Hyderabad:
December is the month for campus recruitment in the professional colleges of Osmania University. This month however, the campus has mostly resembled a war zone. There have been neither classes nor exams.
Sridhar is an M.Tech student at Osmania University. He is from Nalgonda district and would like to see a separate Telangana state. But he, like many of his collegemates, has not been active in the agitation. Sridhar says in December usually 80 per cent of the outgoing students in his college get their placements through campus recruitment but this time it has not happened.
"So far we have lost one month. Companies are not interested to come here. So our people are going from campus to them because they are not willing to come," Sridhar said.
For the last one month, there have been no academic sessions and the students have become the ultimate losers. In fact, exams have had to be postponed twice. Professor Kodandaram says, "Exams should have been held but the university was closed, so it was not held. But the students are willing to sit for the exams and continue their education peacefully, so there is no problem."
Neither hostels shut nor police cases seem to have scared students. "Future will be spoilt, not with the cases but because of United Andhra, we don't have jobs, we don't have water. No irrigation projects in Telangana," says a student.
Many students see this as a historic opportunity to rewrite their future, so they are willing to take some losses today for the anticipated gains of a tomorrow.