On Maneka Gandhi's suggestion, UGC to make father's name on degrees optional
Father’s name will be optional and not mandatory anymore while obtaining degrees, University Grants Commission (UGC) announced a few days ago.
The decision, which comes after the HRD ministry paid heed to a suggestion by Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, comes as a huge relief for single mothers and divorcees. According to PTI, Gandhi, in her letter to Prakash Javadekar, said,
I have been approached by several women who are separated from their husbands and who face problems getting degree certificates issued for their children without their father's name.
She further added,
Keeping in view the sensitivity of the single/separated mother, we need to make a provision for this purpose by changing rules/guidelines.
Human Resource Minister Javadekar, in his response to her letter, assured that the changes will be made soon and there was no objection to it. He also agreed with Gandhi, stating that it should be purely the guardian's choice (mother or father's) to decide whose name they want on the certificates.
It is important to mention that last year, Gandhi had requested the Ministry of Internal Affairs to revise passport application rules. The issue was brought to her notice after a single mother from Delhi, Priyanka Gupta, had started a petition in change.org.
The petition asked for changing the rule to ensure that father's name wasn't mandatory for a kid to get a passport. According to The Times of India, Priyanka said in her petition,
The judiciary has given progressive judgments that say that the father's name is not required. We tried to convince the passport officer, wrote letters, met senior officers but our request was denied. In the end we were forced to include his name. Every time my daughter looks at her passport, she sees the name of a person who hurt her, who abandoned her.
Priyanka's husband had abandoned her and her daughter after knowing that the child born was a girl child and neither mother nor daughter wanted the husband's name on the passport. As a result, the column where it was mandatory to fill in the kid's father's name has been successfully removed.
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