Anti-quota contiue stir, more support pours in

New Delhi, May 29: Day after rejecting government's draft proposal to break the impasse on the contentious quota issue, striking anti-reservation students continued their agitation for the 16th day today.

Even as doctors at Maulana Azad Medical College and University College of Medical Sciences struck work today, students from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru University began relay hunger strike.

Faculty at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences would undertake 24-hour hunger strike tomorrow while medical services in the entire national capital would be shut down on May 31.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was expected to hear a petition on the reservation issue today.

Yesterday after the agitators warned that the stir would be intensified as their demand of a ''written assurance'' was not being heeded, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held consultations with Minister of State without Portfolio Oscar Fernandes and his Principal Secretary T K A Nair about the outcome of their meeting with the striking medicos held earlier in day.

The government then announced the setting up of an Oversight Committee headed by Administrative Reforms Commission chairman Veerappa Moily to oversee the implementation of the proposed 27 per cent quota for OBCs in higher education.

In a major move to break the fortnight-long impasse on the contentious quota issue, later in night the government came out with a draft proposal, assuring striking medicos that the existing general seats in medical institutions would not be reduced while implementing the 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs.

However, in a blow to the government's efforts, the striking medicos rejected the draft proposal, saying it ''did not reflect anything concrete and was not satisfactory''.

UNI

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