Five educationists from the United States and Australia faxed a petition to the Chief Justice of India on Friday protesting against the fee cut at the Indian Institutes of Management.

George Varghese of Melbourne, Australia; Mohit Bhatnagar of San Jose, US; Susheela Konanhalli, Melbourne, Australia; Vaishali Joglekar, Boston, US, and Pradeep Das, California, US are the five who have sent the fax to the Chief Justice of India V N Khare.

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The five are volunteers of 'Asha for Education,' a non-governmental group that works in the area of basic education in India.

This is the petition that they faxed on Friday morning to the Chief Justice's residence:

"Respected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India,

"We are sending you this petition regarding a subject that is very close to our hearts -- the education of underprivileged children in India.

"Although from different parts of the world and in different professions, the common thread that binds us together is our concern for underprivileged children in India and our involvement in activities related to supporting educational initiatives for them. We are a group of concerned volunteers of an organisation called 'Asha for Education' which is an action group for basic education in India.

"We have seen numerous media reports about the decision of the BJP government to further subsidise the fees at IIMs. You would know better than us, the numerous grants that these institutions of higher education already receive from the government. This decision by the government brings forward two serious issues for discussion:

"This would result in increased government control over 'autonomous' institutions.

"More importantly for us, this would result in the diversion of funds from providing basic education, towards these elite institutions that primarily serve the middle and upper sections of society.

"There have been numerous reports in the media about how the average salary of an IIM graduate this year was around Rs 65 lakh (Rs 650,000) and has gone up 10-15 per cent this year and about how the top earners get over 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) a year. So the government is proposing to subsidise the education of persons whose starting salary, at the end of 20 months of education, will be more than Rs 80,000 per month.

"The Indian Institutes of Management are islands of prosperity in an ocean of despair. All students who need assistance are guaranteed loans to cover their fees, books, food, everything, with bankers beating a path to them every year, and falling over each other to give the cheapest, longest maturity loan.

"If anyone should be subsidizing their education, it should be the Merrill Lynchs and the Boston Consulting Groups and the Deutsche Banks of the corporate world who grab the graduates on the first day of placements itself.

"We feel that this is a big cruel joke on the underprivileged masses who don't even get primary education. This money, if the education ministry is so rich, should be given to the primary school in rural India whose teacher doesn't have a blackboard, no desk, no toilet, no books, nothing. India, with her 350 million-plus illiterates, has the dubious distinction of being the most illiterate country in the world.

"Let not the minister fritter away the nation's resources on subsidising young men and women who are going to earn Rs 10 lakh per annum versus an Indian's average earnings of less than a thousand rupees per year.

"Hence, Your Honour, I urge you in your immense wisdom, to not allow the government subsidy to be approved. Once approved, it will not be possible to increase the fees back to reasonable levels at any point in the near future."

As for whether the faxed petition will have any effect, a representative of the five petitioners said, "It is up to the wisdom of the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice to decide whether the little girls and boys who have been or are being denied the education needed to represent themselves through methods with legal standing. They want that the interests of the underprivileged children who will be paying for the 2000 IIM grads each year don't go unheard. They really are the affected parties."