Pune, Feb 19: Mrinal Desai and Soumyajit Chaudhary have joined the students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) as they entered the ninth day of their indefinite hunger strike.A release issued by Kavita Pai, president, FTII Students' Association, said that prominent citizens like Nilu Phule, Baba Adhav, Vidya Bal, Sulabha Brahme and others have extended support to the agitating students and exhorted the authorities to amicably resolve the issue.
The Samajwadi Janaparishad, Rashtriya Seva Dal and Chatrabharati among other organisations, according to Pai's statement, have lamented that the government was paying scant attention to the students considering that a few of them were hospitalised.
Meanwhile, noted film maker Mani Kaul has sympathised with the agitating students, and in a letter to FTII director Mohan Agashe and the students, condemned the betrayal committed by the governing council. He urged that a zero semester was an unethical action for the authorities to resort to, andexhorted that they could not play with the lives of future students who were poised to enter a life of films.
Several students from ILS Law college also supported the FTII students while a meeting of the alumni association of FTII was held in Mumbai on Wednesday to discuss the issue.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
