The Jawaharlal Nehru University, the nerve centre of anti-government protests in 2016, on Wednesday announced it would confer on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar its first award for distinguished alumni. The university said that Sitharaman's and Jaishankar's careers and achievements are a "great source of inspiration" for JNU students. The decision to award Sitharaman, who had called students' political activity "anti-India" recently, came in for criticism. Why only these two?” N. Sai Balaji, the current president of the JNU students' union, asked. The JNU students' union had demanded that Sitharaman withdraw her comment.

Source: The Telegraph June 12, 2019 16:30 UTC