After days of a relay hunger strike,Delhi University teachers today walked barefeet in a match in the campus to protest the government's reform agenda which they said would make education inaccessible for the common man. The teachers under the banner of the Delhi University Teachers Association are sitting on a relay hunger strike for 11 days. The DUTA has been protesting the way the affairs of the University were being conducted and alleged they were being sidelined from matters of academic importance by the Vice Chancellor who is "imposing" the reform agenda on the varsity. The agitating teachers say the new "half-baked" reform measures were in line with the HRD Ministry's agenda of ushering in private money in education sector. "The DUTA maintains that the government's aggressive promotion of private interests and FDI in higher education betrays the tall claims it has been making on the Right to Education," said a statement today. The teachers walked on the streets sans their shoes and were also joined by some students and non-teaching staff members on the 'barefoot march' as they hummed the revolutionary songs of Bob Dylan. The DUTA has alleged the VC had failed to acknowledge them as a democratic representative body of teachers and refused any meeting with their office bearers to hear their grievances.
