New Delhi: A letter signed by over 1,300 students and faculty from universities in India and abroad has asked the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru to cancel the ‘India-Israel Business Summit’ taking place on September 23, Scroll reported.
The event, according to the signatories, would be like directly supporting ‘Israel's genocide in Palestine’, and ‘its aggressive actions against its neighbours’.
The event, organized by Think India, the Indian Chamber of International Business, and the Mysore Lancers Heritage Foundation, will take place in an auditorium at the Indian Institute of Science.
Think India in a social media post claimed that the summit aims at bringing together business leaders entrepreneurs, and policymakers from India and Israel to focus on ‘potential areas of cooperation, foster partnerships, explore synergies, and drive innovation’.
The organization further said that summit will discuss bilateral trade and investments between India and Israel in areas including ‘defence and cybersecurity, startup and venture capital, sustainable technology and water technology’.
Expressing their concern at the institution ‘sponsoring and hosting’ the event, the signatories pointed out to the director of the Indian Institute of Science Govindan Rangarajan the destruction that Israel caused in Gaza.
The letter said that Israel has destroyed all universities, and healthcare facilities which caused outbreak of diseases such as polio and citing The World Food Agency, it said that ‘96% of Gazans are facing food insecurity’.
It also pointed out that alongside its brutal raids on the West Bank last week , Israel carried out ‘terrorist attacks in Lebanon’ by detonating electronic devices even in civilian areas.
The students and faculty members in their letter pointed out that UN General Assembly in a resolution recently asked Israel to end within 12 months its ‘unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’.
Since Israel started its offence on Gaza following Hama’s attack on the country on October 7, more than 40 thousand persons, including 16,500 children, were killed.