Students plan anti-war protest

Student representatives from as many as 25 Indian universities and another 400 colleges all over the country are congregating in Kolkata this week to hold what is being billed as the country's biggest student convention against war in Iraq.

Leftist student organisations in Kolkata are spearheading the move and they pledged to reach each and every educational institution in the country to mobilise opinion against war among students.

The participants will include students from Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Milia, Aliagarh, Andhra, Shimla Udaypur Agricultural University to name just a few.

The theme for a student awareness campaign to be launched after the convention has been styled as: "Students Against War."

The convention will be inaugurated by the chief minister of the north eastern state of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and addressed by other Indian leaders like the former Indian Prime Minister, H.D. Deve Gowda, former Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav and the Indian National Congress leader, Pranab Mukherjee.

Former army and navy chiefs, legal experts and social activists are also attending the convention.

Though the event is being organized by leftist student bodies, the organisers are roping in well known Indian intellectuals and academics to give this anti-war convention a broader perspective.

Speakers at the convention will deliberate on the political, economic, military and cultural fallouts of a war on Iraq. The convention will culminate in four massive processions being taken out from the campus of four educational institutions in Kolkata on March 12 that will converge at the city centre to raise slogans against the war.

Later, the procession will march to the American Information Centre in Kolkata where a delegation will meet the American Consul General in the city to hand over a resolution against war that will be adopted at the two day convention.

Kolkata's old timers recalled that during the American war on Vietnam, the student community in the city had spontaneously reacted to lodge their loud protests. Songs, dramas, street performances and placards denouncing the war on Vietnam had become almost a regular feature.

Meanwhile, a mega anti war procession has also been called on March 30 where millions are likely to take part.