Ukraine: Indian Medical Students, Including From Odisha, Stage Hunger Strike In Delhi

Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: Indian medical students, who were airlifted home from Ukraine, and their parents are on a day’s hunger strike at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Sunday to draw Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attention to their problems.

Police have allowed 300 protesters to assemble.

Nearly 570 students from Odisha, who were pursuing medicine in Ukraine, have returned to India following Russia’s invasion. The figures from other states are: Delhi 150, Haryana 1,400, Himachal Pradesh 482, Kerala 3,697, Maharashtra 1,200, Karnataka 760, Uttar Pradesh 2,400, Uttarakhand 280, Bihar 1,050, Gujarat 1,300, Punjab 549, Jharkhand 184 and West Bengal 392.

“The government is now forcing us to agitate. We have been protesting peacefully till now, but if the government does not pay attention to us, then the families will be forced to commit suicide,” the Parents’ Association of Ukraine Medical Students (PAUMS) said, according to an IANS report.

In Ukraine, a medical degree takes six years to complete. After this, students undergo one-year compulsory internship, which makes them eligible for Foreign Medical Graduate Exam (FMGE) to practice in India and obtain a licence. After that one has to qualify the FMG exam.