Students clamouring for the postponement of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) in India were surprised to get an unlikely ally from Sweden on Tuesday.
Greta Thurnberg, student and environmental activist from Sweden who shot to fame with her global campaigns against climate change, joined hands with her counterparts in India to urge authorities to postpone the two important entrance examinations.
"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 postpone NEET and JEE," she tweeted.
Till 3pm, the tweet garnered 30k likes and was retweeted by 22.1 users.
NEET is the entrance examination for the undergraduate course in medicine while JEE is the entrance examination for engineering colleges.
NEET is scheduled to be held on September 13, while JEE is scheduled between September 1 and 6.
On August 17, the Supreme Court rejected a petition seeking postponement of NEET and JEE, saying such an act would put career of students in peril.
"Career of students cannot be put in peril and we find no merit in the demand for the postponement of NEET and JEE," said a division bench of Justices Arun Mishra, BR Gavai and Krishna Murari, while dismissing the petition.