Reservation - Another Thought

I was thinking if reservation can really help underprivileged then let's extend the same concept to each and every field. And this post here from Lavanya explains the same.

Reservation - For whom??

A lot of heated argument is taking place about Mandal II bill.
Well!! here is my two bit for the protest of this bill with some reasoning’s.

Negatives of having reservation!!
Entrenching reservation on basis of Caste directly attacks the national unity, it will do nothing but create further divisions between the untouchables and upper cast.
Those that deserve the seat through merit will be at a disadvantage. That will reflect on the repercussions of unqualified candidates assuming critical positions in society such as that of Doctors, engineers etc and their by increasing chances of more fatalities in these areas because we will be sacrificing quality.

Extending reservations in educational institutes public or private will help only a small few élite of educated Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs. Such measures do nothing to lift the mass (really poor/underprivileged mass) of people out of backwardness and poverty.

Reason!!
If a family (which can extend from Brahmin’s to Rajput’s to SC/ST or OBS) is poor, then the head of the family would like his son/daughter to assist him in the farm/labor so as to increase the total household income, rather than sending his son/daughter to institutes. This means that the reserved seats would fail to attract these poor chaps from acquiring education.
As a result these particular sections of people would continue to remain underprivileged.
However a few elite of educated Dalits, Adivasis, and OBCs, whose family financial condition is little better would surerly benefit from this reservation system, but then at the cost of more/better eligible candidate belonging to Non-OBC category.

A more better approach towards upliftment of these backword sections (which can be Brahmins/Rajputs/SC/ST etc) would be to assist them by means of scholarships/book bank facility/free meals etc. This would lure poor family to send their son/daughter for education with the hope that they might save some fund from the scholarship money and that their expense on daily meals would be saved for that candidate of the house.
This means I am asking for reservations not in Seats but in Scholarships/food grants etc.

Caste or Class??
The entire scheme of this reservation in education has been formulated on basis of caste distinctions. It has been assumed with no statistical facts that in present India, people belonging to SC/ST/OBC caste system are poor and underprivileged, which in my opinion is totally incorrect considering the present socio-economic condition of India.
The definition of underprivileged should be derived on the basis of CLASS and NOT CASTE. And it is not difficult to gather this statistics. Tell me how many under the SC/ ST quota are first generation college goers or from households where income is below par?

Who is underprivileged??
This paper from Prof. Pradipta Pradipta Chaudhury clearly indicates that the literacy rate seems to be strongly inversely associated with ritual rank. i.e. Literacy percentage amongst lower caste people is more than in higher caste. However if we go by class then definitely the literacy percentage bears a direct relationship with it. i.e. Lower is the class, lower the literacy percentage.

A Flawed Report
A more serious drawback of the Mandal II bill is that it is based on the facts collected quarter century ago. The Mandal Commision established in 1979 by Janta Party had then submitted a report that estimated that 52% of the total population (excluding SCs and STs), belonging to 3,743 different castes and communities was ‘backward’. The point to note here is that the commision declared that “Since population figures along caste lines were not available beyond 1931, the Commission used the 1931 census data to calculate the number of OBCs”. This means we are undertaking reformative action on basis of 75 year old data. Nothing sounds more ridiculous to me than this.

Can’t we pick a more recent census data which provides details on the lines of age, sex, religion, marital status, educational status and disability, and use it to derive what percentage of the mass is underprivileged then finding the reasons and then thinking of whether to go for reservation system or not and if at all yes then on basis of caste or class?


Mandal Report - The fact
SS Gill was secretary, Mandal Commission and he writes in Indian Express
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/2343.html

During its discussions the Commission was fully aware that reservations were only a palliative, and 27 per cent reservation in educational institutions and government jobs was only one of several recommendations. Briefly, other important recommendations were:

- the radical alteration in production relations through progressive land reforms;

- special educational facilities to upgrade the cultural environment of the students, with special emphasis on vocational training;

- separate coaching facilities for students aspiring to enter technical and professional institutions;

- creation of adequate facilities for improving the skills of village artisans;

- subsidised loans for setting up small-scale industries;

- setting up of a separate chain of financial and technical bodies to assist OBC enterpreneurs.

Understanding Law and regulations

This is one of the best post I have come across to understand the Law and Legal regulations.

Monopolising the DoP

I stumbled across this news today and stumbled further as I read it. It sounded funny in the beginning and I laughed my heart out at the imagination of Mr. Shakeel Ahmad, Minister of State for IT and Telecom, as I read the complete post.
At the end of the post I was trying to find out something that would say “April Fool” or something…. Then I realized, no it’s not April yet and the guy is serious in getting this Law passed and deforming the already deformed structure of Indian Postal Services.

