Gone are the days when the student organisations at the Panjab University-affiliated colleges used to have only four nominated posts, namely president, vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary. With the student bodies going all out to win the election race, they are adding new posts every year. Among the 13 posts that the Students’ Organisation of India (SOI) has come up with at the Post-Graduate Government College (PGGC) in Sector 11, a post of foreign in-charge is also there. [related-post] Some of the student organisations say that this is just a medium to scale up the number of votes at the last moment. The members of SOI said that those who come to Chandigarh from a particular region to pursue their studies form unions, just like the Himachal Students’ Union (HSA). “This is how we realised that we need to look after the foreign students as well. There are no unions for them. Therefore, we asked one of the foreign students to become a member of our party,” said Rajvir, chairman of SOI at PGGC-11. He added, “The main responsibilities of the foreign in-charge is to prepare a list of foreign students studying in our college and take feedback from them about the college and their problems, if any. The strength of the foreign students in our college varies from 20-30.” Bashir Watnodost, a final-year student from Iran, is the foreign in-charge of SOI at PGGC-11. Meanwhile, at PGGC-46, the Students’ Organisation of Panjab University (SOPU) has nominated a student from Afghanistan for the post of joint secretary. One of the spokespersons from the party, Abhijot, said, “Keeping in view the strength of the international students in our college and the problems they usually face in interacting with the administrative staff, we decided to nominate a foreign student who can put forth their problems before the college authorities.”
