The Scribble Pad

A lot has been said, written and discussed over the reservation bill imposed(not proposed) by the government. Here is a collective summary of the important points and a plausible solution henceforth ...

The facts:

1. All state level institutions already implement the 22% SC/ST and 27% OBC reservations.
2. The proposed hike is for IITs/IIMs and other 20 institutes of higher education.
3. After mass protests all over the country, the government has assured that the seats for general cateogory students will not be reduced. Instead more infrastructure will be built to support the hike which is to be carried out in 3 phases of 9% each.
4. The politicians incharge of the whole process have no idea of the statistics that justify the proposed bill as evident from several stinging interviews by Karan Thapar.

The anti-reservation (hike) activists have doubts regarding the effectiveness of reservations as a tool to uplift the socially oppressed lower classes. The lack of updated statistics justifying the hike as well as an unclear roadmap to provisioning for increased number of seats, proper monitoring to ensure that the it reaches the poeple who actually need and gradual phasing out of any reservations, are some of the issues being raised.

The way I see it :

• The government could/should have projected this as a step to provide greater opportunities for the historically under-priviledged classes of society, from the start. Instead of stealing seats from one section of the society and distributing it to the other section!
• The statistics justifying this hike must be published by the government, and only then should the bill have been passed. Data regarding the actual percentage of OBC classes throughout India should be collected, as well as the statistics about the effectiveness of reservations in state level institutions must be evaluated. A review of the criteria under which a class is included in the OBC category is of utmost importance, those that have done well for themselves over the years must be removed from the list.
• The government should also focus on primary/secondary education and look to cultivate better candidates through scholarships, so that reservations are not needed for higher education. Finally the only way to evaluate that we know of is MERIT.
• It has been observed that the many students that are admitted to institutes of higher education through reservations are unable to cope with the studies and are hence forced to leave after a few years. Inorder to help with this, an extra year of training is provided to such students at IITs before they joining the main course work. This is a good step and must be carried out at other institutes too!
• It should be ensured that the reservation system is phased out over the years. For example, descendants of those who have already been benefitted by the reservation scheme would not be eligible. Thus, a reducing percentage of population will be eligible for reservation, eventually there will be none.

Final Comments:
The protests to this reservation hike would hopefully have conveyed a message to the government that they need to be more responsible, informed and sensitive to social issues. The Indian political opposition is weak at best and votebank guided policies abound. The media has a bigger role to play in modern India, the web is a great resource that is being utilized to greater levels by the not-so-ignorant society today.

I am sure I must have missed a few points .. hopefully those will come up in the comments.

ps: I am just anti-anti :) I support reservations .. but the implementation just sucks!!

Spreadin' the word .. hoping that more people read this ...

Nothing is deadlier than when Murphy takes it personally to whip ur bottoms!

Picture this ..

You call in sick to ur advisor's meeting citing a troubled stomach .. and just a day later he catches you red-handed holding a pizza platter in your hand, just when you are about to much into that juicy little stuffing (after fighting your own inner battles). Holy coppoli :((

Layer that with some classical sarcasm from HIM and some smirks/taunts from your colleagues, who have in their own sweet past have had similar-but-not-quite-the-same horrific guide interactions .. and u get the picture quite faintly !! You shamefully hand-over the gourmet dish to those stalking vultures .. aah the pain.

.. btw I have had worse .. imagine your guide asking if you partied too much .. drinking vodka and stuff .. actually that was redeemed with that LONG islandIceTea at the last presentation treat :P

I need a break from all these MURPHY incidents .. its time O'Lord!

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