Polls looming, college students come out with own manifestos

“Being an election year, we wanted young India to brainstorm and find real policy solutions that could work in India. We provided the teams with themes, guidelines and useful resources to come up with an innovative manifesto. The top three manifestos are being sent to Congress, BJP and AAP,” said Venktesh Pandey, manager (competitions), Abhyuday.

Students had to focus on three to four sectors and address sub-issues in each sector. “We advocate the abolition of the current reservation policy for higher education and favour merit-based admission in all universities. Reservation on economic criteria should be introduced,” says the manifesto of team “avengers” from National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, which was adjudged the best entry.

Significantly, central policies was a major focus of the NITIE team, which also spoke of removing Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir. It called upon Maoist leaders to join mainstream politics and advocated elementary education and public amenities like schools and hospitals in areas under their sway. “Development projects (in the North-East) such as investments in rubber and bamboo agricultural produces, investments in the huge untapped hydroelectricity potential, development of trading hub with Myanmar and Bangladesh will be undertaken promoting the North Eastern Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy-2007. Systematically detection, detention and deportation of illegal immigrants from the India-Bangladesh border who have emerged as a major source of homegrown terror will also be done,” it said.

Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies or JBIMS’s Bharatiya Parivartan Party, which came second, critically looked at the teacher training and feedback system. It favoured a central teacher eligibility test, marks of which would be valid for three years and would be maintained online to be used during recruitment in schools. It also advocated an all-India test for current primary school teachers. “Our ideology is based on change through education. Accordingly, in our manifesto, we talk of having ‘bhrasht-aakaar (forms of corruption)’ as a subject in the school syllabi to stop corruption at the basic level. We have also said that schools with less than 25 per cent students from economically backward sections (EWS) in three years to deposit 25 per cent of the total fees to government and encourage discussion forums among parents and teachers to enrol students from EWS,” said Vivek Tiwari, a JBIMS student.

JBIMS team also spoke about safety of women and argued for special fast-track courts to ensure swift justice in cases of crimes against women.

The team from SSBT’s College of Engineering & Technology, Jalgaon, which looked at education and women’s empowerment, spoke about marital rape and promoting low semi-skilled jobs in urban areas for women like rickshaws drivers and watchmen, among others.

“Amendment of the marriage Act that gives the wife equal share of the husband’s inherited property will be passed… A committee will be set up to further improve the reservation scheme for education, shifting the focus from a caste-based system, to an income-based system,” said the manifesto, which grabbed the third position.

mihika.basu@expressindia.com