Instead of utilizing his thought (I will not say thoughtS, for he doesn’t seem to have much) in reforming the DoP by ensuring the ‘Reliability’ and ‘Speed’ of postal delivery by DoP, this man is trying to create a monopoly market that too in this century when the entire world is asking for free market free competition. This man sounds as if he is still living in the 18th century.

GOD SAVE INDIA!!!

Jamshedpur... need for Revival

Most of us Jamshedpurian’s are aware and feel proud that Jamshedpur has been selected as the pilot city for Global Compact City program. There is no doubt that Jamshedpur is one among some of the very few cities in India where the living standard, the social culture, the environment is not good but “Best”. I myself have grown up and spent 18 years of my life there, till I was forced to move out of such beautiful city in seek for better higher education and then for better Job.

And the same very fate was met by my batchmates/friends who in need for a good higher education and good job ahead had to sacrifice the pleasure of living in Jamshedpur. And it continues year after year with hundreds of young talent crowd moving out and settling in different cities. Reasons? There are certain things that this city lacks and in which it is not in pace with time. Things, the need of which, other cities like Pune, Noida, Bangalore and Hyderabad have realized and acquired.

Higher Education
It is not that the education in Jamshedpur is not good, it is ‘Best’. But that is only upto +2 level. Beyond that if one looks for a good reputed college where one can pursue Economics/Arts/Literature, he can find none in the city and so the only option they are left with is to move to Delhi/Pune/Mumbai.

Yes we do have an Engineering college (RIT) and a Medical College (MGM) in the city, but again when you compare the standards/facilities provided in these colleges as compared to the one you get in similar regional engineering colleges (or medical colleges) in other cities, the city stands far too behind.
One may argue here is that Jamshedpur has got XLRI, one of the best MBA colleges in India. Yes true, but what I am asking for is a good college to go after +2. Do we have good colleges providing courses which are talk-of-the-time nowadays like Mass-Comm, Interior Designing and Fashion Designing etc?

The city education establishment has a hole, a gap between under-graduation and post-graduation. Some good graduation Colleges for different subjects are the need of the day.
Establishment of such good colleges for higher education would prevent Brain Drain from the city and would also lure more corporate companies, other than those Core Industrial Units (which the City boasts of), to open up offices and establishments in the city.

Job Variety
The city lacks in job variety for the residents. It is full of core-manufacturing units but Industries other than that like Telecom, Financial Consultancy firms, IT, Journalism, Entertainment etc, you would find none.

Why can’t we transform Jamshedpur into a IT-Hub like Pune/Noida/Bangalore? How and in what way do we lack in what those cities can provide and Jamshedpur cannot?
All we need is enough supply of electricity, good road conditions and cheap lands to lure the IT Companies. And I am sure Jamshedpur lacks in none of these requirements.

Jamshedpur has got a good strategic location, similar to that of Pune, both being near to metro city, cheap land, cheap labor etc. Infact Jamshedpur enjoys the privilege of having large resource of minerals and ore mines in the adjoining areas and thus a larger scope of Job for educated and un-educated.

I could go on and on listing several such things that the city should have had by now ranging from Traffic Signals to Movie Halls to Multiplexes to Malls.....
It is time that the authorities governing the city should act now or else it would no longer remain a city that could provide a standard living life-style to its residents. And it would be just another city like Lucknow/Kanpur, which were once the most economically powered cities in India.

Man of the Match 'Faisala' at Faisalabad

I couldn’t understand why R.P. Singh was awarded the Man of the Match Award for the second test in Faisalabad. It’s understandable that award could not go in favor of batsman, because the pitch was in their favor and so it becomes imperative that any good work from the bowler’s side be rewarded, but then why not Zaheer Khan? He took 7 wickets and R.P. Singh took 5. They both bowled almost the same number of over and gave away almost the same number of runs and had almost the same rate.
Considering the fact that getting wickets in this dead track was almost an impossible task, having a lead of 2 wickets is a considerable achievement I suppose.
In addition Zaheer scored (with bat) more runs than R.P. Singh :)

RTI... a good thing for India

When the Central Government passed the RTI (Right to Information Act) bill sometime back, I was more than happy. For I knew this is one among several good measures taken by the Government that would help crib the corruption and expose frauds. And a true example is right here. All we need now is to make good utilization of this act and help make India better.