June 2007 as deadline

NDTV Correspondent
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 (New Delhi):
The government has announced that the 27 per cent OBC quota in central universities will be implemented from June 2007. From the next academic session 27 per cent seats in centrally controlled education institutions- including those aided by the Centre, will go to OBC candidates. more…

This was expected, atleast when the prime minister has nothing to do with the Government. He is just a mute puppet. Its the congress who's the culprit and who gains from this vote luring political weapon in the long run.

SHAME ON THE UPA GOVT. – They announce quotas for OBCs despite ongoing negotiations
The youth of today feels that they have been abandoned by their own country. Despite the intensity of the protests and the ongoing negotiations, the UPA government has decided to push through with its proposed 27% quota for OBCs.
ARE WE LIVING IN A DEMOCRACY OR DO WE HAVE TO BOW DOWN TO THIS AUTOCRATIC REGIME???WE WILL NOT GIVE UP OUR STRUGGLE-WE WILL NOT STOP OUR PROTEST-THE STRIKE…

more…

These folks at YFE are doing a good job in protesting in a peaceful and organised manner. Lets hope that this brings out some good at the end.

Many of us may not be aware that the Mandal formula of the 1980s, originally reserving 50 per cent of the seats in government service and educational institutions for Other Backward Castes, is based on the Census data of 1931. The Census process was affected by the World War in 1941, and from 1951 on caste, data are not collected (except that pertaining to Scheduled Castes and Tribes) as it was felt that these numbers may not further the aim of creating a casteless society.

Prof. R Vaidyanathan (IIMB) points out the flaws and the incorrect data the governement is quoting in his article Reservations: Let down by weak data

If government would focus on improving the quality of the 240 bad institutions, it would do more for the millions of OBCs than to throw them a few crumbs in the IITs and IIMs.

If we rapidly increased the supply of good institutions there would be no need for reservations. But this would mean doing hard work, and it's a lot easier to redistribute poverty.

If greed is the vice of capitalism, envy is the flaw of socialism. "From each according to ability and to each according to his need", was the rallying cry of Marxism as it set out to create a classless, egalitarian society.

Gurcharan Das talks about the alternative methods but i dont think Govt. is looking for a solution or for any benefit of backward classes. There can be many reforms possible but this (reservation) is shortest way to get votes and get away without doing anything.

But for all the negative vibes that Medha Patkar attracts she is probably the best the thing that could have happened to a country caught up in the complex processes of economic and social reform. By camping on hunger-strike at Jantar Mantar in the heart of Delhi to get justice for the people being thrown out of their homes and lands for the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Madhya Pradesh, she has forced the country to face the problems of eviction and rehabilitation, which could finally undermine all economic progress.  

Medha’s strident campaign and her fast unto death at Jantar Mantar under the UPA government’s nose brought national attention to the Sardar Sarovar Dam and the true lies of official records. more…

One has to agree with this and the results Medha Patkar reaped for the residents of Madhya Pradesh. Its an example in front of us on how strike and protest can help.

In this whole episode, the most stunning news for me was when the Hon'ble minister announced increase in intake to compensate for the reservations. This would amount to nearly 56% overall increase in undergraduate intake in the IITs. This showed complete ignorance of what makes IIT undergraduate education tick. There are few Institutions in the world where undergraduate students get to interact one to one and so freely with such high-caliber faculty. Students are advised on courses in small groups, interact over hostel dinners, go on industrial trips and finally carry out a well supervised project. Every undergraduate student does an intensive "novel" project either individually or in groups of two and he/she is effectively "supervised" by a faculty member. Many of them result in publications. This system evolved when the student-faculty ratio was 6:1 and is getting strained at the seams when it has reached 12:1. In some disciplines like Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering where market competition is heavy, it has already gone to 20:1 and above. Though currently producing excellent results, it is a highly non-scalable mechanism. Intake increase on this scale, when effectively faculty strengths in key areas are decreasing could sound a death-knell to one of our few international
brand names.

I have a poser for Prof. Jayati Ghosh, my well renowned colleague from JNU and a member of the knowledge commission. She has justified reservations in IITs based on the poor ranking of IITs internationally. Her argument is anyway these Institutions are not great, why they should crib about the quality of intake. She nowhere states that any of the 400+ odd Institutions worldwide which are ranked above IITs have achieved their status through reservations. In that case all Tamil Nadu Engineering Colleges with 69% reservation for decades (openly defying the Supreme Court suggested norm of 50%) now should be at the top.

An insiders view on the same by Prof. M. Balakrishnan (Comp. Sci. dept. IITD).

Who is the present HRD Minister?
Obsessed with a motive so sinister
He flip-flops history with his friends in the sly
Our national heroes become zeroes in the blink of an eye
The glory of Bharatiya history and civilization
Is now being pushed into the deep seas of oblivion
He is the present prophet of so called Indian “secularism”
With a mission to destroy the essence of Bharatiya nationalism

By what name do we call this evil being?
None but Kalyug ka Mantri Arjun Singh!

A nice attempt to capture all the motion going around by this dude. Nice job man.

