THE 9th All India Students Association (AISA) Uttar Pradesh conference was held at Allahabad on 3 March 2019. The conference elected a 21 member executive council with Shiva Rajwar (State Secretary) and Shailesh Paswan (State President). Other elected office bearers are Nitin Raj and Shakti Rajwar (Vice Presidents), Shivani Jaiswal and Vivek Kumar Singh (Joint Secretaries).
Addressing the conference, Comrade Sucheta De said that the Modi government has perpetrated well-planned attacks on Universities ever since it came to power. The policy of fee hikes and destruction of public-funded Universities is being imposed. Full attempts are being made to hand over higher education to the market through HEFA, autonomy, and JIO Institute of Eminence (JIO Institute model). The budget presented by the Central government this year before the election is the budget with least allocation for education since independence. With yearly cuts in the annual Budget since UPA-2’s 2023-24 Budget allocation of 4.77% for education, the allocation for education in the 2019 interim Budget is a mere 3.37%. BJP governments at the Centre and in States are bent on destroying education and employment opportunities.
State Secretary Shiva Rajwar said that the Central government has brought the 13-point roster in order to shut out the marginalized from educational institutions. He said that AISA would participate fully in the Bharat bandh called on 5 February against this.
