NEW DELHI, July 22 - A steady stream of food delivery riders carrying meals, snacks and bottled water is helping sustain a youth-led protest movement that has sprung up in the heart of India's capital.

Motorcycles weave through traffic before pulling up beside clusters of volunteers, ferrying donations from supporters across India and abroad unable to join a rare display of public dissent against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

"From Kerala to the USA, orders are coming from everywhere," said rider Suraj Kumar, 25, sitting atop his motorcycle with a bag of kachoris, a popular deep-fried snack, as some volunteers climbed over police barricades to take delivery of the packages.

A volunteer took the packet and passed it hand-to-hand towards the centre of the protest site a few hundred metres away around Delhi's Jantar Mantar observatory, where hundreds of people gathered around a raised platform.

There, leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a movement that began as online satire in May, demanded the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over repeated test paper leaks. They have been there since last month but the protest gained momentum only in recent days after a prominent activist began an indefinite hunger strike in support.

PROTEST SUSTAINED BY 'PEOPLE'S KINDNESS', SAYS STUDENT

The encampment has endured despite a major police crackdown on Monday, when tens of thousands of mostly young people tried to march on parliament. Indians under 30 are estimated to make up more than half of the country's 1.42 billion population, and many have long complained that years of strong economic growth have failed to create enough jobs.

"People are angry, especially after the police started beating innocent students. But not everyone can come here so they are sending food,” said Raj Rathore, 25, a volunteer who has spent the past few days unloading and distributing deliveries including water bottles, fruit and biscuits.

Those contributions, along with volunteer-run support networks, have helped keep the protest running around th...