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Indian's tech

institute to

honour Clinton,

students protest

NEW DELHI: India's premier technology institute wants to confer an honorary doctorate to US President Bill Clinton during his trip here next month, but the decision has raised the hackles of students.

An official from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in the northern city of Kanpur told AFP on Thursday that the decision to honour Clinton had yet to be approved by India's Foreign Ministry and the US embassy in New Delhi.

The decision was condemned by around 1,400 students at the institute who put up posters in the campus in protest, the Asian Age newspaper reported on Thursday.

The posters said Clinton was "unfit for the honour because his attitude is decidedly anti-Indian" Ñ a reference to US sanctions imposed on India after it conducted a series of nuclear tests in May, 1998.

Some cited the Monica Lewinsky scandal and said Clinton could not be a rule model for the new generation.

The IIT management dismissed the controversy as a storm in a teacup.

"It is only a small section of students who are raising a hue and cry," an academic said.

Kanpur IIT director K A Padmanabhan was unavailable for comment but his office said they were considering giving Clinton the degree in New Delhi if he could not go to Kanpur.ÑAFP