Even as the quota storm shows no sign of dying down, the government today clearly indicated that it was not ready to relent on the issue. Rather, the Centre has given a two-year deadline to the private sector to introduce reservations for the backward classes. The government may even bring in a law to that effect if the companies fail to do so. more… 

Reservation in private companies will be worse than in the education institutions. Already people from corporate world has started opposing the idea. Lets see whats more in the store and how CII handles this issue. Some extracts from Sunil Bharti Mittal's interview.

Karan Thapar: If the government were to surprise you and actually implement reservations, how would CII react?

Sunil Bharti Mittal: I think it would be wrong for me, at this forum, to take a position on behalf of CII, but I would say if there is a law then it needs to be followed.

Karan Thapar: But would you consider going to the court like Rahul Bajaj, who has twice been the president of CII in the past, said should be the case?

Sunil Bharti Mittal: I would say that anything that is going to hurt the industry’s competitiveness will have to be fought. At what forum, which place, courts or outside courts or politically, needs to be dealt with. Until the time that will not be turned away or reversed I think we will have to follow the orders.

Atanu dey digs deep and provides some thoughtful solutions to the current problem and how can we rectify our current flawed educational system.

Sure it is harder to get into the IITs than into the top American schools. That does not mean that the IITs are in any way better than those American schools. It is a Herculean task to get into a Mumbai local during commute hours, compared to which using the Paris Metro is a piece of cake. Congestion is not an indicator of quality. When supply is severely limited relative to demand, there will be a mad scramble to get some.

The fundamental problem with the Indian economy is that the education system is one of the most flawed systems in the country. If there is one sector which is in dire need of reform, it is that education system. The most urgently required reform is to get the government out of it—lock, stock, and barrel. The recent move by the government to further increase quotas in the so-called elite institutions with a view to social justice is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. No, I take that back: it is akin to scuttling the lifeboats even as the ship is sinking.

Is there no role for the government in the education sector? Yes, there is, but it is severely restricted to three functions:

• First, funding (but not the provisioning) of universal education up to high school level
• Second, providing an independent regulatory authority for the higher education sector so that private firms can compete fairly on a level playing field
• Third, providing educational loan guarantees to banks

Dhoomketu tries to comlete the list of OBC's and comes up with a sarcastic suggestion.

However, now that the time has come to implement changes and turn IITs/ IIMs and other central universities into instruments of social justice, I want to add a few other socially and educationally backward classes to the OBC list. 1) Geeks, 2) Upcoming Actresses, 3) Foreign tourists, 4) Most Indian cricketers, 5)Indian writers in regional languages, 6) Comics characters, 7) Bloggers. read more…

I totally agree with Naveen that we need a reform and for that we need a crisis. What worse can happen than most of the top slot deserving cadidates not getting an entry into the today's prestigious professional insitutes of India. This will broaden the already existing gap of demand and supply.

Any sound higher education market needs the freedom of whom to teach, what to teach and how to teach. There is no need for a central Department of Higher Education (part of MHRD) in the Indian government. There may be a case for a department at the state level to maintain a registration list of universities and colleges. In fact, roads and de-regulation can do far good to targetted groups rather than reservations.

Right now, we are far far removed from a sound market. To get there we need a repeat of the crisis before Liberalization. So don't be surprised by an increase in the "black market" fees for seats in higher education. I am keeping my hands crossed for the "innovative" responses of the private sector and the citizens. more…

People will eventually move on to other private sector college who provide quality education (as in IIIT's and ISB's) without and reservation which will inturn help these institutes to get more creamy layer students and hence raise the quality of output which will in turn fetch more status. Eventually demand and kinda craze ppl have today for IIT's and IIM's will decrease and we will see lesser number of ppl rushing towards all those money churning machines called as coaching centers (except a few flag bearers) as private education will be easy and will not be such a pain to get into one.

As more money will go into private colleges and institutes and if used properly, quality education will be more easier for unreserved students. The only basis of this solution is to eradicate Govt. hands from educational system.

9 resons why one should protest against reservation, and he also manages to get hold of important dates marked on the timeline wrt. Reservation in India.

1. Reservation is harmful
2. Its time to end the reservation, not increase it
3. SC/ST/OBC is not the right criteria for choosing the needy
4. How many generations need reservations
5. A cast can not be generalized by a few people
6. Minority is not as objective as it sounds
7. Reservation benefits only a few SC/ST/OBCs
8. SC/ST/OBC know that they don't have any competition
9. Long Term Effects

A humble request to everybody who thinks Reservation does not cause any good to our country and our people to please sign the online petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/anti6162/petition.html

People blogging about the same topic can leave a mark on the Anti-Reservation blogroll.

Btw, Hurry up guys CAT 06 and IIT-JEE 07 is waiting. Get in before some crappy takes your seat.

links

orkut community link (Anti Reservation Action Forum) – http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=11344550

Youth For Equality – http://www.youth4equality.org

AntiReservation – http://antireservation.org

Protest Central – http://protestcentral.blogspot.com

Save Brand India – http://savebrandindia.org

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