Greta Thunberg, who shot to fame as a climate ambassador overnight, now has a new cause: stopping the Indian government from conducting the NEET and JEE exams.
She tweeted on Tuesday saying conducting exams during coronavirus pandemic and extreme floods was deeply unfair to students. The hashtag #postponeJEENEET started trending on Twitter following her tweet. “I stand with their call to #PostponeJEE_NEETinCOVID,” Thunberg, who has 4.1 million followers on Twitter, wrote on the microblogging website where the hashtag “MODIJI_POSTPONEJEENEET” was already trending. While her tweet invited many responses from young men and women across the globe, the climate activist – who has just returned to school after a gap year of creating awareness about the climate emergency – also faced a lot of backlash for her stand.
It’s deeply unfair that students of India are asked to sit national exams during the Covid-19 pandemic and while millions have also been impacted by the extreme floods. I stand with their call to #PostponeJEE_NEETinCOVID
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) August 25, 2020
Students all over the country have been demanding to cancel these two entrance exams highlighting how badly the country has been hit with the pandemic and floods in several states. Several politicians have also supported this demand saying that the current conditions post by coronavirus, as well as the various disastrous conditions in several states, is not conducive to conduct exams.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education has maintained that it will conduct exams in September, and responded to the various petitions that were filed, saying ‘life cannot be stopped.’