Thursday, April 27, 2006

Students on the Street

The Telegraph reports
The human resource development ministry appeared unfazed by today’s display of anger by medical students over the proposed quota for OBC students.
I am always sad to see the students protesting on the street and yesterday the images of students being stopped from marching to HRD Minister's home, by firing water canons and tear gas shells, by Delhi Police, on the TV, made for a sad spectacle. Yesterday in Delhi about 300 students of medical colleges were on the street protesting against proposed 27 per cent reservation in the higher education institutions like IIMs, IITs and medical colleges for the OBC (Other Backward Caste) students. Shame of the Delhi police.

The proposal of 27 per cent for OBC add to the existing 15 per cent reservation for the Scheduled Caste and 7.5 per cent for the Scheduled Tribe students and make the total reservations to 49.5 per cent (nice round figure), and will leave the rest 49.5 per cent for the people, like me, who are supposed to belong to upper caste (sic) or belong to what is referred to as general category. The future of my children do seem black. If my children want to be a doctor or an engineer, there will be more competion for the remaining 49.5 per cent seats and their chances will be slim. The only qualification for getting into a high eduction intitutions should be merit and ability. But in India, if you belong to ST/SC or OBC, and want to become a doctor or an engineer, twice blessed you will be. In India the fact that caste still playes so important a role is simply ridiculous.

27 per cent reservation is still a proposel and has yet to be approved by the cabinet of the ministers of the Indian government. I have the highest regard and belief in the abilities of the Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh. I hope this proposel does not get approved by the Cabinet. Why not club together the reservation of OBC with existing 23.5 per cent reservations for ST/SC, at least for the higher education institutions. The governemnt knows that many seats in the higher institution education like IIMs, IITs, medical colleges, lay vacant for want of ST/SC students and does not get filled in every year. Reservation in jobs, in Government sector organisations, of 49.5 per cent has already been implemented. The positions, where high skill is needed, lay vacant, for example trained pilot jobs in the Indian Airlines and Air India, and these airlines loses money because of this. Government have all these figures and still the HRD Minister wants to implement the quota of OBC to get more votes for his Congress party. Earlier it was muslim vote bank for the Congress, now it is OBC vote bank. The games politicians play. Shame on them.

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