remove the anomalies in the syllabus of B.Sc. restructured course. The students who have left a particular subject in high school are forced to study them in their college in the name of foundation course.
•University is changing the syllabus of some of the science courses every year from past 4 yrs. This year also it has changed the syllabus without taking care of the infrastructure and other requirements of the course.
•Some colleges have introduced certain specialized courses without proper infrastructure and because of this results of these courses have been near to 10-20%.
•We would demand for more and effective student representation in academic council.
•We would also demand to provide free internet facility to the students on the college campus.
•We would continue our demand to provide 7% of GDP to the Education sector.
•In the event of growing number of students we would try to get more new colleges opened and make sure that 50% from them should be especially for the girls.
•We would demand to introduce evening classes in every colleges of the university so that more students can get the chance of study in this prestigious university.
•For evening colleges we would try to arrange U-Special, Generators etc.
•At the university level demand of one centralised information centre would be placed.
•We would also struggle for the establishment of East and West Campuses.
•We would demand for beds in the university medical centre.
•Demand for a Law Faculty at the East campus would be placed.
•We would try to get the Central and Arts Library fully computerised.
•We would try to get a permanent computer literacy program introduced in every college.
•We would also pressurise the authorities with our demand to opening the Central Reference Library for 24 hours.
•To stop the exploitation of students who belong to outside Delhi, Coordination Committee of Private Hostel owners, Land Lords and Students would be made.

7)Vocational Studies
•We would try for the promotion of various vocational courses viz. Information Technology, Bio Technology, Business and Economics etc.
•We would demand for a university level coordination committee for the promotion of vocational and job oriented courses.

8) Placement Cell
•We would demand for a introducing a university level Placement Cell which would coordinate with various Government & Non Government organisations and provide the students with the job opportunities. It would also work as an information centre for the students in the matters of job.

9)Hostel Facility
•We would continue with our struggle to provide more hotel facilities to the students especially for deprived sections and also demand for well furnished hostels in both North and South campuses.

10)Gender Sensitisation
•We would demand to make Committee against Sexual Harassment more effective.
•We would help the committee by way of various constructive programs.
•We would also struggle for more student representation in this Committee.

11) Scholarship
•We would work for the increment in scholarships and demand to link scholarship with price index.
•We would also struggle for scholarships to all SC/ST/PH students.
•We would try to manage a link between industry-student-NGOs so that students from poor section could be helped. And, this kind of economic assistance would be provided through an Economic Assistance Committee.

12)Secure and Fear-Free Campus
•We would continue with our demand to make North Campus a compact campus.
•To make girl students more self confident we would organise Self Defence Training Camps in various colleges and university campus.
•We would try for the provision of a police booth near every hostel and make sure that there are female police staffs are present at every booth.

13)A complete South Campus
•We are dedicated to one Sports Complex in South Campus.
•We are also dedicated to struggle towards bettering the hostel facilities in South Campus.

14)Hindi Medium Teaching
•We would try for making Post Graduate class available in Hindi medium and provision for Hindi medium exam writing mode as well.

15)Student Insurance
•We would demand for insurance for 5 Lakh rupees for every student at the premium rate of 1 rupee per day.

16) Functioning of DUSU
•We would reinstall the democratic way in the functioning of the Student’s Union and bring transparency in economic matters.
•We would also work for participation of DUSU President in University’s Council and participation for all DUSU members in the ‘University Court’ as well.

Friends, we promise that ABVP led DUSU would pursue the aforementioned agendas and always work for a good academic and secure environment on the campus. We promise that we would struggle till the last to provide the university students with better facilities so that a culture of healthy academic environment could be installed once again in this campus. ABVP is concerned about its responsibilities towards students and youth of this great nation so it promises that through DUSU it would work for their best and try to live up to their expectations. We call upon the students of this university to take active participation in the forthcoming DUSU elections and support to elect the ABVP’s candidates.